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Title: Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. I (of 3)
Author: Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Translator: H. M. Chepmell
F. Demmler
Release date: August 10, 2023 [eBook #71375]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, 1875
Credits: Wouter Franssen, Krista Zaleski and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIEBUHR'S LECTURES ON ROMAN HISTORY, VOL. I (OF 3) ***
NIEBUHR’S LECTURES
ON
ROMAN HISTORY.
VOL. I.
NIEBUHR’S LECTURES
ON
ROMAN HISTORY
TRANSLATED FROM THE EDITION OF DR. M. ISLER,
BY H. M. CHEPMELL, M.A., AND F. DEMMLER, PH.D.
[Illustration]
_IN THREE VOLUMES.--VOL. I._
London:
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
1875.
PREFACE.
It has been the object of the translators of this work, to give a
faithful version of the original into English without any additions of
their own. In so doing, they follow in the steps of the German editor,
Dr. Isler, who likewise confined himself to “the purely philological
task of producing a genuine text.”
Niebuhr twice delivered a course of lectures on Roman History at
Bonn,--the first in the winter term of 1826-27, and the second in the
winter of 1828-29, and in the following summer. In the latter of these,
he went down to the fall of the Western Empire, whereas the course of
1826 was broken off at the times of Sylla, owing to his having entered
rather fully into critical disquisitions.
The form in which these Lectures are here given, is that of the later
course. Everything, however, that was important or interesting in the
earlier series, has been inserted. Dr. Isler moreover assures us, that
in his compilation, not a thought, and indeed hardly a word is to be
found, which Niebuhr had not really spoken. As Niebuhr lectured quite
extemporaneously, the only sources for this work are the notes taken by
his hearers, several of which have been collated to ensure correctness.
Although, from the nature of things, the result cannot be looked upon
as a finished and elaborate history, yet, no one who reads it can fail
to be struck with its great value, even for those who are acquainted
with Niebuhr’s other writings; for as Dr. Isler remarks, there are many
things set forth in these Lectures more clearly, more precisely, and
more at length than in the greater work. Of this, we may find examples
in the introduction on the sources of Roman History, and in the account
of the Saturnian verse. They also give us the last opinions of Niebuhr.
The first volume of his Roman History dates most of it from the year
1826, and the additions in the third edition from 1827; but a mind
like his was always active, and he went on with his investigations,
even when all the leading points were settled. In several instances,
fragments of ancient authors which had newly come to light, have led
him to modify his views. This is particularly the case with that part
of the Roman History treated in his third volume, which had been
originally arranged for the press in 1812, and therefore would, if he
had been spared to revise it, have undergone many qualifications.
ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE, SANDHURST.
CONTENTS.
Page
INTRODUCTION, 1
SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY, 2
Its authenticity, 2
The use of letters of great antiquity among the Romans, 4
_Annales maximi, Annales pontificum_, 5
_Fasti_, 9
_Commentarii pontificum_, 10
_Libri pontificum, augurales_, 10
_Laudationes funebres_, 11
Poetical traditions, 12
Family chronicles, 15
Cn. Nævius, 16
Q. Fabius Pictor, 18
Numerius Fabius Pictor, 21
Other historians, bearing the name of Fabius, or Pictor, 21
L. Cincius Alimentus, 22
C. Acilius, A. Postumius Albinus, Cn. Aufidius, 23
Q. Ennius, 23
M. Porcius Cato, 26
L. Cassius Hemina, 26
Servius Fabius Pictor, 27
Cn. Gellius. Vennonius, 28
L. Calpurnius Piso, 29
Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, 30
Q. Valerius Antias, 32
C. Licinius Macer, 33
Junius Gracchanus. Fenestella, 34
Forged historians, 34
Q. Ælius Tubero. T. Pomponius Atticus, 35
Cicero, 35
C. Sallustius Crispus, 36
L. Cornelius Sisenna, 37
Diodorus Siculus, 37
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 38
T. Livius, 45
Velleius Paterculus, 57
Fabius Rusticus, 58
Epitome of Livy. L. Annæus Florus. Eutropius, 58
Orosius. Plutarch, 59
Appian, 60
Dio Cassius Cocceianus, 61
Xiphilinus, 64
Joannes Zonaras, 65
The middle ages, 66
The modern times, 68
Glareanus, Panvinius, Sigonius, 68
Stephen Pighius, 69
John Freinsheim, 70
James Perizonius, Montesquieu, Bayle, 71
Beaufort, Rollin, Hooke, Ferguson, 72
Levesque, Micali, 73
Auxiliary sciences. Geography, Mannert, Cluverius, 75
D’Anville, 76
Reichardt, 77
IMPORTANCE OF ROMAN HISTORY, 78
MANNER IN WHICH THE EARLY HISTORY OF
ROME ORIGINATED, 79
Impossibility of the earliest history, 80
Numerical system in the chronological statements, 82
Sæcula of the Etruscans, 83
Ancient lays, 85
Etruscan historical works. Emperor Claudius, 87
The Saturnian verse, 89
Neniæ, 91
Epic poems, family records, family vanity, 92
National vanity, spirit of caste, 93
THE EARLIEST HISTORY, 94
Pelasgians, their spreading, 95
Samothrace, 96
Siculians, Italians, 97
Œnotrians, Peucetians, Liburnians, Tyrrhenians, 98
Opicans, Apulians, Volscians, Æquians, Sabellians, 98
Umbrians, 99
Siculians in Italy, Aborigines, 100
Latins, 101
The same traditions often told in contradictory ways, 101
Cascans, 103
Sacranians, _ver sacrum_, Priscans, _Prisci Latini_, 104
Origin of the Latin language, 105
Traditions concerning the Troian origin of Rome, 106
Alban chronology, 107
_Alba longa._ _Populi Albenses_, 107
Thirty Latin towns, 108
Roma, town on the Palatine mount, 110
ROMULUS. Tradition concerning his descent, 111
Interpretations of the legend, 113
Romulus and Remus. Remuria, 114
Asylum, 116
Rape of the Sabines, 117
Union of the Romans and Sabines, 118
End of Romulus, 118
Organic division of the population, 119
Sabines, 120
Towns on the Palatinus and the Quirinal, 121
Double state, 122
Union of the two states, 123
NUMA POMPILIUS, 125
TULLUS HOSTILIUS, 125
War with Alba, 126
Formular of the declaration of war, 127
Third tribe of the population, 129
ANCUS MARTIUS, 131
War with the Latins, 131
Foundation of Ostia, 132
Origin of the _Plebes_, 133
TARQUINIUS PRISCUS. His Greek descent, 133
His Latin origin, 135
Building of the _Cloaca maxima_, 138
Traces of a powerful Roman state, 139
The number of the centuries doubled, 140
Etruscans, 141
Tyrrhenians, 143
Cæles Vibenna, 154
SERVIUS TULLIUS. Mastarna, 155
Constitution of Servius Tullius, 157
_Gentes_, 159
Curies, 161
Clients, 170
Tribes, 172
Centuries, 174
Census, 179
Further legislation of Servius Tullius, 184
Relation to the Latins, 185
Enlargement of the city, 187
Tunnel, 189
Wall of Servius Tullius, 190
The legend of Mastarna criticised, 190
L. TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS, 193
War with the Latins, 195
Alliance with Carthage, 195
Military system, 197
THE REFUGIUM. ROME A REPUBLIC, 198
L. Junius Brutus, 198
Abolition of the regal dignity, 202
The consulate, 203
Valerius Poplicola. The Valerian laws, 207
Porsena, 208
War of the Etruscans against Rome, 210
Mucius Scævola, 210
Peace of Porsena. Reduction of the tribes, 212
The Latins take the position of equals, 214
Battle at the Regillus, 216
Isopolity, 219
League of Sp. Cassius; union of the Romans, Latins and
Hernicans, 219
Dictatorship, 221
War with the Auruncians, 222
SECESSION OF THE PLEBES. LAW OF DEBT.
INSTITUTION OF THE TRIBUNATE, 224
Counter-revolutionary attempts, 224
Law of debt, 226
_Nexum_, 230
Refractoriness of the Plebes, 232
Secession of the Plebeians, 236
Peace between the two orders. _Tribuni Plebis_, 239
WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND ÆQUIANS.
LEAGUE WITH THE HERNICANS, 244
The legend of Coriolanus shown to be out of place here, 244
Division of the Volscian wars, 245
Alliance with the Hernicans, 246
Sp. Cassius, 248
THE AGRARIAN LAW. SP. CASSIUS. EMIGRATION
OF THE FABII. THE PUBLILIAN ROGATIONS, 249
The agrarian law, 250
Difference between ownership and possession, 254
_Lex Cassia_, 256
Execution of Sp. Cassius, 257
Elections of the consuls exclusively performed by the senate
and the curies, 259
Consular elections divided between the curies and the
centuries, 261
War against the Veientines, 261
The Fabii pronounce themselves for the plebeians, 262
Settlement of the Fabii at the Cremera, 262
Defeat at the Cremera, 263
Consuls arraigned by the tribunes, 265
Murder of Cn. Genucius, 267
Volero Publilius. Rogations of Publilius, 268
Public proceedings in the popular assemblies, 269
Opposition of Appius Claudius, 272
WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND ÆQUIANS.
PLAGUE. CINCINNATUS. CÆSO QUINCTIUS.
CORIOLANUS, 274
Wars with the Volscians and Æquians, 274
Plague in Rome, 276
C. Terentilius Harsa. _Lex Terentilia_, 277
Cæso Quinctius, 280
Cincinnatus, 281
Surprise of Appius Herdonius, 283
Condemnation of Volscius, 284
Coriolanus, 285
Peace with the Volscians, 293
Changed relation of the Latins to Rome, 293
Fermentations in Rome. P. Mucius, 294
LEGISLATION OF THE TWELVE TABLES, 295
Embassy to Athens, 295
Hermodorus, 296
First decemvirate. The rights of the patricians and plebeians
balanced, 298
Second decemvirate. New constitution, 299
Unrestricted right to make a will, 301
Law of debt, 303
Centuries, general national tribunal, 304
Tyranny of the decemvirs, 307
Death of Virginia, 310
_Secessio_ of the Plebes. Overthrow of the Decemvirs, 311
The old constitution restored, 312
_Veto_ of the tribunes. Patrician tribunes, 314
Death of Appius Claudius and Sp. Oppius, 316
Imprisonment, 317
Penal laws of the Romans, 318
Amnesty, 319
LEX HORATIA VALERIA. FURTHER CHANGES IN
THE CONSTITUTION. MILITARY TRIBUNATE.
CENSORSHIP. SP. MÆLIUS. VICTORY OF A.
POSTUMIUS TUBERTUS OVER THE VOLSCIANS
AND ÆQUIANS. CONQUEST OF FIDENÆ AND
VEII, 320
_Lex Horatia Valeria_, 320
Growth of the constitution, the later Publilian law, the
Hortensian law, 321
Victories over the Æquians and Sabines, 324
Quæstors elected by the centuries, 325
_Quæstores parricidii_, _Quæstores classici_, 325
Intermarriage between patricians and plebeians allowed.
Canuleian law, 326
Military tribunes, 327
Censorship, 332
Famine in Rome. Sp. Mælius, 337
Executive power of the consuls, 339
Quæstorship thrown open to the plebeians, 340
The right of deciding on war and peace passes from
the curies to the centuries, 340
Plebeian senators, 340
The people of the Campanians forms itself, 341
Victory of Postumius Tubertus over the Æquians, 344
Agrarian law, 345
_Coloniæ Romanæ._ Mutiny of the soldiers, 346
War with Veii, 347
Destruction of Fidenæ, 348
Manner of warfare, 350
Pay of the army, 351
Siege of Veii, 354
Draining the Alban lake, 357
Conquest of Veii, 360
Quarrels of the patricians and plebeians after the
taking of Veii, 361
War with the Faliscans, with the Vulsinians, 361
Camillus, 362
His banishment, 363
MIGRATION OF THE GAULS. CONQUEST OF
ROME, 363
Migration of the Gauls, 364
Invasion of the Gauls into Italy, 371
Embassy of the Romans to the Gauls, 372
Manners of the Gauls, 374
Battle at the Alia, 376
The Gauls in Rome, 379
Peace with the Gauls; their departure, 383
RESTORATION OF THE CITY. MANLIUS CAPITOLINUS.
THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS. CONFUSION
IN THE CHRONOLOGY. ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE _PRÆTOR URBANUS_ AND OF THE
_ÆDILIS CURULIS_, 385
Consequences of the Gallic conquest, 385
Rebuilding of the town, 387
_Fœnus unciarium_, 388
Etruscan wars with Rome, 389
Four new tribes formed, 391
Usury. Manlius Capitolinus takes the part of those oppressed, 393
His execution, 395
Tribunate of C. Licinius and of L. Sextius Lateranus, 396
The Licinian Rogations, 396
Confusion with regard to the chronology, 399
Dictatorship of Camillus. Temple of Concordia, 402
The consulate divided between the patricians and plebeians.
The prætorship established, 403
_Ædilis curulis._ One day added to the _Ludi Romani_, 405
INVASION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. LEAGUE
WITH THE LATINS AND HERNICANS. CHANGES
IN THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF ROME, 407
_Triumviri rei publicæ constituendæ_, 407
Invasion of the Senonian Gauls, 409
Alliance with the Latins and Hernicans, 409
Alliance with the Samnites, 411
War in Etruria. Arrangement of the debts, 413
Third invasion of the Gauls into Italy, 414
Enlargement of the rights of the plebeians, 415
C. Marcius Rutillus, first plebeian dictator, 415
THE FIRST WAR WITH THE SAMNITES. PROGRESS
OF LEGISLATION, 416
Position of the colonies, 417
Origin of the Samnites, 418
Rising in Capua, 419
Constitution of the Samnites, 420
Outbreak of the war, 422
M. Valerius Corvus, 425
Battle near the Mount Gaurus, 427
P. Decius Mus saves the Roman army, 429
Military insurrection of the Romans, 430
Progress of the legislation, 432
Military system of the Romans, 434
THE WAR AGAINST THE LATINS. THE LAWS OF
THE DICTATOR Q. PUBLILIUS PHILO. FURTHER
EVENTS, 436
Peace with the Samnites. Relations with the Latins, 436
War with the Latins, 438
T. Manlius, 440
Organisation of the Roman army, 441
Battle on the Veseris. P. Decius, 443
Battle near Trifanum, 444
Conditions of the submission of the Latins, 445
Q. Publilius Philo. His laws, 446
End of the Latin war, 448
_Municipia_, 448
Latin colonies, 451
The prætorship thrown open to the plebeians, 454
War with the Sidicinians, 455
Colonies in Cales and Fregellæ, 455
New relations, 456
Rome’s relation to the Greeks, 457
Tarentum, 459
Alexander of Epirus, 463
Rebellion of Privernum, 465
Peace with the Gauls, 468
Embassy to Alexander of Macedon, 468
THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR, 470
Palæopolis and Neapolis, 470
Outbreak of the second Samnite war, 474
M. Valerius Corvus, L. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius Maximus, 481
Victory of Fabius over the Samnites, 483
Fabius flees from Papirius, 484
Death of Papius Brutulus, 486
Defeat near Caudium, 487
The Romans break the peace, 491
Defeat of the Romans near Lautulæ, 494
Progress of the Romans. Colony in Luceria, 496
The Romans build a fleet, 498
Fine arts flourishing among the Romans, 498
Rising of the Etruscans, 499
Conquest of Bovianum, 500
Papirius Cursor appointed dictator, 501
The northern confederation pronounces itself in favour of
the Samnites, 501
War of the Romans with the Hernicans, 502
Subjection of the Hernicans, 503
Battle near Bovianum. End of the war, 504
The Æquians conquered, 505
Alliance of Rome with the Marsians, 505
THE ETRUSCAN WAR. OTHER EVENTS DOWN
TO THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR, 505
The Ciminian forest, 506
Battle near Sutrium, 507
Fabius breaks through the Ciminian forest, 508
End of the war, 509
Colony at Narnia, 510
Cleonymus, 510
Appius Claudius the Blind, 511
_Via Appia_, _Aqua Appia_, 518
Cn. Flavius, 519
_Jus Flavianum_, 521
The _Nexum_ abolished, 522
_Lex Ogulnia_, 523
THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR, 524
The war is transferred into Etruria, 525
Battle near Sentinum, 528
P. Decius devotes himself to death, 531
End of the war, 534
WAR WITH THE SABINES. AGITATIONS AT
HOME. _LEX HORTENSIA._ _LEX MÆNIA_, 535
War with the Sabines. M’. Curius, 535
Embassy to Epidaurus, 536
Draining of the Velinus, waterfall of Terni, 538
The Mænian law, 539
The Hortensian law, 540
_Triumviri capitales_, 543
EXTERMINATION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. C.
FABRICIUS LUSCINUS. WAR WITH TARENTUM.
PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS. EVENTS IN SICILY
DOWN TO THE FIRST PUNIC WAR, 544
War with the Senonian Gauls, 546
C. Fabricius Luscinus. M’. Curius Dentatus, 547
Ti. Coruncanius, 548
Outbreak of the war with Tarentum, 549
Pyrrhus of Epirus, 552
Cineas, 558
Battle near Heraclea, 558
Pyrrhus tries to march against Rome, 560
Pyrrhus sends Cineas to Rome, 561
Pyrrhus returns to Tarentum, 562
Roman embassy to Pyrrhus, 563
Battle near Asculum, 564
Pyrrhus goes to Sicily, 566
Siege of Lilybæum. Pyrrhus returns to Italy, 567
Battle near Taurasia (Beneventum), 568
Pyrrhus’ death. Peace with Samnium, 569
Tarentum falls into the hands of the Romans, 570
Subjection of Italy, 571
Campanian legion at Rhegium, 573
Earlier history of Sicily, 574
Mamertines in Messana. Hiero, 577
Hiero and the Carthaginians defeated by the Romans, 581
Peace with Hiero, 581
LECTURES ON ROMAN HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION.
Ancient history divides itself into the history anterior to the rule
of Rome, which has many centres, and into the history of Roman rule,
wherein there is but one centre, Rome, the action of which extends
on all sides. Other nations, like the Egyptians, have acted by their
intellectual power upon the foreigner, but were deficient in mind;
others, as the barbarian nations of the Celts and other races, became
important merely by the mightiness of their conquests; Greece, by
her mind; but Rome combines every thing, the greatest political
perfection, might, and mind. Here is an influence which has become
still more lasting and ineffaceable than that of Greece: it continues
to the latest centuries, even to this very day. The Roman history has
to exhibit the greatest characters, achievements, and events; it is
the development of the whole life of a people, the like of which is
unknown in all the rest of history. Of the history of the East, as far
as regards the stages of its progress, we know nothing whatever. The
Egyptians we find already in castes, consequently in fixed forms, in
which they abide throughout every century; they exist unalterable, of
which their mummies are the emblem, and all the changes which we remark
in them are a mere dying away. The Romans we see almost growing under
our eyes; indeed, they also are early moulded into fixed forms, but
their origin is no riddle to us. The other nations are as buds still
folded up in their petals; they grow, but before they expand, they die
away or only open imperfectly, as it also ever occurs with individuals,
that among many thousands few only are not checked in their
development. In modern history the English alone have had a career like
that of the Romans. In a cosmopolitical point of view therefore, these
two histories must ever remain the most important ones.
Here now the whole history of the twelve ages, which in the legend of
Romulus have also been foretold as the duration of Rome, is to be set
forth;--in the beginning the history of the nation and the town, then
that of the empire and the aggregate of people who bore the name of
Romans.
But first of all, let us make ourselves acquainted with the sources.
SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY.
Are the sources of the most ancient Roman history, before ever an
historical literature had arisen in Rome, worthy of credit? In former
times a simple honest belief was prevalent concerning this point; it
would have been considered as audacity and as a crime, if any one had
doubted of the Roman history, especially that which Livy drew and set
forth from the sources at his command. It is now quite incomprehensible
to us to what a degree very ingenious men, like Scaliger, who had far
more knowledge than we, received without any hesitation the details
of ancient history, deeming, for instance, the lists of the kings
of Sicyon to be quite as authentic as those of the kings of France.
This state of literary innocence lasted as long as all education was
purely philological, and derived from books only. In the seventeenth
century, when in England, France, and Germany, a new era commenced
for the civilization of mankind, many began to be startled at the
contradictions which some individuals might have remarked before
them, but had imposed on themselves silence upon the subject,--as for
instance the Roman Valla, the discovery of whose grave is one of the
most pleasing remembrances of my life, and Glareanus, who thereby
irritated the ingenious Sigonius, a man, however, who had not the least
idea of historical criticism. The Italians were for some time a-head of
the rest of Europe, then the French followed, and shortly afterwards,
the Germans. As early as towards the end of the sixteenth century lived
Pighius, a native of the province of Cleves, who had original ideas
with regard to historical criticism, but who has commenced much and
finished nothing. Then followed Perizonius’ able criticism, and then
the sceptical works of Bayle and Beaufort. It was not possible in the
eighteenth century to receive the Roman history with the same credulity
as in the sixteenth, since the sphere of the human mind had been so
much enlarged during the seventeenth. People wanted to comprehend what
had happened, and how it had come to pass, and so they could no more
believe in the Roman history as they found it. O that Perizonius had
gone on with the work which he had begun, and had formed the conviction
that he must arrive at an historical result, without which belief no
man can advance and succeed;--or, that others had proceeded in his
track! But he was wanting in self-confidence, and others set themselves
to the work with less comprehensive powers. Beaufort, a clever man, but
whose studies had not been sufficiently comprehensive, forms at this
time an epoch; but his literary and personal imperfections caused him
to root up the tares with the wheat. Already before had Pouilly, in the
‘Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et des belles lettres,’ set
forth the same opinions, but quite crudely. It was the time of that
extreme scepticism which Bayle had given birth to, and Freret had
confirmed. Beaufort did not feel the necessity of a good groundwork of
scientific knowledge; nevertheless he held a prominent place in his
time, and exercised a marked influence upon Hooke and Fergusson, who
were not capable of any deep inquiry. Yet it is remarkable that those
points which Beaufort had left untouched caused scruple to no one.
People made difficulties about the seven kings, the chronology, and
other matters of the kind; but they would believe without knowing why,
and repudiate what had a very good foundation. Such a state of things
must be followed by a regular sound criticism, or there is an end of
science.
Properly speaking, Livy himself to a great extent is liable to the
censure of having made the earlier Roman history fall into disrepute;
not merely because he sets forth much contradictory matter, but because
he says himself in the beginning of the sixth book, that a new era
commenced with the burning of the city by the Gauls, in which the
records of the earlier times had been destroyed. This is only half true.
That in the earliest times the use of letters was already known among
the Romans, and that authors might therefore have existed dating from
the remotest periods, cannot be gainsayed, as we still have coins of
Sybaris, the destruction of which is generally set down as having taken
place four years before the expulsion of the kings. If the Greeks in
Italy had letters, why should not the Romans have had them likewise?
A common and easy use of them is not to be thought of previous to the
introduction of the Egyptian papyrus;[1] but that writing was used in
Rome very early is shown by the census, which required very extensive
book-keeping. It is beyond a doubt, that before the burning by the
Gauls a written law existed, the composition of which is attributed to
L. Papirius under Tarquinius Superbus (according to others, Tarquinius
Priscus). When Livy therefore says, _per illa tempora litteræ raræ
erant_, this is only partly correct. Authors there were at that time
none at all (by which appellation I designate those who write with
a view of being read by a public). And when moreover he says of
written literature, (_litteræ_), _una custodia fidelis memoriæ rerum
gestarum_, he goes too far. We have parallels in the German and other
histories. Among the Greeks, Polybius mentions the Chronographies,
and Toichographies, Annals especially in the temples. Corresponding
to these are our Annales Bertiniani, Fuldenses, and others, which
commence from the seventh century, and go on through the period of the
Carlovingians. They are composed of unconnected lines under the heads
of the years of the different reigns, and at the side of the yearly
dates the events are marked in the briefest manner, for instance,
_Saxones debellati_. These annals also were mostly kept in churches;
besides the names of the emperors, those of the bishops are usually
found. After the chronicles of the empire, those of the towns arose.
Thus it was among nations who in every respect were most different.
Among ourselves also, family events are even now still frequently noted
in our Bibles. Such annotations are most ancient, and it may safely be
supposed that they existed in Rome likewise in very great numbers. When
magistrates were introduced who changed every year, it became necessary
to note down their names for the Fasti; for no document had legal
validity unless the accurate date was affixed to it. In these Fasti
they had without doubt an era _a regibus exactis_, the consuls being at
the same time registered, and the principal events put down.
To these annals belong the _Annales Maximi_, more rarely called
_Annales Pontificum_, an authentic and more comprehensive arrangement
of annals, the object of which was to record every thing that was to be
preserved for public memory. Cicero, de Oratore II, 12. and Servius ad
Virg. Æn. I, 373, state that the chief pontiff wrote the most important
events on an album which was exhibited at his residence, where probably
many may have copied it, as we know of Cn. Flavius who exhibited a copy
of the Fasti in the Forum. An album is a whitewashed tablet (a proof of
the difficulty of the material), on this the transcript of the public
documents was painted, as for example, the _Edictum Prætorium_ and
others. Now Cicero states, that the noting down of the annals had been
made _ab initio rerum Romanarum_ to the pontificate of P. Mucius; from
which people wanted to conclude that the Romans in his time had had
authentic annals which had gone on without interruption from the first
beginning of the state. But this is by no means what Cicero says, he
merely states that the noting down of events had been a usage observed
from the first; that the annals had been preserved entire in his time,
he does not mention any where. Vopiscus mentions, that they had been
kept _ad excessu Romuli_, beginning therefore with Numa; but this is
only the opinion of an illiterate man. The pontificate was referred to
Numa, and so was therefore also the institution of the annals.
We may say with certainty, that the annals of the pontiffs for the
earlier times were afterwards restored, although the belief in their
genuineness might be generally received. The pontiffs were conservators
of the law and of the chronology, and of course therefore also of
history. But even if the original annals had only existed as far back
as the expulsion of the kings, those most irreconcilable contradictions
which we now find would have been impossible. Would not Fabius and
others have found them out? Livy himself says, that the old records of
history had perished in the Gallic conflagration. This may particularly
refer to the _Annales Pontificum_; at that time not even the twelve
tables were rescued, now could these _Alba_ have been saved? The fact
alone, that they were not found farther back induced Livy to make
conclusions which were too sweeping. The chief pontiff lived below in
the town, so that although the _Annales Maximi_ were destroyed, yet
many other annals (of private persons living perhaps in the Capitol,
and others) might have been preserved. Thus in China, the old books
were destroyed by the command of the Emperor, and those now preserved
were restored from the memory of aged men, and the supplements of the
astronomers with regard to the eclipses of the sun and the moon. And in
the same manner, the Sibylline books, after the destruction in Sylla’s
time, were made up again by collation from all quarters. According to
a Jewish tradition, this applies also to some books of Holy Scripture
which were restored after the destruction of the temple. In this manner
we may also explain what is recorded concerning the fabled infinite
antiquity of the Egyptians. The eighteenth dynasty of Manetho is
historical. Before it the Hyksos were reigning, under whom old records
are stated to have been lost. And yet we are told, that before this,
seventeen more dynasties had existed, reference being made to such lost
annals. Before Champollion’s invention of the reading of hieroglyphics,
one wanted to repudiate as unhistorical every thing down to the time
of Psammitichus, whereas we now know, that the age of the Hyksos forms
the boundary of real history, and that every thing previous to it has
been supplied afterwards. In like manner, the _Annales Maximi_ may
have been restored for the time anterior to the burning by the Gauls.
A striking proof that the authentic _Annales Pontificum_ were not
preserved beyond the destruction of the city by the Gauls is afforded
by the passage in Cic. R. P. I, 16, where the eclipse of the sun, which
took place fifteen years before the Gallic conflagration, is spoken of.
This eclipse, which was seen at Gades, was mentioned in the _Annales
Pontificum_ as an extraordinary phenomenon, and put in connexion
with the passage of the Gauls over the Alps which took place nearly
about the same time. Now Cicero states, that from this eclipse all
the preceding ones had been calculated backwards up to the time when
Romulus was snatched away from the earth.
Servius states of these annals that they had been divided into eighty
books. It is to be remarked, however, that this passage of the
Scholion is not found in the Codex Fuldensis, but only in several
other manuscripts, the trustworthiness of which is indeed rather
doubtful; yet it is not to be understood, how any one could have told
stories precisely on this subject. Cicero, in the introduction to the
books _De legibus_, says moreover concerning the _Annales Maximi_,
_quibus nihil potest esse jucundius_, which is quite enigmatical. The
manuscripts of the books _De legibus_ have all of them in the fifteenth
century, from the year 1420, been copied from one single manuscript.
Ursinus conjectures instead of _jucundius_, _jejunius_, which indeed
has much in its favour; others propose _incomtius_. A first-rate
author, however, may sometimes easily venture upon an expression
which puzzles and distracts us; and thus Cicero may have written in
this passage _jucundius_, merely in order to designate the enjoyment
which historical records of such high antiquity afford, owing to their
credibility. At least we should not be justified in altering the word.
We may form a distinct idea of these annals from the passages which
Livy has quoted from them at the end of the tenth book, especially
where he mentions the election of the magistrates, and in the third and
fourth decades. As it seems, Livy’s copy only began with the year 460
A. U. C., otherwise he would have certainly made an earlier use of it.
One point is still to be mentioned, Diomedes (III, 480) states, that
the _res gestæ populi Romani_ are (in the present tense) noted down
by the pontiffs and scribes. Now authors like him are to be taken _cum
grano salis_, but he is of some weight in so far as he had no desire
to deceive, and he might have known it after all. When therefore
Cicero states that the Annales had been written only as far down as
to P. Mucius, a distinction must perhaps be made. In the times of
P. Mucius, it may have been deemed superfluous to continue them any
longer, the later _acta diurna_ may about this time have commenced,--a
sort of town gazette, which also contained the acts of the senate.
The farther development of these _acta diurna_ (afterwards _diurnale_,
_journal_) together with the rise of literature is probably the cause
of the _Annales Pontificum_ having ceased. Yet similar annals may
have been continued privately. The infinitely important fragment of a
chronicle of Rome, by a monk of the name of Benedict, who belonged to
the monastery of Soracte, discovered by Pertz,[2] contains at the time
of Pope John the Eighth, annotations made quite in the old language of
the annals concerning the _Ostenta_, which at that time were seen in
Rome and the environs; that the lightning had struck the city wall;
that there had been a shower of stones; and such like entries. In many
monasteries the Annals of St. Jerome were continued. Every year the
most remarkable events were inserted, as when an Emperor ascended the
throne, &c. In this manner the expression of Diomedes may be justified.
These different annals were the only books of history from the earliest
times which have been preserved among the Romans. All others mentioned
by Livy, _libri magistratuum_, _libri legum_, &c. are Fasti, of which
there were certainly a great number dating from the commencement of the
Republic, the like of which we have still in the _Fasti Capitolini_ and
_Triumphales_, incomplete, even frequently falsified. These Fasti,
which are still to be seen on the Capitol, where Augustus set them up,
and which originated with Varro or Atticus,--the so-called Capitoline
Fasti which formerly stood in the Curia Julia--contained only at the
side of some detached yearly dates some memorable events. The Triumphal
Fasti, which stood in the same edifice in a different place, had
certainly existed from very early times. Every triumph was marked down
in them, and very likely with more detail than was done in those which
are preserved. The statements of Livy concerning the booty which had
been made, are undoubtedly always taken from these Triumphal Fasti; but
it is very remarkable that they are first found the year after that in
which his extracts from the _Annales Pontificum_ commence.
Another source of information concerning the earliest Roman history are
the _Commentarii Pontificum_. They were a collection of law cases from
the old public and ceremonial law, together with the decisions of the
pontiffs in cases which came under their jurisdiction, similar to the
decisions of the lawyers in the pandects. This mass was the groundwork
from which those who studied the laws deduced the general principles.
The Sunnah, which is the Mahomedan code of law, and the Talmud are
quite corresponding to it in form. An abstract principle is never laid
down: there is nothing but an enumeration of decisions in particular
cases. We find the same in the Pentateuch in the discussions concerning
the inheritance of females. With reference to the case of _judicium
perduellionis_, it is stated how Horatius had slain his sister. But
the groundwork of those books is nevertheless made at a different time
from that which is given out in it. What we know must date from a later
time, indeed still a very remote one for us, anterior to the rise of
Roman historical writing, yet not so old as they themselves would have
us believe.
The same was the case with the _Libri Pontificum_ and _Libri
Augurales_. From them the historians quote the declarations of war in
that definite formula which Ancus is said first to have introduced.
The forms of surrender, the formula _fœderis feriendi_, the appeals to
the people, were according to Cicero likewise entered in them. From
these books history has been enriched as much as if they had contained
authentic historical facts.
Another source of the annalists were the _laudationes funebres_, spoken
of by Livy and by Cicero in Brutus, from which latter it comes out,
that very old specimens, dating as far back as from the times before
the war of Pyrrhus, were in existence. They were kept in the Atrium,
near the images of the ancestors (_imagines_). They were speeches in
commemoration of a deceased person, delivered in the forum by the
nearest kinsman, at first quite simple and unpretending. According to
Cicero, they always returned to the family and the ancestors, that is
to say, the descent of the deceased was traced from the first fathers
of the race. But Cicero and Livy both complain of the falsifications
which crept from these panegyrics into Roman history. The Romans, in
fact, notwithstanding all the veracity which they otherwise possessed,
had an extraordinary vanity with regard to political and family
relations, deeming themselves bound in duty to extol their state and
their families. For this reason forged victories and triumphs are
contained in those _laudationes_.
This was the material when the first historians arose. They had
besides, it is true, many laws and other documentary records; but
these were a buried treasure noticed by few only. On the whole, the
Romans were too careless and negligent to make use of such sources.
A remarkable example of it is afforded by Livy, who, among other
things, contents himself with stating, that he had heard from Augustus
that there existed a certain inscription in the temple of Jupiter
Feretrius,[3] without ever thinking of looking himself at it in the
Capitol, where he certainly must have been often enough.
The Annals, many of which, as may have been seen, were preserved in
later times, form one source of history, of which it cannot be stated
at all how early it could have commenced. But this is only the skeleton
of history. Besides these there is a living traditionary history. It
consists of narrations which pass from the father to the children, and
may be very circumstantial;--others are propagated partly by word of
mouth, partly in writing, and these are the poetical traditions. Here
is a field on which it will never be possible to agree, whilst looking
only to one side of the question. I am convinced that great part of the
early Roman history has been handed down in songs; that is to say, all
that has life in it, all that has pith and meaning, and coherence. This
is to me as evident a truth as any in the world. To these belongs the
history of Romulus, that of Tarquinius Priscus, down to the battle near
the lake Regillus, and others. The passages in Varro, and a fragment of
Cato in Cicero, purporting that the Romans sang the achievements of the
ancients to the flute, speak distinctly to the fact. Three inscriptions
on the tombs of the Scipios are poetical, as I have shown in my Roman
history. Such is moreover the story of Coriolanus, of Curtius, and
others. Besides this there are without any doubt preserved in Livy
detached lines from the lay of Tullius Hostilius and the Horatii. With
regard to others we have not indeed any thing to bring forward, but we
may here appeal to the general experience of mankind.[4]
It matters not in the least, whether the old legends were still in
existence at the time when the historians wrote their works, or whether
they were in verse or in prose. We may find a parallel illustration in
our own (German) literature, and refer to the manifold changes which
our epic poems had to undergo. The song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand,
which Eckard has edited, and W. Grimm has commented upon, is of much
more ancient date than the times of Charles the Great; in the tenth
century there existed a Latin version of it. We are acquainted with
the ‘Nibelungen’ only in that form in which they have been composed in
the thirteenth century. How many phases may there not have occurred
in the interval between? Then we have the much tamer version of the
same subject in the ‘Book of Heroes;’ and at last that in prose of
‘Siegfried,’ which for some centuries has been in an ever renewed
form in the hands of the people. Now if the ‘Nibelungen’ and all
the information concerning them had been lost, and some ingenious
critic recognised in ‘Siegfried’ the old poem, it would be exactly
the same case as in the Roman history. The quotation of some verses
from the ‘Nibelungen’ in Aventinus,[5] would then stand quite on the
same footing as the three verses cited by Livy in the story of the
Horatii. Such lays go for a long time side by side with history. Saxo
Grammaticus has tried to change the Danish Saga into history, and on
that account he cannot be brought into agreement with the statements
of the Chronicles. Just so is it in Grecian history. Rhianus, in his
poem on Messene, which he undoubtedly composed from old popular songs,
is utterly at variance with the list of Spartan kings which Pausanias
found in the old records, and with the facts which are mentioned in
the contemporary strains of Tyrtæus. Then comes the time long before
a literature exists, when men who have a true vocation write history;
as, for instance, the author of the excellent Chronicle of Cologne.
In this chronicle, which partly dates from the fifteenth century,
and which might be made beautifully complete from the archives of
Cologne, we find the poem of Gotfrid Hagen on the feud of the bishops,
paraphrased in prose, yet with some traces of the rhyme remaining.
(Here then is another example of the continual alteration of the form
of old poems.) Yet if we compare this with what is stated by that very
chronicle on the same subject, perhaps from church books, they can by
no means be reconciled with each other. The same thing happened in the
Russian Chronicles, which were continued from the time of Nestor, a
monk of the eleventh century, down to a much later period, as I myself
can testify from a copy in my own possession. The authors of these,
as well as the writer of the Chronicle of Cologne, did not live in a
literary age, and their works therefore vanished, as they did not write
for the public at large. Similar chronicles had without doubt arisen
in Rome also before the literature of history commenced; that is to
say, before authors wrote for the Greek public, as Fabius, M. Cincius,
C. Acilius did. History as a branch of literature only began when the
Romans wished to make themselves known to the Greeks. Those who were
not Greeks were everywhere keenly alive to the contempt which they had
to suffer from the Greeks.
Cicero and Livy say that by the orations in praise of the dead history
had been made fabulous. There can be no doubt of this; yet, for all
that, those discourses were not a mere tissue of fables, but they were
mostly documents of a very early period. This ancient time may be dated
from the expulsion of the kings, that is to say, twenty-eight years
before the passage of Xerxes over the Hellespont. How many literary
documents of the Greeks have we not of that date? Thus in the case
of the seven consulships of the Fabii, as they are told in Livy and
Dionysius, in the case of the battle with the Veientines, of the story
of Q. Fabius Maximus (in the last book of the first decade of Livy),
the relations seem to be taken from such and similar documents; unless
we choose to suppose that these stories had been fabricated with such
astonishing accuracy of detail. It even seems that Fabius Maximus
himself has written his own history, that at least a number of records
were at hand in the accomplished Fabian family, and were carefully
preserved. Of this intellectual cultivation among the Fabii, we have
many proofs before us. C. Fabius Pictor, a hundred years before the war
of Hannibal, created a work of art of the highest beauty; the historian
wrote in Greek without being ever reproached with barbarisms in his
style.
In composing history, men consulted the annals of the pontiffs, wrote
out in good faith what was found in them, and put in what they found
in the lays wherever they thought it would best suit, little caring
whether it closely tallied or not. These different pieces were probably
joined together with a greater accuracy than was done in the Chronicle
of Cologne. Few only, Fabius possibly, or what is more likely, Cincius
Alimentus and M. Licinius Macer first made use also of the documents
in the Capitol and the old law books. The brazen law tables may have
indeed been taken away by the Gauls, but there still existed other
sources of law. The whole of the earlier constitution seems to have
been described in the _Commentarii Pontificum_ in law cases, from
which Gracchanus took it. The groundwork of these notices is extremely
worthy of credit. The march and progress of the constitution from the
establishment of the Republic may be completely traced in it, with an
accuracy much greater than has hitherto been possible with regard to
considerable portions of medieval history.
One ought to take care not to consider the Romans previous to the time
when they learned from the Greeks as barbarians. A people which in the
age of the kings built those wonderful sewers; which a hundred years
before the Punic wars produced the she-wolf of the Capitol; which
possessed a painter like C. Fabius Pictor; which made a sarcophagus
like that of Scipio Barbatus, takes certainly a high stand in mental
cultivation. And such we must deem their written literature to have
been, not composed in Greek forms, but endowed with beauties peculiarly
its own. The grammarians knew still the moral maxims of Appius Claudius
Cæcus, Cicero still read a speech of the same person against Pyrrhus.
Where such writings were kept, many others also must have still existed.
The earliest work which we know of as a contemporary history is the
first Punic war of Cn. Nævius, who had himself served in that contest.
If concerning this greatest of all ancient wars, we had more positive
accounts, such as we possess of the second Punic war, it would be
better appreciated. That Nævius wrote this war in the Saturnian
rhythm, that he wrote it as a poem, is characteristic of the age, a
proof that ancient history was at that time familiar to the Romans
in a poetical form. So it was in the oldest historical literature
of the Germans with the feud of the bishops by Gotfrid Hagen, and
with the poetical history of the conquest of Livonia by the Teutonic
knights (which is as yet unprinted); for before the thirteenth century
at least no history was written in German prose. The year in which
Nævius first brought out a play on the stage is undecided. It was
somewhere about the year 520; two passages in Gellius concerning it
are contradictory.[6] Whether that piece, however, was the first that
he had written, or whether he composed his great work yet earlier, is
not mentioned by any one. Nævius was a Campanian, and it may safely
be presumed that at Capua there was already a greater movement in
literature than there was in Rome at the same time. The poem consisted
of seven books. According to Suetonius, it was originally written
_continente sermone_, but was divided by C. Octavius Lampadius into
books, and probably also into single verses. This poem, to judge
from the fragments still extant of it, was by no means deficient in
poetical merit. Perhaps Servius had not read Nævius at all; he only
seems to have known from older commentators that Virgil had borrowed
from him the argument of his first book. Nævius treated in it of the
destruction of Troy, of Dido, and Æneas. It is very natural to surmise
that he also derived already the rivalry between Rome and Carthage from
the faithlessness of Æneas.[7] Yet it was hardly an elaborate Roman
history. It is known that Nævius by some libellous verses against the
Metelli was brought into great troubles, and that he is said to have
been thrown into prison. But it is enigmatical how a Roman citizen
could have been thrown into prison for the publication of a _liber
famosus_. He is said to have written two plays, whilst there. This is
scarcely to be understood, when one has seen those frightful dungeons
at Rome, into which no ray of light ever finds its way, and which the
ancients themselves declared to be the Gates of Death. The facts may
have happened in the following manner. Nævius was a Campanian, and
the Campanians lost in the war of Hannibal all the benefits of their
rights as citizens. Nævius, who was now friendless and helpless, must
as a Campanian have been _noxæ deditus_ to the Metelli, and have been
confined, not in the public prison, but in the house of the Metelli, in
a dungeon such as the Romans frequently had in their own houses for
the confinement of debtors. Just as incorrect is the statement in the
Chronicon of St. Jerome, that Nævius had died in the year of Cato’s
era, 547 (according to Varro 549), at Utica; for as Utica was attached
during the war of Hannibal to the party of Carthage, he would even as a
_transfuga_ have been very badly received there. According to Cicero,
Varro placed the death of Nævius at a later period than others did.
There existed therefore at that time already some uncertainty about it.
After the second Punic war, there arose several authors who wrote in
the Greek language. After the Macedonian period, the Greeks began in
their histories to direct their attention to the remoter nations also.
This encouraged able men among such nations, who understood Greek, to
write the history of their people, in order to be read by the Greeks.
In Southern Italy, the Greek language had been long introduced. To
maintain that the Lucanian Ocellus had really written the works
attributed to him might scarcely be advisable; but some reason must
nevertheless have existed for placing the authorship of them to his
account, and Aristoxenus, to whom all the statements which are extant
concerning this point are to be referred, was aware that these people
wrote in Greek. In Campania, Apulia, and elsewhere, the native towns
had Greek inscriptions and coins. The Alexandrine grammarians read
Oscan histories of Italy; but these books were by no means written
in the Oscan, but in the Greek language. With regard to the Roman
history, there are particularly to be mentioned Q. Fabius Pictor,[8]
and Cincius Alimentus, both of them very high-born Romans. The former,
being of patrician family, had been sent as ambassador to Delphi. He
was great-grandson of that C. Fabius Pictor, who painted the temple
of Salus, a work of art which was preserved until the times of the
emperor Claudius, and was most probably a battle piece representing
the victory of Consul Junius over the Æqui. To him already we must
give credit for having been familiar with the Greek language and
manners, as the practice of painting, according to genuine Roman views,
would not have been seemly for a patrician. His son was ambassador
to Alexandria, and consequently likewise acquainted with Greek. The
object of the historian Fabius was without doubt to combat the odious
and unfair notions of the Greeks respecting the Romans. He therefore
wrote the Roman history from the beginning,--whether from the arrival
of Æneas we know not, but most likely from the _primordia urbis_. He
described, as Dionysius states, the earlier times κεφαλαιωδῶς, those
which were nearer to his own more circumstantially, a feature which he
has in common with almost all the Roman historians except Cn. Gellius
and Valerius Antias, who do just the contrary. Cato alone kept an even
balance. The real subject of Fabius was the war of Hannibal; but his
account of the first Punic war was also detailed. From Polybius we see,
that he endeavoured in every possible way to justify his own people;
that writer even taxes him with partiality for the Romans. The first
history of the first Punic war had been written by Philinus, a native
of Agrigentum, who was more highly exasperated against the Romans,
on account of the destruction of the town of his birth. In direct
opposition to him, Fabius in his writings now perhaps exaggerated in
favour of the other side. Probably he wrote as far down as to the
end of the second Punic war, although we have no evidence in proof,
as most of the quotations from him refer to the very earliest times
of Roman history. The title of his book we know not; nor do we find
it mentioned anywhere, in spite of the frequent quotations, into how
many books it was divided. The work was held in exceedingly high
estimation, he is very often quoted by Livy and likewise by Polybius,
and Diodorus Siculus; but surely we have many things from him where we
do not read his name mentioned. It is evident and certain that Diodorus
took Ol. 8, 1. to be the date of the building of Rome, just as Fabius
did. Now Diodorus in the several years contains notices concerning
Roman history, which are very much at variance with the statements of
Livy, but which, although indeed very scanty, are by no means to be
despised. These he can only have taken from Fabius or Timæus; but the
former is more likely on account of the accordance just alluded to.
Appian, on the occasion of the embassy to Delphi, mentions Fabius, ὃς
τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον ξυνέγραψε; and he too certainly has borrowed from
him. Appian was very little conversant with Latin, and had not the
least research; where Dionysius of Halicarnassus went before him he
closely followed his track, just as Zonaras did with regard to Dio
Cassius. Fabius Pictor had likewise written in Greek, (Dion. Hal.
V proœm.), so that Appian could read him. Now he also agrees in a
remarkable manner with Zonaras, who follows in the wake of Dio Cassius,
whose keen glance recognised Fabius as the best authority. We owe
therefore to Fabius an immense debt of gratitude for the most precious
and invaluable information. And certainly the careful language used
concerning the earlier constitution by Dio Cassius, who consistently
calls populus δῆμος, and _plebs_ ὅμιλος or πλῆθος, is derived from
Fabius. Thus Fabius not only is the father of Roman history, but in him
also is found the highest and most perfect knowledge of the ancient
constitution. Censorious people have railed at the idea that we in the
nineteenth century should pretend to understand the Roman constitution
better than Livy and Dionysius did; yet we do not presume to understand
it differently from the consular Dio Cassius, and Q. Fabius from whom
he has borrowed.
With reference to Fabius, there is great and insurmountable difficulty
belonging to literary history in the manner in which Cicero de
Divinat. I, 21 speaks of him, where he mentions _somnium Æneæ ex
Numerii Fabii Pictoris græcis annalibus_. This Numerius Fabius Pictor
reappears in no other place. The prænomen of Quintus Fabius Pictor is
a point quite settled, as it occurs in too many authors; but at that
period several wrote in Greek, so that there may possibly have been
also a Numerius Fabius Pictor. Cn. Aufidius, whom Cicero speaks of,
is likewise quite unknown. As it happens, the books _De Divinatione_
have only come down to us in bad manuscripts, which are all derived
from one single copy now lost, yet we should certainly not be warranted
in supposing this prænomen in particular to be falsified. Yet in his
treatise De Orat. II, 12 and in the beginning of the first book De
Legibus, Cicero speaks of a certain Pictor as of a Latin author of
Annals, and places him between Cato and Piso. This person is also
quoted by no one else; but Gellius V, 4, cites _Annales Fabii_ without
any cognomen. A writer of the name of Pictor,[9] _de Jure Pontificio_,
is met with in Macrobius; but these books are foreign to history.
Perhaps Cicero made a mistake. There was another annalist, Fabius
Maximus Servilianus, who was an author of note according to Dionysius,
who mentions him after Cato. Servius also cites him. He lived just
in the period between Cato and Piso. His book was entitled _Q. Fabii
Annales_. Cicero had an extreme dislike to the old annalists, he had
in all probability hardly read any besides Cato, at least not since
his youth. Now in all likelihood he calls that Fabius erroneously
Pictor. In dictating especially, such a mistake may occur. That Cicero
was little versed in Roman history is proved by the delusion to which
he recurs more than once, that Decius the grandson had sacrificed
himself like his grandfather and his father.[10] Cicero is particularly
incorrect sometimes with regard to the prænomens, as for instance,
contrary to every other writer, he calls the father of Virginia Decimus
Virginius. The prænomen Numerius was moreover very common in the
Fabian family, so that it might have been more familiar to Cicero.
Lastly, Diodorus mentions the same dream of Æneas, which Cicero treats
of in other places, as being taken from Q. Fabius (Diod. fragm. ap.
Syncell.). In Korte’s edition of Sallust, the fragments of Fabius
Pictor are thrown together with those of Fabius Servilianus.
Contemporary with Fabius was the other Roman, of whom we know from
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that he wrote the Roman history in
Greek; and it is a very instructive fact, in forming an idea of
these accounts, that without Dionysius we should not have known that
Cincius had written the Roman history in Greek. From Livy we should
only have been able to gather that he had written about the war of
Hannibal. He was a senator and prætor in the second Punic war, and
was made a prisoner in the beginning of the struggle. We see on this
occasion, that he must have been a very distinguished personage; as
the Roman laws were very strict in that war against those who allowed
themselves to be made prisoners, and he nevertheless attained to high
and honourable offices. He relates, that Hannibal had entered into
conversation with him, and given him an account of his passage over
the Alps; a proof as well of his personal consequence, as of the
circumstance that he could speak Greek, since Hannibal in the beginning
of the war did not yet speak Latin. He is called by Livy _Maximus
Auctor_, and his statement cited by the latter as decisive. His works
_De Potestate Consulum_, and on the Roman Calendar, he wrote in Latin;
as to his identity there cannot be the least doubt. From Dionysius we
see that he had peculiar views with regard to Roman antiquities. He
made researches concerning the monuments of ancient times, even in
Etruria, thereby forming an exception to the most of the Romans. What
Dionysius has taken from him, cannot be known for certain. A fragment
of his in Festus, throws especial light on the relations between the
Romans and Latins.
Likewise in Greek, only a little later (after 570), C. Acilius writes
Roman annals down to the war with Antiochus. He is quoted for the Myth
of Romulus; and by Dionysius with reference to the restoration of the
sewers. His work was translated into Latin by a certain Claudius; he
too seems to have been a very estimable writer.
Some more Romans afterwards wrote in Greek; it is, however, uncertain,
whether the whole of the history, or merely memoirs of their time.
There are mentioned A. Postumius Albinus, a contemporary of the elder
Cato (about 600); and Cn. Aufidius, a contemporary of Cicero in his
youth.
It was soon afterwards, towards the beginning of the war with Perseus,
that Q. Ennius composed his Annals. The denomination of annals is
a strange one, quite ill suited to a poem. Ennius was by far too
poetical to write down history year by year. His poem was the first
real imitation of the Greek model: the earlier ones of Nævius were
still in the old lyric style. We are able to gain a general view of
the work in the fragments; if the older quotations were only somewhat
more trustworthy in the numbers, the whole of its argument might be
restored. So much is certain, that the oldest times of the Trojan
arrival and of the kings were contained in the three first books; and
the quotation may also be pretty sure, that the war of Pyrrhus had been
the subject of the fifth book.[11] He occupied himself little with
the domestic struggles; and would probably speak of the wars only,
according to the notions of epic poetry which were then entertained.
The 225 years between were therefore contained in one book; the wars
against the Samnites perhaps only in a slight sketch. The first Punic
war, as Cicero tells us, he altogether left out, because Nævius had
sung it; that of Hannibal he treated with the utmost prolixity, so that
it must have begun already in the seventh book, and have been still
continuing in the twelfth. In the thirteenth book, the subject was the
war with Antiochus; in the fifteenth, the Istrian; so that the last six
books only extended over twenty-four years. There were in all eighteen
books. Of Scipio, and of M. Fulvius Nobilior, he sung the praises with
peculiar richness of detail. The latter he accompanies into the Ætolian
war. He was born in 513, according to Cato’s chronology, and died 583,
continuing his poem almost to the time of his death.
The sources of Ennius for the earliest times were the _Annales Maximi_;
for the times of the kings, the old lays, and the _Commentarii
Pontificum_; in the middle times, Timæus, Hieronymus, Fabius; in the
last years, he was a cotemporary. He is to be blamed for his vanity,
since he placed himself on a level with Homer; and for his bad
hexameters. One cannot but be annoyed at his speaking in a disparaging
tone of the old poems. On the other hand, however, there are fragments
extant of his, which bespeak a true poetical spirit. He had some
similarity to Klopstock, who like him despised the ancient forms,
without knowing the Greek ones sufficiently to distinguish himself in
them. It may be presumed that it was he from whom Livy took his noble
description of the time of the kings.
As to the assertion, that the division of his books had originated with
Q. Vargunteius, a positive denial may be given to it. Suetonius only
states, that Vargunteius had critically reviewed the books of Ennius,
as Lampadio did Nævius.
The fragments of Ennius have been collected by several; with much
minuteness by Hieronymus Columna, at the end of the sixteenth
century, accompanied by a commentary which, although prolix, is very
instructive. Some verses in it are taken from Claudius Sacerdos,
who is still lying in manuscript at Vienna.[12] Soon after him, a
Netherlander, Paul Merula, edited them anew in a different order, and
with many additions. Among the latter there are some verses which
Columna had overlooked. But Merula says that he had a great number of
verses from L. Calpurnius Piso _De Continentia Veterum Poetarum_, in
which the older poets were compared with those of his own time (that of
Pliny), and the latter also among themselves; that the manuscript was
in the library of S. Victor in Paris; that he was however afraid of its
not being safe there. This is altogether strange. Another statement is
that the manuscript had been bound together with a copy of Lucan, and
had afterwards been cut out. Indeed such a copy of Lucan exists still
in Paris, where Bekker has seen it; yet this proves very little after
all. It is possible that in this Merula has committed a fraud, which is
quite in the manner of his time. The detached verses which he quotes
from Nævius and Ennius, are to my belief suspicious without exception.
Those from Nævius are decidedly spurious; for in their case, he was
ignorant of the rhythm. The verses of Ennius are hexameters; but they
nowhere bear the stamp of genuineness, like his other fragments. Why
has not Merula copied and edited that MS., if indeed he entertained any
misgivings that it might be purloined?
Not long after the time of Ennius, whom we rightly reckon among the
Roman historians, Roman history began to be written in Latin prose;
and the first work of this kind was the most important which has
ever been composed on the history of ancient Italy, viz. the Origines
of the elder Cato. They show that Cato had indeed found out the only
right way of treating Roman history. He wrote not the history of the
Romans only, but also that of Italy. As he described the widening the
Roman sway in Italy, he seems to have told the history of each Italic
people separately. We know from Nepos the plan of his seven books.
In the first, there was the history of the kings; in the second and
third, the subjugation of Italy; in the fourth book, the first, and in
the fifth, the second Punic war; in the sixth and seventh, the later
wars down to the time with which he concluded. Cato was a great man
in every respect, he rose far above his age. Of his work we have many
detached quotations; but of real extracts we have only one in Gellius,
viz. the passage of the Tribune Q. Cædicius, which is from the second
Punic war, and consequently belongs to the fourth book. It shows Cato’s
peculiar manner of writing; and we understand from it why Cicero, who
on the whole vacillates between praise and censure with regard to Cato,
distinguishes him above all his contemporaries. He wrote about the year
600. In Livy there is a strange anachronism in the discussions about
the _lex Oppia_, when, in the year 561, the tribune cites against Cato
his Origines. But so slavish was formerly the belief in Livy, that
the most positive information was less considered than that passage.
Gerh. Jo. Vossius is the first who points out that Livy was here most
likely rather speaking himself. What we have from the work of Cato is
unfortunately very little, but all of it excellent. This book and that
of Fabius are by far the most important accounts which we might wish
for Roman history. His work stands alone in the whole collection of
Roman annals.
A short time after Cato, about the time of the destruction of Carthage,
the history of Rome was written by L. Cassius Hemina, of whose work we
have historical quotations in the Grammarians. Several writers call
him _antiquissimus auctor_, which is not said of Piso and others. He
had concerning Alba still the old native chronology: the earlier times
of Rome he made to synchronize with Grecian history. He began from the
very earliest times; and, what was indeed quite different from all the
annalists, from before the foundation of the city. One finds of him
several things concerning the Sicilian towns in Latium; from whence
it would appear that the archæology of the towns was his principal
object. As to his style we may form an idea of it from a single larger
fragment: it is worse than that of Cato. The fourth book, according to
Priscian, had for its title _Bellum Punicum Posterior_; consequently
at the time when he wrote the third war had not yet begun. The secular
festival, 607 according to Varro, he has indeed mentioned; yet it may
have been quite at the end of his work. We must not, however, believe
that his history consisted of four books only; as the whole of the
fourth was taken up by the second Punic war, and thus there must have
been at the very least five or six of them.
From that time, history was written repeatedly, and therefore no
original way of treating the subject is any more to be thought of.
The _Rhetores Latini_ have surely made use of the books which then
existed, and have besides consulted the ancient annals. How far this
may have been the case with each of them in particular is indeed no
more to be decided; but on the whole we shall not be mistaken in this
supposition. It is in this time that the Fabius Pictor is to be placed,
whom Cicero mentions in his work--de Oratore. He was a learned writer:
his work entitled _Res Gestæ_, seems to have been very diffuse, as it
mentions the burning of the city by the Gauls in the fourth book; yet
the number of the books is unknown. No fragment of any import has been
preserved of it. His name was Servius, or perhaps Sextus; for in the
Brutus of Cicero Ser. Fulvius, and then Ser. Fabius is spoken of, whom
he terms _juris pontificii peritissimus_. Yet the books de Oratore and
Brutus, which seem to have such an excellent text, are corrupted in
many little passages, which a clever copyist of the sixteenth century
furbished up. Of the books de Oratore, only one old manuscript has
been found in Milan, which is particularly indistinct. The Brutus
does not fare better: none of the manuscripts date higher than 1430.
There is therefore much doubt about the names in these books. A MS.
at Heidelberg has Serius Fabius, and it is probable that it ought to
be Sextus, as the prænomen Servius is unheard of in the family of the
Fabii. Perhaps this Pictor is the same as he who in a fragment quoted
is called Fabius Maximus Servilianus, since he at least belonged to
that time. The fragment refers to the arrival of Æneas.
Here I also mention the tedious Cn. Gellius, a credulous, uncritical,
and second-rate writer. The time when he lived is uncertain. Vossius
conjectures that he is the very same against whom Cato the Censor made
a speech; but we have fragments of his which do not seem to tally with
such an early period. Much rather should he be placed in the second
half of the seventh century; partly on account of his style, and partly
because he already criticizes, and tries to make the improbabilities
of the old tradition more credible by small but dishonest alterations.
The numbers of his books, as they were quoted, betoken an immense
prolixity. Charisius cites the ninety-seventh book, and that distinctly
written in full letters in the Neapolitan original Codex. Other
citations do not go beyond the thirtieth book.
Cicero mentions after Pictor an annalist, Vennonius, of whom we have
only one passage in Dionysius, referring to the history of the kings.
He therefore most likely wrote annals from the building of the city. In
that fragment, he shows himself to be a man without judgment; which
also corresponds with Cicero’s unfavourable opinion of his manner of
writing.
An author whose period we cannot fix with certainty, is L. Calpurnius
Piso Frugi Censorius, an opponent of C. Gracchus, a supporter of the
aristocratical party, but an honest one. The time of his censorship
occurs between the tribunates of the two Gracchi, and he may have
written his history not long afterwards. He has quite a peculiar
character. He wished to bring the old historical matter, which his
predecessors unconcernedly rendered just as they found it in ancient
poems and Fasti, into the consistency of an actual possibility, and
thus to fashion out a true history by cutting off the improbabilities.
He finds, for instance, that Tarquinius Superbus could not possibly
have been the son of Tarquinius Priscus; and so without any further
ado, he makes him at once his grandson. He is also startled at the
fact of Tarpeia’s having had a tomb on the Capitol; not considering
that she was a Sabine heroine to whom such a tomb had been erected
on the Capitol,[13] as Tatius had a monument on another hill. He is
therefore the original author of all those falsifications,--a sad prosy
undertaking which Cn. Gellius also has entered into. That magnificent
story of Curtius he explains thus, that a warrior with his charger had
been swallowed up in a gulf on the same spot, which could only have
happened when Romulus and Tatius were waging war against each other;
and that Curtius must therefore have been a Sabine general. It does not
occur to him, that a whole army cannot find a footing in a place where
the general sinks down. In the same spirit, it has once been attempted
to change the northern Sagas into history; and there were people who
affected to see in the struggle of the Nibelungen an historical war
of the Burgundians. A similar course was adopted forty or fifty years
ago with regard to the interpretation of the New Testament. The title
of Piso’s book was _Annales_. He was a plodding man; for it is to be
seen that he has made use of sources like the Fasti and such like. The
number of his books is undecided. In his third book, he treats of Cn.
Flavius (450); in the seventh, of the year 516. He came down to his own
times, since he mentions the Secular Games of the year 607.
In the course of the same century, several historical books were
written. I do not, however, mean to speak here of those who merely
composed a history of their own time, but of such only who wrote the
entire Roman history. Among these, there were in Cicero’s youth,
about the period when the books _ad Herennium_ were written, 680, or
rather about the date of Cicero’s consulship, two who wrote a general
Roman history, Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, and Q. Valerius Antias. Both
of them, according to Velleius, are later than Cœlius Antipater and
than the older contemporaries of Sisenna. They wrote after the time
of Sylla. Quadrigarius belongs to those authors who, in later times,
after the restoration of the older literature, were frequently read.
He forms, as did Cassius Hemina, an exception to the general rule,
according to which the annalists commenced from the building of the
city. Whilst the latter went yet much farther back than this, Claudius
began his history with the destruction of the city by the Gauls. We
have of him some considerable fragments from which this is evident.
For, in the numerous fragments of his first book, much is told of the
Gallic war; likewise the beginning of the war against the Samnites,--we
have even the battle near Caudium; one of them alludes to the end of
the third Samnite war; and all this not cursorily. As therefore he
comprehended in it a period so ample and rich in incidents, he could
not have had room for the older history. Another argument for our
assertion, is a statement of Plutarch, that a certain Clodius (Kλώδιος)
said that nothing whatever could be grounded upon the older Roman
accounts; as owing to the calamitous invasion, the old documents had
been destroyed, and all that remained was merely the production of
family vanity. In the second, or third book, he speaks of Pyrrhus; in
the fifth and sixth, of Hannibal; in the eighth, of Tiberius Gracchus
the father; in the thirteenth, of Metellus; in the nineteenth, of
Marius: there are quotations from him as far as the twenty-third book.
His history was brought down to about the time of Cicero’s consulship.
Fragments, in which we may clearly recognise the unwieldiness of
language of these old annalists in general, in whose writings regularly
constructed periods[14] are not yet at all to be thought of, are found
in Gellius; and they fully justify Cicero’s opinion with regard to
the old writers. The Chronicles of Cologne and Limburg are for the
most part much better written. Little was therefore read of Roman
prose writers before Sallust and Livy. Gellius finds the old writers
pleasant; which may be accounted for by the fact that the taste of his
time was completely palled, so that it now betook itself to highly
spiced dishes, and then to ice. Let only the fragment of Claudius
in Gellius[15] be consulted. The golden age of Roman literature was
certainly under Augustus, as that of the French was in the days of
Louis XIV.; but precisely because this was its first blossom, the
thoughts and ideas were more simple, the language more calm, and in
some respects having greater breadth and fulness. Afterwards spirit
rather, and wit, were called forth into existence; every thing was
required to be expressed, and was expressed, in more terse, polished,
and pointed language. Thus the time down to Tacitus was like the age
of Louis XV. in France. But now, when the Romans carried every thing
to the highest pitch, this manner of thinking and writing was also
overstrained: it was still to be made more and more pointed, more
polished, and more witty; and then they reached that extreme which
borders very closely upon what is absolutely spiritless and insipid.
At this period lived Gellius, a very clever man, who was so tired of
this tendency of his age, that he had no more feeling for the better
literature preceding it, and turned to the earliest times, in which he
found a relish.
Valerius Antias is of all the Roman historians certainly the most
untrue, the only one who can be directly taxed with falsehood. Livy
says of him, _adeo mentiendi nullus modus est_, and _si Valerio Antiati
credere libet_. He knows the most circumstantial details of the old
times, and is always inclined to exaggerate without bounds, especially
with regard to numbers. His fictions have a character quite different
from the older ones. The numbers of the latter are not at all meant
to deceive any one; they merely mention a number (e. g. sexcenti,
μύριοι, _ter centum tonat ore deus_ in Virgil,) in order to denote an
indefinite quantity. This poetical mingling of what is definite with
what is seemingly indefinite, every where pervades the Roman legends.
Thus the thirty Sabine maidens are in fact no definite number, but
an equivalent to _many_. Valerius Antias, for his part, has five
hundred and forty-seven. Thus he has written an immense huge work,
in the latter portion of which especially he becomes quite prolix;
nevertheless he has not been able to compose a circumstantial and
lively narrative, but has drily recorded the detached incidents. He
is cited as far as the seventy-fifth book. In the second, he mentions
Numa; and in the twelfth, the tribune Tib. Gracchus. Fragments, from
which we might judge of his style, are not extant.
One might be inclined to take this Valerius for a _gentilis_ of the
Maximi and Poplicolæ. He might have been so in the widest sense; but
he did not belong to the gens of the patrician Valerii. In the war of
Hannibal, one meets with a L. Valerius Antias, who probably was a
citizen of Antium. From him our annalist may have descended.
It is strange, that although Livy himself repeatedly acknowledges the
untrustworthiness of Valerius Antias, there are nevertheless in his own
first book some passages which he can only have taken from him.
All these authors had still something old-fashioned in their manner,
and stood in the same relation to the later ones as the German writers
in the beginning of the eighteenth century did to those who came out at
the time of the seven years’ war.
Towards the end of the seventh century, after all these authors, who
were very much of the same cast, there appeared C. Licinius Macer,--the
father of the orator and poet Calvus, who flourished at the same period
as Catullus, about the year 700,--a distinguished and original writer.
His tribunate dates about 680, before Pompey’s first consulate. Of
the character of his works, we may form a sufficient estimate from
the quotations in Livy and Dionysius. He did what only two before
him had done; he wrote history from documents, and may have retained
much belonging to those times, which the later writers have left out,
because it did not agree with the idea which they had formed, and with
the generally received statements in the Fasti and elsewhere. Pliny
frequently mentions him among his sources; and certainly the treaty of
Porsena with the Romans, which we read in Pliny, was taken from him. In
the introduction to the books _de Legibus_, Cicero speaks unfavourably
of him; and he may have partly been justified in asserting that as an
author he had by no means deserved the praise which is due to him as a
critic. When we Germans praise Mascov[16] as the first who has written
a history of Germany, we do not mean by it to assert that his work was
a perfect history. Yet Cicero perhaps gave an unfavourable judgment
for this reason also, that Macer and he belonged to different political
parties; Macer having had a considerable share in the restoration of
the tribunician power. The State had at that time lost its soundness,
and was in that condition, in which people see the lesser evil to be on
one of the two sides, very much as is now the case in France (1828).
The loss of the history of Macer is very highly to be regretted.
A speech in the fragments of Sallust’s History shows an accurate
knowledge of the old constitution, which Sallust cannot be given
credit for. He is quoted to the sixteenth book. How many books he has
written is undecided: he may have begun from the earliest times, and he
probably went on as far as his own.
An historian of the old constitution is Junius Gracchanus, a friend
of C. Gracchus, which accounts for his cognomen. Gracchus exercised a
marked influence upon many, and especially on younger men. Both of the
brothers were men of a deeply earnest heart. Gracchanus has written the
history of the constitution; and, quoting the yearly dates, has given
a description of the changes which it had undergone. He is often cited
in the law books, in Ulpian, in Censorinus, in Tacitus, and elsewhere.
The era of the beginning of the consulship, which is particularly used
by Lydus _de Magistratibus_, who has derived it from Gaius’ commentary
on the twelve tables, originates undeniably with Gracchanus.[17] He has
drawn from the most authentic sources, and is deserving of unlimited
confidence, as I can assert with the firmest conviction.
Of Fenestella nothing is quoted that refers to the earlier ages: it
seems therefore that he did not treat of Roman history in its full
extent.
Among the _Scriptores Minores Rerum Romanarum_, there is a book, _Origo
Gentis Romanæ_, attributed to Victor. In this most of the earlier
annalists are quoted; also the _Annales Maximi_ (even for the settling
of Æneas), Sextus Gellius, Domitius, Egnatius, M. Octavius; and authors
besides, who occur nowhere else. Andreas Schottus has first edited it.
From the similarity of the book to the writings of Fulgentius, of the
Scholiast on Ibis, and other commentators of the time, who likewise
cite known and unknown writers, one might be induced to place the
author in the same period, namely, the fifth or sixth century. But
the whole of the book is a fabrication of more modern times; not by
Schottus himself, but by a forger, of whom indeed there were so many
towards the end of the fifteenth century. Messala also, Fenestella
_De Magistratibus_, and others in that collection, date from the same
period. Octavius may have been got at second hand by the author from
the Scholiast of Horace; and Sextus Gellius from Dionysius, who says,
“I write, what the Gellii and others have written.” The quotations from
Cato in this book are in direct contradiction to the most positive
evidence which we have with regard to Cato in Servius and others.
This was the state of Roman history in the time of Cicero. During
Cæsar’s stay in Gaul, Q. Ælius Tubero, a friend of Cicero, wrote the
Roman annals anew. He was with Q. Cicero as legate in Asia; he belonged
to the party of the Optimates, and was a very honest man. Livy cites
his history from the earliest times. What is quoted of him, gives an
impression of his respectability as a historian; though it is evident
from it, that he no longer knew the old style of language, and that he
did not see the difference between the institutions of his own day and
those of primitive times. He too made use of documents; but he was not
to be compared with Macer in importance, unless he has been wronged by
those who are our authorities.
Atticus’ annals seem to have been only tables; but a very valuable
work. Quotations, however, from them we read nowhere; so that we may
infer, that in all likelihood there were many such books of which we
know nothing.[18]
In that introduction of wondrous beauty to his books _De Legibus_,
Cicero speaks of having been asked to write the Roman history, as
a duty the fulfilment of which his country expected from him. He
expresses himself on the subject in such a manner, as clearly to show
that he would certainly have liked the work, but that indeed he had
never thought of it in right earnest. Had he done so, we may, without
losing sight of the reverence due to so great a man, assert, that he
would have taken upon himself a task for which he was quite unsuited.
From the books _De Republica_, we see with how incredibly little
previous reading he set about the description of the constitution. He
seems not to have made any use of Gracchanus; but to have derived his
knowledge chiefly from Polybius, and perhaps from Atticus. His proper
calling was that of a statesman, and not of a scholar.
Many authors are yet to be mentioned; Antipater, Fannius, Polybius,
Posidonius, Rutilius, Lucullus, Scaurus, and others, part of whom have
written in Greek.[19]
Sallust found the Roman history in a neglected state; he expresses
himself to that effect in his Catiline, and says, that it would be a
task for a man, who had the capacity for writing it. And he would have
had the capacity; but the Romans had no more a Roman history than we
have a German one. Sallust was a busy practical man, who would not, and
could not devote his life to the immense preparatory studies, which
were required for it. He therefore wisely chose to write detached parts
of Roman history, which were perhaps intended at a future period to
form a whole. Thus he wrote the history of Jugurtha, in which it was
his main object to point out to his readers the reaction in favour
of the crushed popular party against the aristocrats, who had so
shamefully abused their victory. He therefore is careful to show how
Rome then in every respect was full of rottenness within. His histories
began from the time after Sylla’s death, and described the revolution
against Sylla’s ill-judged counter-revolution, and the struggle of
Sertorius. Catiline’s conspiracy is to prove, what consummate ruffians,
after all, those partisans of Sylla were, who called themselves the
_optimates_, the _boni_.
Between the time of Jugurtha and the consulate of Lepidus, the
historical work of Sisenna formed the connecting link. With this
Sallust no doubt was satisfied; otherwise he would have treated also of
that period.
The great change in the Roman world under Augustus had taken place;
the history of the republic was brought to a close. It was believed
that nothing more was to be hoped from constitutional forms and their
development, but that the great mass of the state was to be kept
together by outward force. After such a catastrophe, history appears
altogether in a different light, and is written in a different spirit.
In these times, just as in Greece after the downfall of the Athenian
state, many historians come forth before the public. After Cæsar’s
death, Diodorus Siculus wrote, to whom the Roman history is merely
a secondary affair. It is probable, that Timæus also in his history
of Italy and Sicily had interwoven the Roman one; though not beyond
a very early period. Diodorus had the idea, which none but a prosaic
mind could have conceived, of writing the whole of ancient history in
synchronistical order; first in large periods, and then year by year,
down to the consulate of Cæsar, when the latter commenced the Gallic
war. He concludes before the civil war, in order to avoid the offence,
which he might have given by his narration to one or the other of the
two parties. And it was besides a very convenient break; as in all
probability he wrote his work before the conclusion of the troubles.
That he composed his history after the death of Cæsar, is evident from
the introduction, in which he mentions that event, and calls Cæsar
_Divus_. Scaliger had the unfortunate idea of arguing from the passage
I, 68 that Diodorus had written as late as 746, that therefore he had
left off fifty years before his own time. This opinion passed from
Scaliger into the work of Vossius _De Historicis Græcis et Latinis_,
and from the latter into the _Bibliotheca Græca_ of Fabricius. That
passage states concerning the Olympiads, that these were a period
of four years which the Romans called _bissextum_; and from this
Scaliger infers, that he could not have written before 746, because at
that time Augustus had fixed the _intercalatio_ at four years. This
interpretation is most ingenious; but the passage is an interpolation,
as some of the earlier and all the later commentators have remarked,
so that Wesseling entirely expunges it from the text. The term χρόνος
for year, which occurs there, is modern Greek; just as _tempus_ instead
of _annus_ is met with after the fifth century. Diodorus is an author
whose writings have been falsified. These forgeries were made in the
age of the restoration of literature, when manuscripts were much sought
after, and dearly paid for. There are for the most part omissions; and
from the eleventh to the twentieth book he now and then gives fasti,
which do not in the least agree with those which we have. The names in
them are often not to be recognised at all. All his accounts of the
earliest times he probably had from Fabius. Where Polybius begins, he
may have made use of him down to the year 608; and he may also have had
Posidonius, Rutilius, Sylla and Lucullus.
We now come to the two great authors, who were contemporary writers of
Roman history. Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his introduction gives
a full account of his circumstances and his works. He came to Rome
after the conclusion of the civil wars, and published his history, 743
according to Cato, (745 according to Varro). He calls himself the son
of Alexander of Halicarnassus, and was a rhetorician. His rhetorical
writings belong to the earlier time of his life. These are of all the
Greek rhetorical works the most excellent, those of Aristotle alone
excepted. They are full of fine remarks, and are the produce of an
amiable mind and an exquisite taste: it is only a pity that they should
have been handed down in such a corrupt state. He is very likely to be
the same person whom Strabo[20] mentions under the name of Cæcilius.
We cannot wonder at this; for if he obtained the Roman citizenship, he
was obliged to assume the name of a Roman _gens_. It can hardly mean
Atticus, who indeed, but extremely seldom, is called by the name of
Cæcilius. In the lives also of the ten orators, which are found among
Plutarch’s Biographies, the name of Cæcilius occurs, which some took to
be that of the quæstor Cæcilius, who was in Sicily under Verres, but
which seems likewise to mean Dionysius; for all that is quoted of him
we find in Dionysius. It is true, that the facts, which we now read in
Dionysius, may also have been contained in others; yet the supposition,
which we have put forth, is a very probable one, as indeed Josephus
also is frequently called Flavius.
His history comprises, in twenty books, the period from the earliest
times to the beginning of the first Punic war. It does not go further,
either because Polybius,--for whom he has, however, no particular
liking,--begins with that period, or because the much-read history of
Fabius rises here into greater importance. The first ten books are
complete; the eleventh is in a very corrupt state. Extracts from the
others are found in the collections of Constantinus Porphyrogenitus
_De Virtutibus et Vitiis_, and _De Legationibus_; and also in a
collection ἐκλογαὶ Διονυσίου τοῦ Ἁλικαρνασσέως, which is met with in
several libraries, but is dreadfully mutilated. Mai has published them
from a Milanese manuscript; Montfaucon had already directed attention
to them. I respect and acknowledge the merits of Mai; but he has an
unfortunate vanity, and thus I believe, that he has intentionally
foreborn to mention, that here he has been led into the right path by
Montfaucon, conduct for which he has been taken to task by Ciampi.
Yet this is merely a secondary question. The collection itself mostly
consists of unconnected sentences, remnants perhaps of books of Const.
Porphyrogenitus, which have not come down to us. The advantage gained
from this discovery is at all events very considerable. Dionysius
himself had made an abridgment of his work in five books, to which Mai
quite wrongly wants to have those extracts referred. As to the first
ten books, there are more very old manuscripts of them extant than of
any other ancient author. The Chigi manuscript is of the tenth, that of
the Vatican of the eleventh century; the former is kept by Fea locked
up from all visitors,--it has been imperfectly collated by Amati, but
the result has never been published, nor would he sell it to me; the
Vatican codex has been made use of by Hudson. The eleventh book is only
to be found in copies which are quite modern. Ever since the old books
were no more written on rolls, those which were voluminous had stated
divisions. Thus the Pandects, the Theodosian Code, Livy also, were
originally divided into decades; and in all likelihood Dionysius too.
Of these, the first volume has been preserved entire. Of the second,
a copy very probably long existed;--Photius was acquainted with it
still;--yet only a few leaves of it have come into the hands of the
first Greek copyists. The text is much more corrupt than that of the
first half.
Dionysius was first printed by Robert Stephens, and indeed from a very
bad manuscript. He had already before that been generally read in a
Latin translation. A Florentine, Lapus[21] Biragus, translated him
from a very good manuscript, probably a Roman one, in the time of Pope
Sextus IV., who has done very great services to ancient literature.
But Lapus was a bungling translator, with a very scanty knowledge of
Greek; as also were Petrus Candidus, Raphael Volaterranus, Leonardus
Aretinus. But the works of these men were much read; and to us they are
of importance, because they represent the manuscripts which they made
use of.[22] Sylburg has very judiciously used the translation of Lapus.
It agrees almost throughout with the Vatican manuscript. H. Glareanus
revised again the version of Lapus, and, as he states, corrected it in
six thousand places. He likewise availed himself of a manuscript. S.
Gelenius of Cologne made a new translation, and one far better than
those of his predecessors. He too may serve as a manuscript. Now was
the text itself first published. The second edition is that of Sylburg,
1586, one of the most excellent elucidations of an ancient author any
where to be found. He had, as it seems, an incomplete collation of
the Venetian manuscript; but beside that the translations only. It
is a pity that Sylburg should not have restored the text, with the
means which he possessed in his apparatus, and in his eminent talent
for conjecturing. The annotations are done in a masterly style; and
added to this moreover was the double work of a matchless philological
index, and of an historical one almost as perfect. No editor has done
as much for his author as Sylburg did for Dionysius. Sylburg is not
yet sufficiently appreciated. This work, his Etymologicum Magnum, his
Pausanias, his Clement of Alexandria, bear evidence that in the faculty
of conjecturing, and in profound knowledge of the language, he was
not inferior to any one philologian of the first renown, not even to
J. Fr. Gronovius himself. He has contributed much to the Thesaurus of
Henry Stephens. Particularly important, besides, is his edition and
translation of the Syntaxis of Apollonius. His edition of Dionysius,
which was published by Wechel at Frankfort, is rare. A reprint of it
was made at Leipsic 1691. After Sylburg follows Hudson’s edition, 1704.
Hudson was a friend of Dodwell, and passed in England for an eminent
philologian. Bentley was at that time run down, as being a Whig; and
therefore the whole University of Oxford had conspired against him, and
opposed to him Hudson, whom they lauded as a great classical scholar.
But Hudson was a sad bungler. He has not done the least thing for his
_Geographi Græci Minores_, just as Reiz did nothing for Lucian. Hudson
had a collation of the excellent Vatican Codex of Dionysius, which
is in the notes, but of which he made no use at all. The edition is
beautifully printed. Sylburg’s annotations are for the most part not
given, or else mutilated. But the book enjoyed some fame in Germany,
and a bookseller of Leipsic had it reprinted. When the first volume
was nearly finished, the publisher applied for the correction of the
proof sheets to Reiske. The latter was a friend of my father, and I
have a high regard for him; but I am not blind to his defects for all
that. His mind was extremely versatile, he had an admirable talent for
conjecture; but he was too hasty. He had previously only read Dionysius
once; whilst correcting, he inserted into the text readings from the
Vatican manuscript, sometimes also his own emendations, of which he
gives an account at the conclusion. Yet they are often very unhappy,
although now and then very spirited. In Grimme’s Synopsis nothing
has been done for criticism. If I could get a collation of the Chigi
manuscript, I might perhaps undertake some day to make a critical
edition of Dionysius.
It prepossesses us in favour of Dionysius, who shows himself in his
rhetorical writings to have been a man of fine judgment, that, as
he tells us, he had devoted twenty-two years to that work; that he
had learned the Latin language, and made researches into the annals.
His history, which now reaches down only a little beyond the time of
the decemvirs, extended, as already observed, to the beginning of the
first Punic war; at which period Timæus also left off, and Polybius
began. He was befriended by many distinguished Romans, and wrote with
a true veneration for the greatness of the Roman people. The name of
Archæology appears new in him. When we see that his history does not
give in eleven books more than Livy’s does in three; that he takes up
a whole book with what happened before the building of the city, and
treats of the earliest times so much at length; this prolixity excites
our mistrust not only of the credibility, but also of the judgment
of the author. As far as regards this point, it is not to be denied
that Dionysius has chosen a plan of which we cannot approve. Not to
mention that he looks upon the time of the kings as historical, he made
a mistake when he undertook to treat history pragmatically from the
very earliest times. Yet the more carefully we examine the work, the
more worthy of respect Dionysius appears to us, and the more we find
his book to be a treasury of the most sterling information. As such it
has been first acknowledged by genuine criticism only; before that, it
was cried down as a tissue of absurdities. Setting his imperfections
aside, we cannot indeed assign too high a rank to Dionysius, as a
treasure of ancient history providentially preserved to us. He has
borrowed, if not directly, at least indirectly, from the old law books
and annalists; and without him we should not know any thing of the
most important changes, to which, however, too often he only lends
personifications. The careful use which he made of his sources renders
him invaluable. Even the matter of his speeches he took from the old
annalists; many circumstances at least, which were contained in them,
and which he could not receive into the context of his history, he has
introduced in his harangues, so that the latter, in which elsewhere
the arbitrary fancy of the historian seems to prevail, often retain
the traces of tradition. Thus, when there is a rising of the people,
these words occur in the speech of a patrician, “If there is no more
help for it, why should we not, rather than humble ourselves before
these plebeians, grant Isopolity to the Latins?” Now this Isopolity,
as we must take it for granted, is in the subsequent peace imparted
to the Latins, which is, however, not mentioned in Dionysius. This
is one of the passages in which he introduced a notice found in the
annalists, on the occasion of the conclusion of the peace, as subject
matter into a speech. Only we must discriminate between his mistakes,
and the substance of the valuable information which he gives. If he
had succeeded in comprehending the language of Fabius, all would have
been correct; but he understood the Greek language as it was current
in his own time, and thence all his mistakes arose. He has lost the
clue in the history of the development of the Roman constitution: he
is not aware of the difference between δῆμος and ὅμιλος, but he gives
all, though it appears to him a riddle, and tries to find a solution.
That he is a rhetorician and not a statesman, we indeed see only too
clearly. In his criticism he is faulty, but, for all that, not bad: he
was a very clear-headed man. With very little exception his language is
correct and well suited to its purpose. What we may object to in him,
are the harangues, in which the distinctness of individual character
is entirely lost; an ill-timed imitation of those of Thucydides. I
have worked through this author from my early youth, as no one perhaps
has done since he has written, and I may say that I entertain infinite
respect and veneration for him; and I am convinced that except in the
speeches and pragmatical reflections, he has not by any means invented
or intentionally omitted anything. He worked out his sources, it is
true, without selection, and cared only for the abundance of the
materials which were offered to him. Nothing is more unjust than the
opinion formerly entertained, that all that Dionysius had more than
Livy was merely the invention of his brain.
About the same time, 743 according to Cato, and 745 according to Varro,
Livy began to write. That he commenced so late seems authenticated.
He was born 693 according to Cato, in the consulship of the great
Cæsar, at Patavium, and lived during the reign of Tiberius, until 772
according to Cato (774 according to Varro), A.D. 20. Livy commenced
his career as a rhetorician. Of his early life nothing is known. He
has written on rhetoric also. There are several grounds for fixing the
period in which he began to compose his history at so late a date. His
first decade has been called the work of his youth, but the following
proofs are against it. Mentioning Numa, he speaks of Augustus as the
restorer of all the temples, consequently after 730; moreover he talks
of the closing of the temple of Janus, of the building of the temple
of Jupiter Feretrius, and he names Cæsar Augustus in relating the war
of Cossus. Dodwell very seldom hits upon the right conclusion, but
in this point we must agree with him. In his _Annales Velleiani_ he
remarks, that from the manner in which Livy wrote about Spain, it is
evident that that country had already then been conquered by Augustus.
The ninth book is of later date than the campaign of Drusus; for he
says in it concerning the _Silva Ciminia_, that it had been just as
impassable _quam nuper fuere Germanici saltus_, and the latter were
first entered by Domitius Ahenobarbus and Drusus after 740 only. It
might be attempted to make this out to be a later revision; but it
is easy to tell what books are written in one flow of the pen, and
which are revised, and those of Livy undoubtedly belong to the former
sort.--It is in accordance with our supposition, that Dionysius did
not know him; for if a book written in such a masterly style as that
of Livy had existed, Dionysius could not have been ignorant of it;
and it would then have been impossible also for him to complain of the
utter want of any thing like the working out of the materials of Roman
history. In the last books of the first decade, on the other hand, we
find several traces that Livy had known Dionysius. From the _Excerpta
de Legationibus_ we learn, in what manner Dionysius treated the second
Samnite war; the relation of it by Livy cannot possibly have been taken
from Roman Annals, but from Greek sources, especially the account how
Naples fell into the power of the Romans, which Dionysius seems to
have got from a Neapolitan Chronicle. Livy could not know the latter
himself, and yet he gives a circumstantial description of the event. He
must therefore have had a Greek source, and this is certainly no other
than Dionysius. The comparison also of the might of Alexander with that
of Rome leads to the same conclusion. And certainly the histories of
Pyrrhus king of Epirus, and of the plundering expedition of Cleonymus,
are likewise from the Greek; so much the rather, as Livy here calls
the Sallentines Messapians,[23] probably because he did not know that
this was the Greek name for the Sallentines. Already from the eighth
book, Livy must have made use of Dionysius.--Let no one say that his
history has too much freshness for it to be deemed the work of an old
man: this depends entirely upon the character of the individual. He
had yet, even with his mode of working, nearly thirty years’ time for
the accomplishment of his immense undertaking. That he did not cut
it off where it finishes, but that he died before he had reached his
goal, is evident from several circumstances. His history consisted of a
hundred and forty-two books, and ended with the death of Drusus without
any marked close. The feeling against disproportion in a division
by numbers was among the ancients quite decided and developed, and
therefore the number itself bears witness to the books not having been
completed. There can be no question, but that the division into decades
is an original one, and we might see it yet more clearly if we had the
second decade left. Even the Greek word _decas_ would not have been
invented in later times. The twentieth book must have been double the
size of the rest, in order that the war with Hannibal might not begin
with the twenty-second book. At the end of the war with Hannibal, the
books are extremely short, in order that it might finish with the
thirtieth book. He cannot therefore have intended to close the work in
the middle of a decade. At least the epitome reaches only as far as
book 142, so that at all events we should be obliged to assume, that
as two books in the middle, thus also at the conclusion some are still
wanting.
When we attentively consider the work of Livy, we find it written in
an astonishingly uneven style. The several decades essentially differ
from each other, and in the first decade, the first book from the rest.
This one is the very perfection of his manner, and shows how matchless
he would have been, had his history been more condensed. Throughout the
first decade, a high strain of eloquence prevails. In the third, the
monotony of the events constantly checks its display; yet beautifully
written are the battles on the Trasimene Lake, and at Cannæ. Here,
however, is the turning point. In the fourth, the prolixity gains
ground more and more, in which traces of extreme old age are to be
recognised. The more freely Livy relates, the more beautiful is his
composition. The fourth decade is far below the third; in the fourth
and fifth he has to a great extent paraphrased Polybius. He could not
have chosen better with regard to credibility; but here he is hurried,
and it happens also that he contradicts himself, and that, telling the
same things twice over, he becomes prolix, which he never is in the
first and third decades. But particularly remarkable is the fragment
from the ninety-first book; which is written in such a manner, that if
it were not inscribed _T. Livî liber XCI_, and that some circumstances
bore evidence for it, one would not take it for a work of Livy. Here
we understand how the old grammarians could have reproached him with
tautology and palilology;[24] here we see how a great writer may
become old and garrulous. If the second decade had not been lost also,
it would be easy to explain how the later ones have perished, viz.
by their being excluded from the grammatical schools. His preface is
characteristic, belonging to the worst parts of the whole work, whilst
on the contrary the introductions in those great practical historians,
Thucydides, Sallust, Tacitus, are masterpieces. This is to be explained
from the fact, that Livy began without being conscious of any definite
object, and those other writers with a bold stroke of the pencil drew
the results of long lucubration.
It is evident that when Livy commenced his work, he was far from being
well versed in Roman history; he had read some of the old books, and
he may have been, compared with others, well acquainted with ancient
history: but he was entirely deficient in general and comprehensive
historical knowledge. He wrote it, as he himself states in the preface,
from the pleasure which he took in history, and for consolation in a
cheerless and most gloomy period; the rising generation were to be
refreshed with the remembrance of the glorious times of old; after
having once resolved upon this work, he had set about it in the first
exultation of enthusiasm. In writing the history of the kings, he
apparently followed Ennius. We perceive that clearly it is consistent,
and of a piece. As he went on, he gradually got hold of more authors,
but always a very limited number. As in Dionysius every thing is
connected, so in Livy all is isolated. He had not at all made it his
task to write a learned and scrupulously sifted history. With foreign
histories he is altogether unacquainted. He could not have written
that the Carthaginians first came to Sicily in 324, if he had known
that fifty years before they had already undertaken their first great
expedition thither. That of Alexander of Epirus would, according to
him, have lasted eighteen years. He also mistakes Heraclitus, Philip’s
ambassador to Hannibal, for the philosopher of the same name.
The ancients were generally in the habit of dictating their works;
this is to be seen in none more clearly than in Livy. He worked out
each of the years separately; and very often the later ones are in
contradiction to those which go before, so that we find that he did
not even once submit the whole to a connected revision. Fabius,
Valerius Antias, Tubero, and Quadrigarius,--whether this last from
the beginning cannot be ascertained,--are the authors whom he made
use of; and perhaps, though I doubt it, Cato’s _Origines_ also. He
read himself, or had some one to read to him, the events of a year,
and then dictated his narrative from it, taking one annalist in
preference as his groundwork; and therefore in most cases there are
no contradictions in the history of the same year. As he went on, he
got hold of authors whom he had not known originally; for instance,
the _Annales Pontificum_ for the first time just before the end of
the first decade, Polybius not earlier than the middle of the war
of Hannibal. The account of the siege of Saguntum, which is so poor
in incident, and that of the passage of Hannibal over the Alps,
would surely have been differently told by him, if instead of Cœlius
Antipater, he had availed himself of Polybius. It was only when he
reached the history of Philip of Macedon, that he looked into Polybius;
in the fourth decade, he translates from him every thing that he has
not taken from the next annalists concerning the internal affairs of
Rome. Thus he certainly had before him Posidonius after Polybius, and
then the Memoirs of Rutilius and of Sylla; in later times, perhaps
Asinius Pollio, Theophanes, and others. The farther he advanced, the
nearer he came to the work for which he was really fitted, only he
had unfortunately become old in the meanwhile. The delineation of the
character of Cicero from Livy in M. Seneca’s _Suasoria_, is done in
a masterly style. One is more and more convinced how richly Livy was
endowed with a talent for description and narration of the kind which
we prize in the novelists of our time. What he is utterly deficient
in, is comprehensiveness of view. He often takes from an annalist an
account, which presupposes quite different circumstances from those
which he himself has set forth. Wherever he wants to give a summary,
one sees that what a little while since he had written, nay, even what
he had quite close before him, was not at all present to his mind.
Thus the enumeration of the nations which fell off immediately after
the battle of Cannæ is entirely wrong, there being several among them
who only revolted some years afterwards. He shows himself to be no
critic in the war of Hannibal, where he repeats the tales which Cœlius
Antipater only could have devised; and moreover we find in him an
entire absence of judgment with regard to an event and the actors in
it, whether they were right or wrong. In early life, he was on Pompey’s
side; that is to say, a partisan of that chaos which had grown up out
of the Roman constitution. He was then very young, being only ten years
old when Cæsar came to Italy. This bygone time before the dictatorship
of Cæsar, appeared to his imagination as a golden age. Thus a friend
of my youth, a Frenchman and a staunch royalist, remarked to me, that
the French nobles who at the outbreak of the Revolution were still
young, were the most fiercely zealous against its ideas, and looked
upon the period immediately preceding it as a time of the highest
felicity. Livy seems to have been one of those men who never put to
themselves the question, What ought then to have happened, if matters
had not come to a crisis? Yet it is natural that after Cæsar’s victory
noble minds should have inclined to Pompey, who seemed to uphold the
ancient usages and constitution; and it is only now that we are able to
recognise Cæsar to have been the most beneficial of the two leaders.
Livy, moreover, applies his party names to persons and to circumstances
which were quite different, and he looks upon every thing that belongs
to the tribunes as seditious. When he tells us of Tarquin the Proud,
how he usurped the dominion over the Latins, and how Turnus Herdonius,
evidently with the greatest justice, withstood him, he calls the latter
_homo seditiosus, iisque artibus potentiam nactus_. Thus Livy must have
proverbially become what is called in France an Ultra. In this sense
Augustus called him a Pompeian; though he did not fear him, because no
real effects were to be expected from such daydreams.
Whether the Patavinity with which Asinius Pollio has taxed him, had
reference to his history, or to the speeches which he was heard to
deliver as a rhetorician, we are no longer able to ascertain. The
latter supposition is very likely. Pollio may have said, “one still
perceives from the pronunciation of Livy, that he was not bred in
Rome,”--just as in Paris also one can tell provincials. I myself think
that I can make out whether the author of a work lived in Paris or at
Geneva, and a Frenchman of course discovers it yet more quickly. There
may, therefore, have existed some nice shades of distinction, even in
style itself, which now-a-days escape our observation. The Latin of
Livy in a grammatical point of view is perfectly classical and correct;
yet for all that, it is by no means impossible that either in speaking
or in writing, he may have ventured upon many an expression which was
not usual at Rome. There remains yet another question. Have we any
reason to believe with regard to Livy’s history, which was commenced
thirty-one years after Pollio’s consulship, that Asinius Pollio could
have known it? It is possible. We have an account of his being still
living after Caius Cæsar’s death.[25] Yet this can hardly be true,
as Pliny would in that case have certainly mentioned him among the
_longævi_.
Particularly worthy of notice is the amiable disposition of Livy.
The whole of his work breathes a kindliness and serenity which does
one’s heart good in reading it. Perhaps we should observe this yet
more clearly, if we had the later books. Few writers have had such an
influence as Livy. He forms an epoch in Roman literature: with him
every attempt ceases to write Roman annals. When Quintilian compares
him with Herodotus, this is only correct with regard to the amenity of
style which is common to both. Otherwise Livy is particularly deficient
in those qualities which Herodotus possesses, than whom none was ever
richer in remembrances and ancient lore; than whom there never was a
more gifted investigator; and who was indeed a master both in observing
and in research. Livy’s great talent, on the contrary, is that of
arranging details, and of narration. Of the old Roman constitution he
had no notion whatever. Even of the constitution which still existed
during his youth, he seems to have had no very accurate knowledge; but
whatever in the old institutions bore the same name as in his time,
he always confounds with what was more recent. On the other hand, he
gives accounts which are inappropriate as applying to his own era, but
quite correct with reference to the olden time. He had a wonderful
reputation in his day: it is a known fact that a man came from Cadiz
to Rome merely to see him, and then immediately went back again. This
fame lasted. He was the historian Κατ’ ἐξοχήν, and Roman history was
learned from him alone. Whatever in after times was written by Latins,
was scarcely more than extracts from him. Wherever in the later Roman
authors any thing is quoted from history, it is taken from Livy:
Silius Italicus, the most wretched of all poets, has done nothing
but paraphrase him. And therefore he was read in the rhetorical and
grammatical schools, particularly, as it seems, his first and third
decades. These grammatical schools existed in Rome until beyond the
seventh century, in Ravenna even down to the eleventh. It is, however,
remarkable that all the manuscripts of the first decade may be traced
back to a single one, which was written in the fourth century by a
certain Nicomachus for Symmachus and his family, but is most wretchedly
done.
We have no manuscript in which all the books which have been
preserved are contained. Where the first, third, and fourth decade
are together, the fourth is never entire; and all the manuscripts are
very recent, dating from the fourteenth century. One sees that he was
little read during the middle ages, as they made shift with the most
trivial extracts. Of the first books we have manuscripts of the tenth
century. At the restoration of learning, the first and third decades
existed in pretty many manuscripts; the fourth in few only, and those
mutilated. Yet the fourth decade was indeed known and read before
that time, as may be seen from a novel of Francesco Sacchetti. But
the thirty-third book was entirely wanting; and the fortieth, from
the third paragraph of chapter 37. The latter gap was filled up from
a Mentz manuscript in the edition printed in that town, A.D. 1518;
but the one in the thirty-third book, from the sixth paragraph of the
seventeenth chapter only. The last five books were published from a
manuscript of the monastery of Lorsch, of the seventh or eighth century
(_codex Laurishamensis_), now at Vienna, in the Basle edition of the
year 1531. The first sixteen chapters of the thirty-third book have
been published at Rome in 1616, from a Bamberg manuscript, and again
collated by Gœller (as the Laurishamensis for the last five books was
by Kopitar), who has found some important various readings. Yet these
have always remained defective.
The desire to obtain the missing parts of Livy’s history was universal;
and in the days of Louis XIV. especially, people allowed themselves
to be taken in by the most extravagant stories. At one moment, they
were said to be in existence at Constantinople;[26] at another, at
Chios; and then, in an Arabic[27] translation, at Fez. Only a short
time ago, one heard of a translation, which was said to have been
found at Saragossa. At Lausanne there formerly existed a complete
manuscript of the fifth decade; but it has been lost. A real treasure
was found by Bruns of Holstein, who lived at Rome in 1772 and 1773. He
discovered a little volume in which some books of the Old Testament, in
the Vulgate version but with very differing readings, were contained;
and which almost entirely consisted of re-written leaves, originally
from the Heidelberg Library to judge from the handwriting, perhaps a
Bobbian manuscript. In this he found _M. Tullî Ciceronis Oratio pro
Roscio incipit feliciter_; and seeing that it began differently from
the speeches as they usually were, he considered it to be the lost
commencement of the oration _pro Roscio Comœdo_. He called in the
learned and ingenious Italian Giovenazzi, and asked him to examine it;
the latter decided that it was the _Oratio pro Roscio Amerino_, yet
did not observe the excellent various readings, nor discover in what
preceded the lost oration _pro Rabirio perduellionis_. They turned
over some more leaves, and found some very elegant hand writing with
the superscription _T. Livî liber nonagesimus primus_. The aid of
chemical means being as yet unknown in those days, they read it with
incredible exertions. It was reserved for me, to do what they could not
accomplish. I have read it all through, and completed it.
The text is very different in different decades. As far as regards
the first of these, all the manuscripts which hitherto have been
deemed authentic only follow the recension of Nicomachus Dexter
Flavianus, whose subscription is found beneath the Florentine copy,
the first of Leyden, and some others. These manuscripts, the text of
which that of Florence gives very accurately, are all of them bad.
Some various readings are exhibited by several English, Harleyan and
Lovel manuscripts; but these are extremely recent, from philologists
of the time of the restoration of learning, who made very free with
the text, and therefore they are not of a good description. One
single manuscript, of which we have only extracts, shows some quite
extraordinary readings, the _Codex Clockianus_, concerning which we
know not where it now is. These variations are so peculiar, that I
often doubted whether they were always authentic, and whether Clockius
really had a manuscript. The Veronese palimpsests exhibit no deviation
of consequence from the Florentine manuscript. We cannot therefore
hope to get beyond the recension of Nicomachus, at least as far as
our present knowledge of the manuscripts enables us to judge. Of the
Paris manuscripts, not one as yet has been collated. It is otherwise
with the third decade, for which the _Codex Puteanus_, which Gronovius
has made use of, is excellent. The text here is sounder than in the
first; for the fourth, the Bamberg and the Mentz manuscripts, and the
_Editio Ascensiana_ have a strong claim on our regard. For the fifth
decade, the _Codex Laurishamensis_, now preserved at Vienna, is the
only source. From Italian libraries, we can no longer expect much; as
the first editions generally represent the manuscripts, and the best
manuscripts of Latin authors are, on the whole, not in Italy, but in
France and in Germany.
As far as regards commentaries, it is really astonishing how little has
been done in the way of criticism for Livy; and yet he is one of the
first who has been subjected to any elaborate criticism. Already was
this done by the ingenious Laurentius Valla, whose learning was of the
true philological cast, and who even before the invention of printing,
wrote short scholia, and likewise an historical disquisition concerning
Tarquin the Proud, whether he was a son, or a grandson of Tarquinius
Priscus? Then follows M. Antonius Sabellicus, a Venetian, of whom some
annotations still exist, which, considering his great ability, are very
trifling. Glareanus was a very ingenious and acute man. His attention
was especially directed to the historical part, and in his remarks
he frankly pronounces much of it to be untenable. The emendation of
the text was then taken in hand by many persons whose names are not
known. Gelenius has certainly aided in the Basil edition, without his
name being mentioned. When Glareanus had finished, Sigonius of Modena
wrote his scholia on Livy. His work is very good and praiseworthy,--his
criticisms chiefly historical. He most unaccountably bore a strong
grudge against Glareanus, and the latter replied in an edition in which
he had Sigonius’ notes reprinted. Sigonius has contributed much towards
the criticism of the text; but he has also interpolated a great deal
that is untenable, part of which still stands in the text. Then follow
almost a hundred years, during which nothing was done for Livy, until
John Frederick Gronovius, sprung from an Holstein family at Hamburgh,
appeared; who, when philology was in a dying state, might have given
it a new impulse, had the age been susceptible of it. His Livy is a
masterpiece. He is one of the earliest who conscientiously searched
into manuscripts. His careful grammatical and historical commentary
gains for him the palm among all who have occupied themselves with
Livy; only, when he speaks of the constitution and laws of the State,
he has sometimes made mistakes, and unjustly censured Brissonius.
After him came Clockius, whose conjectures are most unlucky; and then
Tanaquil Faber of Saussure, who, though he was very intelligent, has
done very little for Livy; nor is his criticism much to be relied
on. Duker’s and Drakenborch’s edition holds the first rank among all
the editions which we have of ancient authors. Duker’s notes are
excellent,--a striking contrast to his Thucydides,--he shows likewise
a very correct judgment concerning the subject-matter. Drakenborch is
far from possessing the same penetration and ability, but for all that
he has very good common sense; his application, which is scrupulously
conscientious, is admirable, and he scrutinizes every thing most
accurately. The treasure of philological remarks which he has hoarded
up is really astonishing, and his indices are very much to the point.
Drakenborch is a model in this also, that he had already completed the
whole of his work before he began to publish it. The subject-matter is
quite evenly disposed all through the work.
After this, little was done for the criticism of Livy. The emendations
of Professor Walch of Berlin are beautiful, and it is a pity that he
has not realized his intention of editing the whole of Livy. Yet a
very great deal remains to be done, especially in the first decade.
The nations of Roman language have gained for themselves little or no
distinction with regard to Livy.
Livy is one of those authors whose fate it was, like all who form an
epoch in literature, that his influence was not wholly beneficial,
but also pernicious. He became from henceforth an authority, although
he was no critic; people read the Roman history in Livy only, and the
old historians were almost entirely forgotten. The only exception
which we know of Roman history being written independently of Livy, is
that of Velleius Paterculus, who began from the mythic legends, and
wrote as far as the year 783. He divided his work into two books, the
first of which ended with the destruction of Carthage; and besides
the Roman, treated also of the earliest Greek history. Unfortunately
the second book only is any thing like complete, as in the first the
whole of the earlier history is wanting, a loss which is very much to
be regretted. Velleius belongs to the writers of evil repute, and it
is not to be denied but that a dismal time has crushed him and his
independent spirit. He crouches before the tyrant Sejanus; but one
must not overlook the fact, that he was much more ingenious than his
contemporaries. He is exceedingly witty, and there is something choice
in his remarks; besides which he is perfectly master of his subject,
and shows himself to be a deeply read and deeply learned scholar. He
reminds one of the authors in the time of Louis XV.
It is not quite decided that Fabius Rusticus has not written the
earliest history. He was perhaps the only man in his time who could
have done it.
The manner in which from henceforth Roman history was written was to
epitomize it, of which we have several examples.
There is extant an old table of contents of all the books of Livy,
of which two only, the hundred and thirty-sixth and the hundred and
thirty-seventh, are wanting,--a sort of index for those who wished to
search for any thing in the great work, and perhaps nothing more than a
collection of the heads which were written in the margin. This epitome
bears quite inappropriately the name of Florus. The author is unknown,
and it is certainly only the work of some copyist. But to us it is
invaluable, as many things have been preserved in it alone.
Well known and much read was the Roman history of Florus in four books,
which, written in the reign of Trajan, is a very wretched piece of
work. Yet at the side of many glaring mistakes, there is something
which may be turned to use. Florus may have written from what he read
in Livy; yet there is in one single passage a deviation from him, so
that he must have read others also.
Eutropius has evidently every where followed the track of Livy; but he
is so bad a writer, that one cannot believe that he has read Livy. I
therefore conjecture that there must have existed an abstract besides,
forming a sort of medium between the work itself and our epitome; which
Orosius no doubt also read, who likewise implicitly follows Livy, but
assigns dates which clash with him, a practice quite in keeping with
his ignorance in changing the dates by consuls into those by years.
Such an abstract was like that of Trogus from Justin. Orosius’ object
was simply this, to console his contemporaries in the state in which
they were by means of perversions and sophisms in describing the
wretchedness of the olden time. Yet there are many points in which his
statements have great value, only one must not allow oneself to be
misled by him.
The influence which Livy had exercised upon the Romans, in putting
an end to every thing like originality in writing history, did not
extend to the Greeks. They directed their attention more and more to
Roman history, and found in it a theme for rhetorical and elegant
composition. One of those who at that time more or less engaged in
this task, was Plutarch, who composed his historical works in the
reign of Trajan. He had a definite moral purpose, his was a fine soul:
yet neither was he a practical man, nor had he a turn for speculative
thought, but he was made for quiet and cheerful contemplation, like
Montaigne. He had an unaffected aversion to all that was vulgar; and
he wrote in this spirit for himself and his friends, the parallels of
distinguished Romans and Greeks. He is just to every body. He loves
the Greeks and respects the Romans, and this makes his Lives most
delightful reading. But his qualities as an historian are of a very
secondary order. He is no critic, and does not discriminate between
conflicting opinions; but he follows at one time one authority, and
at another time another. In Pyrrhus and Camillus, one sees that he
has used Dionysius; in Marius and Sylla, Posidonius; and wherever we
are able to make this out, his history gains a much more important
character for authenticity. The task of ascertaining this point is
as yet far from being accomplished. Plutarch, as he himself tells
us, understood little of Latin, and was particularly ignorant of the
grammar, owing to which mistakes are found in him here and there,
though indeed but seldom.
About a generation after Plutarch, Appian wrote. He was a jurist from
Alexandria, who in the reigns of Adrian and Antoninus Pius, lived
in Rome as an agent for his native town, and had the management of
lawsuits. He was greatly befriended by Fronto, and by his interest got
the office of a _Procurator Cæsaris_. Although he had lived a long
time at Rome, and had a great opinion of his Latin, yet it is not to
be supposed that he was very conversant with that language; as, owing
to Adrian’s predilection for Greek, he surely was allowed to plead in
it, especially for the _transmarini_. Having made a fortune at Rome,
he returned to Alexandria, and was in his old age treated with much
distinction by the Romans. According to one account, he has written
twenty-four books on Roman history; among them four on Egypt, in
which he treated with particular prolixity of the Lagides. It was not
a continuous history, but arranged after the plan of the _Origines_
of Cato. The first book was called Βασιλική, the second Ἰταλική, the
third Σαυνιτική. The first twenty-one books of his work went as far
as the battle of Actium; then the subsequent times down to Trajan he
disposed of in one book Ἑκατονταετία; besides which he wrote a book on
the Dacian, and another on the Arabian war of Trajan. He is a compiler,
and knew well how to choose his sources. In the earlier history he
chiefly follows Dionysius; in the second Punic war, perhaps also in the
first, he follows Fabius; then Polybius, and afterwards Posidonius.
In using these sources, he displays great ignorance, particularly of
geography. Thus, for example, he believes that Britain was quite close
to the northern coast of Spain, and he places Saguntum on the northern
bank of the Iberus. We must discriminate with regard to him. Wherever
he copies without thinking, we find in his work the best sources for
history. The greater half of the books of Appian are lost. We possess
eleven of them, and besides these, there are extracts in the _Eclogæ
de Legationibus_, and _de Virtutibus et Vitiis_, collected by Ursinus
and Valesius. Spurious is the Παρθική, as Schweighäuser has correctly
demonstrated.
There are of Appian, properly speaking, only three editions, those of
Stephens, Tollius, and Schweighäuser, the last of them being by far the
best. Much remains to be done for the _Bellum Illyricum_, as Spaletti
has kept his collation for it from Schweighäuser. A good source also
made use of by the latter, is the Latin version of Petrus Candidus,
which though barbarous is faithful.
About eighty years after Appian, wrote Dio Cassius, surnamed
Cocceianus, who was born in the reign of Antoninus Pius at Nice in
Nicomedia, of a family which was of very high standing in the Roman
State. Very likely Dio Chrysostom was his grandfather on the mother’s
side. He came as a young man to Rome, at a time when the provincials
of the east were already admitted to the highest offices, which was
much earlier the case with those of the west. Whilst the latter soon
assimilated themselves in language and address to the Romans, the
former amalgamated much later, and from sheer necessity. In the eastern
provinces they still let the beard grow, as we see from the likeness
of the statuary Apollodorus in the Trajan column, the most ancient
likeness of an artist. From the time of Adrian the Greeks met in Rome
with a different reception from that which they had before; this
emperor favoured them, as did also the Antonines. Marcus Antoninus
even married one of his daughters to Pompeian a Greek.
Dio came early to Rome, where he lived forty years engaged in business,
and then retired to Capua. He wrote, when about forty years old, the
history of Commodus, which he dedicated to Severus, who received it
with favour, and encouraged him to write the whole Roman history.
He became consul under Septimius Severus, and a second time under
Alexander Severus. He reached an age of nearly eighty years, and had,
according to Fabricius’ computation, already reached that of seventy
when he was for the second time invested with the consulship. He spent
twelve years in collecting materials, and during ten he worked. If this
account be correct, the last books must be a continuation of his work.
Being a statesman, he paid attention to many things in history which
his predecessors had not cared for. He had a true vocation for writing
history, and declared that in his dreams the gods had commanded him
to do so. He was a perfect master of the Latin language, thoroughly
acquainted with all the Roman affairs, and he felt an interest in
political concerns. He is every where at home, in the laws, in the
constitution, and in matters connected with warfare. Livy had no idea
of either the economy of a state, or of a battle; the commonest rules
for the array of an army escape him. Surely he can never have looked
on, when the soldiers were drilling at Rome.
For the very earliest times, Dio Cassius draws from the very
fountain-heads. He wrote quite independently of Livy from Fabius, and
he perfectly understood the old Roman constitution. On the other hand,
he is reproached with κακοήθεια, and ἐπιχαιρεκακία, with its being a
pleasure to him to bring to light the hollowness of men’s pretensions
to political virtue, and such like things. Indeed he is in a bitter
mood against the false pretences to virtue in a thoroughly corrupted
age; but this is quite different from showing an infamous delight in
it. The former only is the real character of Dio Cassius. When a
man scoffs at religion, it is the sign of a bad heart; but when he
snatches the mask from the face of a hypocrite, he is quite in the
right. When one hears the language of so-called patriots of the time
of George the First and Second, and then learns how they intrigued for
places, how in spite of their boasted integrity they kept up a secret
correspondence with the Pretender, and when they came into power did
the very self-same things as their predecessors, it is very natural to
speak with disgust of such sham patriots. In the time also of Louis
XV. such a state of feeling as we find in Dio Cassius was universal.
Dio, owing to his experience in a most abandoned age, may have judged
many a man too harshly; but at bottom his view of things is sound and
enlightened. That he was no friend to tyranny, is shown every where in
his history, when one reads it without prejudice. His style, however,
is not flowing; his peculiarities are sometimes faults (examples of
it are given in the index of Reimarus). He is one of the few who at
that time wrote as men really spoke; on which account the study of his
language is very instructive. There is no affectation in him, as in
Pausanias; his language is the Greek, as it was then used in familiar
conversation. His history was much read. It was for a long time a
common source of Roman history, and was continued by an anonymous
writer to the time of Constantine, as we know from the _Excerpta de
Legationibus_. He himself divided his eighty books into decades. The
twentieth book he concluded with the destruction of Carthage; the
fortieth went as far as the outbreak of the civil war between Cæsar
and Pompey; the sixtieth, to the death of Claudius. Of these there
were left in the twelfth century, when Johannes Zonaras wrote, only
the first twenty, and from the thirty-sixth to the end. In the tenth
century when Constantinus Porphyrogenitus caused the _excerpta_ to be
made, the whole was still extant. Afterwards, in the eleventh century,
the monk Xiphilinus made extracts beginning from the thirty-sixth
book, with the exception of the history of Antoninus Pius, and a part
of M. Aurelius’ reign. Whether he had the rest or not, is no more
to be ascertained. It is, however, probable, as Zonaras fifty years
later had still the first twenty books. It has therefore been unjustly
said that the loss of the books of Dio was the fault of Xiphilinus.
His manuscript was still complete as regards the reigns of Augustus,
Tiberius, and Claudius, where the Venetian is full of gaps. The very
late author of the _Lexicon Syntacticum_, which Bekker has edited,
already in all probability had no more the first five and thirty; as
from these, in comparison with the other books, he gives scarcely any
extracts at all. We have a fragment which is generally thought to
be of the thirty-fifth book, but which, according to Reimarus, most
likely belongs to the thirty-sixth; then from the thirty-seventh to the
fifty-fourth complete, and the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth mutilated.
Of the first twenty books we have the abstract of Zonaras, with slight
admixtures from Plutarch; of the last forty-five, that of Xiphilinus
likewise with admixtures. Of books 78, 79 and 80, we have an important
fragment from the Vatican library. In books 55 to 60, the manuscripts
are full of gaps: Xiphilinus, however, had yet a complete copy of them.
Morelli, an excellent philologist, found these books in the year 1797,
when, to console himself for the downfall of his republic, he took to
ancient history as a refuge, in a very old manuscript in the library
of St. Mark, and discovered that it had formerly been complete, but
had suffered much from the destruction of part of the fascicles and
leaves; that this was the mother-manuscript for these six books; but
that when the copyist in his transcript had come to a stop in some
story, and the beginning of the next was mutilated, he had entirely
dropped such incomplete narrations, and disguised the gaps. Morelli has
collected these defective passages, so that we see how at one place
some leaves, at another, whole quaternions are missing. From what he
communicated, the remarkable expedition of Ahenobarbus to Germany was
first brought to light, which had till then been unknown. Thus also in
Diodorus, the halves of two books are entirely wanting, a circumstance
which is nowhere noticed. In a third passage, Perizonius and others
have discovered it. Such a thing was by no means of rare occurrence
among the volatile Greeks of the fifteenth century, who gained their
livelihood by copying.--What remains of the three last books of Dio
Cassius, has been edited by Fulvius Ursinus. The manuscript is of
the seventh or eighth century; yet the centre column only has been
preserved entire: the two others along the margins are illegible.
Nevertheless something may be gleaned from it. In the excerpta _de
Legationibus_, _de Virtutibus et Vitiis_, and _de Sententiis_, many
pieces from Dio are to be found. We have also many fragments elsewhere,
as Dio was very much read. There are besides the abridgments of
Xiphilinus and Zonaras. It is surprising that the latter is not also
reprinted in the edition of Reimarus. This Zonaras,[28] under Alexius
and Kalojohannes Comnenus, was a man of business, and wrote a history
from the beginning of the world to the death of Alexius Comnenus. The
first volume of it is an abstract from Josephus, the second from Dio,
and the third from several, particularly from Cedrenus, Skylitzes, and
others; as to the later books of Dio, he could not procure them in
spite of all his inquiries. He was imperial secretary, and commander of
the body-guard. Nor was he a fool, though his judgment is exceedingly
narrow; but his extracts from Dio, whom he does not mention as his
authority, are of the highest importance. He was formerly overlooked,
and I was the first to direct attention to him. Freinsheim made use
of him where Livy is wanting, but no further. The excerpta _de
Sententiis_ especially, show with what accuracy he selected from Dio.
Dio has been edited by Stephens at Basle, and by H. S. Reimarus. A
collation of the Venetian manuscript would be infinitely important. The
annotations of Fabricius and Reimarus are of extraordinary value in an
historical point of view. What is defective in Fabricius, as well as in
his son-in-law Reimarus, is grammatical knowledge. Yet this deficiency
has not prevented Reimarus from directing the whole of his attention
to the index, which is excellent. If he had made the index before the
edition was completed, he would have arranged quite differently the
strictly philological part of his work. Philological indices are a most
useful aid in study, and infinitely heighten the value of an edition.
The task of compiling them leads to a great number of questions and
inquiries, which otherwise would never have been thought of.[29]
After Dio, nothing original was any more written by Greeks on Roman
history. In the middle ages, works were lost. Of Livy, the first and
third decades were read in the schools for the _provectiores_, and for
history men contented themselves with Florus, Eutropius, Rufus, Victor,
and Orosius. Eutropius was read also, but spuriated, in a continuation
of Paul Warnefrid and Sagax; besides which, as a chrestomathy of fine
actions, Valerius Maximus, one of the most wretched of writers, was
very much in vogue. People in those days generally cared only for what
was ready at hand, and that they diligently worked at; but about any
thing that was unknown they did not at all trouble themselves. If the
glossators had not been tainted with the defects of their age, they
might have got access to quite different sources, from which the law
books were to be explained. Some men in the middle ages read indeed
and collected manuscripts; but they had no comprehensive views--no
sort of symmetry--no striving after any thing that was not at once
within reach. Since Priscian, there is no direct quotation from Livy,
except in Johannes Saresberiensis; and in him moreover, only from
the books now extant. When in the fourteenth century the light was
dawning, people began again to read Livy; as we see from a strange
novel of Francesco Sacchetti, in which he speaks of a Florentine who
was so absorbed in the study of Livy, that, when one Saturday, the
workmen came to him for their wages, he spoke to them as though they
were living in the time of Cato. Petrarch read the war of Hannibal in
Livy, and also Cæsar’s Commentaries, with an ardour and a passionate
fondness, with which they certainly had not been read since the times
of the great Boëthius,--consequently for eight centuries. He in vain
wished to have more of Livy; he had as yet only the epitome, of
which, perhaps, he was the discoverer. Now awoke in the hearts of the
Italians the desire of considering themselves as the successors and
heirs of the ancient Romans, and they began to collect books wherever
they found them. The letters of congratulation which were written by
Leonardus Aretinus, Bartholomæus, and others, to Poggius, when he had
discovered new books, are most affecting. The Roman history was read
with an interest which beggars belief; and yet they kept to the works
which they already had. But now they began to convince themselves
that with the means which they had hitherto possessed, they were
not capable of understanding the Roman history: and thus the study
of Archæology grew up, to which Pomponius Lætus in particular gave
an impulse; who, however, did much mischief by the negligent way in
which he set about it. In the beginning of the sixteenth century,
the study of Roman antiquities made rapid progress; and collections
of inscriptions and of antiquities were now first made in Italy and
France by Mazocchi and others, who lived at that period. In Italy an
equal degree of attention was not bestowed upon the ancient science of
jurisprudence, which, strange to say, did not flourish in that country,
though the interpretation of the civil law had originally sprung from
thence. At that time scientific jurisprudence was the province of the
French, while the Italians applied themselves to history, and to the
investigation of authorities for that purpose. People also began to
make remarks on particular parts of the history. Glareanus, a strange
character, but of an acute and penetrating mind, began freely to
examine and to scrutinize Livy. Panvinius, an Augustinian at Verona,
and Sigonius of Modena, have first done something by arranging the
Fasti, and elucidating the Roman antiquities; owing to them, the
knowledge of Roman affairs advanced with colossal strides. They
dwelt especially on the times of Cicero and Cæsar, for which there
existed contemporary accounts; but they did not work their way into
the earliest times. They fostered the tree, but there was no root to
it. Both of them, and Panvinius in particular, were weak in Greek
literature, and had a very deficient knowledge of Greek affairs. Both
have done much; yet they were wanting in practical experience. The
State, as it existed, was to them a mystery, although in some respects
they had greater facilities than a foreigner, since many things
presented themselves to their observation which were still continuing
under the old names. They did not take a sufficiently clear view of
things, and therefore they generally blundered in the exposition of
details. Panvinius’ Fasti are a fine work; his supplements to them
admirable, considering what his means were. It was his good fortune
that in his time fragments of the Capitoline Fasti were found, when
a church was building, which led to many results. Under my own eyes
also some pieces were found, from which important hints may be gathered
concerning the times in which Livy fails us.
The Fasti are preserved in many separate collections, and also for
those periods in which history forsakes us. At the end of the sixteenth
century, Stephen Pighius of Campen in Overyssel, secretary of Cardinal
Granvella, and afterwards priest at Xanten,[30] conceived the idea of
restoring the Roman history in the form of annals, including the times
for which Livy fails us; and with this view he subjected the latter
to a searching criticism. He was a man of very great learning,--his
_Hercules Prodicius_, his notes on Valerius Maximus, &c. are
excellent,--yet his annals are based on a mistaken idea. I tried once
in my youth to learn the Fasti by heart, and I believe that the young
Romans were used to do so; it is, however, of no great value. If the
Fasti were all preserved, such annals as Pighius intended would be very
important for us, but interesting in details only. Pighius, however,
entered upon quite a chimerical undertaking. He wished to restore
the lost periods of the Fasti; and in so doing, not only to mark
the few notices which we possess, but also to fill up the gaps from
possibilities, calculating what people might at that time according
to the _leges annales_ have held the offices. Yet he had no desire
to deceive his readers, but he indicated his supplements as such;
nevertheless G. J. Vossius has allowed himself to be misled by them,
and after him even some scholars of the present day, as for example,
Schubert of Königsberg in his book on the Ædiles. In spite of all this,
Pighius’ book cannot be dispensed with, inasmuch as he availed himself
of inscriptions, and made many acute combinations. Unfortunately
his work was not completed; he died before its publication. Andreas
Schottus finished and published it; but his continuation is far
inferior.
The account of the manner in which Roman history was handled affords
us an image of the progress of philology itself. In the fifteenth
century it had scarcely awakened, and it was still uncritical; in
the sixteenth, men penetrated quickly and deeply into the study of
antiquity, without, however, fully securing the results; but the golden
age of philology vanished in the beginning of the seventeenth, and
in Germany, where it had blossomed only late, it was blighted by the
thirty years’ war. It was now combined with other studies, and works
were produced, which were laboriously and diligently executed, but of
inferior philological merit, and devoid of genius. The Strasburg school
of philologists especially, still maintained a certain pre-eminence. At
the end of the thirty years’ war, John Freinsheim of that town wrote
his supplements to the books of Livy. Of particular facts, he has left
few unnoticed; yet he has but imperfectly succeeded in arranging the
events of the obscure ages, and in entering more deeply into the spirit
of the times. He had no idea of the Roman state either in relations
of peace or of war, though he prided himself not a little on his
_prudentia civilis_. For the second decade, especially books 11-15,
and perhaps also four books 46-60, he had more complete materials,
and made an energetic use of them; afterwards, he becomes more and
more careless, and from the period of the Social War decidedly bad.
Notwithstanding which, no one who works at Roman history can do without
his book. Unfortunately, the quotations are very inaccurate, even in
the original edition; and in that of Drakenborch, they are either made
worse, or at least not corrected. Freinsheim, like his fellow citizens
Boecler and Obrecht, is to be reckoned among the ornaments of Germany
of that time. That he did not continue his immense work with equal care
is very pardonable, and the preposterousness of the undertaking itself
is to be charged to the taste of the age in which he lived.
About twenty years after him, quite a different man began a work on
Roman history which is thoroughly classical. James Perizonius, in his
_Animadversiones Historicæ_, undertook a critical review of Roman
history, which, however, extended only to detached parts of it, though
what he did was ably and beautifully executed. He first conceived the
fruitful idea, that the Roman history, like that of the Jewish people,
had arisen out of lays: an idea which we cannot sufficiently admire,
when we consider the time in which he wrote, and that he was moreover
a Dutch philologist; for such national songs are entirely wanting in
the Netherlands. A Dane might much more easily have been its author,
as Saxo Grammaticus and the songs of the Edda would have led to it.
Perizonius had a perfectly unbiassed mind, incredible philological
learning, and a real genius for history. Yet his _Animadversiones_ have
not had the influence which they deserved, as they were reprinted only
once, and altogether forgotten.
After 1684, in a strictly philological point of view, little better
than nothing was done for Roman history. Bentley and J. M. Gesner are
almost the only exceptions to the wretched condition of philology
during the first half of the eighteenth century. In the meanwhile
there spread itself in Europe more and more a certain general mental
cultivation, which laid claim to classical history as a part of the
universal one; and in consequence, even men who had none of the deeper
philological knowledge, occupied themselves with ancient history. Thus
arose that little masterly work of president Montesquieu, _Sur les
causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence_, which in spite
of many mistakes is an excellent book.
At the end of the seventeenth century, scepticism had awakened in
Europe; it originated with Bayle, and attacked history also. It did
not, however, aim at establishing profound results; but was content
with disclosing the mistakes in what had previously been considered
as authentic history. In this spirit wrote a very ingenious man, a
refugee who had lived a long time in England, Monsieur de Beaufort.
His work on the Roman Antiquities, however much may be objectionable
in it, considered as a whole is the best which has been written on
the subject. It was clear to him, that the early Roman history was
a poem, and no history; and this conviction of his he made known in
his _Dissertation sur l’incertitude des quatre premiers siècles de
l’histoire Romaine_. The work bears the stamp of an ingenious and well
read man, who was no philologist by profession, and on the whole, not
inured to accurate research; there is manifested in it that spirit of
scepticism, which only destroys and does not attempt to rebuild; and
therefore it excited much opposition. But the book has been of use. All
that has been written since is based upon it.
What the worthy Rollin has compiled from Livy and from Freinsheim’s
supplements, is not to be reckoned a Roman history. With very little
talent, he shows such a respectable, virtuous, and upright disposition,
that men were perfectly justified in putting it into the hands of
youth; yet it is a dry book, which now-a-days scarcely any one would
read through. His learning is very defective; he is destitute of all
critical judgment, and without any insight into the state of affairs.
People at that time, as a very witty writer remarks, treated ancient
history as if it had never really happened.
Somewhat later,[31] Hooke wrote a work, with which indeed I am but
slightly acquainted, and which, generally speaking, is not known in
Germany. He took notice of Beaufort’s views, without, however, entering
into any deeper questions; and he treated the history of those times
only which he held to be historical.
This is no less the case in Ferguson’s history of the Roman Republic,
which is a complete failure. He was judicious and honest, but
unlearned; and he had not the remotest conception of the constitution.
He gives full details only from the times of the Gracchi, and treats
history pragmatically and morally. For the knowledge of history the
book is of no value. Levesque’s history is downright trash: he deems
the account of the earliest times to be nonsensical stuff, but quite in
an arbitrary manner makes exceptions in favour of particular events.
There is a low tone about the book, and there is no erudition in it.
Micali’s _Italia avanti il dominio de’ Romani_ is likewise a wretched
work. He rouses himself into a strange passion against the Romans, and
invents histories of the Italian States which could not be arrived
at by any. Micali wrote at the time of the French ascendancy, and so
he was glad to be able on this occasion to say something against the
exclusive dominion of any one people; but he thus allowed himself to
be betrayed into an unreasonable heat, and into unfairness against the
Romans. Besides which, he is quite an unlearned man.
The general tendency of philology in Germany could not but lead to a
critical treatment of Roman history, based on research. For the last
forty years it has gained a settled character. The movement in it
began on several quite distinct points, it lay in the very essence
of the whole development of our literature. Men like Lessing, who,
without any accurate philological learning, was endowed with a most
philological spirit, and Winkelmann, are to be considered as the true
fathers of modern improved philology. Thus also the attempts of Heyne
and Ernesti, although very imperfect ones; the revival of historical
jurisprudence;[32] as well as that of grammatical philology, by Reiz,
Wolf, Hermann, the translations of Voss and others, have contributed
much to Roman history. The spirit was awakened, the language moulded
by Lessing and Goethe, and the age with its gigantic changes and
revolutions filled every thing with life; and exertion was felt to be a
necessity. All this must have reacted upon Roman history, and the more
so as political affairs assimilated to those of the ancient Romans. By
these circumstances especially, my attention was directed to the Roman
state as it really was, and first turned to inquire into the question,
why those violent struggles had taken place in Rome. Thus Roman
history was now no more treated merely sceptically, but critically;
results took the place of exploded inventions; it was shown what we
are to believe, and what to reject as invention or interpolation; and,
moreover, this advantage has been gained, that people know what they
may receive as truth, with regard to ancient Roman history in general,
without engaging in vain attempts to pursue it into all its details,
with the dates accurately specified. In this immense labyrinth,
these researches, as far as they regard the early times, could not
succeed at once. He who entered into them was still fettered by many
prejudices: he saw the goal, but got bewildered on his way. Thus it
was imperatively demanded by good faith and conscientiousness, not
to remain satisfied with what was already found, and to take courage
to find the solution of enigmas. What could be gained for the early
times, is now gained in all essential points; and it is time that
these researches should not grow too much into fashion. Not that I am
afraid, that the results obtained may be shaken; but since this work is
limited by the extent of the sources, until fresh ones be discovered,
nothing, on the one hand, can have been missed; and, on the other,
nothing essential yet remains to be done. It is to be wished that men’s
energies may now be directed to those points, from which important
results are to be expected, especially within the range of the later
periods. To know and to understand these, one should necessarily
be acquainted with the ancient ages and forms; but one ought not
to believe that the interest of the Roman history leaves off where
contemporary accounts begin; as if those things only were interesting
which are to be guessed. The Roman history is a whole. Emerging from
the darkest ages, where it can be only restored by combinations,
comparisons, and analogies, it reaches that stage in which it is borne
out by the evidence of persons who are well informed. The remainder
of Roman history, from the time when it becomes historical, must
likewise be investigated, in order to gain settled results; or where
they are already gained, calmly to examine them, and to make use of the
materials which have been brought to light.
The study of ancient history requires for its basis a sound, able,
philological, and grammatical spirit, which is proof against every
temptation to indulge in fanciful etymologies; a well cultivated and
practised taste, so as to distinguish possibilities or probabilities,
and realities; a matured judgment; a knowledge of human and civil
affairs, of those things which have happened in different ages,
according to the same laws; and above all, _conscientiousness and
uprightness, free from all feelings of display and vanity,--a blameless
walk before God_. The adage of former times ought well to be laid to
heart, that learning is the fruit of uprightness and piety.
When once we have a correct system of Roman antiquities, it will belong
to scientific Roman history as an introduction to it. Now they are
treated very differently from each other. The older works contain much
that is excellent concerning those times for which Roman literature
is coeval. In ancient geography also, a chorography of ancient Italy
is still wanting; as to Mannert’s work, it can only receive a very
qualified recommendation. Much better are Cluver’s _Italia Antiqua_ and
_Sicilia_, colossal works, which are, however, so rare, and so costly,
that one cannot refer the student to them. In the details little is to
be added, almost every thing in the classical writers which happens to
bear upon the settlement of chorographical points being incorporated in
them. What is decidedly deficient is the survey of the ancient nations;
all his general views are vague. Yet the description of the country is
admirable for his times.
As to maps, that of d’Anville is unquestionably to be recommended.
D’Anville was a genius: he possessed the acuteness to discriminate
among conflicting statements those which were worthy of belief; he was
like a great artist, who, with very simple instruments, does more than
another with the most perfect ones. His works on the interior of Africa
are extraordinary, considering the few notices which he had. Not to
be excelled are his maps of Gaul, Spain, and Britain; unsurpassed is
his map of Italy, although much might be improved in it. He is less
perfect with regard to Greece. For Epirus and Macedon, he was of course
unable to make use of the more correct information of modern times, the
interior of these countries not being then explored by travellers; the
Peloponnesus he worked out mostly from the Portulan maps. Barbié du
Bocage, his pupil, was likewise highly to be esteemed; but with such a
predecessor, he was in a disadvantageous position. He continued several
of d’Anville’s works with little success. He found, for instance, that
Patras in d’Anville’s map was placed 30 minutes too far north, and he
accordingly changed the position; yet, although he was in the right, he
twenty years afterwards restored it to d’Anville’s original position.
D’Anville has in Italy one single mathematical error with regard to
the south-eastern part of Naples, where the country of the Sallentines
lies about 20 minutes too little to the east. For d’Anville had as yet
no other maps at hand but the Venetian ones, in which the outlines are
generally excellent, but the longitudes for the most part incorrect.
The comparison of d’Anville’s maps with those of his predecessors, as
those of Delisle and others, makes him still more admirable. His map
of Egypt is an extraordinary performance, if we consider that he had
only the rude outlines of the Arabian and Turkish maps to work from.
An apparent defect in his map of Italy is this, that it represents a
distinct period, about that of Augustus, and in consequence there is
a discrepancy in the settlement of the confines which might make one
inclined to censure him; and yet one ought to be very careful not to
do so. Samnium, for instance, according to Livy, still included a very
large tract which d’Anville draws into Apulia, because he follows the
description of Italy by Pliny.
Thoroughly bad is Reichardt’s map of Italy. Reichardt has no idea
of ancient geography, and his map is a medley of ignorance and
impudence. Places which never existed are described by him as towns of
importance;--this he does in the case of Sublanuvium, Subaricia, stages
for changing horses laid down in ancient itineraries beneath Lanuvium
and Aricia, towns which were built on hills. A place of this kind
happens to be called _ad bivium_, from which Reichardt makes a town _ad
Birium_, of the size of Præneste and others in Latium. Aquila, founded
during the middle ages, is described by him as an old Sabine town,
merely because it bears a Roman name. Politorium, Medullia, and other
towns in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, the accurate position of
which is no more by any means to be made out, are placed by him just
as fancy leads him, and on sites besides where they certainly could
not have stood. He brings the Volscians as far as the mouth of the
Tiber, whilst no one makes them extend farther than to Antium. Could I
have overcome my disgust, and looked over the map of this man yet more
accurately, I might have found many other similar blunders. Its only
recommendation is the beauty of the engraving. D’Anville as yet remains
unsurpassed. My father, who was certainly a competent judge in this
matter, never spoke of him but in the highest terms of acknowledgment.
IMPORTANCE OF ROMAN HISTORY.
The importance of Roman history is one of those points which have
never perhaps been gainsayed. There may be persons who have their
prejudices with regard to the value of ancient history in general,
yet even they will not deny that of Roman history. In other branches
of knowledge, it either appears as an introduction, or as an integral
part of the preparatory discipline. As long as the Roman law continues
to hold among us the position which it now has, an accurate knowledge
of Roman antiquity will be indispensable. Such will it likewise be for
the divine, to whom the results which follow from the connexion of
ecclesiastical with profane history are quite lost, if he be deficient
in the knowledge of Roman history and Roman antiquities. With regard
to many another science, there are fewer relations in which Roman
history becomes of any importance; yet even then points of contact
will not be wanting. It has its importance, for the history of human
life in general, for the history of diseases, &c. Yet if, taking a
wider and scientific view, we look on history as an independent branch
of knowledge, that of Rome is the most important of all. All the
ancient histories merge into the Roman, all the modern spring from it.
Not only the philologist who occupies himself from preference with
Roman literature, ought to be so familiar with the history and the
antiquities of that people, that he may read its authors as he would
contemporaries; but he also ought to do this, who makes the Greek his
principal task, otherwise he would remain one-sided in his views.
At all events, he ought to be acquainted with the concluding period
of the Greek people, and to know how it fared under the rule of the
Romans. If we balance the two histories against each other, the Roman
one has by far the better claim to the higher rank. A small population
enlarges itself, rules at first over thousands, then over hundreds of
thousands, then lords it over the world from the rising to the setting
sun; the whole of the west adopts their language and institutions,
and their laws are to this day still in force for millions,--such
greatness has no parallel in history. Add to this, the individual
greatness of the men; the spectacle of all the states waning before
this star; the extraordinary character of the institutions by which
this is partly brought about; all this imparts to Roman history its
peculiar durability and importance. For these reasons, even in the
middle ages, in those times when learning was most neglected, it was,
although in an imperfect form, yet always held in honour as history.
By the Roman literature, science and civilization were first restored;
Dante and Petrarch felt as warmly for the men of the Roman era, as an
old Roman himself would have done. Valerius Maximus was during the
middle ages the mirror of virtue, which with the Holy Scriptures was
read by every one. The tribune Rienzi is said to have read all the
books of the ancients. The Teutonic Knights had a book, still extant
at Königsberg, which was read during dinner, containing stories from
the Old Testament, and from the heroic age of Rome.[33] Thus since the
restoration of learning to the present day, although Roman history was
not always very profitably studied, there has notwithstanding ever
been in every one a certain vague feeling which told them that it was
transcendently important and instructive.
MANNER IN WHICH THE EARLY HISTORY OF ROME ORIGINATED.
When Fabius began to write the Roman history, his materials consisted
of the _Annales Pontificum_; the Fasti; the _Libri Pontificum_, and
_Augurales_ for the time nearer his own; of the _Laudationes_, and of
lays. Of the scantiness of these sources we have already convinced
ourselves, but what were their contents? They cannot have been less
worthy of belief than our Merovingian and other ancient annals. As
the _Annales Pontificum_ commenced _ab initio rerum Romanarum_, or at
least from Numa, they might have been very authentic. The pontiffs, as
Dionysius informs us, had with the greatest accuracy recorded in them
year by year from the era of the kings; in the _Fasti Triumphales_ it
was even entered on what days the kings had triumphed over their foes.
The consideration, however, that the ancient history, as it lies before
us, is impossible, must lead us to the question of the credibility of
the oldest annals. Our task therefore is that of now showing that the
earliest history contains impossibilities; that it is poetical, and
that every thing in it which does not bear the impress of a poetical
character is a forgery; that thence it follows that the history must be
reduced to ancient songs, and to a later invented chronology, which was
adapted to those lays.
The accounts of the earliest times are materially different in Livy
and Dionysius. Livy wrote his first book without any division of
years, and with extraordinary fairness; he also had evidently Ennius
before his eyes, as one may see from a comparison of the fragments of
that poet with Livy;--e. g. Lib. II, 10. with _Fragm. Ennii_, _Teque
pater Tiberine tuo cum numine sancto_. Dionysius tries to make out
a true history. He takes it for granted that the Roman history must
be capable of being restored in its details; that a truly historical
groundwork was built over with fabulous legends; and so he endeavours
to reconstruct it according to his notions; in doing which he sometimes
makes himself really ridiculous by his pragmatical speeches in the
mythic ages. Livy, on the contrary, writes history, as he found it in
the oldest books, and as it appeared to him most beautiful, giving
what was the old narrative before it was spoiled by too much art; and
for this reason his account is the most unadulterated source for those
times.
The history of the wondrous birth of Romulus is an historical
impossibility, although it was historicised by the school of Piso. This
is also the case with the rape of the Sabine women, of whom, according
to the original tale, there were thirty; with the removal of Romulus
from the earth during an eclipse of the sun;[34] and likewise with the
long reign of Numa in unbroken peace, and that marriage of his with
the goddess Egeria, which in the belief of Scipio’s contemporaries was
held to be quite as historical as the Punic wars. There is a poetical
impress of hoar antiquity in the story of the combat between the
Horatii and the Curiatii, who were born by two sisters in one day, the
effect of which is already somewhat marred in Livy. We next arrive at
Tarquinius Priscus, who, with Tanaquil his wife came to Rome in the
eighth year of the reign of Ancus (which lasted twenty-three years),
then reigned himself thirty-eight more, and being at his death upwards
of eighty, left infants behind him, who were brought up during the
forty-three years’ reign of Servius; so that Tarquin the Proud must
have been at least fifty years old, when he killed his father-in-law.
Tanaquil, who lives to see this, and exacts an oath from Servius not
to resign the crown, must at that time have been a hundred and fifteen
years old. One of the first things told us of Servius is this, that
a flame burns round his head, for the natural explanation of which
Dionysius wishes to give hints. Collatinus is stated to have been the
son of a brother of Tarquinius Priscus; this brother, it is said, was
born before the removal of Tarquinius Priscus to Rome, a hundred and
thirty-five years previous to the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud,
and his son is now, more than a hundred and twenty years after his
father’s birth, a young man of thirty. Brutus is described as a
_tribunus celerum_, which was the highest office attainable by one
of the equestrian body, by virtue of which he represents the king,
assembles the senate, and is called upon to officiate at the highest
sacrifices; and this office the king is declared to have given to a
man whom he considered as half-witted and therefore deprived of the
management of his own property, while Brutus, on the other hand, is
said to have feigned imbecility that he might ward off the envy and
covetousness of the king. He is stated to have been the son of a
daughter of Tarquinius Priscus, and to have been afraid of rousing the
anger of the king by taking upon himself the administration of his own
possessions; yet Tarquin was not even of the same _gens_ as himself. In
the beginning of Tarquin’s reign, Brutus was a child; but immediately
after the king’s expulsion, he has sons who are grown up youths.
All these details connected with dates, the list of which, down to
the times of Camillus, might be vastly swelled, are so characterised
by marks of inconsistency and historical impossibility, that it may
safely be concluded that here we are entitled to the exercise of
criticism. Let us now call to mind the twofold sources of the earliest
Roman history,--the chronological ones, the Fasti, the _Annales
Pontificum_; and the unchronological ones, the lays, _Laudationes_, the
_Libri Pontificum_ and _Augurales_. With regard to the chronological
ones, we see that in the oldest accounts of Fabius, from the building
of Rome to its destruction by the Gauls, 360 years are reckoned;
precisely the number of the γένη in Attica, which number the Greeks
already (especially Aristotle, from whom the grammarians Pollux,
Harpocration, and others borrowed) declared to have been in imitation
of the solar year. If we look more closely into it, 360 is the middle
number between those of the days of the solar and lunar year, and the
nearest to either of these capable of being conveniently divided.
The time assigned for the kings, according to the older reckoning,
was 240 years; that for the republic, 120. This number has the same
mathematical character as those of the Indian ages of the world,
the Babylonian, and other eastern numbers. The 120 years for the
republic are received also by those who deem the whole period to have
been 365 years. Whether these 120 years are correct, remains indeed
to be decided according to one’s views with regard to the epoch of
the dedication of the Capitol. That the annals of the pontiffs were
destroyed when the city was burned by the Gauls, is strongly confirmed
by Claudius (without doubt Claudius Quadrigarius) in Plutarch, and
indirectly by Livy, who cannot state it in a direct manner, or else
he would have declared his first books to be worthless. An additional
proof of it is the fact, that the eclipse of the sun in the year
350 was the first one really observed which occurred in the annals;
whereas all the earlier ones were calculated afterwards, and of
course incorrectly, with the aid of the scientific means which then
existed. For the first 240 years we have seven kings, who reigned for
an immense time, most of them about forty years. Newton has already
pointed out how improbable it was, that a succession of princes should
have all ruled for so long a period, and he has assigned seventeen
years as an average for each. The most exact parallel, however, is to
be found among the doges of Venice, who also were elective princes
like the Roman kings. There have been forty doges within the space of
five centuries (800 to 1300), so that there were eight of these to a
century. When we now look more closely at the numbers of the Roman
kings, we find in them a play upon numbers, as among the eastern
nations. To understand this, we must premise the following remarks.
The Etruscans had as the basis of their chronology two sorts of
_sæcula_, physical and astronomical, of which the latter consisted of a
hundred and ten years, as the received average number of the physical
one. By a twofold intercalation, the calendar was rectified to within
a wonderfully small fractional difference, a hundred and ten of these
years very nearly corresponding to a hundred and thirty-two years of
ten months; and thus an astronomical period was constituted. The length
of the physical _sæculum_ was thus fixed. The life of him who outlived
all those who had been alive at the foundation of a state, marked the
first _sæculum_; the second was determined by the longest life among
those who were alive at the conclusion of the first, and so on. Now
there is an old tradition in Plutarch and Dio Cassius, and in Dionysius
at least an allusion to it, that Numa was born on the day of the
foundation of Rome, and therefore the first _sæculum_ at Rome probably
ended with his death in the year 77.[35] If this was the case, we then
see the reason why Romulus was made to reign thirty-eight years (the
number of the weeks of the year of ten months), and Numa thirty-nine.
For the last five kings one had historical traditions; yet they did
not extend through the whole of the regal period. Rome has surely had
by far more than five kings; but as a founder was wanted besides for
the Ramnes, and another for the Tities, the number was chosen which
had a sacred meaning, that of the planets, &c. The middle point in two
hundred and forty years is the end of the hundred and twentieth, just
the middle of the reign of the fourth king out of seven, evidently an
artificial arrangement. Twenty-three years were given him, so that
people might be able to begin to date them from the year 110, as they
always wished for the beginning some distinguished number, and a
hundred and ten was the sæcula number. The old year had ten months,
and a hundred and thirty of those years are equal to a hundred and ten
of the later ones. The reign of Ancus must therefore have been placed
between 110 and 132. What is between 77 and 110, namely, thirty-two
years, is now of course to be assigned to Tullus Hostilius. Tarquinius
Priscus reigns until 170, half a century being added to the middle of
the regal period; his reign therefore lasted thirty-eight years. The
twenty-five years of the last king may be historical, or a quarter of
a century may have been assigned to him in round numbers. For Servius
Tullius there now remains the time from 170 to 215. But let us now
suppose that the two reigns of Tarquinius Priscus and of Servius
Tullius did not last so long, then every inconsistency vanishes, and
the old unanimous account that Tarquinius Superbus was the son of
Tarquinius Priscus reasserts its claims. We thus see how the greatest
absurdities may arise from chronological restorations, as in this case
there is a palpable forgery.
Although the other sources of the earliest history, the old lays,
may not also have been tampered with, they are nevertheless
altogether insufficient. We have a parallel case to this in our own
Nibelungenlied, the poets of which likewise did not wish to deceive,
nor did they make any pretensions whatever to be annalists. Historical
characters appear in it,--Theodoric, Attila, the Burgundians; and yet
of the whole poem nothing belongs to history. Nor has history any part
in Romulus and Numa. They belong to the cycle of the gods, Romulus
as the son of Mars, and Numa as the husband of Egeria; Romulus is
merely a personification of Rome. Other poems have more historical
matter in them; for instance, the Spanish romances of the Cid. Here
the outlines are undoubtedly historical; but they form as it were a
line only, whilst the description as given in the poem is a plane.
There is also much of this in Roman history. He who utterly rejects
the whole of the early Roman history, does not know what he is saying.
Romulus and Numa are included within the first sæculum, because they
do not at all belong to history; and therefore they form a sæculum of
their own, and as it were quite a different era. From thence whatever
was discovered of old traditions concerning the kings and their time,
much of which was in circulation, had now its place assigned to it
in the chronological cycle. Those who think this criticism doubtful,
would not do so if they were more familiar with what is nearer our
own times. It is well known how the romances of the middle ages about
Charlemagne and his Paladins, refer to Latin chronicles the authorship
of which is ascribed to the Archbishop Turpin. These are now allowed
to figure as romances by the side of history; but who would believe
that not a hundred and fifty years after Charlemagne, in the reign of
Otho the Great, at a time therefore when the crusades were not yet in
the remotest manner thought of, there appears already in the Chronicle
of Benedict of Soracte a most detailed account of an expedition of
Charlemagne to Jerusalem, and that without any consciousness of its
falsehood. Before the extinction of the Carlovingian race, utterly
fictitious expeditions across the Alps, &c., taken from the history of
Charlemagne, are related at large in the Chronicles as positive facts.
We are now able to disprove them, because we have contemporary annals,
and the history of Eginhard; and as for the expedition to Jerusalem,
even without these we may also disprove it from eastern annals.--The
same thing occurs in Ireland. There also, pretended annals exist in
which a succession of kings are found, among whom Niall the Great,
about the time of the emperor Theodosius, conquers Britain, Gaul, and
Spain, crosses the Alps, and threatens the emperor in Rome. The most
decisive proof can be brought against this completely fabulous tale,
as the authentic history in this case is generally known.[36] Had we
likewise older books of history to check the Roman legends with, we
might just as easily get the proof of the want of authenticity of the
early Roman history. In the meanwhile where shall we find them? The
Greeks had no intercourse with Rome, and although they knew of the
Romans at a much earlier period than is generally supposed, yet they
did not trouble themselves about them, precisely because they never
came into contact with them. The case would be quite different with the
Greeks of Southern Italy, and the Siceliotes, of whom we have, however,
no more authors left. Neither Herodotus nor Thucydides can mention the
Romans. There nevertheless exists a notice which gives one a sample
of Roman history as it was told among other nations, quite a detached
fragment of Etruscan history. The case is as follows,--Claudius,
afterwards emperor, who was so unfortunate in his youth, who was
disowned by his mother, and whose feeble understanding, in spite of his
other good qualities, was entirely spoiled by ill-treatment, seems to
have excited Livy’s pity, who gave him instruction and encouragement
for writing history. Thus he wrote several works, Καρχηδονιακά, in
eight, and Tυῤῥηνικά, in twenty books, certainly in Greek, the loss of
which we have very much to regret. Even Pliny does no more quote this
latter work. But in the sixteenth century two tablets were discovered,
on which fragments of an oration of the emperor Claudius are found,
wherein he proposes in the senate to give the Lugdunensian Gauls the
full citizenship, and to admit them into the senate, as had long been
the case already in the _Provincia Romana_. The inhabitants of Gaul
were Roman citizens, had Roman names, yet they had not the right
of admission into the senate. With this right the emperor Claudius
presented Lugdunensian Gaul. The two brazen tablets are still left,
out of several which contained the speech mentioned by Tacitus; and
they either do not immediately join each other, or a considerable
piece must be wanting at the bottom. Before the French Revolution they
were still in the town hall at Lyons; whether they be still there, I
know not. Lipsius had them printed in his edition of Tacitus, Gruter
in the Corpus Inscriptionum; but yet they have been little read. They
give us an idea of the stupidity of Claudius, so that we feel assured
that the ancients have not done him injustice. In this harangue he
says at full length what Tacitus very summarily condensed, that we
ought not to say that this was an innovation. Innovations had been made
from the beginning of the state; foreigners had ever been received,
as for instance the Sabines of Titus Tatius. Even foreigners had been
made kings--Numa; Tarquin the Etruscan, a descendant of the Greeks;
Servius Tullius, who, according to our annals, was a Corniculensian,
but according to the Tuscan ones was a Tuscan of the name of Mastarna,
a follower of Cæles Vibenna. He emigrated and settled on the Mons
Cælius, which was so called by him after the name of his leader, and
now called himself Servius Tullius. This is therefore a direct proof
of how matters stood at that time with regard to the Roman annals; for
there is nothing whatever in which we can make this Etruscan Mastarna
and Servius Tullius, the son of a bondwoman, tally with each other.
Undoubtedly therefore the earliest Roman history has sprung from lays.
Perizonius quotes examples from other nations; even in the historical
books of the Old Testament, there are such lays. With regard to the
Romans, he cites the testimony of Cato, to which Cicero refers in two
passages. “Would that the lays were still in existence;” Cicero writes,
“for as Cato says, they were sung at table by the guests in praise of
deceased men!” A third mention we find in Nonius Marcellus from Varro,
that at banquets _pueri honesti_ sang lays in praise of departed great
men, either to the flute, or without any accompaniment. This evidence
every one must acknowledge as authentic. Among all the nations of
whose peculiar original early literature we can form any judgment,
there are found either longer historical poems of the epic class, or
else very short ones in praise of individual men. In order to pave the
way for the assertion that we have still pieces left of both from the
Romans, we must first premise some remarks on their most ancient metres.
The ancient Romans, before they adopted the Greek poetic system, made
use of the Saturnian verse. Horace says of it,
Horridus ille
Defluxit numerus Saturnius
and several old grammarians have given accounts of it. Atilius
Fortunatianus and others among them, who knew nothing about its
structure, stuck to a couple of verses which had been preserved;
particularly to the following, in which, according to the views which
then prevailed, a hypercatalectical Senarius makes its appearance:
Malum dabunt Metelli Nævio Poëtæ.
Terentianus Maurus, who belongs to the end of the third century,
speaks of it when treating of the Anacreontic verse, because the first
division of the Saturnian bears some resemblance to it. But the real
Saturnian verse is quite a different one, which I intend shortly to
prove in a detailed treatise. It has many forms, and is altogether
distinct from Greek metres. The Latin term for Rhythmus, which in later
times only was applied to Greek metres, is _numeri_. But the Greek
metre is based on music and quantity, while in theirs the Romans really
_counted_, the syllables being little measured, or rather not at all:
a certain degree of rhythm was, however, kept. Our ancestors, in the
same way, had no idea of short and long syllables in the Greek manner;
and in the old Latin church hymns likewise short syllables are made
long, and _vice versa_. Plautus and Terence also, in their iambic and
trochaic verses, really observed the ryhthmical measure only, and not
the quantity. This is the case with all northern people. The pervading
characteristic of the Saturnian verse is this, that it must consist of
a fixed number of trisyllabic feet. Generally speaking there are four
of them, in which either Bacchics or Cretics interchange with Spondees.
Sometimes the Cretics and sometimes the Bacchics predominate. When kept
distinct they have a very fine movement; but they are usually very much
mingled together, so that it is difficult to make them out.
These verses, found from the very earliest times, are quite analogous
to the Persian, Arabian, and to our own old German and northern ones,
and also to those of the Anglo-Saxon, and to all in which alliteration
prevails. The old German verse is divided into two halves, in the first
of which two words begin with the same consonant, which once more
occurs again in the second, and it has four beats. In the old Saxon
Harmony of the Gospels there is this quadruple measure, and likewise
in Otfrid and others; but five or six measures may also be found.
In Persian poetry there are uniformly four feet of three syllables
each; in Arabic this is often the case, but not unseldom there are
quadrisyllabic ones also. Exactly agreeing with these are the Spanish
_coplas de arte major_, which were in use before the introduction
of the Alexandrine, and have also passed into the Flemish. In all
probability this metre was also used in the longer poems of the
Provençal. This old Roman syllabic measure is universal in the Roman
poems down to the seventh century. I have found a long string of them,
and a chapter of an old grammarian with fragments of wonderful beauty,
principally from Nævius. This important treatise on the Saturnian
verse I shall publish. For this grammarian has really understood that
metre,[37] which in Plautus is worked up to a high degree of beauty.
There are also shorter old poems in this measure. At the funerals of
the Romans, _Neniæ_, as they were called, were sung to the flute,
which were not doleful sentimental songs, but must have been of the
same character as the _Laudationes_. The dead had now passed over to
their illustrious ancestors; their glory was made the theme of pride
and exultation; and therefore in these Neniæ praise was simply given
them. When Horace says, _absint inani funere neniæ_, &c. this refers,
if there was any singing at all at funerals, to the dirges of the later
age. The Romans were not originally tender-hearted. They made even the
dead man of use to the State, and from the grave itself he exhorted
others to follow him in his deeds. Neniæ and Laudationes were therefore
quite plain and simple, in that old style which did not yet know of
any construction of periods, and they are no way to be compared to the
λόγοι ἐπιτάφιοι in Thucydides and the later Greeks. Two such poems are
evidently still preserved to us, in the tombs of the Scipios, which
were discovered in 1780, by the Appian road. The upper story, where
the sarcophagus of the younger Africanus and the statue of Ennius
were, is wanting; but the lower one, which was scooped out of the hill
side, was found choked up with rubbish. Here was the sarcophagus of
L. Scipio Barbatus, who had been a consul in the fifth century (454).
At an earlier period,[38] this tomb had been already entered from the
top, and a tablet taken out, which is now built into the wall of the
Barberini palace; yet this had fallen into oblivion. The bodies of
the Cornelii down to Sylla were not burned in the Pelasgian, or Greek
manner, but buried in coffins. On these noble sarcophagi there are
verses, written indeed like prose, but divided by dashes; and on the
sarcophagus of the son the verses are even arranged in lines. That
they are verses is to be seen from their unequal length, as otherwise
the Romans always wrote every line to its full length. These are quite
plain and simple verses, yet there is still some metre in them.
_Cornéliu’ Lúciu’ Scípio Barbátus,_
_Gnáivo prognátu’, fortis vír sapiénsque--_
_Consúl, censor, aédilis, quí fuit apúd vos, etc._
These are surely the _Neniæ_ which were sung at the time, and then
inscribed on the tomb. The old songs at the banquets, were for the most
part quite as simple.
Now these _Neniæ_, together with the _Laudationes_ kept in the
Atrium, are sources for the earliest history. There were besides some
longer epic poems among the Romans, as well as among other people;
for instance, the Servians, &c. The modern Greek songs are only of a
lyrical description, but those of the Servians are a combination of the
epic with the lyric. A fragment of an heroic poem of this kind on the
combat of the Horatii and Curatii, I think I have discovered in Livy.
Now it is not by any means to be supposed that Livy had still seen
these old heroic poems, and written from them; but he wrote, either
directly or indirectly, through Varro, from the books of the pontiffs
and augurs, in which very many fragments of such ancient epic lays
were preserved; many of them dating even from the time of the taking
of the city. In the passage of Livy alluded to, wherein the appeal to
the people is related, which he had taken from these books, he speaks
of _lex horrendi carminis_. The formulas of that time were, however,
called _carmina_, and were written in the old measure. That Livy has
indirectly or directly borrowed from these books is so much the more
certain, as Cicero asserts, that the formula of the _provocatio ad
populum_ was contained in the _libri augurales_. The formula is
Duúmviri pérduelliónem júdicent, &c.
in which the old metre is still to be recognised.
That Cicero’s assertion, _laudationibus historia nostra facta est
mendosior_, is acknowledged also by Livy, has been already remarked.
For as every thing good may easily be turned to evil, that lofty
feeling of family pride which the Romans had was also liable to be
perverted, and we may well believe that saying.
After the first scanty notices from the earlier times were for the
most part destroyed in the Gallic devastation, they were restored from
outlines taken from the songs of the _Vates_; the poems were changed
in passing from mouth to mouth, and from these combined with the
_Laudationes_ history arose. These are the materials which Fabius found
extant.
If we look at the tenth book of Livy, we find in it a disproportionate
prolixity in the account of the campaigns of Fabius Maximus Rullianus.
Now this is exactly an instance of a story taken from family records.
In fact not a few statements may even be pointed out, which have no
other source than family vanity. People even ventured to interpolate
fictitious consulships and triumphs into the family annals, as Livy
himself tells us.
Again, other falsifications have arisen from national pride. The
forgeries of patriotism manifest themselves among the Romans whenever
they suffered great disasters; and this is particularly the case with
the momentous ones of the earlier time, with the war of Porsena, the
Gallic calamity, and the disgrace at Caudium, in which the whole
account is a lying one. Others have sprung from that spirit of caste,
which in earlier times led to continual struggles. Both parties thus
brought false accusations against each other, which afterwards found
their way into history; or, on the other hand, palliation was also
attempted in order to disguise political or moral crimes. The blame of
the worst events is laid to the people’s charge; yet it is innocent,
and the guilt belongs wholly to its antagonists. Not the people, but
the Curies condemned Manlius to death; these also pronounced the
disgraceful decision between the Ardeates and the people of Aricia;[39]
nay, we may be sure that it was the Curies which compelled Camillus to
go into exile.
Such falsifications accumulate, become involved in each other, and give
rise to this strange confusion. The rich materials, widely scattered
indeed, because the parties did not allow of their being brought
together, we may gather in order to find out by critical research the
organization and the nature of the Roman nation; and on the whole to
carry on their history to that point at which contemporary accounts
from the Greeks begin, to the war with Pyrrhus, and the first Punic
war. Much will indeed remain undecided in these inquiries; but we may
exactly discriminate where this must needs be the case, and where it is
otherwise.
THE EARLIEST HISTORY.
The Roman history goes back to Latium, and through Latium to Troy.
Since Dio Chrysostom has started the question, whether Troy ever
existed at all, a vast deal has been written on the subject; and also
upon this other point, whether Æneas came to Italy. The treatise of
Theodore Ryckius[40] about it is particularly well known. He deems the
arrival of Æneas to be historical, in opposition to Bochart, who is one
of the last highly gifted French philologists,[41] and at all events
is superior to him in discernment. Bochart’s hypothesis concerning the
influence of the Phœnicians, is doubtless carried too far. No one,
however, will now any more put the question thus; but one must ask,
has the legend that the Trojans came to this coast any historical
foundation? and, moreover, has the legend arisen among the Greeks, and
passed over to Italy; or is it a native Italian tradition which cannot,
at least by us, be traced back to Greek sources? If the latter be the
case, some truth must surely be at the bottom of it, and the less one
takes these ancient accounts in their literal meaning, the more are
they found to partake of possibility.
There is no question but that in the earliest times there were in
Greece two peoples who were very nearly akin, but still distinct from
each other; so much so that they did not understand each other’s
language, as Herodotus positively asserts. One of these languages as
opposed to the other was considered as barbarous; and yet, when looked
upon from a different point of view, they may be said to be both of
them closely related. There are still several living languages which
stand in a similar degree of affinity,--the Polish and the Bohemian,
the Italian and the Spanish, and, although we may not find the
relationship to be so close, the Polish and Lithuanian. The two last
languages are as wide as heaven and earth asunder; yet for all that
they have a characteristic similarity. The grammar of both has the same
development, the same peculiarities; the numerals are nearly the same;
a great many words are common to both. These languages are therefore
branches of the same stock, and yet the Poles do not understand the
Lithuanians. Now this is the manner in which we solve the question so
often mooted concerning the difference or identity of the Greeks and
the Pelasgians. When Herodotus says that they were different, we must
after all believe him; yet, on the other hand, he places the Hellenes
and Pelasgians again side by side. The two nations cannot therefore be
of different race.
In the earliest times, when the Greek history is yet veiled to us in
impenetrable mystery, the greater part of Italy, perhaps the whole
eastern shore of the Adriatic sea, Epirus, Macedon,[42] the southern
coast of Thrace, the Macedonian peninsulas, the islands of the Ægean,
and also the coasts of Asia Minor to the Bosporus were inhabited by
Pelasgians.[43] The Trojans also are to be looked upon as Pelasgians.
That they were no barbarians is the opinion of all the Greeks, as we
also see already from Homer; their abode is quite in the Pelasgian
country; their names are Greek. They are in close conjunction at
one time with the Arcadians, another essentially Pelasgian people,
then with the Epirots, then also with the Thessalians; and Æneas,
according to one tradition, goes to Arcadia and dies there, according
to another into Epirus, where Helenus settles. Thus, in like manner,
we find in Pindar, in the poem on Cyrene, Aristæus, a Pelasgian hero
from Arcadia, together with the Antenorides. The connexion of the
Pelasgians with the Trojans extends very far. Samothrace in particular
is the metropolis of Ilium; Dardanus comes from Arcadia, but passes
through Samothrace, and from thence, married to Chryse, goes to Troas.
The Samothracians, according to one of the grammarians, are a Roman
people, acknowledged to be of kindred race with the Romans; that is
to say, with the Troio-Tyrrhenian Pelasgians. This connexion has no
other source but the common relationship between the Tyrrhenians,
Trojans, and Samothracians. According to some accounts, Dardanus comes
from Tyrrhenia to Troas; according to others, the Trojans come to
Tyrrhenia. In the temple, and in the mysteries of Samothrace, there
was a gathering point of many men from all quarters;[44] and it was
for a great part of the world at that time as the Caaba of Mecca, the
grave of the prophet at Medina, or as the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem.
Samothrace and Dodona were for the Pelasgian races, what perhaps to the
Hellenic world Delphi and Delos were. The distance of a considerable
portion of those who are linked together by a common origin ought not
to have much stress laid upon it in a case like this, as it is such as
not to hinder the Mahometan from making the pilgrimage to the sacred
spot.
This old stock of the Pelasgians which we may trace as far as Liguria,
and which also dwelt on the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia, vanishes
in the age of history as a component part of nations; but it consisted
originally of a number of tribes which bore different names. A very
wide spread name for that portion which was settled in Epirus, and
in the southern part of modern Italy, as far as Latium and the coast
of the Adriatic Sea, was that of Siculians (_Siculi_); also Vituli,
Vitelli, Vitali, Itali, from the last of which Italy takes its name.
Notwithstanding the wide spread of these Siculian or Italian names,
_Italia_ in the earliest times does not seem as at present to have
designated the country to the foot of the Alps. It is indeed possible
that the changes which followed upon the immigration of northern races
severed the sea-coast from Etruria, and confined the name _Italia_ to
the country south of the Tiber, or rather, south of Latium. Yet this is
only a supposition, though it is certain that Italy was once bounded
on the north by a line from the Garganus on one side to Terracina on
the other; and that the name, which had been restricted to within yet
narrower limits in the times after Alexander the Great, before the
sway of Rome had begun, was again extended to that wider range. It is
probably of this earlier Italy that Pliny says, that it was _querno
folio similis_,--a remarkable example of the manner in which Pliny
wrote. He speaks at one time in his own name, and at another he gives
excerpta. Yet his excerpta are unfortunately as little weighed by him
in historical matters as in those of natural history. This statement he
has without doubt taken from Timæus, with whom also the comparison of
Sardinia to a sandal or a foot-print originates. That in his own time
Italy could not by any means be so described, entirely escaped Pliny’s
notice.
In the south of Italy, the earliest inhabitants were also called
Œnotrians and Peucetians; in the north, without doubt they were
likewise called Liburnians; and on the coasts of Latium, Tyrrhenians.
Whether the settlements on the coast north of the Tiber were the
remnants of an expelled people, or perhaps mere colonies, can no longer
now be ascertained; yet there appear in the middle of Italy, besides
those people which were akin to the Greeks, some of a different kind
by whom the former indeed were crushed. It seems that those migrations
of the different races came about in the same manner as those in
modern history. The people which directly precipitates itself upon the
Siculians in Latium, and the Italians in Southern Italy proper, partly
expelling, and partly absorbing and assimilating them, are the Opicans
(_Opici_), a mixed race, which in fact as Opicans exists only in a
few places, but is again absorbed by another people, and produces new
tribes. They are the same whom we meet with under the name of Apulians;
for the terminations, _-icus_ and _-ulus_ are equivalent. The Italian
population therefore ends in Apulia; though it reaches in appearance
as far as into Messapia, where part only of the Italians maintained
themselves in an isolated settlement. Moreover they were in Samnium,
Campania, and on the borders of Latium as Volscians and Æquians.
These Opicans were in their turn pushed forward by the Sabines
(Sabellians), who called themselves aborigines, and traced their
source from the highest Alps of Abruzzo near Majella and Gran Sasso
d’Italia. Cato in a somewhat extraordinary manner makes them come
from Little Amiternum. Whether the Sabellians and Opicans were about
as distinct from each other as the Gauls and Ligurians; or in a less
degree, like the Celts and Cymri; or whether they belonged to the
same stock, and were only politically separated; are questions which
we cannot solve. The ancients knew not, nor did they care much about
it. When we want to see at any rate where no historical light is to
be had, the mind’s eye is dimmed like that of the body when it is
violently strained in the dark. Varro indeed distinguishes the Sabine
from the Oscan language; but as he was very little of a judge of the
earlier languages, in the sense in which we should apply the term to
W. von Humboldt, we have also very little reason to rely upon any
of his statements concerning the relationship of languages. From a
general analogy, I conceive that the tide of emigration must have set
in in several streams, and that thus the Sabines also may have been
carried down from the higher north by its first rush. Yet this is mere
conjecture.
The Umbrians may have belonged to the same stock as the Opicans. I
would not lay too great a stress on the resemblance of names; the
races which are nearest akin to each other have very often the most
dissimilar names, and those which are the most remote quite similar
ones. Thus the Getæ and the Goths were for a long time mistaken for
the same people. Fifty years ago, it was the general belief in Ireland
and Scotland that the Fir-Bolgs[45] were the old Belgians; yet this is
false, and they are a Danish colony, as a very well-informed Englishman
wrote to me. If I had no other reasons but the names, I should
hesitate to pronounce for the identity of the Opicans and Umbrians. But
Philistus called the people which overcame the Siculians in Latium,
Ombricans, and the affinity of the languages may also be clearly made
out from what remains of them.
These changes of the population, in which the earlier inhabitants are
dislodged by another tribe, and the latter by some other one in its
turn, make the history of the old Italian nations so indescribably
obscure and difficult for us. At a time which we cannot fix with
chronological certainty, in what was afterwards called Latium, which,
however, perhaps bore this name from the earliest times, there existed
a population of Siculians. The memory of it was preserved at Tibur,
where according to Cato part of the town was called Siculio.[46] There
are also elsewhere very many allusions in ancient authors, which
place it beyond doubt that this people once existed there. Under
the same name we find it in Southern Italy, and in the island which
is to this day still called after them. According to one tradition,
Sicelus came from Latium to the Œnotrians; according to another, the
Siculians under different names were driven from their old abodes by
the Opicans or Ombricans, and removed to that island. This migration
is merely indicative of the combinations of those who tried to explain
the contemporary existence of the same people in Latium and in Sicily.
Possible it is, but it is also possible that it took quite a different
direction. It is certain that in Homer’s time there were Siculians
in Southern Italy; to prove which fact there exists a passage from
Mnaseas, a pupil of Aristarchus, a learned grammarian and historian,
whom the scholiast of the Odyssey quotes. He also says, that Echetus in
Epirus was prince of the Siculians, so that he likewise acknowledged
this name in those parts. From his explanation, we see that the poet of
the Odyssey, when speaking of Siculians, does not mean the inhabitants
of Sicily, a country concerning which he was in the dark; but those of
Southern Italy, or the Pelasgians of Epirus.
The Siculians are the same as those whom Cato calls _Aborigines_.
This name is interpreted γενάρχαι, ancestors; or also, wanderers,
_aberrigines_; and likewise those who are from the very beginning,
_ab origine_. The nominative singular, according to the Latin idiom,
must have been _aboriginus_. There was a tradition that Latium
had originally been inhabited by _Autochthones_; but Cato and C.
Sempronius[47] said, that the aborigines had emigrated from Achaia,
by which was meant the whole of the Peloponnesus, then named by the
Romans Achaia. Others called the different places which were formerly
termed Siculian, Argive; and Cato had done that with regard to Tibur
itself. Argos and Larissa are Pelasgian names, which we meet with
wherever there are Pelasgians;--Argos probably meaning town, and
Larissa borough. As long as the Peloponnesus was Pelasgian, it was
called Argos; even so was Thessaly. In this meaning the Argives are
Pelasgians, and the Ἀργεῖοι Πελασγοί are in the old tragedy always named
in conjunction. The one was most likely the general, and the other the
special appellation.
Hesiod says of Latinus, πᾶσι Τυῤῥηνοῖσιν ἀγακλειτοῖσιν ἀνάσσει.
All that we know of the Latins is this, that they had a number of
towns from Tibur to the river Tiber. How far they extended in the
earliest time to the Liris is lost in obscurity. Cato (in Priscian)
says, that the plain of the Volscians formerly belonged to the
aborigines; certainly all the towns along the coast were at an early
period Tyrrhenian, as Antium, Circeii, and many others. At that time,
therefore, the name of Latium spread far, and so late as immediately
after the Roman kings, even to Campania; it having been first limited
in consequence of the great popular migrations soon after the expulsion
of the kings. Hesiod of course refers to the earlier time. In the
treaty of Rome with Carthage, the coast beyond Terracina, probably as
far as Cumæ, was called Latium, and the inhabitants Latins.
By the Greeks the Pelasgian inhabitants of the whole western coast of
Italy were called Tyrrhenians; by the Latins, _Turini_, _Tusci_, i. e.
_Tusici_ from _Tusus_, or _Turus_; for _s_ in the ancient language
stands for _r_, as in _Fusius_ for _Furius_.
We must bear well in mind that the Pelasgians and Aborigines are
one and the same people. If we look over the legends of nations, we
repeatedly find the same stories told in different ways which are
entirely opposed to each other. The story of a Jew who takes ruthless
revenge upon a Christian, as we know it from Shakspeare, in a Roman
novel shortly before his time, is found just reversed, so that the
Christian wants to cut off the flesh from the Jew. The migrations
of the Goths, according to some, proceed from Scandinavia to the
south; according to others, from the south to Scandinavia. Wittikind
says that the Saxons had come out of Britain into Germany; the usual
account makes them out to have been invited thither from Germany.
The Pelasgians near the Hymettus near Athens are represented to have
come from Tyrrhenia to Athens, and from thence to Lemnos; in another
tradition, the Tyrrhenians go from the Meonian coast to Italy. Thus
Cyrene, according to one legend, is colonized from Thera; in another,
Thera rises out of a clod of earth from Libya. In the earlier account,
the Symplegades were in the Eastern Sea, and the Argo sails through
them on her voyage out; in the later, they are in the Western Sea, and
impede the progress of the Argo on her voyage home. This exchange of
polarity is manifested also with regard to the aborigines. In spite
of etymology, Dionysius so calls the people which, issuing from the
interior of the country, conquered the ancient inhabitants. Varro did
the same, and yet worse than Pliny. He had read an immense deal; but
learned he ought not to be called on account of his confusedness.[48]
Varro knows about the close alliance of two of the Latin nations,
but he makes a jumble of every thing; the aborigines are for him the
conquering, and the Siculians the conquered people. Then, following
Hellanicus, he brings over the aborigines from Thessaly; yet they
then migrate from the Upper Anio to the Upper Abruzzo, whither they
are driven by the Sabines. This tradition has a local and plausible
character; for there were many small towns to be found there: large
cities, on the contrary, such as the Etruscans possessed, are always
a proof of immigration, as the immigrating people rather settles in
a few considerable places. Trent and several other cities are large
Lombard colonies. Dionysius may be excused, as he relies on Varro’s
authority; the latter alone is answerable for the mistake. Here also
the designation of the people, the conquering and the conquered one, is
confounded.
The conquerors were probably called Cascans. This name Servius has
preserved from Saufeius, a grammarian who seems to belong to the first
century of the Christian era. They are also met with under the name
of Sacranians, and to this the expression in Dionysius refers, that
it had been a ἱερὰ νεότης. Part of the people which under the name of
Opicans and Oscans inhabited the interior of Italy, or was more likely
pushed down from the north, and wedged in between the old Pelasgian
places, settled in the Apennines round the lake Fusinus (at present
called Celano), towards Reate. Their chief town was called Lista: they
bordered on the Siculians, who inhabited the country as far as beyond
Tibur. There was a legend concerning them, that in the war with the
Sabines, who had already taken from them Reate, and were driving them
before them further and further, they had made a vow of a _ver sacrum_.
This custom of the Italian nations when evil times befel them, was kept
up also among the Romans. It was vowed to consecrate to the gods all
cattle, in short, all that should be produced in the ensuing spring;
and to send out in colonies the male children born at that period, as
soon as ever they were grown up: the produce was either to be offered
up, or redeemed. Thus devoted, the Sacranians marched against Latium,
and subjected to themselves the Siculians. In Latium they settled among
the old inhabitants, and became united with them into one people, which
received the name of _Prisci Latini_; for, the Cascans must also have
been called _Prisci_. To take _Prisci Latini_ in Livy for _Old Latins_
would be an absurdity: he has borrowed the formula of the declaration
of war by the Fetiales, in which the expression first occurs, from the
ancient rituals; it goes back to the time of Ancus Marcius, whilst
before that of Tarquin the Proud, there were certainly no Latin
colonies which we may suppose to have been placed in opposition to the
rest of the people. _Prisci Latini_ stands for _Prisci et Latini_, as
the Latin language always expresses two necessary contra-positions, or
two notions inseparably combined, by an immediate juxtaposition of the
two words. The earliest Romans made as little use of cement in their
language, as in their buildings. Brissonius has very clearly shown
this, and has thereby fixed the formula _Populus Romanus Quirites_;
only that he goes too far when he asserts that _Populus Romanus
Quiritium_ had never been said, which has been justly controverted
by J. F. Gronovius. In the same manner, _patres conscripti_, instead
of _qui patres, quique conscripti sunt_; and in legal forms, _locati
conducti_, _emti venditi_, &c. _Priscus_ and _Cascus_ mean in after
times very old, quaint, as Gothic or old Franconian, do in German;
hence we have _casce loqui_, _vocabula casca_.--These conquerors spoke
Oscan; and from the fusion of their language with the Siculo-Pelasgian
arose that extraordinary medley which we call Latin, in which the
grammar in some measure, but still more the etymology, contains such
a considerable Greek element; a subject on which O. Müller has made
those fine enquiries in the first volume of his Etruscans. The ancient
Oscan language still exists in some old monuments: in Pompeii and
Herculaneum, there are a couple of inscriptions, and the tablet of
Bantia (Oppido) may be fully interpreted. Of the two elements in Latin,
that which is Greek and that which is not, the latter agrees with the
Oscan language. All the words which refer to agriculture, domestic
animals, fruits, &c., are either Greek or akin to Greek. We evidently
see a conquered agricultural people, and a conquering one from the
mountains which was not engaged in agriculture.
From henceforth the trace of the tradition is lost to us, being
effaced by the account of the Trojan immigration. This legend has no
authenticity whatever, and is merely a later figment to express the
relationship between the Trojans and the Latins as Pelasgians. The
story of a Trojan colony is found on so many points of Italy, that it
is by mere chance that this legend has been more definitely fixed upon
Latium; and it was fostered by the wide circulation of the Greek poems,
which spread much farther than we generally think.
Among the Romans the legend of the Trojan settlement is comparatively
ancient. Nævius, in his poem on the Punic war, gave it already at
considerable length; and the Ilians pleaded it with the Romans in their
wars against Seleucus Callinicus. If any one should feel inclined to
treat these accounts of the foundation of Rome by Æneas seriously,
we cannot follow him: some traditions in them have a very national
character, but the distance of time is too great between the events
and those who described them. Nævius wrote from 950 to 980 years
after the period at which the destruction of Troy is generally fixed.
It is little known how very much Virgil changed the old legend of
the settlement of Æneas in Latium, in which as a poet he was fully
warranted; for its features were rude and harsh, as that Latinus had
fallen in the war against Æneas, and that Lavinia, first betrothed
to Æneas, and then refused, became the prize of the conqueror. The
oldest tradition besides speaks of the settlement as a very small one.
According to Nævius, Æneas arrived with one ship only; and the tract
of land assigned to him consisted, as Cato stated, of not more than
seven hundred _jugera_. Suppose this to have been true, how could any
remembrance of it have lasted after nine hundred years?
The original tradition is that Æneas had first lived for three years
in a small town called Troy; then, that taking a higher flight, he
had founded Lavinium, and thirty years afterwards Alba; and that the
three hundredth year after Alba, was that of the building of Rome.
This regular progression of the numbers betokens a field which is not
that of history. Three thousand years also were certainly fixed as the
duration of Rome. There are two different numerical systems in these
legends:--the Etruscan with a sæculum of a hundred and ten years, and
the Greek, or the Tyrrhenian, in which the sæculum consisted of thirty
years. This number thirty had at all times considerable weight on
account of the period of the revolution of Saturn, which according to
the then existing opinion, as Servius records, was completed within
thirty years. Thirty common years constituted among the Greeks a
Saturnian, and a hundred Saturnians a grand year. With this the scale
of numbers from the foundation of Lavinium to the building of Rome is
connected. The earliest Alban history is a nonentity, as the sagacious
Dodwell (de Cyclis, diss. X.) has already shown, who indeed on other
occasions only too often spoils by his subtleties what he has well
begun. The chronology of the Alban-kings in Dionysius, for instance, is
mere absurdity and forgery, the names of them being patched together in
every possible way. This forgery, as we see from Servius, was committed
in a later age by a freedman of Sylla, L. Cornelius Alexander of
Miletus, who readily found acceptance at a period when people were glad
to have histories of those times of which nothing could be known.
Alba, on the Alban Lake, was in my opinion the capital of the ruling
conquerors. It is not accidental that it bears the same name as the
town on the Lake Fucinus, from whence the Sacranians had issued. When
they were obliged to yield their abode to the Sabines, they founded
the Alba again on the banks of a lake; as the Pœni did a New Carthage,
the Milesians a New Miletus on the Black Sea, and as is so frequently
the case in the New World. This Alba Longa is therefore the seat of
the Cascans or Sacranians, and the older Latin towns which lay within
its territory have probably had a double fate. Some may have derived
part of their population from the immigrants; others may have been
subjected without receiving colonies. We find in tradition that these
Latin towns had been thirty in number, all of them colonies of Alba,
a tradition which is contradicted by the other, which states all of
them to have been originally Argive. Both of these might be maintained
in this sense, that an ἀποδασμός of the dominant race had settled in
each of the towns. Be this as it may, Alba had thirty boroughs (δῆμοι)
which belonged to the town as immediate dependencies or cantons: these
are the _populi Albenses_ which I have discovered in Pliny. It is not
to be doubted, but that the Albans were to their dependencies as the
_populus_ of Rome to the _plebs_, or as Rome in later times to Latium.
At the mention of Alba, few are proof against the prejudice by which
I also was beguiled for a long time, that so very much of the history
of Alba is lost, that one can only speak of it in connexion with the
Trojan or anti-Trojan times; as if every thing said of it by the
Romans were based upon delusion and errors of judgment. Indeed, the
foundation of Alba by Ascanius; the whole series of the Alban kings
with the years of their reigns; the story of Numitor and Amulius; the
account of the destruction of the town; all this does not belong to
history. Yet the historical existence of Alba is for all that not in
the least to be doubted, nor have the ancients ever had a doubt about
it. The _sacra Albana_, the _Albani tumuli atque luci_ bear witness
to it. Ruins do not indeed exist any more; yet the situation of the
town in the valley of Grotta Ferrata is still to be traced at this
day. Between the lake and a long ridge of hills, near the convent
Palazzuolo, one still sees even now the rock below towards the lake
completely scarped, evidently by the hand of man, so that on that
side an attack on the town was impossible; on the other side, on the
summit, stood the Arx. That the Albans had the dominion over Latium is
a tradition which we may deem authentic, as it rests on the authority
of Cincius.[49] The Latins occupied afterwards the spot and the temple
of Jupiter. The accounts also that Alba had shared with the thirty
towns the flesh of the sacrifices on the Alban mount, and that the
Latins after the fall of Alba, had themselves chosen their magistrates,
are glimpses of history. The exceedingly ancient Emissarius is still
preserved, and through its vault a canal was drawn, _fossa Cluilia_. In
this vault, beneath the centroni, we have still a traceable work, more
ancient than any Roman one. Yet that Alba was the capital; that it had
the dominion over Latium; that its temple of Jupiter was the central
point of the nations under its rule; and the _gens Silvia_ the reigning
family, is all that can be said about Alba and the Latins of that time.
It is not to be doubted, that the number of the Latin towns was really
thirty, as well as that of the Alban boroughs. This number afterwards
is again met with in the later Latin towns, and in the thirty Roman
tribes; and it is also at the bottom of the account of Lavinium’s being
founded by thirty households, in which the union of the two races may
be traced.[50] The account that Lavinium was a Trojan colony, and
afterwards abandoned, but again restored by Alba; that, moreover, the
sanctuary could not be transferred from thence to Alba; however much
it may bear the stamp of antiquity, is after all merely an adaptation
of the Trojan and the native tradition. For, Lavinium is nothing else
but a general name for Latium, as Panionion for Ionia. _Latinus_,
_Lavinus_, _Lavicus_ are one and the same name; as Servius also
acknowledges. Lavinium was the central point of the Prisci Latini, and
without doubt there existed in earlier times, when Alba had not yet the
rule over Lavinium, a communion of worship in Alba and Lavinium; as
afterwards in Rome at the temple of Diana in the Aventine, and at the
Roman and Latin holidays on the Alban mount.
The characters therefore in the Trojan legend are thus to be analysed.
Turnus is no other than Turinus, the Τυῤῥηνός of Dionysius; Lavinia,
the beautiful maiden, is the name of the Latin people; perhaps they are
so distinguished as the inhabitants of the coasts are more especially
called Tyrrhenians, those of the interior country, Latins. As the
Latins after the battle at the Regillus, are found together with thirty
towns in the league with Rome, we cannot doubt but that the number of
those towns, of which the dominion belonged in the earliest times to
Alba, was also thirty. Only there were not always the same towns in
this league; many afterwards perished, others were received in their
stead.
Here the same instinct of substituting the fallen off members of
political organizations is at work, which is to be perceived every
where so long as institutions quietly go on in accordance with the
old traditionary forms, and not with the actual wants of the times.
Thus also in the twelve Achæan towns, in the seven Frisian maritime
provinces, when one is ruined, the number is made up by splitting
another. Where once a fixed number exists, although a unit may fall
off, it is not given up, but it is always renewed. We may add, that
the state of the Latins lost in the west, and gained in the east; we
therefore take Alba as having thirty boroughs, and the thirty Latin
towns as a state which at first was in league with Alba, and was
afterwards subjected to its sovereignty.
The old places of the aborigines were, according to Cato’s important
statement in Dionysius, small villages scattered on the hills. Such
a place lay upon the Palatine, and had the name of _Roma_, certainly
a Greek one. Not far off, there are several other places with Greek
names, Pyrgi and Alsium; nor is it an erroneous supposition that
Terracina had formerly been called Τραχεινή, the rough place, or that
Formiæ is to be derived from ὅρμος, anchorage, roadstead. As certainly
as Pyrgi meant towers, as certainly did Roma the place of strength.[51]
Rome is described as a Pelasgian place where Evander lived, the
founder of learning and civilization. The first step in civilization,
according to the legend, began with Saturn. In the tradition found in
Virgil, which is to be taken quite literally, the first men grew out
of trees (_gensque virum truncis et duro robore creti_). As in Greece
the μύρμηκες were changed into myrmidons, and the stones of Deucalion
into men and women, thus the trees also by some Divine energy grew
men. These half men acquired by degrees human manners, and that they
owe to Saturn. Yet really liberal cultivation they considered to have
originated with Evander, who must not be looked upon as coming from
Arcadia, but as the good man. He was the inventor or teacher of the use
of letters.
Among the Romans, the conviction prevailed that Romulus, the founder
of Rome, had been born of a maiden ravished by a god; that he had been
wonderfully preserved alive, rescued from the floods, and suckled
by a she-wolf. The ancient date of this poetry cannot be doubted.
But did the legend at all times call Romulus the son of Rea Silvia,
or of Ilia? Perizonius has first remarked against Ryckius, that Rea
Ilia never occurred in combination; that Rea Silvia was the daughter
of Numitor, Ilia of Æneas. He is perfectly right. Both Nævius and
Ennius, call Romulus the son of Ilia the daughter of Æneas, as Servius
in his notes on Virgil, and Porphyrion in those on Horace (Carm. 1,
2.), bear witness. Yet it must not thence be inferred, that this was
also a national Roman belief; those poets who were familiar with the
Greeks, might have annexed their legends to the Greek poems. But the
old Romans could not possibly have made the mother of the founder of
their city a daughter of Æneas, whose time was dated 333 or 360 years
earlier. Dionysius says that his narrative, which was that of Fabius,
is found in the sacred songs; it is also consistent with itself. Fabius
cannot, as Plutarch asserts, have borrowed it from a wretched unknown
Greek writer, Diocles. The statue of the she-wolf was erected in 457,
long before Diocles wrote; at least a hundred years before Fabius.
Certainly, therefore, this tradition is the older Roman one, and it
places Rome in connection with Alba. There has lately been a monument
discovered at Bovillæ, an altar which the _gentiles Julii_ erected
_lege Albana_; a religious reference therefore of a Roman family to
Alba. The relation between the two towns goes as far back as to the
founder. The well known legend, with the old poetical details of which
Livy and Dionysius already leave out much, because they were afraid of
accumulating marvels, is the following.
Numitor and Amulius were both of them candidates for the throne.
Numitor is a prænomen; but the name of Amulius says nothing in proof
of his having belonged to the _gens Silvia_; I question therefore if
the old tradition took them for brothers. Amulius, so it is said, had
got possession of the throne, and had made Rea Silvia the daughter of
Numitor, a vestal, in order that the Silvian race might become extinct.
This shows a want of knowledge of public law, as a daughter surely
could not convey gentilician rights. The name Rea Silvia is old, yet
Rea is only a cognomen; _rea femina_ is in Boccaccio, and still to this
day in Tuscany, a woman who has lost her honour. A priestess Rea in
Virgil is ravished by Hercules. Whilst Rea in a grove was drawing water
for a sacrifice, an eclipse of the sun took place, and she fled from a
wolf into a cavern where Mars overpowered her. At her delivery, the sun
is again eclipsed, and the image of Vesta covers its eyes. Livy here
has left out the wonderful part. The tyrant threw Rea with her children
into the Anio: she lost her life in the river; but the river god took
her soul, changed her into an immortal goddess, and made her his wife.
This is now modified by the tale of her imprisonment, which is prosaic
enough to be of later invention. The Anio bore the cradle, just as if
it were a boat, into the Tiber, on which it was drifted to the foot
of the Palatine, the waters being high in consequence of a flood; and
there it was overturned at the root of a fig-tree. The she-wolf takes
the children forth, and suckles[52] them: Mars sends a woodpecker,
which brings them food, and the bird _parra_,[53] who keeps them free
from vermin. These details are scattered: the narrators have as much
as possible stripped them of the marvellous. Faustulus, the legend
goes on to say, found the boys nursed with the milk of the strong
brute; he brought them up with his twelve sons, and they became the
stoutest of them all. As chiefs of the herdsmen of the Palatine, they
had a quarrel with those of Numitor on the Aventine;--the Palatine and
the Aventine are always hostile;--Remus is led away a prisoner to Alba;
Romulus rescues him; the descent from Numitor is discovered, and the
latter restored to the government. They receive permission to settle at
the foot of the Palatine hill, the place of their rescue.
From this beautiful poem the falsifiers tried to make out something
credible; even the unprejudiced and poetical Livy sets aside as much
as possible whatever was most marvellous. But the falsifiers went yet
a step beyond. In those days when no one any more believed in the
ancient deities, they sought to discover something rational in the old
legends; and thus they here got up a story which Plutarch received
with predilection, and which Dionysius also does not disdain, who,
however, likewise relates the old legend in a mutilated form. Dionysius
says that many people believed in demons, and that such a demon might
forsooth be the father of Romulus. Yet he himself is far from believing
in it. On the contrary, his version is that Amulius had in disguise
offered violence to Rea Silvia, playing off conjuror’s tricks of
thunder and lightning; that he had done so in order to have a pretext
for doing away with her, but had then been asked by his daughter not to
drown her, and had thereupon imprisoned her for life; that the herdsman
whom he commissioned to expose the children, had preserved them at
the entreaty of Numitor, and put two others in their stead; and that
Numitor’s grandsons had been taken to a guest-friend at Gabii, who had
educated them according to their rank, and caused them to be instructed
in Greek literature. It was really attempted to introduce this into
history; and indeed some of the details of this silly story have found
their way into the narrative of the historians, e. g. that the old
Alban nobility had emigrated with the two brothers to Rome. Had this
been the case, no asylum would have been wanting, and it would not have
been necessary to obtain the connubium with the other nations by force.
More historically important on the other hand is the difference of
opinion between the two brothers concerning the building of the city,
and the spot on which it is to be founded. According to the old legend,
both are equally heads of the colony, both of them kings. Romulus is
generally stated to have wished to build on the Palatine; and Remus is
said by some to have decided in favour of the Aventine, by others, of
the Remuria. This is, according to Plutarch, a hill three miles south
of Rome, and can be no other than the eminence which lies obliquely
from St. Paul’s; and this is the more likely, as this hill, though in
a country elsewhere very unhealthy, is remarkable for the healthiness
of the air,--a very important consideration in researches concerning
the old Latin towns; as it may safely be inferred, that where the air
is now wholesome, it was also the same at that time, and that where
it is now unwholesome, it was then no better. The general account of
tradition is that a quarrel had arisen between Romulus and Remus, as
to which of the two should give the name to the city, as well as where
it was to be built. Without doubt there also existed therefore on that
hill a town called Remuria; and at a subsequent period we find this
name transferred to the Aventine, as was so often done. According to
the common story, Auguries were to decide the matter. Romulus watched
on the Palatine, Remus on the Aventine. The latter watched the whole
of the night, but saw nothing; towards sunrise he saw six vultures
flying from the north to the south, and he sent word to Romulus. But
his brother, vexed that no sign had appeared to him, fraudulently
sent him a message that he had seen twelve vultures; and in fact, at
the very moment when the messenger of Romulus reached Remus, twelve
vultures made their appearance, and these he claimed for himself. This
is, however, impossible; for as the Palatine and the Aventine lie so
near each other, every Roman only knew too well, that whatever any one
saw high in the air on either of the two mountains, could not in any
way escape notice on the other. The legend cannot therefore be old: it
is only to be upheld by substituting Remuria for the Aventine. As the
Palatine was the seat of the noblest patrician tribe, and the Aventine
exclusively the city of the plebeians, there reigned between the two
an undying enmity; and thus in aftertimes that scene was transferred
from the Remuria, which was far off from the city, to the Aventine.
According to Ennius, the Aventine was the very spot from which Romulus
watched the heavens, so that the station of Remus must have been at
Remuria, and Romulus, when he had observed the Augury, threw his
javelin towards the Palatine. This is the old tradition which the
later authors neglected. He takes possession of the Palatine. That the
javelin took root, and grew into a tree which stood to the time of
Nero, is symbolical of the imperishableness of the new city, and of the
help of the gods. That Romulus had played false, is a later addition:
the fine poem of Ennius in _Cicero de Divinatione_[54] knows nothing of
the circumstance. From hence it now follows that in the earliest times
there were two towns, Roma and Remuria; the latter a good way outside
the city, and far from the Palatine.
Romulus now drew the boundaries of his city; but Remus leaped in
mockery over the ditch, for which Celer slew him, an intimation that
no one should step with impunity over the bulwarks of Rome. Romulus,
however, fell into grief on the death of Remus, instituted festivals
for him, and caused an empty throne to be raised at the side of his
own. Thus we have a double rule, which ends with the overthrow of
Remuria.
The next question is, what were these two cities,--Roma and Remuria?
They were evidently Pelasgian towns. There is an old tradition, that
Sicelus had come from Roma on the south to the Pelasgians; that is
to say, the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians are driven to the Morgetians in
Lucania and in the island, who were allied to them in blood. Among the
Greeks, according to Dionysius, the belief was general that Rome was a
Pelasgian, i. e. a Tyrrhenian city; but the writers from whom he had
this information are lost to us. There is a fragment, however, in which
it is stated that Rome was a sister-town of Antium and Ardea. We have
also to quote here the notice from the Chronicle of Cumæ, that Evander
had had his palatium on the Palatine. As an Arcadian he is likewise a
Pelasgian. To us he appears less important than he is in the legend: he
is one of the benefactors of the people, and to the Pelasgians in Italy
he brought the use of letters and the arts, as Damaratus did to the
Tyrrhenians in Etruria. In this meaning, therefore, Rome is indeed a
Latin town; and that not a mixed, but a purely Tyrrheno-Pelasgian one.
The after fortunes of this settlement are indicated in the allegories.
Romulus found the band which he had with him much too small. To the
numbers of three thousand foot and three hundred horsemen, which Livy
got from the _Commentarii Pontificum_, no regard should be given; for
this is merely the sketch of the later Roman military array, dated
back to the earliest times. According to the old tradition, his little
troop was too small for him, and he opened an asylum on the Capitol.
This asylum, according to the old description, only took in a very
small space; a proof that these things were not at all understood as
history. Therein were all sorts of people gathered together,--thieves,
murderers, in short, rogues and vagabonds. This is the simple account
of the way in which clientship began. In the bitterness with which
the different classes afterwards regarded each other, this has been
applied to the Patricians, as though their earliest ancestors had been
scoundrels. But the Patricians would naturally be deemed descendants
of the free companions of Romulus. Those who took refuge there are men
who placed themselves as dependants under the protection of the really
free citizens. But wives were now wanting to them, and they tried to
get the right of intermarriage (_connubium_) with the neighbouring
towns; especially perhaps with Antemnæ, which was only four (Roman)
miles distant from Rome, with the Sabines and others. This was refused.
Romulus, therefore, had recourse to stratagem: he gave out that he had
discovered the altar of Consus, the god of counsel, an allegory to
denote his usual craftiness. In the midst of the festival, the Sabine
maidens were carried away, thirty in number; for this is the genuine
old tradition, a proof how small people pictured to themselves old Rome
to have been. From these the Curies received their names. Afterwards
the number was found to be too little; and it was cunningly made out
that these thirty had been chosen by the drawing of lots to give their
names to the Curies, and Valerius Antias fixes the numbers of those who
were carried off at five hundred and twenty-seven. The Rape is placed
in the fourth month of the city, because the Consualia were kept in
August, and the festival in commemoration of the foundation of the city
in April; afterwards it was made four years later, as by Cn. Gellius,
and Dionysius finds this much more worthy of belief. Wars arise from
it; first with the neighbouring towns, which yielded one after the
other; at last with the Sabines. There is no trace in the old tradition
of the latter having been carried on to any length; yet in later times
it was necessary to assume it, because another standard was then
adopted. Lucumo and Cælius march forth to join Romulus, an allusion
to the inroad of Cæles Vibenna, which, however, took place much later.
Tatius, by means of treason, gains a settlement on the hill which was
called the Tarpeian stronghold. Between the Palatine and the Tarpeian
rock an indecisive battle is fought, until at length the Sabine women
threw themselves between the combatants, and the strife was put an end
to by an agreement that the rule should be shared between the Romans
and the Sabines. This happened according to the annals in the fourth
year. But it lasted a short time only; Tatius was slain at a sacrifice
at Laurentum, and his throne was left vacant. Before that time, each
king had a senate of a hundred members, which after having deliberated
separately, joined together in what was called a _comitium_. Romulus
reigned alone all the remaining time. The old legend knows nothing of
his having been a tyrant: on the contrary, according to Ennius, he
continued to be a mild and benevolent king, and Tatius was a tyrant.
The ancient tradition had nothing more than the beginning and the
end of the reign of Romulus: all that lies between, the war with the
Veientines, Fidenates, &c. are silly stories of the later annalists;
and whilst the poem itself is beautiful, this narrative is quite
tasteless. It says, for instance, that Romulus slew with his own hand
ten thousand Veientines, and more of the same stuff. The old poem
proceeds at once to the period when Romulus fulfils his career, and
when to Mars the promise given him by Jupiter was granted, that Romulus
might be the only man whom he should dare to introduce among the gods.
According to this ancient story, the king once reviewed his army at
the marsh of Capræ, when, as at the time of his conception, an eclipse
of the sun came on; and then likewise arose a whirlwind, in which Mars
rode down in a chariot of fire, and took him up with him to heaven.
From this beautiful lay, the most pitiful interpretations were wrested.
It was said that Romulus had been among the senators, who had stabbed
him, cut him in pieces, and carried him off beneath their togas. This
silly story has become the general one. In order that a cause for such
a deed of horror might not be wanting, it was now told that Romulus in
his latter days had become a tyrant, and that the senators had revenged
themselves upon him in this manner.
After the death of Romulus, there was for a long time a feud between
the Romans and the people of Tatius; the Sabines wishing for a king
from among themselves, since no new election had been made to fill the
room of Tatius, whilst the Romans would have one of their own race.
Then, it is said, it was at last agreed that one people was to elect
the king from the other people.
And here we must speak of the relation of the two nations to each
other, as it in reality existed.
All the nations of antiquity lived in fixed forms, and their political
communities were always organized, down to the lowest ranks. When
cities rise into nations, we always find at first a division into
tribes. Herodotus mentions such tribes when Cyrene was colonized, and
in later times this was also the case at the founding of Thurii; yet
when a city any where existed as such, its claim to this character
consisted in this, that its citizens were at a certain time divided
into communities (γένη), which had a common chapel and the worship
of a common hero. In the higher stages of these organizations, the
clans were also in certain numerical proportions united into Curies
(φράτραι). These clans are not families, but free associations,
sometimes close, sometimes open; and in certain cases the general
assembly of the state might assign them new members; as in Venice the
great council was a close body, and it was so likewise in many of the
oligarchical states of antiquity.
All the communities had a council and a commonalty, that is to say, a
small and a great council, or a council and a popular assembly, the
latter of which consisted of the guilds or clans; and these again were
united as it were into parishes. The Latin towns have all a council of
a hundred persons. This was divided into ten decuries; and these gave
rise to the term decurions, which was continued to the latest times
for the magistrates of the towns, and also passed by the _lex Julia_
into the constitution of the Italian municipalities. That this council
consisted of a hundred persons is shown by Savigny in the first volume
of his history of Roman jurisprudence. This constitution survived until
late in the middle ages, and was abolished when corporations of the
different trades came into the place of the municipal constitution.
Giovanni Villani says, that before the revolution in the twelfth
century there had been in Florence a hundred _buoni uomini_, who
managed the affairs of the town. There is nothing in our German cities
corresponding to this constitution. We must not consider these hundred
as gentlemen; but they were, as in the small free cities of the
empire, an assembly of the burghers and husbandmen, each representing
a clan. They are called by Propertius _patres pelliti_. The Curia at
Rome, which was thatched with straw (_recens horrebat regia culmo_ in
Virgil), was a faithful remembrance of the times when Rome, buried in
what may be deemed the night of history, stood like a small country
town surrounded by its fields.
The earliest event which we are enabled to make out from the forms of
allegory, by comparison with what happened in other places in Italy, is
a consequence of the continued great movement of the different races.
It did not stop when the Oscans were driven from the Fucinus to the
Alban Lake; it went much farther. The Sabines may have rested for some
time, but they pressed on far beyond the countries of which we have
traditions. They begin as one of the smallest of peoples, and become
afterwards one of the greatest in Italy. The Marrucinians, Caudinians,
Vestinians, Marsians, Pelignians, in short all the Samnite peoples; the
Lucanians, the Oscan part of the Bruttians, the Picenians and others,
have all sprung from the Sabine stock: and yet we have traditions only
about the founding of some of them. This people was down to the period
at which we must fix the foundation of Rome, in a state of expansion.
It is said the Sabines, guided by a bullock, had advanced into Opica,
and had thus founded the country of the Samnites. Yet earlier perhaps,
they had moved down below the Tiber, so that we there find Sabine
towns mixed with Latin ones; and we meet with some of them also on the
banks of the Anio. Into the country of the later Sabines, they in all
likelihood only came subsequently; for Falerii is a Tuscan town, and
certainly its population had once been entirely Tyrrhenian.
At the advance of the Sabines, some of the Latin towns maintained their
ground, others gave way. Fidenæ belongs to the former class: north of
it all is Sabine. Now we find at the side of Old Roma a Sabine town on
the Quirinal and Capitoline, hard by the Latin one; yet the existence
of this town is all that we know of it. A tradition is extant, that
before that there had once been a Siculian town, Saturnia,[55] on the
Capitoline; this then must have been conquered by the Sabines. Whatever
may have been the case with regard to this, and to the existence of an
old town on the Janiculum, there were here a number of small towns. The
two cities could exist together, as there was a deep marsh between them.
The town on the Palatine may have been for a long time dependent on
the Sabine conqueror, who, according to tradition, was Titus Tatius,
and hence it is that his memory has been so hated. He was slain at the
sacrifice of Laurentum. Ennius calls him a tyrant in the well-known
line:
O Tite, tute, Tati, tibi tanta tyranne tulisti.
The existence of a Sabine town on the Quirinal hill is confirmed by
the number of Sabine chapels which undoubtedly stood there, as Varro
still knew, who proved from this fact that the Sabine ritual was
received by the Romans. This Sabine element in the Roman worship has
almost always been mistaken.[56]
The legend that by the rape of the virgins war had arisen between
the Sabines and Romans, is without doubt a symbolical account of the
relation between the two places, when as yet there was no intermarriage
between them. The Sabines had the upper hand, and denied it; the Romans
conquered it by force of arms. The Sabines were certainly originally
the masters; but by some movement of the Romans, other Sabine places
like Antemnæ and Fidenæ, were subjected, and the Sabines were thus
isolated from their countrymen. The Romans again insisted upon their
independence, and from thence arose war, the issue of which may have
been that which is handed down to us,--only that Romulus is to be
set aside,--namely, that both places formed a sort of confederacy as
two closely united towns, each with a senate of a hundred men and a
king, with an offensive and defensive alliance; and that in common
deliberation, the assembly of their clans met on that spot between the
two cities which afterwards bore the name of Comitium. Thus they formed
against the foreigner only one state.
The account of a double state existed already among the ancients; yet
the only proofs of it which have been preserved are scattered notices
here and there, chiefly among the scholiasts. The head of Janus which
in the earliest times is represented on the Roman _As_, is symbolical
of it. Roman antiquaries have quite correctly understood this. The
empty royal throne by the side of the Curule seat of Romulus refers
to the time when there was one king only, and is emblematical of the
equal but dormant right of the other people.[57]
It is also historical that this agreement was not of long duration; and
that the Roman king usurped the rule over the Sabines; and that the
two councils combined and formed one senate under one king, it being
also settled that the king should by turns be a Roman and a Sabine; and
that each time the king should be chosen by the other people, yet that
no one should be forced upon the non-electing people whom they did not
like, but that he should only be able to enter upon the _imperium_,
if in the first place the auguries were favourable, and moreover the
whole people had confirmed him. The other tribe had therefore the right
of recognising or rejecting the king elect. This is told of Numa as a
fact; yet it is merely a representation of the right taken from the
books of rituals. This strange double act of election, which seems such
a riddle, and was formerly so entirely misunderstood, is in this manner
quite intelligible.
When the two states amalgamated, after having existed separately
perhaps for ages, the towns ceased to be towns, and the collective
mass of their clans formed itself into tribes. The nation consisted
therefore of two tribes. From the earliest times the style of
addressing the Roman people was, _Populus Romanus Quirites_, out of
which, when the origin was forgotten, _Populus Romanus Quiritium_ was
made; just as _lis vindiciæ_ afterwards was into _lis vindiciarum_.
This change is older than Livy; yet the correct use of the phrase is
still met with in his time, though much encroached upon by the false
one. The old tradition says that the name _Quirites_ had after the
union of the two tribes been adopted as a common one. But this is
false. The name first becomes common at a very late period only. When
for a long time there had been no more difference between Romans and
Sabines, nor between these and the Luceres; and even later, when that
between the patricians and plebeians had become almost wholly extinct,
this denomination still remained, and was transferred to the plebeians.
Thus the two towns stood side by side as tribes (_tribus_), and it is
merely in acknowledgment of the old tradition that we call the Latins
Ramnes, and the Sabines Tities. That the derivation from Romulus and T.
Tatius is incorrect, does not impair the truth of the main assertion.
Dionysius, who had good materials, and made use of very many of
them, must indeed, for the time of the Consuls, have sometimes had
more than he gives; especially concerning one important change in
the constitution, where he has a few words only, and has either
not seen clearly, or has been careless.[58] Yet with regard to the
olden times of the kings he was clear. He says that there had been a
dissension between the two tribes concerning the senates, which Numa
had compromised, by not taking any thing for the Ramnes as the first
tribe, but bestowing honours upon the Tities. This is perfectly plain.
The senate, which at first consisted of one hundred, but now of two,
was divided into ten decuries, each of which had a president. These are
the _decem primi_, and these were taken from the Ramnes. They formed
among themselves the _Collegium_, which, when there was no king, held
the government by rotation; each for five days, yet so that the same
always came back in their turn, as we must correctly assume with Livy.
As for Dionysius, he brings in his Greek notions, taken from the Attic
Prytanies; and Plutarch quite misunderstands the matter.
Not only the senate, but also the augurs and pontiffs, were doubled in
number; so that each college consisted of four members, two of them
from the Ramnes, and two from the Tities. These changes were attached
indeed by Dionysius and Cicero to the names of certain kings; yet this
must not hinder us from acknowledging them as quite historical.
Thus was Rome in the second stage of its development. This state of
compromise is that of peace, and is described as the reign of Numa.
Concerning him the traditions are simple and short. They had the ideal
of a peaceful period, with a holy man at the head of affairs like
Nicholas Von der Flue in Switzerland. People pictured to themselves
Numa inspired by the goddess Egeria, whom he married in the grove
of the Camenæ; who introduces him among the quire of her sisters,
afterwards melts into tears at his death, and gives her name to
a well springing from them. Such a peace of forty years, during
which no people had risen against Rome, because Numa’s piety had
had its influence upon the other nations, is a fine idea; but it is
historically impossible at that time,--evidently a poetical fiction.
With Numa the first _sæculum_ closes, and quite a new epoch begins;
just as in Hesiod the ages succeed each other. The age of the heroes is
followed by the iron era: it is evidently a period;--quite a different
order of the world is supposed to be commencing. Hitherto we had mere
poetical fiction; but now with Tullus Hostillus a sort of history
begins, i. e. events which on the whole must be taken as historical,
being foreign to history only from the light in which they appear.
Thus the destruction of Alba is historical, very probably also the
reception of the Albans into Rome. The conquests of Ancus Marcius are
very credible: this point of real history stands like an oasis in the
midst of legends. Something like this we once find in the Chronicle
of Cologne. In the Abyssinian annals, there occurs in the thirteenth
century one story, quite explicitly given, which we recognise as
a piece of contemporary narrative. Before and after that, nothing
historical is met with.
The history which now follows is like an image seen from behind, like
phantasmagoria. The names of the kings are entirely fictitious. How
long the Roman kings have reigned, no mortal man can know, as we do
not know how many have reigned. For seven was fixed upon for the sake
of the number only, which is found in connexion with many proportions,
especially some important astronomical ones. The chronological dates
are therefore utterly worthless. One ought to look upon the interval,
from the origin of Rome to the times when people were able to execute
those gigantic works which were really executed under the kings, and
which vied with those of the Egyptians,--the sewers, the wall of
Servius, and other buildings, as at least a succession of centuries.
Romulus and Numa are to be wholly set aside; yet there follows a long
period in which the races gradually amalgamate with each other, and
spread, until the regal government disappears, and makes way for a
republic.
For remembrance sake, we must, however, give the history as we have
it. Between Rome and Alba there is not the least connexion, not even
in those writers who suppose Rome to be an offshoot from Alba. Yet
all at once, under Tullus Hostilius, they appear as enemies; each
of the nations seeks for war, and the only question is to gain the
favour of Fortune, on the strength of each party pretending to be the
injured one, and wishing to declare war. Both mutually sent envoys to
demand satisfaction for depredations committed. The form was, that
these envoys, the Fetiales, told to every one they met the grievances
of their town; then they proclaimed them in the market-place of the
foreign town, and if after three times ten days no satisfaction were
given, they said, “We have done enough and now return,” whereupon the
senators at home deliberated about the manner of the satisfaction.
In this formula, therefore, the _res_, the giving up of the guilty,
and the restitution of the body was to be demanded. Now we are told,
that the two nations at exactly the same time, sent such envoys; but
that Tullus Hostilius had for a while detained the Albans sent to him,
until he had learned for certain that the Romans had not had right done
them at Alba, and had there declared war. He now first admitted the
envoys into the senate, and to their complaints it was answered, that
they themselves had not redressed the grievances of the Romans. Livy
therefore thus continues: _bellum in trigesimum diem dixerant_. Yet
the formula is _post trigesimum diem_; why did Livy or the annalist
whom he followed, alter this? Quite naturally. One rides from Rome to
Alba in a couple of hours; so that it was impossible that the Alban
envoys should have been detained in Rome for thirty days, without
being apprised of what was in the meanwhile going on at Alba. Livy saw
this, and therefore altered the formula. But to the old poet this was
of no consequence: he did not let it trouble him. He enlarged in his
imagination the distance, and made Rome and Alba great states.
Just as undeniably poetical is the whole representation of the state of
affairs in which Alba’s fate was decided. We shall dwell a little on
this point, in order to show how a semblance of history may be got up.
There was between Rome and Alba a ditch, _fossa Cluilia_ or _Cloelia_;
and moreover there must have been a tradition that here the Albans had
pitched their camp. In Livy and Dionysius we find it mentioned, that
a general of the Albans, Cluilius, had given it this name, and had
also died in that spot. The latter circumstance must have been told
to account for the general being afterwards a different man, Mettius
Fuffetius, and yet that it should be still possible to connect the
name of that ditch with the Albans. The two states commit the issue
of the feud to single combat. Dionysius says that the traditions were
not unanimous, as to whether the Roman champions were called Horatii
or Curiatii; yet he as well as Livy gives them the name of Horatii,
in all likelihood, because the larger number of the annalists so had
it. Who, without that passage of Dionysius, would have guessed any
thing of that uncertainty? The combat of the three twin-born children
is symbolical of both the states being at that time divided into three
tribes. Attempts have indeed been made to clear away the improbability
by denying the triple birth,--one of them is even mentioned as the
youngest; yet the legend goes still farther, the brothers being said to
have been the sons of two sisters, and to have been born on the same
day. This is to represent the absolute equality between Rome and Alba.
The issue was the complete subjection of Alba. Yet Alba did not remain
faithful. In the struggle with the Etruscans which followed, Mettius
Fuffetius shows himself a traitor to Rome; but he is prevented from
executing his plan, and afterwards falls on the fugitive Etruscans;
Tullus by way of punishment caused him to be torn in pieces, and
Alba to be demolished; and the most distinguished Alban clans were
transferred to Rome.
Equally poetical is the legend of the death of Tullus. He foolishly
undertakes conjurations like Numa, and thereby draws the thunderbolt
upon his own head.
If we try to make out the historical substance of these legends, we
come to a period when Rome no longer stands alone, but has already
colonies with Roman settlers, who possess a third of the soil, and
who hold the sway. This is the case with a number of towns, most of
them old Siculian ones. So much is certain, that Alba was destroyed,
and that after its fall, the towns of the Prisci Latini formed an
independent and compact confederacy. How Alba was destroyed is involved
in great obscurity. Whether, as it is said, it was ever forced to
acknowledge the supremacy of Rome; whether it was destroyed by Romans
and Latins combined, or by Latins or Romans alone, are questions
which no human sagacity can solve. The destruction by the Latins
rising against Alba’s superiority is the most probable; but whether in
that case Rome received the Albans into her bosom, will ever remain
uncertain. That Alban clans were settled at Rome we cannot doubt,
as little as that the Prisci Latini from henceforth existed as a
consolidated state. Yet if we consider that Alba lies in the middle of
the Latin country; that the Alban hill was their common sanctuary, the
grove of Ferentina their place of assembly; the greater probability is
this, that Rome did not destroy Alba, but that the latter perished in
the insurrection of the Latin towns, and that the Romans strengthened
themselves by the admission of the Albans.
Whether the Albans first built on the Cælius, is more than we can
ascertain. The account which places the foundation of the town on
the Cælius in the times of Romulus, tends to prove that before the
reception of the Albans, a town already existed here. But what weight
has that account? A third tradition represents it as an Etruscan colony
of Cæles Vibenna.
The destruction of Alba had an extraordinary effect on the greatness of
Rome. At all events there now existed a third town on the Cælius and
part of the Esquiliæ, which seems to have been very populous. Such a
settlement quite close to other towns was made for the sake of mutual
protection. Between the two older towns there was a perpetual marsh and
morass; the Roman town was likewise bordered on its south side by a
piece of stagnant water; but between the third town and Rome there was
dry ground. Rome had also a considerable suburb towards the Aventine,
behind a wall and ditch, as is represented in the legend of Remus. The
latter is a personification of the plebeians: he jumps from the side of
the Aventine over the ditch.
The Sabine town had without doubt the name of Quirium; for the
πολιτικόν of it is _Quiris_. This is certain. Almost as little do I
doubt but that the town on the Cælius was Lucerum; because, when it
was united with Rome, its citizens were called _Lucertes_ (Luceres).
The ancients derive this name from Lucumo king of the Tuscans, or from
Lucerus king of Ardea. The meaning of the latter may perhaps be this,
that the tribe was Tyrrheno-Latin, since Ardea was the chief town of
that tribe. Thus Rome was enlarged by a third element, which is not,
however, on an equal footing with the other two, but is in subjection
to them, just as Ireland was to Great Britain before the year 1782. Yet
although they were obliged to acknowledge this supremacy, they were
already looked upon as being a part of the whole, as a third _tribus_
with an independent administration, though with inferior rights. What
here shows us our way is the statement of Festus, who on the subject of
Roman antiquities is very trustworthy, inasmuch as he makes extracts
from Verrius Flaccus. In a few points only has one of the two in my
opinion made a mistake; all the rest may be accounted for by the
deficiency of the extract, as Festus did not always understand Verrius
Flaccus. The statement of Festus, which I am now speaking of, is this,
that Tarquin the Proud had reduced the number of the vestals to six,
so that each tribe might have two of them. In connexion with this is
to be taken the passage in the tenth book of Livy, which asserts that
the augurs were to represent the three tribes. The numbers in the Roman
priestly colleges may always be divided either by two or by three: by
three, those of the vestal virgins, of the great flamens; by two, those
of the augurs, the pontiffs, the fetiales; these last represented only
the two first tribes. Before the passing of the Ogulnian law, there
were only four augurs; and when afterwards five plebeian ones were
added, the basis of this increase was indeed a different[59] one; yet
the ancient form of divisibility by three was kept up. The pontiffs,
of whom there were likewise four, had at that time only four added
to them. This then would seem to be an inconsistency; but a passage
of Cicero on the subject has been overlooked, in which he tells us
that the number of those added had been five, evidently counting the
Pontifex Maximus with them, which Livy does not.--In the same manner
there were twenty Fetiales, ten for each tribe; and Numa added to the
Palatine Salii, another brotherhood of the same kind on the Quirinal.
Every where the two first tribes are plainly opposed to each other on
an equal footing, while the third is left in the background.
The third rank accordingly consisted of free citizens; yet it had not
the same rights as the two first. Nevertheless it thought itself better
than all other people; it stood in the same position as that in which
the Venetian citizens of the mainland did to the nobili. The nobleman
of Venice treated one of these citizens with more regard than he showed
to any of the others, so long as he did not take upon himself to claim
to have a voice in political matters. Whoever belonged to the Luceres
called himself a Roman; and if the dictator of Tusculum had come to
Rome, the man of the third tribe in it would have looked down upon him
as an inferior, although he himself was of no account.
Tullus is succeeded by Ancus. Tullus makes his appearance as one of
the Ramnes, as a descendant of Hostus Hostilius, one of the companions
of Romulus; but Ancus on the contrary is a Sabine, and a grandson of
Numa. His story has an historical air: there is none of the colouring
of poetry in it. The development of the state advances in his reign
another step. Rome and the Latin towns are, according to the old
description, at war with each other, and the Romans carry it on with
success. How many of the details of which we are told here, are
historical, I cannot decide: that a war took place is credible enough.
It is said that Ancus after this war led away many thousand Latins,
and established them on the Aventine. The ancients judged differently
of him: he at one time appears as _captator auræ popularis_, and at
another he is called _bonus Ancus_. Like the three first kings, he is
also stated to have been a lawgiver: of the later ones this is no more
mentioned. He is said besides to have founded the colony of Ostia, and
therefore to have extended his rule to the mouth of the Tiber.
Ancus seems, like Tullus, to be historical; only we can hardly suppose
that the one was the immediate successor of the other, and that the
events which are placed in their reigns really belonged to those
times. These events must be considered in the following manner. When
at the end of the fourth reign, the Romans, after a long feud, came to
an agreement with the Latins about the renewal of the long neglected
league, Rome dropped her claims to a dominion which she could not
preserve, and in exchange enlarged herself on another and a safer side.
The eastern colonies coalesced with the preserved Latin towns, although
this is nowhere expressly stated. Part of the Latin country was yielded
to Rome, the rest entered into relations of friendship, and perhaps of
isopolity with it. Rome in this acted wisely, as England did when she
acknowledged the United States of North America.
In this manner Rome acquired a _distretto_ (district). The many
thousand settlers whom Ancus is said to have led to the Aventine, are
the population of the Latin towns which fell to Rome, a much more
numerous one than that of the two old tribes, even with the addition of
the third, which was already much the largest. In this rural district
lay the strength of Rome; from it was the army raised with which the
Romans carried on their wars. Now it would have been natural to admit
this population as a fourth tribe, but this did not please the Romans:
the constitution of the state was closed, and it was looked upon as a
trust in which nothing must be changed. As our forefathers in their
different tribes clung to their own peculiar laws (the emperor Otho
made a question arising out of the law of inheritance to be decided
by an appeal to the judgment of God), so was it likewise among the
Greeks and Romans. A town in Sicily had Chalcidian _Nomima_, another
had Doric ones, although the population was entirely mixed: in the
former there were four; in the latter, three tribes.[60] The division
into three tribes was an indigenous Latin one; but it may be that the
Sabines in their towns had the division into four.
_Here we have the first beginning of the plebes._ Although the story
that Ancus led the Latins away from their homes, and transplanted them
in Rome, deserves no credit, because it is impossible; yet it is not to
be doubted that Ancus Marcius is justly mentioned as the builder of a
town on the Aventine. Here arose a town, which to the very latest times
kept itself politically separated from Rome proper, and which for a
very long period, as a byetown, was not comprehended in the Pomœrium.
Ancus is succeeded by Tarquinius Priscus, who is represented as a half
Etruscan, son of an Etruscan woman and of Damaratus. The latter is said
to have been a Bacchiades, who in the revolution of Cypselus had left
Corinth with great treasures, and emigrated to Tarquinii. His heir
was his son Lucius Tarquinius, as an elder son, Aruns, had previously
died, leaving behind him a wife whom the father did not know to be
with child. This account is very generally believed, because Polybius,
though a Greek, mentions Tarquin as a son of Damaratus, and because the
time corresponds. Yet this is after all merely an illusion. The whole
agreement hinges upon the correctness of our chronological dates of the
Roman kings, according to which Tarquinius Priscus ascended the throne
in the year of the city 132; but if we must place him at a later time,
the story of Damaratus and Cypselus, which pretty certainly belongs to
the thirtieth Olympiad, falls at once to the ground. Now it has already
been remarked in the general review of the sources of Roman history,
that all the old annalists, with the single exception of subtle Piso,
have never doubted but that Tarquin the Proud was the son of Tarquinius
Priscus; and consequently the date assigned for the latter must be
altogether incorrect. And therefore the connexion with Damaratus
becomes impossible.
Damaratus belongs to the old tradition about the connexion between
Greece and Etruria, and of the civilization which came from Greece
to Etruria. As Evander did to the Latins, so does Damaratus bring
the letters of Cadmus to the Etruscans, or Tyrrhenians; and he also
belongs, according to the most ancient Greek tradition, to equally
early times. The alleged connexion with Tarquinius Priscus arose from
the circumstance that the old legend speaks of Tarquinii as the place
where Damaratus settled. Of his descent as a Bacchiad, the tradition
certainly knew nothing: it was added by later historizing accounts,
which every where tried to keep up a sort of link with history. The
reason for referring Damaratus to Tarquinii was partly this, that
Tarquinii was an important town, and partly also that between Tarquinii
and Corinth there is a connexion not to be mistaken. Formerly the vases
and vessels found in Tuscany were taken for Etruscan; but afterwards
people most justly gave up that opinion, though they now believed
that such vases had never existed in ancient Etruria. But there have
been vessels dug up at Corneto which are perfectly similar to the
oldest Greek ones,--not to those which were formerly called Etruscan
but to the real Greek ones from the earliest times, especially to the
Corinthian ones which Dodwell has copied.[61] Fragments of the same
kind are only found there near the old Tarquinii. In all the rest
of Tuscany such a vessel has hardly been met with more than once or
twice; whilst in the north-eastern part of the country, near Arezzo
and Fiesole, the Arretinian vessels of baked red clay with embossed
figures of quite a peculiar style of art are quite common, which, on
the other hand, are nowhere found near the coast. This connexion of
the art of Tarquinii with that of Greece, especially Corinth, explains
the tradition that the artists Eucheir and Eugrammos had accompanied
Damaratus from Corinth.
When once Tarquinius Priscus was connected with Tarquinii, and the
tradition besides was remembered, that the solemn worship of the Greeks
had first been introduced by him, it was said, “this is the work of
the old Greeks;” and now it became necessary to compare the Roman
chronology, as laid down in the books of the pontiffs, with the Greek
one, which could already be done, as Timæus had written. Then it was
found that the connexion became possible, if Damaratus was made the
father of Tarquin. This Tarquinius Priscus or Lucumo, it was said,
had with his wife Tanaquil, an Etruscan soothsayer, betaken himself
to Rome, being only a half citizen at Tarquinii; and on his journey
thither, a miracle happens to him. Of his reign many glorious things
are told. Yet here the accounts differ: one, that of Livy, is very
modest; another makes him conquer all the Etruscan towns. This is to
be read at length in Dionysius; the story of it has its place in the
Roman annals, so that Augustus even had these victories marked in the
triumphal Fasti as three triumphs with definite dates, as we see from
the fragments which remain.[62] Now the Romans had so much the more
reason for believing these statements, as Tarquinius Priscus is always
mentioned as the man who united the two towns, that of the Sabines,
and that of the Romans, and built the gigantic works by which also the
valleys were filled up.
The same account, generally calls Tarquinius Priscus Lucumo; yet
this was never a name, but the Etruscan title of a prince. Whenever
the Romans want to invent any thing about the Etruscans, they always
call the men Lucumo, Aruns, or Lars. The last of these probably means
king. Aruns is a common name, as we may see from the inscriptions of
the Etruscan tombs, of which we cannot indeed understand one word,
but yet may recognise the names. I have looked over all the Etruscan
inscriptions, and have arrived at this conviction, that there is in
them an entirely different language, of which we can only guess some
words: for instance, _ril avil_ means _vixit annos_. Lucumo is nowhere
found on them; and the old philologians also, as Verrius Flaccus, knew
that it was no name. The Romans had several traditions concerning a
Lucumo who acts a part in Roman history; one, for instance, was a
companion of Romulus. No one else is meant by any of them but Lucius
Tarquinius Priscus; that is to say, the tradition referred every thing
to him that was told of the others. Livy says that he had given himself
at Rome the name of L. Tarquinius Priscus, for which the philologians
reproach him as guilty of a great oversight, which, however, is only
to be deemed one if we suppose that he had explained Priscus to mean
“The Old.” Yet Livy might often in the first book have written down
the narrative under the conviction that all that had not really so
happened, and that something different might be understood as its
meaning. Priscus is a common name with the Romans. Among the Patricians
we find it in the family of the Servilii; Cato was called Priscus
before he got the name of Cato, i. e. Catus, the prudent one, with the
emphatic termination o; and besides these a whole series of families
bear this cognomen. I am convinced that Tarquinius has been brought
into connexion with Tarquinii only because of his name, and that on the
contrary he was in reality a Latin. This is supported by the mention of
Tarquinians, who after the expulsion of the kings reside at Laurentum;
and likewise by the fact that Collatinus betook himself to Lavinium,
a Latin town. The whole story of the descent of Tarquinius Priscus
from Damaratus falls besides to the ground, as Cicero, Varro, and even
Livy acknowledge the existence of a _gens Tarquinia_; and how utterly
different is a _gens_ indeed from a family which only consists of two
houses, that of the kings and that of Collatinus? Varro says expressly,
_omnes Tarquinios ejecerunt, ne quam reditionis per gentilitatem spem
haberet_.
The reason of Tarquin’s being connected with Etruria was, besides
his name, the necessity of accounting for an Etruscan influence on
Rome. The Romans made Servius Tullius, who was an Etruscan, a Latin
from Corniculum; and _vice versa_, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, who
was a Latin, an Etruscan. Thus the whole story of his descent is a
fiction, and this is also decidedly the case with Tanaquil, inasmuch
as the Romans so name every one of the women who were stated to have
been Etruscans, it being a common Etruscan name, which is often met
with in inscriptions. In the old native tradition Tarquin was married
to a Latin woman, Caia Cæcilia, a name which must be traced back to
Cæculus the founder of Præneste. Her image was set up in the temple of
Semo Sancus; for she was worshipped as the guardian goddess of female
domestic virtue. This bears a genuine stamp of nationality. In the old
legend, she is such a familiar personage that the girdle of her brazen
image was filed off, and the filings were used as remedies.
It is therefore a matter of history, that there was a Latin Tarquinius
Priscus; yet he in all likelihood belongs to the Luceres. He introduces
the Luceres into the senate; to the two hundred councillors a hundred
more are added, summoned by the king as _gentes minores_ after the
_gentes_ of the two first tribes; in the rebellion of his son against
Servius Tullius, they are his faction. His time seems to be parted
from the former one by a great gulf: in his reign, Rome appears under
quite a different form from what she had before. The conquests which
are ascribed to Ancus Marcius are confined within a very narrow space.
He first conquers the mouth of the Tiber, and fortifies Ostia. But now
a state of things is mentioned, the consequences of which we still
see, even to this hour. To this very day there stands unchanged the
great river vault, the _Cloaca maxima_, with the name of which one
incorrectly associates a base meaning. It is not a mere sewer, though
it is also used as such. Its real object was no less than that of
draining the great branch of the river’s bed, which went forth from
the Tiber between the Capitoline, the Aventine, and the Palatine, and
between the Palatine and Capitoline, and then extended in marshes to
the space between the Quirinal and the Viminal, and of thereby gaining
solid ground. This work consisting of three half circles of huge blocks
of free stone without mortar, which even to this present moment have
not given way the breadth of the back of a knife, drew off the water
from the surface, received it under ground, carried it into the Tiber,
and formed a firm soil. At the same time, because the Tiber had also
muddy banks, a great wall was built as a dyke, the greater part of
which is still in preservation. This construction is equal in extent
and bulk to the pyramids; in difficulty it very far surpasses them. It
is such a gigantic fabric, that one does not comprehend it when one
sees it: even the aqueducts of the Emperors are indeed nothing great
when compared to it. They were of brick, with a cast of mortar in the
middle; but here, all is of hewn Alban freestone, with immensely deep
foundations.
Whether the _Cloaca Maxima_ was executed by Tarquinius Priscus, or by
his son Superbus, is a point in which the ancients differ from each
other, and we also can decide nothing. This much, however, we may
say, that the building must have been completed before the town was
enclosed within the circuit of the seven hills, and formed a whole;
yet this was done by the last king but one, and therefore, if we will
avail ourselves of the personification, in the time of Tarquinius
Priscus. But such a work could not possibly have been executed with the
resources of the State as we know it to have been at that period, when
its territory extended from the river about two leagues in breadth,
and at most six to eight leagues in length, and consequently was not
as large as that of Nuremburg; especially if we think of all the
difficulties of an age in which trade and commercial wealth were in
no wise in existence. Here are evidently all the intervening stages
leaped over, and we see at once an Empire before us quite different
from the former one, in which Rome rules far and wide. Of this sway
we find no mention in Livy, although he too is astonished at these
buildings. Livy fancies that time to be a state of childhood for the
city, and is therefore under the same delusion by which Cicero, and the
later writers especially are beguiled; that the period of the kings was
to be looked upon as the age of Rome’s greatest weakness. Much more
correct might be the account given by Dionysius, according to which the
Etruscan towns, the Latins, and the Sabines paid homage to Tarquinius
Priscus. Only all the narratives of the manner in which this had come
to pass are so fabulous, that one cannot be mistaken as to their being
invented by those who had wished to solve the riddle. Here history
entirely fails us. But whatever relation Tarquinius Priscus may have to
the Tuscan legends of the conquests of Tarchon, this much we may say;
that Rome itself ruled at that time with an extensive sway, or else
that it was the seat of foreign rulers, so that at all events a state
of things had existed in which Rome was the centre of a foreign empire.
Another undertaking quite as enigmatical is assigned to the same reign
of Tarquinius Priscus. It is said that Tarquin had wished to double
the Romulean _Tribus_, that is to say, to add three new tribes bearing
his own and his friend’s names. To this the Augur Attius Navius had
objected, as three tribes were enjoined by the auspices. Probably
the legend was not as Livy, but as Dionysius has it; that Tarquin had
himself cut through the whet stone, and in doing so had wounded his
hand. The king had not indeed then formed three new tribes, but had
annexed new centuries to the old ones. In this legend therefore the
immutability of the tribes is spoken of, as well as the intention of
the ruler to double the community by new citizens, which scheme the
old citizens set their face against, pleading the sacred character
of the original number. But we see here a ruler, who is not a mere
magistrate, but governs by arbitrary force:--he yields as to the form,
but alters the substance, making second centuries. Centuries and
tribes are originally the same thing, since the _tribus_ had a hundred
clans. How it was with the second centuries is utterly hidden from
us. One hypothesis is this, that as many of the old clans had died
away, Tarquin formed new ones; for instance, that when the Ramnes had
dwindled to fifty, he added to fill up the number fifty new clans,
as _secundi Ramnes_. We have the example of the Potitii, who became
extinct in the time of Appius Claudius, though they still consisted, as
we are told, of twelve families. The rolls of exclusive families show
with what rapidity they become extinct. In Styria there were formerly
two thousand noble families, and now there exist scarcely a dozen of
them; in the duchy of Bremen, the equestrian body admissible to the
diet dwindled within fifty years to half its number, merely because
they intermarried only with those of their own cast. In Luneburg the
government formerly belonged to the noble houses; now there is only
one house left. Perhaps Tarquin collected the remnants of the old
Curies, and then made up clans which were wanting. What recommends this
supposition is this, that there remained some difference between the
old and new clans. Certainly the new centuries had not the weight which
they would have had as independent tribes.
It is a very uncertain thing to seek allegories in historical
statements, and to try and draw from them again historical facts. Thus
as Ancus Marcius is the founder of the _plebes_, and the murder of
Tarquin is said to have been brought about by the Marcii, one might
surmise that Tarquin, who was one of the Luceres and had introduced
them into the senate, had perished owing to rebellion of the plebeians.
Yet this is one of the most hazardous hypotheses, and therefore I did
not choose to have it printed. In proffering it, I support myself on
a credit to which he may lay claim, who for eighteen years has almost
incessantly devoted himself to these researches, after having been
fondly attached to them for many a year before.
The legend which makes Tarquin the acknowledged chief of the
twelve Etruscan towns, leads us to speak of the Etruscans. They
are perhaps of all the nations of antiquity that on which the most
different disquisitions have been made with the smallest apparatus of
authorities, and about which also the greatest number of deceptions
have been circulated. The forgeries of one Annius of Viterbo, of one
Inghirami, and others, are impudent in the highest degree; and yet
they have nevertheless become the sources of many later works. By
them Dempster, and by him Winkelmann in his turn, was led astray. In
the eighteenth century, the Italians did not indeed forge any more
documents; but with the greatest recklessness they gave themselves the
air of being able to explain what could never be explained. Indeed,
many written documents existed of the Etruscans; yet only a few great
ones. Five years ago an altar was dug up, written all over on three
sides; a cippus in Perugia; a coffin at Bolsena, &c.; and descriptions
have been published of them, some separately, and some collectively;
especially by Lanzi. On works of art also, inscriptions are found. To
interpret these is a matter of great interest, since, if we could read
them, much light would dawn upon us; but this has given rise to the
definite presupposition that they were capable of being explained, and
thus the most arbitrary things were done. Eastern languages, and the
Celtic were applied to it; at last Lanzi acted on the supposition that
it was a sort of Greek, and, in defiance of all the rules of grammar,
he formed at his own pleasure a spurious Greek. With all these relics,
we stand without knowing any thing, as we did with regard to the
hieroglyphics, until Champollion arose. Long _inscriptiones bilingues_
only could help us out. We may positively assert that the Etruscan has
not the least resemblance to the Latin and Greek, nay, to any language
which is known to us, as Dionysius already has justly observed. This
passage of Dionysius has purposely been overlooked, or its absolute
meaning has been wrested into a conditional one. The Umbrian on the
Eugubian tablets, has some resemblance to the Latin.
Dionysius had this information, that the Etruscans considered
themselves as an indigenous people, which descended from no other,
and, knowing nothing of the name of Tyrrhenians and Etruscans, called
themselves Rasena.[63] Of the traditions of the Greeks they knew
nothing. Yet the latter had two distinct traditions concerning the
Tyrrhenians, which they referred to the Etruscans; the one, that of
Hellanicus, that the Pelasgians from Thessaly had settled at the mouth
of the Po, at Spina, from whence they had crossed over the mountains to
Etruria; the second, that of Herodotus, according to which the Lydians
at the time of Atys, were visited by a famine, so that part of the
people under Tyrrhenus were obliged to emigrate to Italy. Dionysius
controverts the latter statement in that good style of criticism which
we sometimes find in him, on the ground that neither the language
nor the religion of the Etruscans bore any resemblance to those of
the Lydians; and that neither the Etruscans, nor the Lydian writer
Xanthus,--whose work, as O. Müller shows, was unjustly suspected among
the Greeks of not being genuine,--know any thing about it. Dionysius
in this judged rightly, because he did not work from books, but from
immediate observation. With the other tradition he deals differently:
he does not altogether drop it; but he refers it, not to the Etruscans,
but to the aborigines. The Italian antiquaries, on the contrary, stuck
to the Lydian tradition; or they also referred the emigration of the
Pelasgians from Thessaly to the Etruscans, and said, in spite of all
the assertions of Herodotus, that the inhabitants of Cortona (Croton)
were not at all different from the people of the neighbourhood.
And here I will now set forth the simple results of my researches
concerning the Etruscans. I have (in the new edition of the first
volume of my Roman history) shown that the name of Tyrrhenians was
transferred by the Greeks to the Etruscans, as we use that of Britons
when speaking of the English, or that of Mexicans and Peruvians, of
the Spaniards in America; because those nations dwelt originally in
these countries, whilst a newly immigrating people founded quite a new
order of things, and that so completely that we no more recognise any
traces of an earlier condition, than if the former had never existed.
The Tyrrhenians were quite a different people; yet they inhabited the
shores of Etruria, as well as the whole coast to the south, as far as
Œnotria proper, i. e. Calabria and Basilicata. These Tyrrhenians were
Pelasgians, as well as those of the Peloponnesus and Thessaly: and
when Sophocles speaks of Τυῤῥηνοὶ πελασγοί in Argos; when in Æschylus
king Pelasgus, son of Palæchthon, rules in Argos; when Tyrrhenians,
according to Thucydides, reside near Athos, and in Lemnos, and,
according to Herodotus, in Attica near the Hymettus, these are all
branches of one and the same stock. In Asia Minor we must fill up the
gap in history after the destruction of Troy by making the Lydians,
Carians, and Mysians, push forward from the interior country nearer to
the coast in the neighbourhood of the fallen city, partly subjugating,
partly expelling, the Meonians and other Pelasgian nations. The
Meonians, who are always distinguished from the Lydians, are likewise
Tyrrhenians, and are called so by Ovid in the Bacchian fable. Now
these Tyrrhenians have given to the coast of Western Italy and to the
Tyrrhenian Sea their names: the Romans call them _Tusci_. Both names
passed to the Rasena, who came down the Alps as conquerors. Thus the
whole statement of Herodotus becomes clear. It is a usual genealogical
explanation to show how Tyrrhenians could have been in Lydia, and also
in Italy. This opinion is now generally received in Germany and in
England.
The only difficulty, which indeed does not damage the evidence for this
representation, but is surprising as a fact, is this, that after the
Etruscan conquest of the Tyrrhenian country, the language of the Rasena
is the only one preserved on so many monuments; and that no trace of
inscriptions is to be seen in the tongue which was akin to the Greek,
as we must presume the Tyrrhenian to have been. But, in the first
place, these inscriptions were almost all of them found in the interior
of the country near Perugia, Volterra, Arrezzo, &c., where the original
population was Umbrian; and on the sea coast near Pisa, Populonia,
Cære, Tarquinii, and elsewhere, only in very small numbers. Some have
been lately discovered near Tarquinii, but they have not yet been
published: one might therefore say, that if no Tyrrhenian inscriptions
have yet been met with, they may still be found. But no stress is to
be laid on such special pleading. In conquests which bring a heavy
yoke upon the conquered, the language of the vanquished often becomes
wholly extinct. In Asia and many other countries, the use of the native
tongue was forbidden, in order to prevent treason. The Moors were in
many respects mild rulers in Spain, and the country flourished under
their sway; yet in Andalusia, at the advance of the Christians, a king
forbade his people on pain of death to speak Latin, so that a hundred
years afterwards no more trace of that language is to be found. As late
as in the eighteenth century, the whole Christian population of Cæsarea
spoke Greek: a bashaw forbid them to do so, and after a lapse of thirty
or forty years, when my father came to the place, not a soul was any
more able to converse in that language. In Sicily, at the time of the
Norman conquest, the language was exclusively Greek and Arabic; even
under the Emperor Frederic the Second, the laws were still promulgated
in Greek; afterwards this language all at once utterly disappears.
In the Terra di Lecce, and the Terra di Otranto also, the names were
afterwards Italian, but conversation was in Greek; and at the end
of two hundred years, in the fifteenth century, it became extinct
also here. In Pomerania and Mecklenburg, without any immigration of
Germans, merely owing to the predilection of the princes, the Vandal
language has vanished in the course of one or two generations. The
conquerors of the march of Brandenburg forbade the use of the Vandal
tongue on pain of death, and nothing soon was spoken but the Low
German, (plattdeutsch). The Etruscans had quite an aristocratical
constitution, and they lived in their towns in the midst of a large
subjected country; under such circumstances, it could not but be of
great importance to them, that the people should adopt their language.
The Rasena came down from the Alps as conquerors, since, according
to Livy and Strabo, not only the Rhætians, but also the other Alpine
tribes, the Camunians, the Lepontians on the Lake of Como, were of
Etruscan race. That they were forced by the Gallic conquest to retire
from the plain into the Alps, has never been said by any of the
ancients; and it is absurd to think that a people which fled before the
Gauls from the Patavinian plain, should have been able to subdue the
mountaineers of the Alps, or have been allowed to have any footing
there, unless those regions had already before been occupied by others
of the same tribe. We have the tradition, probably from Cato, that
the Etruscans had taken three hundred Umbrian towns;--these must be
considered as belonging to the interior of Tuscany;--and a long time
afterwards, a district in Tuscany is called Umbria, and a river,
Umbro. The Etruscans are therefore one of those northern nations which
were driven to the south by the pressure of some of those national
migrations which are quite as historically certain as the later ones,
although we do not find any record of them,--national migrations like
that which had driven the Illyrians forward, so that the Illyrian
Enchelians, about the fortieth Olympiad, burst into Greece, and sacked
Delphi, as Herodotus tells us. Such a national migration drove the
Etruscans from the north. They once inhabited Switzerland and the
Tyrol; nay, it surely happened to the Etruscans in those countries,
as it did also to the Celts in Spain, that some tribes kept their
ground longer than the other. The heathen wall on the Ottilienberg in
Alsace, which Schweighäuser has described as one of the most remarkable
and unaccountable of monuments, is evidently an Etruscan work: it
has exactly the character of Etruscan fortification, as we see it
at Volterra, Cortona, and Fiesole. Some would have this called the
Gallic style of building; yet quite groundlessly, as we may see both
from Cæsar’s description, and also from other remains and structures
in Gaul. There are two essentially distinct kinds of fortifications
in central Italy. The one are the so-called Cyclopian Walls, built
in polygons, which alternate with intentional irregularity along the
slope of a hill, in such a manner that it has become quite scarped,
but at the summit it is without walls. The ascent is by a ledge on
the slope of the hill, _Clivus_, which one may ride up on horseback;
at the bottom of it, and at the top there are gates. In this manner
the Roman and Latin hills were fortified. The other are the Etruscan
fortifications, which are erected on the crown of a hill of difficult
access, the wall being not of polygons, but of parallelopipeds of
colossal dimensions, very rarely of hewn stone, which follow the ridge
of the hill in all its bendings. Thus it is near Volterra, and such
is the one in Alsace just spoken of. Now, I do not assign the origin
of this wall to such very ancient times, but to a kindred tribe with
the Etruscans, which had long maintained its ground there against the
Celts; and yet I would not quote its existence as an irrefragable proof
that there had been such a tribe. The Etruscans settled first in twelve
towns in Lombardy; about as far as to the present Austrian frontier,
on the side of Piedmont (Pavia was not Etruscan); in the south, from
Parma to Bologna; in the north, from the Po to Verona; then they spread
farther, and founded or enlarged in the country south of the Apennines
twelve towns besides, from which they commanded the country. Now it is
the common belief that the Etruscans were quite an ancient people in
Italy; I was myself for a long time of that opinion. But very old in
Tuscany they are not; and in that part of southern Tuscany which now
belongs to the States of the Church, they have spread only very late.
Herodotus relates that about the year of the city 220, the unfortunate
Phocæans had been beaten in a sea-fight by the Agyllæans who dwelt
in Corsica, and the Carthaginians, and that those who had been taken
prisoners were stoned to death; that the vengeance of heaven for this
crime had been made manifest; that the Agyllæans had applied to Delphi,
and that Apollo had imposed upon them Greek sacrifices and the worship
of Greek heroes. Now Agylla, according to the unanimous account of
all writers, bore this name as long as it was Pelasgian: thenceforth
it was called Cære by the Etruscans. Mezentius, the tyrant of Cære
in the legend which Virgil with his great learning embodies in his
poem, may with much probability be taken to be the Etruscan conqueror
of Cære. He also appears afterwards as the conqueror of Latium, who
claims for himself the tithe of the wine, and even the whole produce
of the vintage. The extensions of the Etruscan sway belong to the age
of the last kings of Rome: they are connected with the expedition of
the Etruscans against Cuma, and in the country of the Volscians. About
the time from Olympiad 60 to 70, they spread in those parts; in the
year of the city 283, they found Capua, according to Cato’s account,
which has certainly great authenticity. The shortness of the period
allowed for the growth and decay of the people, the objection started
by Velleius, cannot make this improbable: Capua, for instance, had
already been built two hundred and fifty years before it became a large
town: New York is a case yet more in point. The time, therefore, when
Hiero of Syracuse defeated the Etruscans near Cuma, was that in which
these people flourished. In the beginning of the fourth century of
the city, they declined, while the Romans rose; and in the middle of
the century, the Gauls wrested from them the northern part of their
territory,--their possessions in the neighbourhood of the Po.
After men had come to the conviction that the Alban origin of Rome was
untenable, Rome was believed to be an Etruscan colony. I myself put
forth this supposition, and made it the groundwork of the first edition
of my History, because I held the Alban Latin descent to be false. This
Etruscan origin seemed to me to be confirmed by several circumstances,
especially by the statement of a certain Volnius in Varro, that the
names of the oldest Roman tribes were Tuscan; and, moreover, by the
remark that the secret theology of the Romans was derived from Etruria,
and that the sons of the ten first in the Roman senate learned the
ordinances of religion there, insomuch that the worship of Jupiter,
of Juno, and of Minerva on the Capitol, was in all likelihood after
the Etruscan ritual. Yet by unprejudiced researches I have convinced
myself that this is not the case; that the two original elements of the
Roman state are the Latins and Sabines, though I would not altogether
dispute the existence of an Etruscan one afterwards added to it; that
as Rome is much older than the spread of the Etruscans in those parts,
the statement of Volnius is either groundless, or the names of the
tribes were later than the tribes themselves; yet that the strong
influence of the Etruscans at the time which is designated as the
reign of Tarquinius Priscus, and of Servius Tullius, is sufficient to
account for all the Etruscan institutions in Rome. Moreover no ancient
author ever speaks of an Etruscan colony at Rome. The question then is
only this, Whether the Etruscans spread so early, that in the times of
Tarquinius Priscus they were already in possession of Tarquinii and
the neighbouring places? or whether they began only about the sixtieth
Olympiad, and later, to appear on the Tiber and beyond it?
Before we now proceed to set forth the changes which manifested
themselves in those times, a picture must be drawn of the oldest
constitution of Rome previous to them, after we have first told the
history of the Etruscans, as far as we have any knowledge of it.
What we know of the history of Cuma is very obscure: the foundation of
no Greek town in those parts is dated so early. This would not have
been the case if Cuma had not so soon ceased to be a Greek town, and
had come into the power of the Oscans before the time when the people
in those districts began to write Greek. All towns in fact have surely
had eras dating from their foundation; and by this means it became
possible to get definite chronological dates, which were afterwards
reduced to Olympiads. For it was only at a very late period that the
Greeks reckoned by Olympiads. The first who does so is Timæus (Ol. 120
to 130): Theophrastus does not yet use this computation. But when a
town like Cuma happened to have been lost to the Greeks, there was
then no trace of this era, and consequently nothing on which one could
lay hold but the genealogies of its Ctistæ (Founders). If therefore it
was stated, that this man or that man had founded a city, people made
out his descent as far back as Troy and the heroic age. Thence it comes
that Cuma was looked upon as so wonderfully old, as two hundred years
older than the neighbouring Greek towns; for the real era of this city
was lost at an early period, and it was surely not older than the other
Greek towns. What was known of Cuma probably existed in Neapolitan
Chronicles, which Dionysius also made use of. His description of the
war of the Etruscans against Cuma is indeed mythical: the Volturnus
flows back to its source, &c. yet this is only a matter of secondary
consideration. Herodotus is also mythical; for instance, at the
destruction of the Carthaginian army against Gelon,--yet for all that
the war which he relates is not to be doubted of. The people of Cuma
were then at the height of their prosperity, and possessed Campania. If
therefore the Etruscans besieged Cuma about the sixty-fourth Olympiad,
this shows clearly that they were at that time conquerors, which is
in perfect agreement with Cato’s account, that Capua had stood only
two hundred and sixty years since its foundation; that is to say, it
was an Etruscan colony. Thus therefore, with regard to the passage of
the Etruscans over the Tiber, we have the date 250 to 280 according to
our usual chronology from the building of Rome; and as late as 220 to
230, Herodotus represents Agylla as a town which consults the oracle
at Delphi. That this had been done by Etruscans, who thought so much
of their own religion, is inconceivable; and the more so, as there
existed a deep-rooted hatred between the Etruscans and the Greeks,
owing to which it was that the Romans received the command to sacrifice
a Gaul and a Gallic woman, and also a Greek and a Greek woman,[64]
from the _Libri Fatales_, which were of Etruscan origin; and not from
the Sybilline books, as Plutarch would have us believe. This national
hatred already displays itself every where: in Pindar, in the Bacchian
fable, it is transferred to the Tyrrhenians, but it is to be understood
of the Etruscans. The Etruscans therefore also reach the Tiber at
a much later time than is generally supposed; they spread forth by
degrees, attain to their meridian height, maintain themselves in it
for two generations, and then fall into rapidly increasing decline. Of
the earlier Etruscan history, we positively know nothing. We find in
Tuscany twelve cities altogether independent of each other, but yet
sometimes joined together in a common undertaking. It was customary
that a king reigned in each of these towns; still no trace is found
in any Italian people of an hereditary rule, as among the Greeks.
Moreover these cities are not united in any artificial confederation:
a league is formed of itself from their assembling at times at the
temple of Voltumna for the purpose of common deliberation; and besides
this they had a common priest for the whole nation. It seems, however,
true, for, as the Etruscan language was unintelligible to the Romans,
we must be very cautious in using their traditions,--that in common
enterprises one of the kings was chosen, whose supremacy the other
towns acknowledged, and whom they invested with the royal insignia. Yet
it would seem that this pre-eminence was not always the result of an
election, but that a city often usurped the leadership; as in the war
of Porsena, Clusium is the chief town of the Etruscans. The accounts
which we have represent Rome as being in the same relation to those
towns: the twelve cities are stated to have sent to Tarquinius Priscus
the ivory throne and the insignia; according to others, to Servius
Tullius. Neither of the two accounts is historical; but this is a sign,
that Rome under the last kings was the capital of a mighty empire, much
greater than during the first 160 years of the republic, of which
also we still have proofs in Rome itself. With regard to Etruria in
particular, Rome seems to have been acknowledged as a chief town; yet
this is only something transient, which perhaps under the kings already
was changed several times.
The Etruscans have all the distinguishing features of an immigrating
people, probably not much more numerous than the Germans who settled
in Italy at the beginning of the middle ages. The towns bear rule, and
in them the clans govern; their territories are large, but have no
importance. This oligarchical form of government was the very thing
which made Etruria powerless against Rome, as it was dangerous to put
arms into the hands of the common people.
Dionysius, who gives the expressions of his authorities with great
care, says that the magnates of the Etruscans had assembled with their
clients for war. Among the Romans it is only the last resource to
call upon the clients, when the plebeians refused to take the field.
Other nations also allude to the fact that Etruria was peopled by
vassals under a territorial aristocracy. When on the advance of the
Gauls the dwellers on the left bank of the Tiber separated from Rome,
Rome drew to herself those on the right bank, Cære got isopolity;
four new tribes were formed from those who in the war had separated
from Veii and Falerii, evidently not _transfugæ_, as Livy says, but
whole populations which joined Rome to escape from oppression. This
plainly appears from analogy; for from the Volscians two tribes only
are formed, and as many from the Sabines. Moreover, the history of the
insurrection of Vulsinii exhibits the condition of a vanquished people,
as I have shown in the first volume of my Roman history. The Vulsinians
formed from their serfs a _plebes_ in order to repel the Romans; the
_plebes_ afterwards subjects its former rulers, and the latter choose
rather to throw themselves into the arms of the Romans, and to allow
their town to be destroyed by them. There is every where such an
oligarchy; hence it is that we find so very few towns in Etruria. The
whole country from the Apennines to Rome had only twelve. For this
reason power was only in its rudest state of development: there was no
lasting vitality in it, no elements of national existence, as among the
Romans, or the Samnites who evidently did not oppress the old Oscan
people, but combined into one whole with them, and even adopted their
language; whilst on the contrary, the Lucinians, who had emigrated
from among the Sabines, stood in quite a different position to the old
Œnotrians, or else the numbers of their citizens must have been stated
quite differently by Polybius. Here an opposite policy bears opposite
fruits. The insurrection of the Bruttians is nothing else but that the
Œnotrians, who were already serfs under the Greeks, broke their chains
when they became subject to new masters who treated them still more
harshly. The Etruscans, in spite of their wealth and their greatness,
could not withstand the Romans; their towns did not form a closely
connected state as did those [of] the Latins, nor even as the Achæans.
Most of the towns laid down their arms in the fifth century, after one
or two battles. The only town which defended itself for thirty years,
was that very Vulsinii where the serfs were changed into a _plebes_.
The Samnites resisted for seventy years; the Lucanians for a very short
time only.
The Etruscans have met with great favour with the moderns; the ancients
thought very lightly of them. Among the Greeks, very unfavourable
accounts were in circulation concerning their unbounded luxury. In
some measure justice is done to them in respect to the fine arts.
The technical perfection and quaint effect of their works had great
attraction; the _Signa Tuscana_ were about as much prized at Rome, as
old German pictures are now a-days in Germany.
The Etruscans enjoyed particular consideration as a people of priests,
who were devoted to soothsaying in all its forms, especially from
meteorological or astronomical phenomena, and from the entrails of
victims: the augural divinations, on the other hand, are an inheritance
of the Sabellian races. Yet we must after all acknowledge this to have
been a system of gross fraud. I will not deny that the observations
on lightning led the Etruscans to interesting discoveries. They were
already aware of the lightnings flashing forth from the earth, which
are now generally acknowledged by natural philosophers, but were denied
only thirty years ago. That they knew of lightning conductors, as one
might suppose from Jupiter Elicius, is now much less probable to me
than it was formerly. It would never have been so entirely lost. And,
besides, it is not stated that the lightnings were attracted, but
called forth.
In history, the Etruscans show themselves in any thing but a favourable
light. Unwarlike, inclined to withdraw from impending danger at the
price of humiliation; just as in modern times so many states have done
between 1796 and 1813. The descriptions of their great luxury may have
been exaggerated; yet they had some foundation. For nearly two hundred
years, the Etruscans lived in the most profound peace under the Roman
dominion, free from every service in war; except in extraordinary
emergencies, as in the war of Hannibal. To this period, then, the
immense wealth and luxury which Polybius described are to be referred.
The Etruscans had also annals, of which the emperor Claudius made use.
Some few portions of them may have likewise come to Verrius Flaccus
and to Varro. Cæles Vibenna is especially celebrated. He offers, in
fact, the only historical point which we know from the history of the
Etruscans. Cæles Vibenna is said by some to have come to Rome, and
to have settled on the Cælius. According to others, and indeed to
those who follow the Etruscan traditions, he died in Etruria, and his
general, Mastarna, led the remainder of his army to Rome, where he is
said to have given the _Mons Cælius_ the name of his old general. In
the narratives we always find him as a condottiere, as the independent
leader of a free corps, in no sort of subjection to any of the towns;
like the Catalan hosts in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and
the East Indians in the eighteenth. We do not know any thing more about
him; yet the emperor Claudius asserts, from the Etruscan books, that
his faithful general, Mastarna, when he had come to Rome and settled
on the Cælius, had been received into the Roman state under the name
of Servius Tullius. This is possible; whilst, on the other hand, the
tradition of the Romans concerning Servius Tullius falls entirely
within the sphere of the miraculous. It is said that in the ashes of
the altar a vision of the God of fire had appeared to Tanaquil; that
she had ordered her maid to lock herself up there, dressed as a bride;
that the maid had gotten with child, and had borne Servius Tullius;
and that therefore, in token of the latter’s descent from the god of
fire, his head had during his childhood been surrounded, when he was
asleep, by a halo of fire, and also at the conflagration of a temple,
his wooden image in it had remained untouched. With a great deal of
circumspection those who refine on history, have attempted to introduce
this legend also into authentic history. Many of them find his descent
from a bondmaid to be unseemly; and so they make him out to be the son
of a man of rank at Corniculum, who had died, and had left her with
child, whereupon she had been brought to the royal palace. According
to others, his mother was indeed a bondmaid, but his father was the
king. The halo of fire also is interpreted as symbolical of his early
developed mind: _non latuit scintilla ingenii in puero_, says Cicero.
Yet the old poets meant it seriously. We have the choice either of
leaving the descent of Tullius in obscurity, or of believing that the
Etruscan histories are true. I am so decidedly of opinion, that the
Etruscan literature is older than that of the Romans, that I do not
hesitate to give their legends the preference; and still more so,
because Tarquinius Priscus has been made to be an Etruscan; since the
existence of an Etruscan element was perceived, which, on account of
the name, was referred to Tarquinius. Servius Tullius was represented
as belonging to another race, chiefly because Rome did not wish to own
herself indebted to an Etruscan for the important changes which are
ascribed to that king. As he could not, however, be positively assigned
to any distinct clan, recourse was had to the mythus; and he was made
to be the son of a god like Romulus, just as Numa also was said to be
the husband of a goddess. In the case of the son of a god, it is of no
consequence who is his mother.[65] Yet we cannot draw from this any
farther conclusions; nor can we make any use in history of the notice
that he was an Etruscan, and that he led the remainder of the army of
Cæles Vibenna up to Rome. Livy speaks of a Veientian war; but he only
gives a few outlines, from which it is evident that he knew this was
nothing but the fraudulent work of the Fasti.
In the legend we find Servius Tullius as a Latin, who ascends the
throne, yet not even by regular election. To him all the political
law is traced back, as all the spiritual was to Numa; a proof that to
Livy himself they were no historical persons. The _gens Tullia_, to
which Servius may have belonged, perhaps by adoption, is expressly
mentioned as an Alban clan settled on the Cælius, consequently
belonging to the Luceres; and thus a king of the third tribe,--or as
that and the commonalty are very nearly related, for it is derived
from Corniculum,--a king from the commonalty ascends the throne. He is
installed in his rule without election; yet he is then acknowledged by
the Curies. Now Servius appears important from three different points
of view:--as the enlarger of the city, inasmuch as he gave to Rome its
legal circuit, even as it remained down to the time of the Emperors,
although suburbs were added;--as the author of a constitution, since he
constitutes the _plebes_ as the second half of the nation;--and as the
founder of the connexion with the Latins, who before that had only been
either at war with the Romans, or else in a state of forced dependance
upon them.
In these respects he is of such consequence, that we must dwell at some
length on the subject. Tarquinius Priscus and Servius Tullius, for the
sake of clearness, shall here be treated as if they were historical
persons; but merely for the designation of relations and causes,
their names serving instead of an _x_. In this manner, as was already
remarked, we start from the most ancient form of Rome previous to this
change.
In its first form, Rome consisted of a city on the Palatine,
surrounded by a wall and ditch, with a suburb, and of a Sabine town
on the Quirinal and on the Tarpeian Hill. From the union of both,
Rome arose; and from the union of both bodies of citizens, the Roman
citizenship. All modern states, with the single exception of the
canton of Schwytz, have their governments and subdivisions according
to their territory. Every city is divided into districts and wards,
and on these, in representative governments, the representation is
based: he who has his abode in a district is both an elector, and
may also be elected in it. But the view which the ancients took was
this, that the land was only the substratum of the state; that the
state itself was formed of individuals; and that the relations of
these to the whole community were modified in different ways by the
corporations. Hence the state was divided into a certain number of
associations, each of which again consisted of several families. These
associations had among themselves their assemblies, their rights of
inheritance, &c. their tribunals, and especially their sanctuaries.
Whoever belonged to them, bequeathed these to his children; and
wherever he might live, within or without the state, he was always
deemed to belong to that association. Whoever, on the contrary, did not
belong to it by right of birth, could only come in as an exception,
if that association acknowledged him. A man might be received into
the state with all the rights which the ancients confined to the
citizen as such, he might acquire landed property, he might sue and
be sued; and yet, unless he had a share in some association, he was
only an inmate, and could not be invested with an office, nor could
he vote. This view was generally entertained by all the most ancient
states. The state could merely bestow upon an individual the right
of abode and civil privileges: it could not command the association
to receive any one. In many states, the associations had not even
the right of admitting any body. This is the case with the castes
which always remain exclusive, and which, being separate, allow of
no intermarriage. Such an association, comprehending a number of
families from which one may go out, but into which one either cannot
enter at all, or only by the adoption of the whole association, is a
clan, and by no means what we call family, which implies an origin
from a common root; for when these clans have patronymics, they are
always merely symbolical, and derived from heroes.[66] I assume it as
a certain fact that among the Romans the division of the nation was
into _gentes_, which were analogous to the γένη of the Greeks, and to
the _Geschlechter_ of our German forefathers. This is a presupposition
to start from, for which, when the time comes, historical proofs will
not be wanting. Let us first speak of that people concerning which the
accounts are more distinct,--the Greeks. Their γένη are associations
which, notwithstanding their common name, are not to be looked upon
as families sprung from the same ancestors; but as the descendants
of those persons, who at the foundation of the state were united
in a corporation of this kind. This is expressly stated in Pollux,
undoubtedly from Aristotle, wherein it is asserted that the _Gennetæ_
were called from the γένη; and that they were connected not by descent
(γένει μὲν οὐ προσήκοντες) but by ἱερά which they had in common. Then
we have also the evidence of Harpocration concerning the Homerides
in Chios; he says that they were a _genos_ in that island, but that
according to the opinion of the well-informed they had no relationship
whatever with Homer. These γένη are just like the Arabian tribes,
the Beni Tai are ten thousand families who cannot all descend from
Edid Tai; or like the clans of the Highlanders, who were named after
individuals; yet it was only in a poetical sense that they spoke of
themselves as the kinsmen and descendants of these. In the Highlands
there were five thousand Campbells able to bear arms, who looked upon
the Duke of Argyle as their cousin.
Concerning the Roman _gentes_ we have no positive evidence, like that
of Pollux and Harpocration (such perhaps as Verrius Flaccus would have
given), that they were corporations without relationship; but we have
an important definition of Cicero’s in the _Topica_. He there gives
the word _gentiles_ as a difficult subject for definition; and such it
was, because in fact time in its course had wrought a thorough change
in the original institution. The _gentes_ in Cicero’s days had lost
much of their former consequence, and their constitution had been
affected by law decisions. He says, _Gentiles sunt, qui inter se,
eodem nomine sunt. Non satis est. Qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt. Ne
id quidem satis est. Quorum majorum nemo servitutem servivit. Abest
etiam nunc. Qui capite non sunt deminuti. Hoc fortasse satis est._
According to this, the Scipios and Sulla were _gentiles_; for they
are _eodem nomine_, &c. Suppose that one of the Cornelii had been
_addictus_ as liable to a debt, or condemned to death for a crime,
then he was _capite deminutus_, and ousted from his tribe, exactly
what the English in feudal language call “corruption of blood.” And
should he now as an addictus beget children, these also were outcasts,
and did not belong to the _gens_. By the added clause _quorum majorum
nemo servitutem servivit_, all the _Libertini_ and their descendants
were excluded, although bearing the gentile name of their patrons;
yet all the _Peregrini_ were left, whom one might admit if one chose.
But this in all likelihood is an addition which was unknown to the
old gentile law. For, in my opinion, there was in the earlier times
no difference whatever with regard to the Libertini: they belonged to
the _gens_ as well as the patrons. Yet this was a moot point, as is
shown by the remarkable lawsuit between the patrician and plebeian
Claudii (the Marcelli), for the inheritance of a _Libertinus_ in Cicero
_de Oratore_. On that occasion a _res judicata_ was pronounced by the
centuries, that the patrician Claudii could not inherit in a case of
this kind; from which the conclusion was afterwards drawn that the
_Libertini_ did not belong to the _gens_.
In the whole of this definition, there is not a word about a descent
from a common stock, closely connected as the idea would seem with it.
Hence it clearly follows that the _gentes_ in Rome were of the same
nature as the Greek γένη. _Genus_ and _gens_ are moreover quite the
same word, a thing which often happens with words of the old language,
e. g. _cliens_ and _clientus_,[67] _Campans_[68] and _Campanus_, and
likewise _Romans_ and _Romanus_: the genitives _Romanum_ and _Romanom_
come from that old contracted nominative.
The very institution of the _gens_ essentially implies a division
of the state by its fundamental laws into a certain number of such
associations, which then constituted small states by themselves,
and enjoyed special privileges of which the extent was very great:
_jus gentium_, and _jura gentium_, originally had perhaps a somewhat
different, a much wider meaning than we generally believe. The numbers
of the _gentes_ are always found in such a proportion to the state
as never could have been the result of chance. In Attica there were
360 γένη, a number which the grammarians very correctly refer to the
division of the year, or of the compass. This is also the case in
Germany; in Cologne there were three orders, each of fifteen houses
(Geschlechter); in Florence there were three times four and twenty
houses; in Dittmarsch three times ten. Now in Rome there were probably
three times one hundred _gentes_, i. e. three tribes of a hundred
clans each; wherefore Livy gives them the name of _centuria_, and not
_tribus_. There usually existed between the division into tribes and
that into clans an intermediate one comprising the latter, as the
φράτραι: in Greece, the curies at Rome, which corresponded to the
orders in Cologne, and to the classes in the Lombard towns. These
Curies are parts of a _Tribus_, and a combination of several _gentes_
(probably consisting always of ten) for common sacrifice. And just
as every _gens_ had its own _gentilician sanctuaries_,--for _sacra
familiarum_, which sometimes we find mentioned in modern writers,
were unknown to the Romans,--so likewise as member of a Cury, each
individual had some special duties besides of worship, and a vote in
the popular assemblies. The ancients did not vote by poll, but by
corporations: from the earliest times therefore it continued to be
the established usage at Athens that recruiting and voting should be
carried on by φυλαί (_Tribus_). Four Phylæ might be outvoted by six;
although, if polled, the latter were very inferior in numbers. In Rome
they went still farther: they did not vote by Tribes but by Curies.
The reason for it is easy to be seen: for, since at first the Ramnes
and the Tities were ruling alone, difficulties might have arisen from
allowing only these two to vote. It might easily have happened that one
tribe would be for, and the other against; and this would have led to
collisions. But if each Tribe was again divided into Curies, and voted
accordingly, it was then perhaps more likely that some one Cury gave
the casting vote. Before the admission of the third estate this would
necessarily happen. Afterwards we find that the turn of the Curies and
the _prærogativa_ were decided by lot, a thing which cannot be presumed
to have been done before; for by this means the Luceres might have got
the initiative as well as the two others. But here we have an instance
of the innumerable stages by which the Roman constitution developed
itself; and it is precisely this gradual development which has given
such a long duration to Roman freedom. For the true secret of a great
statesman, who is quite as seldom found as any other great genius, is
indeed the gradual perfection and reform of the several points of an
existing constitution, and not the sudden setting up of a finished work.
Thus therefore the Curies came into the place of the tribes. During
the reign of Tarquinius, the third estate was admitted to the full
citizenship: these are the _gentes minores_. The gentes are such
an essential element of the constitution, that, as _gentes civium
patriciæ_ is the formal expression for _patricii_, thus also _gentes
civium majores_ and _minores_ is said. It is stated that the senate
had consisted of two hundred, and that Tarquinius had raised it to
three hundred by the admission of the _gentes minores_. This can only
mean that he gave the third tribe the full citizenship, and received a
number of them, which corresponded to that of their _gentes_, into the
senate; and this is the usual course of things. In Cologne also, the
second and third order were admitted to offices later than the first.
It is a great change in the constitution, and one which completes it
for the first _populus_. The third estate at the beginning was not
quite on the same footing with the rest: their senate was not consulted
until the other two had already voted, and in the same way their Curies
were certainly only allowed to vote when the others had already given
theirs. With regard to the priestly offices, they were only admitted to
the college of the Vestals. Where we find _duumviri_, these are but the
representatives of the two first tribes: it is in later times only that
we find _triumviri_, and when these are patrician, they represent the
three tribes. But they are likewise often plebeian, and then based upon
the plebeian constitution to be treated of hereafter.
One of the widest spread peculiarities of former times, is the
difference made between the old homebred citizens and those who have
come from without. This difference has been almost every where done
away with by the notions of the eighteenth century. In North America
there is hardly any homebred population: with the exception of the
eligibility for the presidentship, it matters not in the least how
long one has lived in the country; there is no difference between
him who is come from the first colonists, and the man who has just
landed. Among the ancients, the admission to the rights of citizenship
was every where difficult: the alien needed not to be of a foreign
tongue, he might belong to the same nation as the citizen, and even to
the same tribe of the nation. The lines of demarcation are drawn in
the most varied manner. In the oldest constitution of which we have
any authentic knowledge, that of the Jews, we already find such a
distinction. The people consists of tribes with unequal rights, just
as the tribes of the Romans; besides these, are the persons who had
been received into the congregation of the Lord. With regard to the
latter, the Pentateuch expressly makes this distinction, that some
nations might be received, and others not. These aliens form a mass
closely connected with the Jewish people, but out of the tribes. In
after times, when the Jewish constitution is better known to us from
books of more recent date, the population is divided into Jews and
Proselytes; and the latter again into two classes,--the Proselytes
of Righteousness, and the Proselytes of the Gate.[69] The former had
political and civil rights, yet they were excluded from civic honours;
they could buy land, make wills, marry Jewish women, &c. &c. The
Proselytes of the Gate had to accommodate themselves to the Jewish
customs; they could not do any thing which was against the ceremonial
law for fear of giving offence; but they did not participate in civil
rights with the inhabitants of the country.
The same system presents itself, only less distinctly, in all the Greek
constitutions,--a fact about which so much nonsense has been talked.
Among the Greeks there existed from the very earliest times, besides
the sovereign body of the citizens, a community of native freemen,
who had civil rights, but by no means in every instance the privilege
of intermarriage with the ruling tribe; they might sue and be sued,
yet they had no share in the government. It was otherwise with the
aliens or the freedmen, who were bereft of all the personal rights of
citizens, and only protected against violence by taking a citizen for
their patron. This twofold distinction, that one might be born in a
country and exercise civil rights to a certain extent; and that those
who were aliens had no civil rights whatever, was a very general notion.
The body of the Roman citizens was now enlarged. At its first origin
it was an aristocracy, only so far as the subjected people of the
neighbourhood and the freedmen stood in the position of vassals to the
citizens; beyond this, no aristocratical relation whatever existed.
But when Sabine and Latin communities were so incorporated with Rome
that they got full civil rights, and had to serve, that class was
formed which in our German towns we call _Pfahlbürger_ (burghers of the
pale), an expression which no one has rightly and clearly understood.
The derivation of this word is from _Pahl_, or _Pfahl_, (_pale_);
in Ireland, the counties round Dublin were said to be “within the
English pale.” This name was also given in Germany to the district in
the immediate vicinity of a town. The freemen who lived in it had,
properly speaking, no rights of citizenship, as these were limited
to the _Geschlechter_ (the _Houses_), but merely civil rights. The
signification of the word in the course of time was more and more
widened, it being also applied to those aliens who had acquired the
right of community with a country (Landrecht), or a town (Burgrecht),
the _isopolity_ of the Greeks. The investigation of this subject,
which is perfectly analogous to the origin of the Roman _plebes_, has
to me been fraught with such considerable difficulties, because in
the sixteenth century these relations had vanished, and we therefore
nowhere find any thing more about them. In the fifteenth century this
expression is still found, but hardly in the sixteenth. Johannes Von
Müller did not understand it, and has used it without any proper
meaning. Now, when a province, or a town, or a baron established such
a right of community (_Landrecht_ or _Burgrecht_) with a town, the
consequences of it were twofold. In the first place, both parties
protected each other in their feuds; and moreover, the strangers might
settle with their vassals in the town, where they had the full civil
rights of freemen, and also their own courts of law: yet they were not
of the sovereign people, as they had no share in the government; and in
this respect the _Houses_, as having the sovereignty, stood on quite
a different footing. Many of the communities beyond the Tiber, Sabine
and Latin, entered into relations of this kind with the Romans, and it
was chiefly on the Aventine that they settled. The account given by the
Roman historians is, that Ancus had led them from their homes, and had
made them take up their abode there; but there are circumstances which
make this impossible. For, since all the land near Rome was occupied,
they could not have got any there, and must therefore have had their
dwellings some miles away from their fields. It is very possible that
some of the most distinguished were obliged to settle in Rome. This
citizenship “of the pale” now became more and more enlarged. The great
body of the people did not as yet form a corporation, though they
contained all the elements of one: they increased in the city and the
environs at such a rate, especially owing to the union with Latium
in the reign of Servius Tullius, that they far outnumbered the old
population, and formed the chief strength of Rome, and were employed to
a great extent in the wars. And the more they grew, the more did the
Tribes, which only intermarried among themselves, die off.
Thus arose the Roman _Plebes_,--the Greek δῆμος, in German _Gemeinde_.
The _demos_ comprehended all those who had the inferior citizenship,
and who therefore owed service to the state, but had no rights but
that of personal freedom. Thus the δῆμος stands in contraposition to
the πολῖται, the _plebes_ to the _populus_, the _Gemeinde_ to the
_Bürgerschaft_, the _commune_ to the _cittadine_.[70] I also think
that πόλις was not originally the term for city (which was called
ἄστυ), but just like _populus_, a Tyrrhenian word; and that both of
these bear the same meaning which we have stated above, _Populus_
having been formed by reduplication from πόλις. The commonalty is in
all states the main part as far as numbers are concerned; yet the way
in which it developed itself was different in the ancient world from
what it was in the middle ages. In the middle ages, the commonalty
resided within the walls: it often settled, as for instance in Geneva,
round the _cité_, the heart of the town, in the _bourg_, _borgo_, the
suburbs; and its members were therefore called _bourgeois_. These
suburbs were then likewise fortified, and in the course of time gained
equal rights with the cities. In Germany the same thing happened, the
name only being different, for _Bürger_ and _Geschlechter_ have the
same meaning; and there the cities sprang up, particularly after the
tenth century, when the age had become more settled. And in Gaul,
where a _civitas_ and a royal villa still existed from the times of
the Romans, a place often grew up near the villa, which remained under
the protection of the king, and under the management of the mayors
of the Palace. This is the original meaning of the word _ville_, as
opposed to _cité_. There is therefore a distinction in French towns
between _la cité_, _la ville_, and _le bourg_. Wherever the commonalty
was growing up within the walls, it was formed of quite different
elements. In the Germanic states, aliens were better treated on the
whole than they were in the ancient world, or even in France. The
_Beisassen_ of the small Swiss cantons, as for instance of Uri, are,
properly speaking, nothing else but subjugated communities; the
inhabitants of St. Gervais were subjects of Geneva. In France, by the
_droit d’aubaine_, the liege lord was heir to the aliens who were not
naturalized; for they were not allowed to make a will. In all those
medieval towns where trade and commerce were paramount, the commonalty
soon divided itself into guilds, which got their own heads and wardens,
their own privileges and style, as well as property; as to capital
jurisdiction, it could only be granted by the kings, and wherever it
was exercised, they had a share in it. The wardens of the companies
at first appear in the council to take care that their rights were
not infringed upon; but they soon took their seats as members, and
ended by getting the ascendency. This is clearly seen in the Italian
cities, e. g. in the case of the seven old guilds at Florence. During
the feuds of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the clans or houses had
still the upperhand; but soon afterwards, about the time of Rudolf of
Habsburg, the guilds are every where the ruling power,--in Italy in the
thirteenth century, and in Germany about the middle of the fourteenth;
at Zurich as well as at Augsburgh, at Strasburg, Ulm, Heilbronn, and
the Suabian imperial cities. The transition is made by the houses
(_Geschlechter_) sharing the government with the guilds: wherever this
is conceded, the union is effected peacefully; but where it is refused,
it is only after a sanguinary struggle, which generally ends in the
destruction of the houses. But sometimes also the reverse takes place,
as at Nuremberg, where the guilds were crushed.
This union of the clans and of the community, or the guilds, is called
in Greece πολιτεία; in Italian _popolo_, the meaning of which is
somewhat different from that of the Roman _populus_.[71] The partition
was so fully carried out, that at Florence, for example at the _palazzo
vecchio_, and on books also, the coat of arms of the city, a fleur
de luce, and that of the commonalty (_il commune_), a cross, gules,
field argent, are seen side by side. The expression _il commune_
easily gives rise to misconceptions; it does not mean the union, but
the commonalty, as Savigny has pointed out to me. At Bologna there
is a _palatium civium_, and a _palatium communis_. The _Capitano del
popolo_ and the _Capitano di parte_ at Florence are also difficult to
be understood. In the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the
_Capitano di parte_, that is, of the party of the Guelphs, having
driven the Ghibellines out of the city, was placed at the head of
affairs, and the others had their rights of citizenship suspended. The
single _Capitano_ of the houses was nevertheless called _di parte_.
But among the ancients it was not the guilds within the walls which
formed the commonalty; but the population of the country round the
city, which consisted of quite different elements, comprehending people
of the highest as well as of the lowest ranks. The notion, therefore,
is altogether a wrong one, that the _Plebes_ was made up of the poorer
classes only. It was occasioned already by the language employed in
Plato and Aristotle, as they had only the word δῆμος to designate
city-corporation, commonalty, the union of both,--in short, all that
did not belong to the ruling class, and moreover the common people.
Dionysius knew the word δῆμος only as contradistinguished to βουλὴ,
ὄχλος being the proper term for the mass of poor. Yet he also is not
free from that mistake, but carried it into Roman history; and as he
went much more fully into detail with regard to these relations than
Livy did, he led the restorers of ancient history into quite erroneous
notions. Livy likewise did not see the matter in a clear light; yet
he has many passages from which it is manifest, that the annalists
whom he followed were correct in their views. A further cause of this
confusion is, however, to be found in the pecuniary embarrassments and
debts which are stated to have prevailed among the Plebes; but which,
as we shall see hereafter, are only to be understood of the mortgages
which encumbered the landowners in many communities. The Plebes is the
counterpart of the Populus, as the Romans in general divide all the
primary agencies in nature and in the world of intellect into two; one
part being male, and the other female: as for instance, Vulcanus and
Vesta are the element of fire; Janus and Jana the heavenly lights, the
sun and moon; the generating power of the earth, Saturnus and Ops; the
earth as solid ground, Tellumo and Tellus; and thus also the entire
state, Populus and Plebes, both of which together formed its whole.
Under the protection of the Populus, a number of dependents[72]
(_cluentes_, from _cluere_ to hear) dwelt within the liberties of
the old town, which extended for about one German mile (nearly five
English) on the road leading to Alba. The boundary may be laid down
very accurately: unfortunately, the thought struck me only after my
departure from Italy. The way in which these clients came to be bound
to their patrons, just as the vassals were to their liege-lords, to
ransom them from captivity, to pay the portion of their daughters, to
be their stay and defence in the time of trouble, had its origin from
very different causes. They may partly have been old native Siculians,
who on being conquered by the Cascans, swore fealty in order to be
mercifully dealt with; foreigners may also have come in as residents,
and placed themselves under the guardianship of a Roman citizen;
there may likewise have been among them some of the inhabitants of
those places which were obliged to submit to the supremacy of Rome;
and the slave who had gained his freedom, stood to his late master in
the relation of a client. This class must necessarily have gone on
increasing so long as Rome was in a flourishing state. The asylum, in
the old tradition, has reference to the clientship, the clients having
really gathered together from all quarters. Quite distinct from them,
however, were the free communities, from which the country population
arose, of which the first beginning was traced back to the times of
Ancus. Scaliger, in one of the noblest of divinations, has discovered
that Catullus calls the Romans _gens Romulique Ancique_, in which
Romulus represents the clans, Ancus the commonalty. This _plebes_ now
increased, partly owing to the enlargement of the territory, and partly
also, without doubt, in consequence of the extinction of some of the
clans; in which case their former clients having no more liege lord,
now joined themselves to the commonalty; and many came in besides from
the free cities with which there were relations of isopolity. Such
organizations are, however, imperfect in their beginnings, and are only
developed in the course of time. Towns like those of the Tellenians,
Ficanians, Politorians, were surely quite isolated at first, and had no
regularly organized power. It is beyond a doubt, that in all the towns
of Italy a _Populus_ and a _Plebes_ existed; and this was also the
case in the Greek colonies of Lower Italy and Sicily, which in their
constitutions exhibit the closest analogy to the states of Italy. In
the former even the same names were certainly in use.
Before the age of Servius Tullius the country district was not yet
united with the state, to which it was linked perhaps by the king
alone: it does not even seem to have had _commercium_, that is to
say, no patrician could acquire property in it, and _vice versa_.
In many countries also, the rule was in force, down to the latest
times, that the landed property of the peasant could not pass to the
nobleman; a most judicious custom, which, however, was set aside owing
to the illusion that it was a vain limitation. Still less can any
intermarriage be presumed to have existed between the patricians and
plebeians. The children of such a marriage were not admitted to the
rank of their (patrician) father; but they rather followed the worse
blood, that is to say, theirs was under any circumstances the inferior
right. The _Lex Mensia_[73] has not devised this; but merely revived
the rule, and more clearly defined it in difficult cases. A lawgiver
now came forth, who on one hand gave to the commonalty a constitution
complete in itself, and, on the other invented forms by which it
was united to the whole body. The former part of this plan has been
entirely overlooked, and the latter appeared to Livy and Dionysius
quite a riddle; so much had circumstances changed since Fabius, who
had still a perfectly correct insight into these matters. In Rome a
great revolution in literature had been brought about by Cicero; and
Livy must have felt himself as much a stranger among the authors of the
earlier times as we do with regard to those who were before Lessing:
few only were still acquainted with books. And there was likewise a
great deal in the federal citizenship of the Latins abrogated by the
_Lex Julia_, on account of which the remembrance of the former state
of things has perished. Thus it is easy to understand, how it was that
the judicious Livy and the learned Dionysius were quite mistaken as to
these points, and nevertheless have preserved a great number of hints
from ancient sources, from which we may with much trouble guess the
truth. To take an example from our own times, I really believe that
there are not now ten people at Cologne, who know what the constitution
of their city was two hundred years ago. How many are there, who still
know any thing about the constitution of their own town before the
French revolution?
The division of such a country population was local. This was not
peculiar to Rome, we find it also to have been the case in Greece:
Clisthenes took the _ager Atticus_ as the basis for the division of
the Athenian people. The whole was divided into certain definite
parts, to effect which they did not reckon together several large
places, but they chose a particular number which seemed suitable, for
instance, one hundred, into which the division was to be made; and for
this purpose some large places were to be parcelled into districts,
and other smaller ones to be combined. These divisions according to a
number fixed before hand, were so general among the Romans, that, when
Augustus divided the city into fourteen regions, he did not count how
many _Vici_ there were, but to each region he assigned a certain number
of _Vici_. Now the lawgiver whom we call Servius Tullius took all those
portions of the city of Rome which were inhabited by burghers of the
pale, and the country around, and divided the former into four and the
latter into twenty-six regions. This must be assumed as true: the proof
that this statement of Fabius is correct would lead us too far. Every
_Populus_ presupposes almost as its necessary counterpart a _Plebes_;
in a certain sense therefore there was already a _Plebes_ before the
reign of Ancus, although an insignificant one. Roma, Quirium, Lucerum
had each of them their commonalty; these and the settlement on the
Esquiliæ in the time of Servius Tullius constituted the four first
tribes, the first of which, the Palatina, corresponds to the Palatine;
the second, the Collina, to the Quirinal; the third, the Suburana, to
the Cælius with the Carinæ and Subura; the fourth, the Esquilina to
the Esquiline and Viminal. This organization is to be dated before
the _Murus Servii_, as is proved to a certainty by the existence of
the Esquilina. Each of these regions had a corresponding local tribe,
so that all those who, at the time of their being established, were
living in a place, were inscribed there on the register of the local
tribes, and their descendants after them.[74] This continued so during
the first generation; but in the course of time it was changed, as
the descendants did not always remain in the same place. The names
of the country tribes were not taken originally from the districts,
but from heroes, being at the same time surnames for the tribes and
for the clans; for it was evidently the object of this legislation
to amalgamate the different elements of the people. The remembrance
of olden times, when those places had been independent, was to be
absorbed in the idea that they were Roman. They acquired common _sacra_
like the tribes composed of clans, as Dionysius expressly mentions.
Sacred rites were always among the ancients a bond of union. That
the plebeian tribes had _sacra_, we know from the fact that Tarquin
the Proud positively forbade them. Besides this, there was a local
subdivision into _vici_ for the city, and into _pagi_ for the country.
Each of these vici had a warden (_magister_); each tribe, a tribune.
The same system was established at Athens. If for instance a person was
registered at Acharnæ, and emigrated to Sunium, he still remained an
Ἀχαρνεύς. As in the earlier times these tribes were all equal, there
was no occasion for any one to wish to be registered in another tribe;
but afterwards it was different, when there arose between the tribes
an inequality of political consideration, of which I shall afterwards
speak. The _tribus urbanæ_ were inferior to the _rusticæ_, and the
removal from the latter to the former was a _nota ignominiæ_: this
dates from the censorship of Fabius Maximus. If a man became a Roman
citizen _sine suffragio_, he was not received into a plebeian tribe;
nor could he get admission therein by isopolity or emancipation; and
therefore he could not hold any office, nor have a vote. A vote in the
plebeian tribes belonged only to those who were settled on the land,
and to the cultivators of the soil; he who got his livelihood by some
other trade was debarred from it.
Now that the lawgiver had constituted the two bodies, the patricians
and the plebeians, he might, as is done in modern states, have put them
side by side in two separate assemblies. Yet this was impracticable in
those earliest times, inasmuch as they both looked upon each other as
enemies. In order to effect an accommodation, Servius established the
centuries (_centuriæ_), similar to the _concilio grande_ in Venice,
in which every one was equal to his neighbour on entering the Hall,
whether he were rich or poor, each being in a plain garb. It was the
object of the centuries, to unite the patricians and the plebeians,
and those who grew up at the side of the plebeians, and now took the
place which these formerly held; and at the same time to exclude
those, who, as they had no property at all, could give no guarantee to
the state. The centuries therefore contained the whole of the first
estate; of the second, those who were qualified to vote; of the third,
all those, who, owing to their means, were equals of the second; and,
besides, some distinguished trades. Great confusion with regard to
this was created in Roman history by the views of Livy and Dionysius,
who imagined the tribes to have differed as to rank and fortune only.
They thought that the old body of the citizens, which contained the
patricians, had been divided into curies, and that these were all
placed on the same footing; but that this had been an oppressive
democracy which Servius Tullius had done away with by establishing
the centuries. This mistake is the same as that into which Sismondi
falls when he represents the Italian cities, at the time in which they
first appear in history, as having been democratically governed,--a
prodigious error! Had the Roman historians attentively studied the
old law books, they could not possibly have remained in darkness with
regard to these things. It is true, however, that it is not yet fifty
years since Möser’s first researches, by the light of which we too have
only begun to get a clear insight into our own institutions.
According to the old system, the clansmen not only served on horseback,
as in aftertimes, but likewise on foot: it was also just the same
originally in the German cities. They had not at first the least
likeness to a nobility. We may take it for granted that each clan
served in war with one horseman and ten foot soldiers; and hence the
statement in Plutarch, that the first town had consisted of about
one thousand households. This looks like history; yet such additions
as “about,” and others of the same kind, in Plutarch, Dionysius, and
other writers of the later times, are touches put in to subdue the
tone of colouring which seemed to them too bright. The narrative is
quite ancient, but it is not so much history as the personification of
a system of rights. In the earliest Rome there were a hundred clans,
and consequently a thousand foot soldiers, each of whom was deemed
to have been furnished by one house.[75] Besides these the country
population had to serve, being probably called out according to their
place of abode. The new laws made a change in the phalanx; relieved the
old citizens from the duty of serving as foot soldiers; and granted
them immunities for serving as horsemen. In laying the burthen of the
foot-service on the plebeians, they also at the same time gave them
corresponding privileges, and thereby the means of upholding their
freedom. In this manner they divided the population into horsemen and
footmen, without however excluding the commonalty from the cavalry.
The military array of all the European nations in ancient times was
analogous to the Greek phalanx. It was a mass of men which acted by the
pressure of its own weight, and these were armed with pikes and charged
with them against each other in files eight, ten, or twelve deep. The
barbarians never fought in dense masses, and the Asiatics were merely
archers. When the soldiers, as at Rome, stood ten files deep, those
who were in the rear were not, of course, quite so much exposed and in
need of so much armour as those in front: they wanted, if they closed
their shields properly, no breast-plates, nor did the hindmost ranks
even require greaves. Part of them also were light troops, slingers who
threw either leaden bullets or stones. Every one at Rome who served
on foot, had to find his equipments at his own expense, and therefore
according to his means; so that the wealthier citizens were completely
armed, while those who were badly off were called upon to serve as
slingers only. When wars became protracted, gaps occurred in the ranks,
as the first rows grew thinner; in this case, the men who were behind
took possession of the arms and equipments of the slain, and being now
already trained, stepped into their places. At the same time there
followed a reserve in case of need. These therefore were the three
component parts of the Roman line of battle,--the legion proper, the
light armed, and last of all the men in the reserve, who stepped into
the hindmost ranks when those in front had been filled up from thence.
Servius therefore looked upon the whole nation, Populus and Plebes,
as an army, _exercitus vocatus_. And as this militia had to march
against the enemy abroad, there was need besides of carpenters for
building bridges, pitching tents, &c., and of musicians;--the former
constituted one, the latter two centuries;--and now only was the host
(_Classis_)[76] quite organized. These centuries did not consist of
plebeians, as no plebeian was allowed to carry on any other trade but
that of agriculture; otherwise he renounced his caste and was struck
off by the censors from his tribe (_capitis deminutio_,) originally
without any disgrace being attached to it. Yet the Romans had from the
earliest times companies of trade, which were traced back as high as
Numa, and of which there were three times three,--pipers, goldsmiths,
carpenters, dyers, girdlers, tanners, braziers, potters, and then all
the rest. Of this the intention certainly was to give the craftsmen
of the city also an existence as a corporation, just as in the
middle ages. But as those who were in these centuries were generally
freedmen and foreigners, it became an object of ambition to get out
of them, and to be enrolled among the tribes; and so the companies
could never thrive. They were of greater importance at Corinth. By the
division into centuries, the lawgiver connected the plebeians with the
patricians and ærarians. To the trades so necessary for warfare as the
carpenters and musicians, distinct centuries were assigned, by which
they acquired the same rights which would have belonged to them, if
they had served in war as plebeians. The carpenters were reckoned in
the first class on account of their importance, the musicians in the
fifth.
Lastly, he had regard to those free people who did not belong to the
commonalty. Many of these certainly entered the service, either by
conscription or as volunteers; for I cannot imagine that the _capite
censi_, and the _proletarii_, should not have had to do any service at
all. They were not, however, arrayed against the enemy; but they were
camp followers, (_lixæ et calones_). We have no reason to presume that
these had always been slaves.
Thus was an army now completely formed; and by this, together with the
horsemen, Servius caused the people to be represented. For the cavalry
he chose the three old double tribes, or six centuries of Tarquinius
Priscus; then twelve other centuries of the Plebes, which were the most
distinguished among the commonalty. In the six centuries was the entire
patrician body; which indeed had on the whole a very insignificant
number of votes, but, as we shall see by and by, the upperhand in
other respects. Within these, there was perfect equality; there was no
distinction of age: every century had a vote.
In the plebeian body, Servius Tullius selected from among those of
higher rank and greater wealth, two classes,--that of the former Latin
nobility, and that in which the rest were placed. To this noble class
he assigned the twelve other equestrian centuries, and that without
regard to property, with the exception perhaps of such persons as
were quite impoverished, a fact which must be particularly urged; for
according to the received opinion, they were deemed to have been the
richest. Had the knights at that time already been the richest, that is
to say, if we are to look upon them as having been in the same state as
after the war with Hannibal, what a senseless constitution would then
have been the result! All fortunes, between a million sesterces (the
sum which at the end of the second Punic war was the qualification of
this class) and 100,000, would not have been classified in any way; and
yet lower than that again in a great number of divisions. And we have
also the explicit testimony of Polybius, that the property standard was
of new introduction with regard to the knights, contrary to the old
system, in which birth was the qualification. Another proof, besides,
is the statement that, even as the censors registered a burgher of the
pale in the plebeian tribes, so did they likewise place a plebeian
in the equestrian body as a mark of distinction; which excludes a
classification according to property. In the reign of Augustus it was
indeed quite a different case. At that time, the most distinguished men
could not become knights without a certain amount of fortune.
Yet what is meant by _census_? With us every description of property
would be valued, all rights which might be reckoned as a capital. It
was otherwise with the Romans. It is to be considered as a proved fact,
that the census affected realized property only, “_res corporales_,”
that is to say, substantial objects; not _res incorporales_, as for
instance, debts and obligations. Thus, if I have 50,000 asses in
land, and owe 10,000 to some one else, I in fact possess only 40,000.
Yet this was not at all regarded in the census of the ancients, as
no notice was taken of incumbrances. This very point, which is of
paramount importance, has never once been noticed by the earlier
writers on Roman history, because they were no men of business. One
must not look upon the census as a property tax, but as a land tax; or
as a consolidation of direct taxes. Certain objects were estimated at
a certain value, according to prescribed rules, and then one paid a
corresponding assessment on the thousand. In Dutch Friesland the landed
estates were rated according to pounds, and a certain tax assessed on
these pounds. An estate was hence called _Pondemate_ (Pound-mead),
and a certain number of pence were paid on it. Thus the Roman census
comprehended all the landed estates, and without doubt all _res
mancipî_ as well; but I am quite convinced that nothing was assessed
on outstanding debts, however rich an individual might have been from
these sources. The Attic census on the other hand was really a property
tax. From thence it followed that the whole floating property in the
state had very little weight; for the richest monied man might have
come off without any tax, whilst the land had all the burthens, but
likewise all the privileges. In this the census closely corresponds to
our direct taxes, in which also no account is taken of the mortgages
with which an estate is encumbered.
All who did not belong to the equestrian centuries were again divided
into those who possessed upwards of 12,500 asses, and the poorer ones,
whose census did not reach that sum. The former were distributed
into five classes: in these there were no patricians whatever, but
all the plebeians whose census amounted to the sum fixed, and the
_ærarii_, that is to say, those who were not in the tribes, but had
an income which made them equal to those who were. The ærarians are
now what the plebeians had been before: as soon as they acquire
landed property, they enter into the tribes. In the first class were
all those who in landed estates, metals, agricultural implements,
beasts of draught, slaves, flocks, herds, and horses, possessed as
much property as was valued at 100,000 asses and upwards: these were
divided into eighty centuries. All who were above sixteen and under
forty-five, were reckoned among the _juniores_; from forty-five to
sixty, among the _seniores_. In Sparta, the obligation to military
service lasted until the sixtieth year; at Rome, it was in the case of
the _seniores_ limited to the defence of the walls only. As regards
numerical proportion, the _seniores_ certainly were not half of the
whole:--men of that age, according to what is a favourable average of
life in the south, would be scarcely a fourth part, or more exactly
two-sevenths;--all who were alive above forty-six, might have been
about the half. There is every probability that in those times all the
rights and obligations of citizenship ceased at the sixtieth year.
In Greece, a greater value was placed on the capacity of old people;
among the Melians, the whole government was placed in the hands of the
aged men above sixty. Although the _seniores_ amounted indeed to not
more than about half the number of the _juniores_, yet they had quite
as many votes, and may also have been called up first to give their
suffrages. The remainder were divided into four classes, of 75,000,
50,000, 25,000, and 12,500 asses. Of these, the second, third, and
fourth had twenty centuries each; the fifth had thirty. A hundred
thousand asses was no great fortune; it was pretty nearly equivalent to
ten thousand drachmas of Athens, an as being worth about a stiver and a
half.[77] At the levies, each century had to serve according to a fixed
rate; so that those which contained but a small number, had to do more
military duty than the larger ones. The conscription was from tribes
and centuries combined. In the thirty tribes, one man was always called
from each century of the _juniores_, from each century therefore thirty
men. Each following class had to furnish more troops; and that in such
a manner, that when the first supplied a single contingent, the second
and third were to send double ones, and the fourth again only a single
one, employed as a javelin corps. The fifth also served with a double
contingent.
The object of the constitution, which was based upon property, would
have been quite defeated, if the first class had not possessed a
preponderance of votes. The centuries in the lower classes were strong
in numbers in an inverse ratio to their fortunes: out of thirty-five
citizens who were able to vote, six only belonged to the first class.
Dionysius does not see his way through all the details; yet he plainly
states that it was according to property that the whole of the
calculations were made.
All those who had property, the assessed value of which amounted to
less than 12,500 asses, were moreover divided into such as still
belonged to the _locupletes_, which was the case if their rateable
property was worth more than fifteen hundred asses; and into those who
had even less. The latter were called _proletarii_, which means persons
who paid no tax: they formed a century. The _locupletes_ comprehended
all the plebeians but the proletarians, and so far they were all equal;
yet there was a gulf between them and the proletarians. Any _locuples_,
for instance, could in a court of law become personal security for
another; the proletarian could not. With money, of course, he only
could be _vindex_, who was able to prove from the censor’s books that
he had the requisite property; and certainly _locupletes_ alone could
be appointed as judges by the prætor, and appear as witnesses, which
is shown by the term _locupletes testes_. The proletarians, therefore,
were placed in quite a different category. Whether at that time they
may not also have been debarred from voting in the plebeian tribes, is
uncertain.
This is the system of centuries as established by Servius, with regard
to which Livy materially differs from Dionysius, and both of them from
Cicero in the second book _de Republica_. This passage is very ill
written, but it may be amended. There result from it 195 centuries:
170 in the five classes; two of the _locupletes_, or _assidui_; the
_accensi_ and _velati_; two of the proletarians (the _proletarii_ in
the stricter acceptation of the word), and the _capite censi_; and
the three centuries of the trades; and lastly, eighteen equestrian
centuries, consisting of the six patrician and twelve plebeian
ones. Several conjectures have been made concerning that passage of
Cicero’s, all of which are wrong; as for instance, what Hermann,
highly-distinguished scholar as he is, has said about it. Yet if one
is familiar with these researches, every thing may be made clear by
the Roman combinations of numbers, as I have elucidated them. It was
the aim and object of the whole system, that the minority should
decide:[78] wealth and birth combined were to turn the scale, and
that by means of the eighteen equestrian centuries and the eighty of
the first class, which were the earliest called up to vote; if these
were unanimous, every question was decided by them, as they formed the
majority of the centuries, though far inferior in number to the rest
of the citizens. Among those who were equal in rank, it was again the
minority which decided; for the centuries of the _seniores_ contained
so much fewer voters than those of the _juniores_.
Had the intention of this institution been that which historians assign
to it, it would have been highly unjust to the patricians, who still
continued to form a considerable part of the nation. Those who gave
the account did not see that the latter belonged in no way to the
classes,--their presence in the centuries was merely that they might
be represented, and therefore important as symbolical only;--and they
contented themselves with saying that they probably voted with the
rich, consequently with the first class. Rich, however, the patricians
were not by any means, according to the census: they were tenants _in
capite_, not freeholders. But that injustice did not exist at all; for
the centuries stood in the same relation to the curies as the House of
Commons does to the House of Lords. No election was valid which the
curies had not approved of; nor any law either, for this is the meaning
of the expression, _ut patres auctores fierent_. Besides this, the
centuries could not deliberate on any subject which had not been laid
before them by the Senate; and no one from among them could get up and
speak, which the curies were perfectly at liberty to do. In the tribes
it seems to have been allowed, after the tribunes had made a motion,
to discuss it until it was put to the vote; yet this perhaps was a
privilege but seldom used. Thus therefore was the commonalty extremely
restricted in the system of the centuries: it was merely a step towards
a free commonwealth. The assembly of the tribes at that time had no
legislative power of any kind: it had merely to elect its officers,
to make rates for common purposes, and perhaps there was likewise
already a sort of poor law administration, as bread was distributed
under the superintendence of the ædiles at the temple of Ceres. But
the most important privilege of the tribes was this, that a right of
appeal to them, such as the patricians had long had to the curies, was
also granted by Servius Tullius to the plebeians, against sentences of
chastisement for refractory conduct towards the authorities.
The laws of Servius Tullius may have contained much more besides,
but Tarquin the Proud is said to have entirely destroyed them; that
is to say, they were not to be found in the _jus Papirianum_. There
are stated to have been fifty laws. How far the equalization of both
orders may have been carried in other respects, is uncertain; the
exclusive claim of the patricians to the use of the public land, and
the practice of pledging the person for debt, are said to have been
done away with. More certain it is that the lawgiver meant also to lay
down the royal dignity, and to bring in the consulship in its stead,
so that Populus and Plebes should each be represented by a consul;
which was only accomplished a hundred and fifty years later by the
_lex Licinia_. He considered himself as a νομοθέτης, like Lycurgus and
Solon. The transition was easy, as indeed the kings likewise were only
elective magistrates for life; a system which in earlier times seems to
have been very common among the Italian people. The election of two
consuls seems to have been projected in the commentaries of Servius
Tullius (_duo consules creati sunt ex commentariis Servii Tullii_;
Liv.) But it was not carried into effect; be it that he lost his life
too soon, or that he himself put it off. Tanaquil, in the legend, is
said to have adjured him not to resign the throne, nor abandon her and
hers. All that is ascribed to king Servius Tullius, was not entirely
accomplished by him: it became the exciting cause of the revolution of
Tarquin the Proud. Although a reign of forty-four years is assigned to
Servius, Livy knows of one war only, that against the people of Cære
and Tarquinii, which was ended in a few weeks. Dionysius also does not
give a single detail which has even the semblance of truth. The length
of his reign has been prolonged beyond all bounds; whereas there is
every likelihood that it was but a short one.
To the same lawgiver the settlement of the relations with the Latins
is attributed. It is said that he made a league with them, and induced
them to erect a common _Sacrum_ on the Aventine, in which the tablets
containing the covenant were set up; that Rome had offered sacrifice
there, and that this, as Livy tells us, was a _Confessio rem Romanam
esse superiorem_. The inquiry into the condition of the Latin people,
is decidedly one of the most difficult of that class of subjects: at
first every thing belonging to it seemed to me to be confused, and
it was only step by step that I came to have clear views with regard
to it. It is a mistake of the ancients which I have shared with them
until very lately, that Servius had acquired the hegemony over the
Latins. This was first done by Tarquin: the very same authors who
represent it to be the work of Servius, themselves tell it afterwards
of Tarquin. The establishment of the festival of the _feriæ Latinæ_
on the Alban Mount was from the earliest times ascribed to Tarquinius
Priscus or Superbus; more correct, however, is the opinion of others,
and also of some of the ancients, that it originated with the _Latini
Prisci_. If here the chief of the Latins offered the sacrifice, and
the Romans merely took part in it; it is natural, that in order to
adjust the balance between the two nations, a counterpoise was formed
on the other side, in which Rome got the precedence, and the Latins
were guests only. This was accordingly done in the temple of Diana on
the Aventine. At a later period, the Latins, having become independent,
transfer this symbol of a national right to a grove before the gates
of Aricia. In earlier times, Alba was the sovereign state; afterwards,
the Romans and Albans are bound in friendly alliance as two distinct
nations; under Servius, they join in a close confederation and
communion of sacrifice. Thus leagued were the Romans, not only with
the Latins, but also with the Sabines; and they constituted a great
state, of which Rome was the centre. Without doubt part of Etruria
was also subjected to them. This we consider to have been the work
of Servius, a hypothesis which is recommended by its simplicity and
which rids us of the contradiction above mentioned. When the plebeians
became citizens, the Latins drew nigher to the Romans, and mounted in
fact upon that step which the plebeians had just left. Thus we find
in Roman history, as long as there are signs of life in the people, a
steady advance of the more recent institutions, as the old ones, upon
which they grew, fell into decay. Those who at first were mere allies,
are afterwards incorporated, and form plebeian tribes. Thus the whole
of the Roman constitution is a sound healthy development, in which
nothing stagnates: the Roman people ever revives and springs up anew;
and--what Montesquieu looks upon as the only true progress in the life
of states,--Rome, until the fifth century, is the only state which
always fell back upon its first principles, so that its life became
ever more noble and more vigorous. Afterwards, people begin to check
and to keep down what is fresh rising up, and then life is thrown back,
and the seeds of decay are first sown. Signs of this evil already
show themselves a hundred years before the Gracchi; it breaks out in
their time, and from thence goes on increasing for forty years, until
it gives birth to the Social War, and that of Sylla and Marius, out of
which the people comes forth as a confused mass, being no more able
to subsist in republican unity, and necessarily wanting an absolute
authority to guide them. One might exactly tell how Rome could have
become young again, and have kept up for some hundreds of years longer.
The good path lay open; but people were blinded by selfish and besotted
prejudice, and they tried when too late to follow it.
With regard to the gradual increase of the city there exist very
contradictory opinions, which in the common topographies, as for
instance that of Nardini, cause the most confused chaos. Yet this may
be set to rights. It should be born in mind that the views which have
influenced these statements are manifold. The statement of one set is
that a hill was built upon under such or such a king; of another, that
it had been taken into the town; and of a third, that those who dwelt
on it had obtained the freedom of the city. The result of my researches
is as follows. Old Rome was situated on the Palatine: the Pomœrium of
Romulus mentioned in Tacitus, which ran from the Forum Boarium through
the Circus as far as to the Septizonium, S. Gregorio, the arch of
Constantine, the Thermæ of Titus, and from thence back through the Via
Sacra by the temples of Venus and Roma,--even the whole of this circuit
is a suburb built around the old city, and surrounded, not by walls,
but by a rampart and ditch. At that time there was on the Quirinal and
the Tarpeian rocks the Sabine town, which likewise had its Pomœrium:
between the two ramparts and ditches a road ran along,--the Via Sacra.
On this stood the Janus Quirini, a gateway which was _bifrons_, turned
on one side towards the Roman and on the other towards the Sabine town;
closed in times of peace, because it was not then wished that there
should be any intercourse between the two cities; open in war, as both
towns were in a league, and bound to give support to each other. A
case quite analogous to this is to be found in the Gætulian town of
Ghadames beyond Tripoli: the place is inhabited by two hostile tribes,
and is divided by a wall into two parts, which are connected by a
gate; likewise closed in peace, and open during war.[79] As for the
Cælius, some say that Romulus; others, that Tullus Hostilius; others,
that Ancus Marcius added it to the city. The key to which is this;
that under Ancus the hill, already inhabited before, was connected
with the town by a ditch, the _fossa Quiritium_, from the old moat of
the Pomœrium to the Porta Capena, which was the first enlargement of
Rome; and that this was partly to drain off the water, and partly for
defence. There is too much water there for excavations to be easily
made, otherwise the finest antiquities might be found in the Circus:
the Obelisk was brought to light from thence in the sixteenth century.
The _Agua Marrana_ is not the _aqua damnata_ of Agrippa: in the old
Circus there was a canal which carried the water off. Here was the
_septem viarum vicus_ where Ancus cut the ditch, perhaps as far as the
sewers. Moreover the Roman and the Sabine towns were still separated by
the Forum, which was a marsh. The whole neighbourhood of the Velabrum
was as yet a river or a lake; and before this was drained, a topical
union of the two towns was impossible: the Janus, probably a dyke, was
the only road. To effect this, the works were now executed which are
ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus, the immense sewers, or more properly,
river tunnels, consisting of one main and several minor channels. The
main sewer (_cloaca maxima_) of a most ancient style of architecture,
may be seen to this day, and still carries off the water. Its width
is 18 palms,[80] and it is formed by three stone vaults of _peperino_
(a volcanic stone from Gabii and Alba), one above the other, built in
the shape of a semicircle. These form the gigantic work: the stones,
each of which is 7½ palms long, and 4⅙ palms broad, are joined by no
cement or dovetailing, nor any thing of the kind; they hold together
merely from the way in which they fit, and the exact closing of the
arch. The structure has not for two thousand years undergone the
slightest change, having stood unshaken the shock of earthquakes, which
have laid waste the rest of the city, and overthrown obelisks; so that
one might say that it will see the end of the world. This is the work
which made it possible to form Rome into a whole of that extent which
it afterwards had. The entire embankment of the river, the quay, is
likewise built of stone, of the volcanic stone from Alba; and we may
recognise there also the same style of architecture. The other vaults
begin between the Quirinal and the Viminal, and run beneath the Forum
Augustum, the Forum Romanum and the Forum Boarium into the Velabrum and
the _cloaca maxima_. They are of equally perfect preservation; but they
lie deep under ground. They were found during the papacy of Benedict
XIV. They are executed on the same immense scale; but they are built of
_travertino_, from which it is manifest, that they are of a later age,
and yet perhaps of the time of the republic, somewhat about the first
half of the fifth century, before the war of Hannibal. Now therefore
the whole country as far as the river was inhabitable, even beyond the
Capitoline hill. Soon, however, were greater plans devised for the
enlargement of the city. On the north side of the Esquiline, where the
kings had built a rampart, level space was to be secured which had
the advantage of not being able to be flooded,--a high and dry plain,
whither the country people might take refuge in case of war. For this
reason Servius Tullius constructed his great rampart from the Porta
Collina to the Esquiline gate,--almost the fifth of a German mile, and
a moat besides, an hundred feet broad and thirty deep. The earth from
the moat formed the rampart, which was protected by a lining wall on
the side of the ditch, and by battlements and towers on the top. Of
this stupendous work, which Pliny justly regards with wonder, there is
hardly anything whatever left; its line only may yet be traced. But
in the times of Augustus, even in those of Pliny, it was in perfect
preservation, and therefore it was not possible to talk at random about
it. It was a public promenade of the Romans: Dionysius has seen it,
and walked on it a hundred times. Rome had now gained her seven hills,
since the Viminal was first brought by that wall within the precincts
of the city, which thus had a circumference of more than a German mile,
like Athens after the Persian wars; a considerable town even for our
days. We therefore see again how false is the opinion of Florus and
others, who look upon the time of the kings, as being one of childhood
(_infans in cunis vagiens_): on the contrary, after the expulsion of
the kings Rome fell to a low ebb for a long time.
Well worth our attention is the Etruscan tradition concerning Servius
Tullius, and the fragment of Claudius’ speech on the tablets at Lyons,
which contains the notices of Cæles Vibenna and Mastarna from Etruscan
historians.[81] I never was so much surprised by any literary discovery
as by this. Not a soul had taken any heed of it before;--people don’t
look at such square letters, especially when they are those of the
silly Claudius. I at that time still believed in the Etruscan origin
of Rome, and thought that quite a new light would thus be shed upon
the whole of the Roman history. Cælius Vibenna must be an historical
person: mention is made of him too frequently and too distinctly;
his name also is such that the Romans could not have invented it, as
the Etruscan language was as foreign to them, as the Celtic to us
Germans. Nor is it perhaps to be doubted that he had a friend Mastarna.
But when I search into the legislation which is ascribed to Servius
Tullius,--whatever abatements may be made on the score of historical
precision, especially with regard to chronology, although the fact
is unquestionable that Servius reigned before the last king, and was
overthrown by the thoroughly historical Tarquin the Proud,--this
legislation was yet so peaceful and so free, that I cannot bring myself
to believe that a condottiere, a captain of freebooters (for such were
those enlisted troops) should have made such mild laws, and intended
to change the monarchy into a republic. The whole civil and political
legislation of Servius Tullius bears the impress of a thoroughly Latin
stamp; the relation also to the Latins bespeaks a Latin lawgiver. He
may have been a Corniculan, and have ascended the throne in a manner
which was contrary to the established custom. He may have sprung from
a marriage of disparagement between one of the Luceres with a woman of
Corniculum before the connubium was conceded, and this may be at the
bottom of the history of his descent; but a foreigner, or a leader of
marauders, he certainly was not. I do not in the least doubt Claudius’
honesty, nor do I impugn the importance of the Etruscan books; yet we
must not rate their value too high. What they really were could not be
known before Mai discovered the Veronese Scholia on the Æneid (1818).
In these are found quotations from two Etruscan historians, Flaccus
and Cæcina, which considerably lower our expectations concerning the
value of the Etruscan books for the early times. It seems that just
as the Romans misunderstood the old Latin history, and substituted
the Tyrrhenian one, thus also the Etruscans kept to the traditions
of the Tyrrhenians whom they had brought under their yoke, and made
Tarchon, him who plays his part in Virgil, and may be met with in the
Roman tradition as Tarquinius Priscus, the founder of their empire
from Tarquinii. If Claudius had really at hand the old Etruscan rolls
written from right to left, of which Lucretius speaks, he was on very
slippery ground; but how much more so, if he followed Flaccus and
Cæcina, who wrote without any sort of criticism. The books of the
Etruscans are for the most part dated too early. Etruria had from
the war of Hannibal to that of Sylla, for more than a hundred years,
enjoyed profound peace under the supremacy of the Romans; in this time
most of the works of Etruscan literature must be placed. Before the
Social War, as Cicero states, the sciences flourished all over Italy,
of which we have no more any detailed knowledge; certainly histories
were written in the whole of Italy, just as in Rome. Now if any one
read in the Etruscan books Cæles Vibenna and Mastarna, and chose to
put things together, he might have thought with some vanity, “what has
become of this Mastarna? very likely he is that Servius Tullius, whose
birth has been shrouded in mystery.” Somebody may thus have stumbled
upon this idea quite by himself, and Claudius indeed, addle-headed
as he was, was sure to believe such a thing. Thus he also says of
the _tribuni militares consulari potestate_, “_qui seni sæpe octoni
crearentur_.” But there have always either been six of these, half of
whom were patricians and half plebeians, or _promiscue_; or else only
three patricians, making four with the _præfectus urbi_: once only we
know of eight, when the two censors were reckoned with them, as Onuphr.
Panvinius has shown.[82] This may have happened once or twice besides;
but at all events it was an anomaly. From this we see that Claudius
did not understand the Fasti. Our notice of Mastarna therefore is
according to all appearances based upon very slight authority. The
Etruscan annals from which Claudius drew may have been old; but that
they really were so, is nowhere stated.
The unity of the poem of the Tarquins from the arrival of Tarquinius
Priscus to the fight at the Regillus cannot be mistaken,--a noble theme
for an epic poet, much more worthy of being treated by Virgil than the
Æneid. The account seems credible, and to have been derived from old
traditions, that the legislation of Servius Tullius had to be carried
through almost by force; that he arbitrarily formed his centuries;
and then that these for the second time acknowledged him as king,
and ratified his laws. All such changes among the ancients have been
brought about in the same way. Moreover it is said that the patricians
were angry at this legislation, although it took nothing from them, and
merely gave something to the second order; and that they made attempts
to murder the king, for which he compelled them to dwell, not on the
Esquiline where his house stood, but in the valley below it. All this,
as a tradition, has much probability from its intrinsic consistency.
Yet the tragedy itself has its origin in the king’s own house. His two
daughters, one of them good, the other wicked, are married to the two
sons of Tarquinius Priscus; the good one to the younger L. Tarquin,
a brave but ambitious young man, the wicked daughter to Aruns the
elder brother. The latter saw that Aruns was disposed to give up his
claims to the throne, and on this she offered L. Tarquin her hand to
be gained by murdering her husband; he accepted it, and carried out
her intentions. Tarquin, we are told, now formed a party among the
patricians, and arranged with them for the murder of Servius Tullius;
the king, when he made his appearance in the Curia, was flung down the
steps, and the body guards dispatched him in the street; and Tullia
went to greet her husband as king, and as she was returning drove
over the corpse, owing to which the street got the name of _vicus
sceleratus_.
That Servius lost his life in a rebellion of Tarquin, and that the
latter was supported by the whole body of the citizens, in particular
by the Luceres, his own party (_factio regis, gentes minores_), so that
these reaped the fruits of the revolution, and the two first tribes
thought themselves hardly dealt with, may be looked upon as historical.
Yet I am far from considering as such all the details which are given
about the daughters of the old king: they are no more so than the tale
of Lady Macbeth. There is so wide a gulf between our manners and the
crimes of the South, that we have not a notion of their possibility or
impossibility; yet even if those accounts were possible, historical
they are not. That the rule of Tarquin the Proud was brilliant but
frightfully oppressive, and that he trampled the laws of Tullius
under foot, may belong to history; but those appalling massacres of
his cannot but be poetry. Tarquin has perhaps the misfortune of an
awful poetical celebrity, much worse than he may have deserved. Yet he
cannot have entirely abolished the laws of Servius at once. There may
be some truth in the statement that he put down the meetings of the
plebeian tribes; that he did away with their festivals; and that he
did not call them together for legislation and the election of their
magistrates. Nor, in fact, was there much occasion for these last, the
criminal judges being chosen by the patricians. When it is recounted,
that Tarquin undertook immense works, that he built the magnificent
Capitoline temple, after having arranged the site for it, it is
possible that he used the plebeians as his bondmen, that many of them
committed suicide on that account, and that in order to prevent this
he had the corpses fastened upon a cross. We must here proceed with
caution and circumspection; the details will always remain uncertain,
and all that cannot be set aside as impossible, is not therefore
necessarily true. That Tarquin did not abolish the division into
classes, seems to me certain; partly because it was advantageous for
him to have the improved military organization, and partly because from
the connection which he entered into with Latium, we are to conclude
that the constitutions of the two states were the same; so that either
Servius Tullius gave to the Romans a Latin constitution, or Tarquin to
the Latins the Roman one. Even if Tarquin the Proud and his revolution
in favour of the patricians, especially those of the third order, are
quite historical, yet it is still singular that the third order should
seem nevertheless after that revolution to have been inferior to the
two others. This very fact, that the interests of the two first tribes
clashed with those of the third, paved the way for a popular revolution.
According to Livy and Dionysius, the Latins, with the exception of
Gabii, were induced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome and of
Tarquin; on the other hand, Cicero in the books _De Republica_ says,
_universum Latium bello subegit_. Whether this war was merely passed
over by the others, or whether Cicero let fall the expression from
carelessness only, cannot now be decided. It is probable that there
have always existed discrepancies between the narrations of poetry and
history: the tale of Turnus Herdonius has a highly poetical colouring.
Whilst under Servius there was an alliance with reciprocity, Latium
now entered into that relation in which afterwards the _Socii Italici_
stood, when they bound themselves _ad majestatem populi Romani comiter
colendam_. It seems also that the Latins, when there was a change of
rulers at Rome, had refused to renew the alliance concluded under the
late king.
In the alliance between Rome and Carthage, (of which the original
treaty was kept among the archives of the ædiles, which also Polybius,
as he states himself, not without a great deal of trouble, translated
into Greek, since even the Romans themselves could hardly decypher
and tell the meaning of the old writing; an alliance which was to
be renewed from time to time, as in our days is still the case with
those with the Barbary states,) we see the whole coast, not only of
the Prisci Latini, but as far as Terracina, which at that time perhaps
was still Tyrrhenian and not Volscian, in the possession of Rome; its
inhabitants are called in the Greek translation ὑπήκοοι. Rome concludes
the alliance for them as well as for herself; it is stipulated that,
if the Carthaginians should make conquests in Latium, they were to
give them up to the Romans. This treaty is as authentic as any thing
can be: it is a strange whim of an otherwise estimable man,[83] to
take it for an invention of Polybius. Here, therefore, Latium is
still dependent on Rome, to which dependence Livy also bears witness:
it was a relation newly established. Afterwards, when all as far as
Antium rise up in hostility against Rome, we again recognise a decline
of Roman power. The _Feriæ Latinæ_ are an assembly of all the Latin
nations, not merely of the Prisci Latini on the Alban Hill, where we
know that the Latin authorities must needs have had the presidency. Yet
Dionysius tells us that Tarquin had established the festival; that a
bullock was killed, of which the delegates of the several towns each
received a piece (_carnem Latinis accipere_). The Milanese Scholiast on
Cicero’s oration for Plancius[84] says, that with regard to this there
had been a different tradition; that some had ascribed the festival
to Tarquinius Priscus,--this is a mere falsification for Tarquinius
Superbus out of spite against the latter, just as the foundation of
the Capitol was referred to the former king,--others to the Prisci
Latini, which consequently would place it in the earliest times. The
latter are perfectly right. The festivals existed long before Tarquin,
as long as there was a Latin people. Yet, at the same time, the other
opinion has arisen from a mistake which is very easily accounted for;
for if Tarquin the Proud obtained the supremacy over Latium, he would
also naturally preside at the sacrifices as the Ætolians did at Delphi
during their hegemony, from whence the well known expression in the
inscriptions, ἱερομνημονούντων Αἰτωλῶν.
In order to make a full use of Latium for his own ends, whilst yet
he did not quite trust the Latins, he did not wish to admit their
troops in distinct legions, under their own officers. He therefore
combined the Roman with the Latin legions, and then divided these again
into two parts. The Latins had a similar organization to that of the
Romans: the system of centuries among the latter was based upon the
thirty tribes, among the former upon the thirty towns. He united two
centuries into a maniple, the Roman officer being _primus centurio_;
as in the East Indian possessions of the English, the officers are
exclusively Europeans.[85] Livy confounds the _primus centurio_ with
the _primipilus_. Here the maniples now first make their appearance;
and this is the plain meaning of what Livy tells in a confused manner,
but which may certainly be unravelled.
We are, however, not a little puzzled as to what we are to believe
of the detached accounts. It is stated that Tarquin had established
colonies at Signia and Circeii, and that he had taken Gabii by
stratagem. The latter is false, and the accounts are compiled out of
two in Herodotus of Zopyrus and of Thrasybulus of Miletus. Authentic is
the alliance with Gabii, from which we see that Gabii was out of the
union of the thirty towns, the relation with which had been already
settled before. Still in the times of Horace, the original treaty, one
of the few which had been preserved, was kept in a temple. It is clear
from it, that Gabii had acquired isopolity by a formal compact.
THE REGIFUGIUM. ROME A REPUBLIC.
We may readily believe that Sextus Tarquinius committed the outrage
against Lucretia, as indeed similar things happen even now in Turkey,
and are told in the middle ages, of the Italian princes down to Pietro
Luigi Farnese (in the sixteenth century), and in ancient history of
Demetrius Poliorcetes at Athens. Cicero is quite right when he says
that the misfortune was this, that the offence was committed against a
matron of one of the most powerful families. To all the other details
linked with it, from which the history derives its individuality, to
the connexion with the campaign against Ardea, not the slightest credit
is to be given. The king is said to have been in the camp before Ardea,
and a truce to have been concluded there for fifteen years. Yet Ardea
had already before been dependent upon Rome, and was one of those towns
in the name of which she concluded the alliance with Carthage. Nothing,
therefore, is likely to be true but the ill usage of Lucreia, and that
her death kindled into a blaze the fire which had long been smouldering.
We are in just as much perplexity with regard to the character of
Brutus. He is said to have feigned himself half-witted, concerning
which there exist several accounts. The mission to Delphi with the
sons of Tarquin, although such a one had already before been sent from
Agylla, seems to betray a later hand, the same which put in the stories
from Herodotus. It is said, moreover, that Tarquin, in order to render
harmless the dignity of tribune of the _Celeres_, which was second
only to that of the king, had conferred it upon Brutus. There is every
likelihood, however, that the story of the stupidity of Brutus was
merely derived from his name. Brutus is without doubt an Oscan word,
the same which is in the name of the Bruttians; it means a run-away
slave, a designation which the overbearing _factio regis_ gave the
leader of the rebels because he was a plebeian,--a case just like that
of the Gueux. Is it conceivable that an eminent king should have made
an utter fool (whom he might have put to death) tribune of the Celeres,
in order to bring the dignity into contempt? Tarquin was not the kind
of tyrant who was obliged to paralyze the state that he might rule
over it; he could allow it strength, and yet govern it by the superior
weight of his own personal qualities. Nor does the opinion which the
Romans had of him incline that way; his statue remained in the Capitol
together with those of the other kings.
A question which formerly much engaged my attention is this: How could
Brutus, a plebeian, be _Tribunus Celerum_, although the _Celeres_ were
the patrician knights? I think I have found the key to it. Writers
speak of him as if he had been the only tribune of the Celeres, whereas
there were several of them, as Dionysius already mentions in the
enumeration of the priestly offices in his account of Numa. The Celeres
were the horsemen; yet the plebeians also had their knights, and these
formed a fourth order. Now as each of the patrician tribes had its
tribune, is it not according to analogy that among the thirty tribunes
of the plebeians there was one who represented the plebeian Celeres
as opposed to the patricians? The _Magister Equitum_, whose office is
looked upon as a continuation of the dignity of the _Tribunus Celerum_,
was not necessarily a patrician: P. Licinius Crassus was elected to
it. This magistrate stood at the head of all the eighteen centuries of
the knights, in which the plebeians had the preponderance. As a fourth
estate the plebeians likewise appear in the remarkable adjustment of
the estates, in the year of the city 388, when to the three holidays,
which were kept at Rome corresponding to the three tribes, a fourth day
was added; certainly because the plebeians now as a body were placed on
an equal footing with the patricians, although not of such importance
in the eyes of the latter, that three days should also be set apart for
them.
To give the revolution the necessary sanction, it is said that
Collatinus brought Brutus with him, and Sp. Lucretius Valerius.
Now, we may positively assert, that Sp. Lucretius belonged to the
Ramnes; Valerius, to the Tities;[86] Collatinus, to the Luceres; and
as to Brutus, from what we have just seen, we may class him among
the plebeians. That Valerius belonged to the Tities was generally
acknowledged by the ancients: it is stated of him in Cicero, that he
was consul together with Lucretius, to whom he yielded the Fasces,
_quia minor natu erat_. Yet Cicero here confounds _gentes minores_
with _minor natu_, the less privileged tribe being called _minor_. We
know from Dionysius, that when the two first tribes were placed on an
equal footing, the third was called νεώτεροι (_minor_). Collatinus
was of the Gens of the Tarquinii, consequently a Lucer. Brutus is a
plebeian; Cicero’s belief in the descent of the Junii Bruti from our
L. Junius Brutus is beyond a doubt; and this is of greater weight than
the denial of those who wrote after the battle of Philippi. M. Brutus
was to be considered as a _homo insitivus_, as an outlaw. We already
perceive from Posidonius that the question of the descent of the
Bruti was mooted. Much may be said in support of the opinion of those
who take him to be a patrician; certainly many patrician clans have
survived in some plebeian families; a _transitio ad plebem_ was made
most frequently by unequal marriages, and although the cognomen was
then generally wont to be a plebeian one, yet it might be surmised that
such an illustrious name as that of Brutus had been retained. But as
long as the consulship was not open to the plebeians, no Junius occurs
among the consuls. In the earlier times of the republic a tribune
of the people, one L. Brutus, is mentioned, who plays a prominent
part as the framer of an important _plebiscitum_ in the trial of
Coriolanus (in Dionysius also, at the time of the _secessio_, which is
a falsification). This Brutus is a real person; but just like the whole
story of Coriolanus, he belongs to quite a different period.
If we reject from our account every thing which is purely dramatic, we
see after Tarquin’s downfall four Tribunes of the Celeres in possession
of the government, consequently a magistracy of four persons, Sp.
Lucretius being at the same time _Princeps Senatus_ and Valerius
_Præfectus Urbi_. In Livy all goes on as in a stage play; the necessary
historical development of the events is mistaken: some important hints
are, however, to be found in Dionysius. These four men had no authority
whatever to bring any resolution of their own before the citizens; the
patricians could not decree anything, unless there had previously been
a Senatus-Consultum as a προβούλευμα, as in all the Greek states, which
Dionysius points out in several instances. This was the case in the
curies as well as in the centuries: the first branch of the legislature
which had an initiative were the _Comitia Tributa_, and it was this
which made the _lex Publilia_ so exceedingly important. So long as the
senate could not take anything in hand but what was laid before it by
the consul, nor the popular assembly without a decree of the senate,
so long might the consuls stifle almost everything; they merely needed
to keep a stubborn silence. In the case in question, it appears that
the proposal for the abolition of the kingly dignity was not in a legal
manner brought by the Tribuni Celerum before the curies; Livy has,
however, for the sake of the composition, suppressed the old account
contained in the law books. The tribunes of the celeres assembled, and
resolved upon moving the abolition; the motion was by the _Princeps
Senatus_ brought to the senate; and the senate and the curies decide
upon it. This is the _lex curiata_. With the intention now to restore
the constitution of Servius in its integrity, the decision of the
curies was also laid before the centuries for their approval, the
order being a matter of little consequence. The way in which this is
represented, is that the army in the camp of Ardea had assented to the
resolution.
It is by no means certain that the consulship was instituted
immediately after the expulsion of the kings. Rome was perhaps at first
under the rule of the four Tribunes of the Celeres; perhaps also the
government was at once rid of its superfluous number of heads, and
they were reduced to two. This was certainly a deterioration; yet it
may have been so ordered in Servius’ constitution with the definite
purpose of securing the equalization of the commonalty, so that there
might be one consul from the patricians, and one from the plebeians. In
this case, of the first consuls Collatinus is the patrician and Brutus
the plebeian one, unless perhaps there should yet happen to be a prior
consulate of Sp. Lucretius and Valerius Poplicola.
The taking of Rome by the Gauls has not been fraught with more serious
consequences to the city itself than it has been to its history,
of which indeed all the sources have been obliterated by it. The
chronicles of many places in their early histories afford a parallel to
this. In Dittmarsch they begin about a hundred and fifty years before
the conquest of the country, after the great change when the clans
and the peasantry were formed into one organized body; an event which
they do not mention, but presuppose. In like manner the chronicle of
Cologne commences its notices long after that city was already great
and flourishing. There were every where in the middle ages earlier
written accounts; yet they were laid on the shelf, as they had no more
any positive interest, after the particulars of the tradition had been
buried in oblivion. Thus it was also with Roman history. They had it
from the times of the republic, not, however, from its beginning,
but only from about the period of the Secessio, merely with detached
notices of the earlier times; before it they had nothing besides the
peace with the Sabines during Sp. Cassius’ first consulate, and the
war with the Volscians. All those earlier histories were, as we have
already shown, restored in accordance with a numerical scheme.
I have already remarked that, when there were consuls of the two
orders, Brutus represented the plebeians, as Sextius Lateranus did
afterwards. It is very remarkable, that with regard to all these old
institutions, it must indeed be asserted that the Licinian laws were
in all essential points nothing else than restoration and re-enactment
of those of Servius. The consuls were first called _Prætores_,
στρατηγοί in Dionysius, until the Decemvirate, when their power was
curtailed; and then the title of consul seems to have been introduced
as being a somewhat more humble one. The derivation of this word has
greatly troubled the Roman etymologists; we class it with _præsul_ and
_exsul_. _Præsul_ means, he who is _before_ (above) others; _exsul_,
he who is _out_ of the town; _consul_, he who is _with_ another,
equal to _collega_, whence _consulere_ to be _together_ in order to
consult;--it has nothing to do with _salire_. Yet the being together
of a patrician with a plebeian was not of long duration. It is stated
that the expulsion of the Tarquinii was at first not at all followed
by an embittered hostility, although an oath had been taken not to
suffer kings any more to reign in Rome; so that it might almost
appear doubtful whether the outrage against Lucretia had been really
perpetrated. The ancients were often inconceivably mild with regard
to such matters. It is possible that the influence of the royal race
and of the third tribe were still so great, that they were obliged to
grant the Tarquins in lieu of the hereditary rule the eligibility for
the consulship. In Greek history also the royal races are dissolved
into γένη ἀρχικά: the Codrids become archons, even those elected for
ten years and certainly also at first those for one year were Codrids.
Yet this did not last long. Collatinus was obliged to resign, and the
whole of the Gens Tarquinia to leave the city. It may be that there
was at that time a Tribus Tarquinia also, the memory of which was
now obliterated. It seems shocking that Collatinus, the husband of
Lucretia, was banished; if there were children of Lucretia living and
they had to leave the country together with Collatinus, this was a
revolting cruelty. Yet Lucretia’s marriage with Collatinus belongs to
poetry only; _neque affirmare neque refellere in animo est_. She is the
daughter of Sp. Lucretius Tricipitinus, and this is dwelt upon with
much greater emphasis than her marriage. The intention of this probably
was, to palliate the fact that the Tarquins were not absolutely driven
out, and to explain the reason for which after all a cousin of the king
had been made consul; and this could not be effected more easily than
by connecting him with the legend of Lucretia.
The main point in the consulship was the limitation of the royal power
to one year, election supplying the place of hereditary right. It was
separated from the priestly functions, and received no τέμενος, what
Cicero calls the _agri lati uberesque regii_, large demesnes which
were cultivated by the clients for the kings. These _agri_ were now
divided among the commonalty in order that the restoration of the regal
dignity might become impossible, and also that the consuls might not
have the absolute sway of the kings. The power of these, like that
of the Frankish kings, lay in their retinue. Clovis was not allowed
to appropriate to himself any exclusive share in the booty, and yet
he ruled already as a despot, and still more so his successors. This
power he had merely by means of the _comitatus_. In the middle ages
the tenant of the king had less consequence than the common freeman
who had carefully preserved his independence. This state of things was
only changed in the thirteenth century. Such royal tenants were those
clients who cultivated the fields of the kings.
Was the consulate such that two patricians were to be elected, and
there was no further limitation; or was it confined to the two first
tribes, the Ramnes and Tities, to the exclusion of the Luceres, as
in some of the priestly colleges; or was it a representation of the
patricians and plebeians? These three probabilities lie before us. No
one, moreover, was allowed to stand for the consulship in the earliest
times: the candidates were proposed by the senate. The first of these
cases is out of the question: were it not that the two first tribes, or
the two estates were represented, a triumvirate would have much rather
been thought of. The idea of the triumvirate was first taken up at a
later period of the Roman history, a fact which was quite overlooked
until I discovered the trace of it in an insignificant author, Joannes
Lydus, who made use of excellent materials.
Of a plebeian consulship we find no more traces, down to the times of
Licinius. In the place of Collatinus Horatius was elected, as may be
proved from the treaty with Carthage, and by a passage of Pliny: in
the common tradition, Valerius Poplicola is named as the successor of
Collatinus. Thus we have these two statements placed side by side, one
of which gives the lie to the other, and therefore we may freely have
recourse to criticism, just as in the era of the kings. The events
which happened under the kings, inasmuch as they fall within larger
periods of time, could be extended or compressed; it is therefore
quite a natural illusion to consider as better authenticated the
subsequent times in which year by year is counted, and private persons
only appear as the actors. Yet the age of uncertainty reaches much
lower down. The poem, with which we have now to do, goes as far as the
battle at the Regillus; in the legend of Coriolanus there again begins
a distinct poem. In the Fasti there are the greatest discrepancies.
In the first thirty years, there are wanting in Livy three pairs of
consuls given by Dionysius. With regard to one of these, Livy seems
to have found a gap in the Fasti: those copies which have not these
gaps are interpolated. The two other pairs, Lartius and Herminius,
are nothing more than subordinate characters which are mentioned
along with the heroes. Men felt the necessity of enlarging the Fasti,
because they did not suffice for the number which had been calculated;
and so they forged consulships, not, however, laying hold of names at
pleasure, but taking them from extinct houses and from second-rate
heroes, and these they put in between the consulships of the Valerii,
in order to disguise the fact of their series being unbroken. We have
therefore free room for much conjecture upon other subjects also. Of
the Horatii, we know from Dionysius that they belonged to the _gentes
minores_, so that we have again one of the Luceres to supply the place
of Collatinus; it is therefore my conjecture that alternate pairs,
first one of the Ramnes and Tities, and then one of the Luceres and a
plebeian, were set to preside over the state. Yet we cannot investigate
this any further. Now if Valerius was not the colleague of Brutus,
all that is told of him falls to the ground. Valerius Poplicola, it
is stated, did not after the death of Brutus choose any successor at
first. He is said to have built a stone house on the Velia. The temple
of the Penates, falsely called the temple of Romulus, lies at the foot
of a steep hill, the Velia: on the top, where the temples of Venus
and of Roma and the arch of Titus stand, is _summa Velia_; the temple
of Romulus is _infima Velia_. The people, or rather, the sovereign
citizens, murmured at the building of that house of stone; on which
Valerius had it pulled down during the night, and summoning the people,
that is to say, the _concilium_ of the curies, made his appearance
accompanied by the lictors without the axes, and likewise had their
_fasces_ lowered before the _concio_. Hence the name _Poplicola_. Here
also the _populus_ is undoubtedly the patricians, the commonalty of the
old citizens, from whom the consular power was derived. Such an homage
before the plebeian commonalty would have been demagogical, and had
this been the case, he must have been called _Plebicola_. This fine
story cannot now be of any historical value for us; because according
to the documents we have, Valerius could not certainly have been the
only consul, tradition always mentioning Sp. Lucretius as his first
colleague. The reason why he did not at once fill up the consulship,
is said to have been his dread of the opposition of those who had
equal claims. Sp. Lucretius occurs in some Fasti in the third year as
consul instead of Horatius; but then there follows that unfortunate
accommodation by which, in order that the father of Lucretia might not
be passed over, his consulship is transferred from the third year into
the first.
The Valerian laws are genuine; and it is on the whole a settled fact
that the legislation of Servius was restored. The patricians, as Livy
says, tried to gain over the plebeians; and Sallust also tells us,
that as in the times immediately following the change the state had
been governed by just laws and fairly, so it had afterwards been quite
the reverse. The election of the consuls by the centuries is preserved
from the ritual books, and therefore it is not absolutely certain. That
the first law of the centuries was that Valerian one, by which to the
_Plebes_ was given the right of appeal to their commonalty, looks very
authentic, but is not so. Perhaps it may be that the first elections
were made by the Curies, as was unquestionably the case afterwards; yet
the explicit tradition that the original condition of the _Plebes_ was
far more favourable than the later one, pleads against it.
Tarquin is said in the story to have betaken himself to Cære, and
from thence to Tarquinii,--according to others, to Veii, to call
upon the Veientines for aid. The emigration to Cære is nothing else
but a personification of the “_jus Cæritum exulandi_,” this _jus
exulandi_ having always existed between Rome and those who were on
terms of isopolity. The _jus Cæritum_ is prominently mentioned in the
old law-books, the reason for which seems to have been the flight of
Tarquin. The version of the books is that he went to Cære; that of
poetry that he went to Veii, and led the Veientines against Rome. The
annalists finding both of these too mean, gave it out as most likely
that he might have bent his steps to Tarquinii, where forsooth he must
yet have had some relations. With regard to Cære, whither the royal
family is said to have gone, there is no mention whatever of its having
supported it in the war. Cicero, who had seen the genuine old Roman
history, knows nothing of the participation of the people of Tarquinii
in the Veientine war: he says in the Tusculan questions, that neither
the Veientines nor the Latins had been able to bring back Tarquin.
Purely mythical is the battle near the forest of Arsia, where Brutus
and Aruns fall fighting, and the god Sylvanus loudly shouts forth the
decision after 13,000 Etruscans, and one Roman less, had been stretched
dead on the field of battle. Now that cannot be any thing but poetry.
Lars, or Lar[87] Porsena is an heroic name, as Heracles among the
Greeks, Rustam among the Persians, Dietrich (Theodoric) of Berne, or
Etzel (Attila) in the German epic lay. The principal characters of the
heroic legends are blended with history, and their names are linked
to events which have really happened. The war of Porsena belonged to
those traditions which were most widely spread among the Romans, and
it is represented as the second attempt of the Tarquinii to recover
the throne: the Veientine war had not effected any thing, and after
the death of Brutus it is no more spoken of. Cicero surely looked upon
this war of Porsena in no other light than that of a Tuscan war of
conquest. And undoubtedly the Romans were at that time engaged in a
most destructive conflict with the Tuscans, in consequence of which
they sank as low as any people can sink. From republican vanity this
immediate result of an alteration in the constitution was thrown into
the shade:--the Gallic conquest was just as dishonestly covered over.
Of Porsena, the legend must have told a great deal. Thus a mausoleum
of his at Clusium is mentioned, which Pliny quite innocently describes
from Varro, who had it from Etruscan books. This account especially
shakes my belief in the trustworthiness of the old Etruscan books,
which to judge from this sample must have been tinged with an oriental
colouring. It is a marvellous work, such as never has existed, and
never could have existed,--like a fairy palace in the Arabian Nights.
Pyramids stand in a circle, and are connected at the top by a brazen
ring on which, of course in the intervals, other pyramids of huge base
are standing; and so on in several stories, a pyramid of pyramids,
which indeed could not have stood firm, but must needs have fallen
to the ground, furnished too with bells, and other things of the
same kind. It is inconceivable how Varro, and above all, how such a
practical man as Pliny could have believed in day dreams like these:
even a child may see that this is not possible. The impossibility is
yet more confirmed by the fact that neither of them beheld any more
traces of such a work, of which the ruins must have existed even to
this day, as in Babylon those of the temple of Belus. Quatremere de
Quincy has had the unfortunate idea of trying to restore this edifice
in an architectural elevation. There may have been a historical Porsena
who was made mythical, like our Siegfried, who was placed in quite a
different time from the true one; or _vice versa_ there was a mythical
Porsena who was brought into history. We may safely deny the historical
character of all that is told concerning this war: it has a thoroughly
poetical appearance. How much this was the case, becomes evident when
we view the tale in its simple form, stripped of the additions taken
from the annalists. It is peculiar to all these poems, that they do not
at all tally with other historical data.
According to the general tradition, the Etruscans are suddenly seen
on the Janiculum, and the Romans flee across the river. The poem does
not even speak of the conquest of the Janiculum; but the Etruscan
army appears at once on the banks of the Tiber, ready to pass the
_pons Sublicius_. Here three Roman heroes stand against them;
Horatius Cocles, Sp. Lartius and T. Herminius,--in all likelihood a
personification of the three tribes. These resist whilst the Romans
are breaking down the bridge; then two of the heroes, Lartius and
Herminius, go away, and the first, one of the Ramnes, alone withstands
the enemy. On this the story is told, how the Etruscans cross the
river, and the consuls enticed them into an ambush on the Gabinian
road. This tale is entirely borrowed from the Veientine war of 275, in
which the self-same thing happens. The annalists transferred it because
it did not seem to them satisfactory that the poem should not have
known any thing of the war beyond the defence of the bridge. The whole
account in Livy has a ridiculous exactness; the characters are the
ever recurring Valerius, Lartius, and Herminius. But we find Porsena
on the Janiculum; how then is it possible that Rome could have been
visited by a famine such as must be presupposed for the story of Mucius
Scævola, if the Etruscans lay only on that hill? The plunderers on that
side of the stream could easily be kept at bay. In Livy nothing more
is mentioned but that Porsena carries on the war alone; in Dionysius
he makes his appearance leagued with the Latins under Octavius
Mamilius,--evidently a device to account for Rome’s being beleaguered
and suffering from famine. Of the hostility of the Latins there is
no question at all until their grand war. In fact the Etruscans had
not occupied the Janiculum only; that the famine was raging, is
acknowledged by the Romans. In this distress, the poem makes Mucius
Scævola undertake to kill the king; but he stabbed instead of him his
secretary, as the latter was clothed in purple, a mistake which indeed
is inconceivable in real history, and only pardonable in poetry. He
then tells him that three hundred patrician youths (one of each gens)
were like himself resolved to slay him; whereupon Porsena concludes
peace, keeping the seven Veientine _pagi_, and leaving a garrison on
the Janiculum.
If we enquire into the details, whether a Mucius Scævola had existed at
all, we come to the question which Beaufort before now has correctly
stated; for on the whole this war of Porsena and the time of Camillus
are beautifully handled by him, and they seem to have been the chief
occasion, as well as the pith and substance, of his work. How is it
that Mucius is called in Livy and Dionysius a patrician, or _juvenis
nobilis_, when on the contrary the Scævolæ were plebeians? Probably
the family of the Mucii Scævolæ appropriated to themselves this
Mucius: in the old poems he was certainly called Caius. As late as in
the seventh century two names are mentioned, and afterwards Scævola
(the left-handed one); whereas the family of the Scævolæ had got this
cognomen from quite a different circumstance. Scævola in the latter
instance means an amulet. It is impossible to make out how much or how
little is true concerning the existence of the old Scævola. The story
as we have it is evidently poetical.
Beaufort has really struck a new light, by showing that the peace
of Porsena was quite a different thing from what the Romans would
have us believe. Pliny states explicitly, that by it the Romans
were bound to make no use of iron, except for agriculture. That
hostages were given is acknowledged even in the common account.
Thus we see Rome in a condition of utter subjection, _arma ademta,
obsides dati_, an expression which so often occurs with reference
to the conquest of states. Pliny has seen that treaty (_nominatim
comprehensum invenimus_); where, is uncertain,--a tablet probably did
not exist,--perhaps in Etruscan books. Just as positively does Tacitus,
in his account of the burning of the Capitol, speak of the Romans
having been most deeply humbled by Porsena, _sede Jovis optimi maximi
quam non Porsena dedita urbi neque Galli captor, temerare potuissent_;
and what _deditionem facere_ means is evident from the form which Livy
gives us when mentioning the submission of Collatia to Ancus Martius,
from which we see that it was a complete making over of people, state,
land and persons, similar to the _mancipatio_, or to the _in manum
conventio_ of women in the civil law. To this submission the notice in
the _Quæstiones Romanæ_ of Plutarch is to be referred, who was wont to
make a very uncritical use of good materials. He says that the Romans
had once paid tithes to the Etruscans, and that Hercules had freed
them from the obligation. Tithes, however, were paid by those who had
the usufruct of a field belonging to the state (_qui publici juris
factus erat_). The removal of the burthen by Hercules denotes their
having freed themselves by their own might: that they paid the tithes
was the consequence of their having given themselves and theirs into
the keeping of the Etruscans, which is the excellent German expression
for complete submission (_feuda oblata_); a man makes himself, as it
were, a minor, and becomes dependent upon another. A further, and much
more important proof of the misfortunes of that time, is the loss of
about one-third of the Roman territory; which is shown by the number of
Servius Tullius’ tribes being reduced from thirty to twenty, to which
afterwards, in the year 259, the _tribus Crustumina_ was added as the
twenty-first.[88] Among the Romans the custom was quite a common one,
when a state fell beneath their sway, _multandi tertiâ parte agri_: it
is therefore evident also in this instance, as tribes and districts
correspond with each other, and we find besides only twenty tribes out
of thirty left, that Rome in consequence of the _deditio_ about the
year 260 had lost a third of its territory. There are traces of it in
the _septem pagi agri Vejentium_, the surrender of which is already
mentioned. In order to conceal the conquest of the city, Porsena was
made the protector of the Tarquins; whereby this advantage was gained,
that it appeared as if the war had not ended after all so badly, since
its main object, the restoration of the Tarquins, had not been attained.
It is now stated besides that Porsena, after his return, had sent his
son Aruns with part of the army to Aricia, in order--as Livy says in
one of those passages in which he intentionally shuts his eyes to
the truth--to show, that his expedition had not been indeed quite
fruitless. Yet the expedition of Porsena against Aricia seems really
to have failed owing to the assistance of Cuma; for Cuman traditions
also spoke of it. Aricia was a very strong place. The Romans are said
to have now behaved generously to the flying Etruscans; and Porsena
being moved by it became their friend, abandoned the Tarquins and gave
back the seven Veientine pagi. After this Porsena is no more mentioned.
Here it is obvious that a poetical fiction has been awkwardly thrust
in. It was even at a very late period the custom at Rome, that before
every sale by auction the goods of king Porsena were symbolically
sold. Livy seems to have good sense enough to see that this does not
tally with the account of Porsena and Rome, having parted friends in
arms (δορύξενοι). The whole becomes quite clear if we assume that on
the defeat of the Etruscans before Aricia, the Romans made an effort
and freed themselves. By this the legend of Clœlia also has its right
meaning; as otherwise her flight together with the rest of the hostages
would have only been injurious. Connected with the great migration
of the Etruscans is the account that Tyrrhenians from the Adriatic,
together with Opicans and other people, had made their appearance
before Cuma; concerning which there is in the common chronology a
mistake of at least 15 to 20 years. The Tyrrhenians here are not the
Etruscans, but the old inhabitants of the country; perhaps those of
Picenum, who were pushed on by the advance of the Etruscans and threw
themselves upon Cuma. The conclusion come to is this. The Romans
carried on an unequal war against the Etruscans and their king Porsena,
in consequence of which they submitted themselves to him as their
master, lost one-third of their territory, and paid tithes of the rest.
The Etruscan power broke down before Aricia, whereupon the Romans took
courage and once more became free, yet without recovering that part of
their territory which lay beyond the Tiber; for, long afterwards, even
as late as the days of the decemvirate, the Tiber was their boundary
line, except that the Janiculum probably was Roman, as is evident
from the regulation concerning the sale of the slaves for debt _trans
Tiberim_. Now it is a question of great importance, whether the war of
Porsena is to be dated about the year in which it is generally placed;
or else one or two years after the consecration of the Capitol; or
from a later period. Livy and Dionysius contradict themselves in this
respect, and are completely at variance with every one else. It is
easy to see that the poem was interpolated by the annalists; since the
oldest annals do not mention it at all. In the same way, the poem of
the Nibelungen cannot be chronologically placed any where, and Johannes
Müller had to proceed very arbitrarily before he could fix upon any
chronological position for it. Such poems have nothing to do with
chronology. Valerius Poplicola is named in the battle at the Regillus,
and this gave occasion to assign this place to the legend. It is more
likely from other statements that the war happened ten years later than
is generally taken for granted, shortly before the hostilities against
the plebs began. This I conclude from the accounts of the numbering
of the people; for, I do not wholly reject them, though at the same
time I am far from maintaining that in their present form they are
authentic:--they are certainly a representation of the increase and
decrease of the numbers of the Roman citizens. He, who is the first
author of that statement, even if it should not be very ancient, had
formed a notion of Roman history, according to which in the times
mentioned the number of the citizens rose from 110,000 to 150,000, and
again fell to 110,000. If this increase or decrease had harmonized with
the history in the annals, it might have been said that some fabulist
had set forth his own views in these statistics. Yet such a man
would from vanity never have spoken of a decrease of numbers; on the
contrary, just in the times when in the census the numbers decrease,
there are in the annals victories and acquisitions. I believe therefore
that some account, older than the annals, was intended to show in a
statistical outline, how Rome and Latium were by unequal wars reduced
in population. That the numbers are correct, cannot be avouched; at all
events the statement independent of the annals. I therefore ascribe
the notice that Rome between the battle at the Regillus and the rising
of the Plebes, and for a long time afterwards, was bereft of one-third
of its inhabitants, to the fact that at that very period the war of
Porsena took place, and the loss of territory occasioned by it. The
decrease of population all but tallies with the diminution of the
territory by one-third; and it does not quite agree, perhaps for the
sole reason that the numbering included the plebeians only and not the
patricians, perhaps also because part of the inhabitants of the lost
districts emigrated and settled in Rome.
In the Roman history the same events very often recur again. As after
the Gallic conquest, the Latins and their allies separated from Rome;
thus also after the Etruscan calamity they broke the alliance which had
been brought about in the reign of Tarquin. The confederation of the
two states, which we find in the days of Servius Tullius, had under
Tarquin been changed into a union, which notwithstanding the obscurity
of all the details, is evident from the combination of the Roman and
Latin centuries into maniples. This combination is the more certain as
Livy mentions it in two different places, in his account of Tarquin the
Proud, and in the eighth book, wherein he describes the battle-array.
The sources from which he drew contained authorities quite independent
of each other, which he gives without understanding them; yet in such a
manner that we may gather from them the real views of the annalists. He
surely wrote the second passage without the least recollection of the
first. The relation in which the parties stood may have been this, that
Rome had the chief command, and the Latins received their share in the
booty; or the two people may have held the _imperium_ by turns. But in
the treaty with Carthage we see the supremacy vested in Rome, and the
Latins in the position of periœcians. The war, the only reminiscences
of which are an historical one, the conquest of Crustumeria, and a
poetical one, the battle at the Regillus, has this consequence that the
Latins pass from the condition of periœcians to that of inhabitants of
rural districts with equal rights: as in Gröningen the districts at
last were placed on the same footing with the town, and formed only one
province with it with regard to the foreigner. As the first cause of
the war Tarquin and his house are named. That he was not unconnected
with it, may easily be believed, as his alliance by marriage with
Mamilius Octavius of Tusculum has the appearance of history; but we
can by no means receive the battle at the lake Regillus as it is told.
It does not enter into my thoughts to deny that the Romans tried to
restore their rule by war; but it is altogether a different question,
whether at the Regillus a great battle was fought under the command
of the Dictator Postumius, in which the Latins were conquered and
reduced to their former position. No, if we may reason from effects to
causes, which is not as infallible in moral as in physical problems,
the Latins were by no means defeated; for, they attained, although
after a considerable time only, their object,--a completely free
alliance with Rome. One might draw the opposite conclusion from the
fact that Postumius, who is said to have been dictator or consul,
was called Regillensis; but the Claudii are also surnamed Regillani.
Cognomens borrowed from places are quite common among the patricians,
as e. g. the Sergii are called Fidenatus; Regillensis was likewise
derived from the town Regillus; and surnames of this kind are even
taken from quarters of Rome, as Esquilinus, Aventinus, and others. Such
_gentes_ stood to these places somewhat in the relation of patrons. The
appellation from victories occurs only very late: the greatest generals
prior to Scipio Africanus have received no surnames from the places
where they gained their victories, as Livy himself remarks at the
conclusion of his thirtieth book.
That the Romans looked upon the battle as a complete victory is proved
by the legend of the Dioscuri. At the Regillus, where the whole
adjacent country consists of volcanic tufa, there was shown in a stone
the impression of a horse’s hoof (as on the Rosstrappe in the Hartz
mountains), which was said to have been the foot print of a gigantic
horse of the Dioscuri,--a legend which even to Cicero’s times was in
the mouths of the people. After the battle they likewise made their
appearance still covered with dust and blood on the comitium; announced
the victory to the people; watered their horses at the well, and
vanished away. In every account which we have of this battle, there
is already the attempt to make it appear as history; nevertheless we
perceive that the poem distinctly shines through. In the description
of the fight there is much harmony between Livy and Dionysius, which
we seldom find elsewhere: in the latter, it is more in the form of
a bulletin; in Livy’s lively narrative it has quite the appearance
of a combat of heroes in Homer; the masses are entirely kept in the
background. The peace had been renounced already a year before, in
order that the many ties of friendship might be as gently severed as
possible, and the foreign wives be enabled to go home; Tarquin had
betaken himself to his son-in-law Mamilius Octavius; and all the Latins
were excited to hostility. The dictator leads the Romans against a
far superior force; Tarquin himself with his sons is in the enemy’s
host. In the fray all the chiefs encounter. The Roman dictator meets
Tarquin who leaves the field badly wounded; the Magister Equitum fights
Mamilius. T. Herminius and the legate M. Valerius fall; and P. Valerius
also, who endeavours to rescue the dead body. At last the Roman knights
gain the victory by alighting from their horses and fighting on foot.
The consul had offered a reward for the taking of the enemy’s camp by
storm; this was done forthwith at the first assault, in which the two
gigantic youths distinguished themselves.
With regard to M. and P. Valerius the ancients are in great perplexity;
for, Marcus soon afterwards appears again as dictator, and Publius was
already dead before it happened. Both of them are stated to have been
sons of Poplicola; yet this also is awkward, since a P. Valerius occurs
as his son once more in the Fasti. The poem takes no heed of Fasti and
annals, and the sons of Poplicola are not to be thought of: they are
the old heroes Maximus and Poplicola, who fight here, and meet with
their death. The tradition also certainly related that Tarquin and his
sons fell:--the reason why he was said to have been wounded only, is
that men had read in the annals, that he had died at Cuma. And surely
the dictator Postumius is likewise a mere interpolation; in the poem it
was Sp. Lartius, who could not have been left out, or M. Valerius. The
reward offered by the dictator refers to the legend of the Dioscuri,
as in the war against the Lucanians under Fabricius, in which a youth
brought the ladder and was no more seen afterwards, when the mural
crown had been awarded to him.
With this battle ends the lay of the Tarquins, as that of the
Nibelungen does with the doom of all the heroes. The old era is
concluded by it, and a new one is ushered in. There is no fixed date
for the battle: some assume 255, others 258; some make Postumius a
consul, others a dictator, and this is the very proof that the account
is not historical; if it were so, the Fasti must in any case have
marked such an event with some exactness. It is credible that in
259 the peace with the Latins was restored; if this notice be taken
literally, the victory at the Regillus is confirmed by it. We may well
believe that the Latins had been beaten at the Regillus, and had been
obliged to content themselves with the position which Tarquin had
assigned them, but that the senate had afterwards from other reasons
restored to them the constitution of Servius Tullius. However this
may be, there was peace already between the Romans and the Latins
before the secession of the Plebes. For years after the battle at
the Regillus, Livy has nothing to tell of the Latins; whilst, on the
other hand, Dionysius gives various accounts of exchanges, armistices,
&c., which, however, are invented at pleasure, until the first decree
of the people that their prisoners should be restored to them; yet
we know nothing of the whole affair, except that under Sp. Cassius
Rome concluded a treaty with the Latins by which isopolity, or _jus
municipii_, was granted them. The meaning of the term isopolity
changes in the course of ages, but in ancient times its nature was as
follows. There existed between Romans and Latins, and between Romans
and Cærites, this right, that whosoever wanted to emigrate into the
other state, might at once claim the privileges of citizenship therein.
This was called ἰσοπολιτεία, an expression which is first met with in
the days of Philip, when it became desirable to combine into larger
states. Even before the war, there were already definite relations
between Rome and Latium, which included _connubium_ and _commercium_:
the citizens of the one state enjoyed in the other the full right of
acquiring Quiritary property, and of carrying on in their own name,
without a patron, all their business and lawsuits. They were full
citizens, with the exception only of political rights. This might
co-exist with equality as well as with supremacy; the change now was,
that Rome acknowledged Latium as endowed with equal rights to her own.
The Hernicans also soon entered into this relation, so that the three
states formed one whole with regard to the foreigner. After the Gallic
war this union was broken. The league made by Sp. Cassius in 261 is not
to be looked upon as a treaty of peace, but as the beginning of a state
of mutual rights. It is incomprehensible how this compact of 261 could
have been so misunderstood, as it was even already by the ancients when
occasionally mentioning it. Dionysius gives this alliance in words
betokening an authenticity which we cannot doubt. He had not himself
seen the tablets on the Rostra any more; for, Cicero in his Oration for
Balbus speaks of having seen them, as of a thing which he recollects.
Yet many Roman writers, Macer and others, must have known them:
Cincius, who lived a hundred years earlier, knew them very well. Having
the Swiss confederation in mind, we may call that league an everlasting
one: it was to stand as long as heaven and earth should abide. But
before thirty years were ended, it had become obsolete owing to the
force of circumstances, and afterwards it was revived for a short time
only. It stipulated perfect equality between Romans and Latins, so that
they should alternately hold the chief command of the army; the party
in distress was to call in the other, and the latter was to give it
every support in its power; the booty was then to be divided.
Here we have the key of another political relation. About this time we
first behold the appearance of a dictator, which is properly a Latin
magistracy; for not only single towns, but also the whole of the Latin
people might have a dictator, as Cato informs us. It was natural that
the Romans likewise now elected a dictator who ruled alternately with
the Latin one, on which account the _imperium_ was granted for six
months only. Among the Tuscans the king of each town had a lictor. The
lictors of all the twelve towns, whenever they united, had to be in
attendance upon the common chief. Thus, of course, the twelve Latin
and the twelve Roman lictors were given to the common dictator: the
consuls together had had no more than twelve lictors, who waited upon
both by turns. A _magister populi_ also at Rome is now spoken of more
than once: whether he was from the beginning one and the same with the
dictator, or whether he was elected for Rome alone is uncertain. The
dictatorship had probably only reference to the league with Latium.
A consul might have been dictator without there necessarily being a
_magister populi_; yet if there was a _magister populi_, then must
a dictator likewise have been appointed for the foreigner, it being
contrary to usage that there should have been two names for the same
office. Very likely there was for some time a dictator every year, an
office which sometimes was conferred upon one of the consuls, and at
others upon some one specially chosen for it.
In the history which now follows, we find ourselves upon real
historical ground; we have distinct men, and distinct facts, although
now and then legends are still interpolated among the Fasti. That
errors have crept in, is merely the fate of all that is human; yet
we are to look upon this history as we would upon any other, and we
ought not to make it the subject of a silly display of scepticism. A
new war breaks out in which Cora and Pometia fall into the hands of
the Auruncians; they are afterwards said to have been retaken by the
Romans and Latins, which is highly problematical. This war occurs
twice in Livy; it has certainly happened, but whether in 251 or 258,
cannot matter much to us. Whenever in the annals of the Romans a
serious defeat was simply stated, their descendants found gratification
for their vanity in not leaving things as they were, but making the
calamity all right again by a bold lie. The most glaring, yet not the
only example of this in Roman history, is the deliverance of the city
by Camillus, the fictitiousness of which has been already shown by
Beaufort very ably. Polybius informs us, that the Gauls had retired
with their booty at the tidings of an inroad of the Venetians into
their country; yet it may have been, that in very early times indeed
an old Vates sang the tale in a poem on Camillus. In the Samnite
wars also, every defeat of consequence, which cannot be disguised,
is followed by a victory quite unconnected with any thing else; and
this is likewise the case in the wars with the Volscians and Æquians.
This is a common weakness of human nature, of which one has personal
experience in disastrous times. The Italians of the fifteenth century
wanted by every means to be genuine descendants of the ancient Romans,
and therefore Charlemagne is stated by Flavius Blondus to have driven
all the Lombards out of Italy. Thus, after the battle of Austerlitz,
a report was generally believed in Northern Germany, that the French
had indeed conquered in the early part of the day, but that in the
afternoon the most complete victory had been gained by the Austrians
and Russians. I have myself witnessed absurdities of the same kind in
1801 at Copenhagen. Greek history, even that of the middle ages, has
been remarkably free from such fabrications.--I now believe in the
invasion of the Auruncians: not only the thirty towns, the sanctuary
of which was the temple of Ferentina, but also the towns on the coast,
which had been Latin, and which, in the treaty with Carthage, are
acknowledged as subject to Rome, fell off from it, when it was bowed
beneath the Etruscan calamity. Antium therefore and Terracina, as
well as the towns properly Latin, likewise threw off Roman sway, and
expelled the _coloni_. There is no doubt but that Antium and Terracina
were afterwards Volscian, yet it is erroneous to suppose that they
were so originally;--they form no exception to the general Tyrrhenian
population on the coast. In an old Greek Ethnology, which was certainly
not an invention of Xenagoras, but derived from Italiote sources,
Antium is represented as being sprung from the same stock with Rome
and Ardea; Romus, Antias, and Ardeas are brothers. At a later period
only, Terracina acquires the Volscian name of Anxur. These places
became Volscian, either by conquest, or by voluntarily receiving, while
in want of support, ἔποικοι of the Volscians; or also, because after
having fallen off from Rome, they were obliged to throw themselves into
their arms.
The Volscians are an Ausonian people, identical with Auruncians. They
are said to have come from Campania; yet we know of the Auruncians in
Campania that they were Ausonians: _Aurunici_ and _Ausonici_ are the
same. Cora and Pometia, Latin colonies, are stated to have gone over
to them. They must in that case have driven out the Latin colonists,
or it was simply a conquest. This is a point which we cannot decide.
But certain it is that the Auruncians were in possession of Cora and
Pometia, and advanced as far as into Latium; perhaps they may have been
defeated there by the Romans.
SECESSION OF THE PLEBES. LAW OF DEBTORS. INSTITUTION OF THE TRIBUNATE.
Sallust, who, like Thucydides, had prefixed to his history of the times
after Sylla, which, alas! is lost, a succinct review of the moral and
political history of his nation, preserved to us by St. Augustine,
tells us in it, that no longer than the fear of Tarquin lasted, had
Rome been governed with fairness and justice; but that, as soon as that
fear had been removed, the _Patres_[89] had ventured upon every sort of
arbitrary deeds, and from the severity of the law of usury the _Plebes_
was kept under a yoke of slavery. Livy says likewise, that the Plebes
was oppressed, _cui summa opera inservitum erat_ until the ruin of
the Tarquins. Until then, salt, which belonged to the _publicum_, had
been sold at a low price; customs had been abolished; the demesnes of
the kings had been distributed among the _Plebes_; and the φιλάνθρωπα
δίκαια of Servius Tullius were again enforced. Finally, the old account
states that Brutus had filled up the senate, _qui imminutus erat_,
with plebeians. As he was the _Tribunus Celerum_ of the plebeians,
and afterwards plebeian consul, he may without doubt have admitted
plebeians into the senate, although not in such considerable numbers
as is asserted. But this did not last. Plebeian senators cannot have
continued to the time of the legislation of the decemvirs; but from
what Sallust says, who in the speech of Macer displays an uncommon
acquaintance with the old constitution,--and St. Augustine, one of
the greatest minds, a man endowed with the clearest penetration,
believed him,--that the patricians _soli in imperio habitabant_, it is
evident, that, when tranquillity was restored, they again excluded the
plebeians. There are analogous cases in all states, precisely because
it is in human nature. Without doubt the banished royal family had
left a considerable party behind them, as is wont to happen in all
revolutions; or a new one arose, which attached itself to the cause
of the refugees, as was the case in the Italian towns of the middle
ages. We may think what we like of the battle on the Regillus; we may
deem the cohort of the Roman emigrants in the army of the Latins as
improbable as it really is; yet we may with certainty believe in the
existence of an emigration from Rome in a mass, linked to the royal
fugitives, and always keeping up a connexion with the friendly party
in the city,--like the φυγάδες in Greece, and as in English history,
at the time of the great rebellion when the Stuarts were abroad, the
Irish Papists and the Scotch Presbyterians, who were overpowered,
and partly driven out of the country by Cromwell, joined the old
cavaliers then living away from their homes with the royal family.
The same was the case in the French revolution. As long as Tarquin, a
man of personal eminence, was living abroad, the patricians hesitated
to carry their innovations to extremities; yet they may have annoyed
the plebeians; they may have deprived them of the _imperia_; they may
even have expelled them from the senate;--at least they certainly did
not fill up the places of those who died, with plebeians. Whenever in
Switzerland danger threatened from abroad, the aristocratical cantons
were mild to their country districts; otherwise they were harsh and
cruel. Immediately after the English revolution of 1688, the liberties
of the dissenters were far greater than they were twelve or fifteen
years afterwards. What the plebeians lost, cannot be particularized.
That the Valerian law of appeal to the tribes had been done away with
is not likely; but it was no longer regarded, since it could only be
upheld by impeaching the consul who had infringed it, when his year of
office was expired: this the plebeian magistrates no more dared to do.
Yet the real oppression only began when the fear of the foreigner was
taken away.
Whether the law of debt had been changed by Servius Tullius, and
Tarquin had abrogated the Servian laws, but Valerius had restored them,
is a question with regard to which Dionysius is not to be implicitly
believed. Tarquin is said to have utterly destroyed the tablets on
which it was inscribed, that he might quite blot it out from the memory
of men. This looks very suspicious: they needed only to have been
copied once, and all that was done would be of no avail. We may however
conclude from that statement that they were not contained in the _jus
Papirianum_: the _Plebes_ would have restored them after the Secession,
if they had been deprived of a right so expressly granted. In this
case, therefore, one of the plebeian forgeries seems to lie before us.
The law of debt produced a revolution. Had the senate and the
patricians understood how to act wisely, and divided the opposite
party, a thing so easily done in free states, the patricians were
superior to the plebeians, not indeed in numbers, but in many other
respects. For the patricians had almost exclusively the clientship.
Livy and Dionysius have many passages from which it is evident how
numerous the clients were during the first centuries; that the
patricians distributed the demesne in many little hides of land among
them; and that they kept them entirely in their power. These clients
were not in the tribes; but they were connected through their patrons
with the curies: hereditary landed property they only possessed by
the special permission of their masters, what we would now call a
quit rent. Thus they were absolutely dependent on the patricians. But
the plebeians consisted of altogether different elements, of Latin
knights, rich men, and a host of quite poor people: they were either
proprietors or day-labourers. These different elements might very
easily have been divided; the principal men were ambitious of offices
and of political consideration; the common people, on the contrary,
did not care at all whether their chiefs were admissible to consular
dignity or not, but so much the more did they for other things. In
the absence of patriotism and justice, the patricians must have been
able easily to sever the mass from the principal plebeians. But they
were as covetous as they were ambitious, and thus pressed doubly upon
the people. The whole of the demesne was in their occupation. Had
they assigned small possessions to the poor, or given them a right of
ownership, then they would have gained them over; and separated them
from the rest. Yet as they had the money trade entirely in their own
hands, they deemed themselves sufficiently secure. The money trade
no doubt was so managed, that the banking business was transacted by
foreigners or freedmen under the patronage of a patrician, as in Athens
by Pasion, who was a Metic, and paid an Athenian for lending his name
to the firm.[90] As in Athens the Trapezitæ, in medieval Italy the
Lombards, in our days the Jews, all of whom have no real home, carry on
the money trade. And thus the poor plebeian often applied for loans to
his neighbour, yet more generally he was obliged to go to town, and to
fetch the money from the Trapezitæ.
The expression _persona_ in law is derived from the fact that a
foreigner could not appear in court. It is a mask: another had to
represent him. That the _peregrinus_ afterwards could himself sue and
be sued, and that a special _prætor peregrinus_ was appointed, was
not done on account of the vast amount of business, but for political
reasons. The patricians themselves would not have possessed such great
moneyed resources: yet the foreigners who came to Rome had to commit
themselves to their patronage, the same as the clients, for which, of
course, the patrician was paid a commission. Now and then perhaps the
patricians may have done business on their own account. Taken in this
point of view, it was not after all such a sordid usury as is generally
presumed.
The patricians and plebeians had quite different civil rights, as they
had come together out of different states: the twelve tables, besides
settling the political groundwork, first introduced one uniform civil
law. Among our (German) forefathers also, there was not a geographical,
but a personal distinction of rights. In Italy, the homebred population
down to the twelfth century had Roman, whilst the German had Lombard
and Salic law; but when the old municipalities were abolished and the
elements of society were in the process of amalgamation, people first
began to issue their decrees in common, they weaned themselves more
and more from the old native institutions, and thus by degrees arose
the statute law of the Italian towns, such as every city possesses.
The patricians had a liberal law of debt, the plebeians a strict one;
they had it also among themselves, but to them it only became dangerous
as far as it was between them and the patricians. As soon as it is
possible to run into debt, the number of small proprietors decreases
from century to century. If we compare the division of the land at
Tivoli in the fifteenth century with the present one, we see that at
that time there were fifty times more owners of the soil than there are
now.
The general law of debt, as it is found in the East, among the Greeks,
among the northern nations, as well as among the Romans, is this,
that the borrower could pledge himself and his family for the debt.
According to Plutarch, in his life of Solon, there were at Athens
nearly a thousand bondmen for debt, who, if they were not able to
pay, were sold to the foreigner. Among the Romans personal arrest
existed in its sternest form. People either liquidated their debts
by personal servitude, or else they alienated their property for a
certain time, or in case of severe distress for life, or else they
also sold themselves,--by which likewise the children, who were still
_in patria potestate_, came _per æs et libram_ into the _mancipium_
of the buyer,--yet with the condition that they might be redeemed.
This bondage lasted until they emancipated themselves again _per æs
et libram_. Our personal arrest of insolvent debtors is the still
remaining half of this ancient right, which ceases to have any meaning,
owing to the other half having been done away with by milder manners.
The German also could in olden times give up his freehold and his
person to another, whose bondman he then became. In order to escape
the addiction, the borrower could eventually sell his property as a
security; yet he was bound in conscience to redeem it after a certain
time. The _Fides_ answered for it that the creditor also would not
withhold from the debtor the opportunity of redeeming himself, even
when his person and his family were concerned. For this reason the
_Fides_ was a goddess of such importance among the Romans: as under
such strict forms of law, people would have utterly been ruined without
her. If a debtor did not discharge his debt, he was forfeited to his
creditor, being _fiduciarius_ in his _mancipium_; yet the latter could
not directly _manum injicere_, an addiction of the prætor being wanted
for that purpose. He had to _in jure vindicare_ him with the words,
_Hunc ego hominem meum esse aio ex jure Quiritium_; and without doubt
the five witnesses and the _libripens_, before whom the contract had
been concluded, were to be present. The prætor then gave a respite; and
if after its expiration payment was not made, and the debtor therefore
was not able to prove the _liberatio per æs et libram_, the ὑπερήμενος
was addicted to the creditor. In the old Attic law, it was just the
same; yet Solon had without doubt abolished it, and introduced in its
stead the Attic law of mortgage, from which the later Roman one is
derived. For the _equites_ in their important money transactions tried
to evade the strict debtor’s law, by causing them to be managed by
foreigners who were not subject to the Roman laws. Thence arose the
laws concerning the _chirographa_ and _centesima_, a discount business
for so short a date was not done in Rome at all. The _Addictus_ was
termed _nexus_, because of his being _nexu vinctus_. _Nexus_, or
_nexum_ every transaction was originally called, which by _traditio_
and by weighing out of money was done in the presence of witnesses, a
thing afterwards usual only in fictitious sales, and then significative
of a right of mortgage, by which in case of neglect of payment a
definite right of property was secured to the creditor. Frequently also
people were allowed to discharge their debt by work. An industrious
workman might advantageously dispose of his labour in times when there
was a great demand for it; if, for instance, a man, who had pledged
himself, had a son who was still in his full strength; the father
sold him to the creditor; and when the son had discharged the debt
by his work, he became again free of the _mancipium_ of his master.
Yet the interest accumulated at such a usurious rate, that it became
very difficult for a debtor who was poor to redeem himself; though,
if he worked as a _nexus_, he at least paid the interest. During such
a period of labour the master had full authority over him as over a
slave. That those who thus worked in payment of debts were a numerous
class, is expressly asserted by writers.
But there was yet another way in which bondage for debt arose. One
might also become a debtor without contract; as for instance, by
neglecting to pay a legacy, or should a tradesman work for me, and I
do not pay him; and again, if I commit a crime, I am bound in Roman
law to make amends to the injured party according to a fixed estimate,
_obligatio ex delicto_. All these relations constitute a second class
of liabilities, and in these cases there was addiction without _nexus_,
as was laid down in the twelve tables. The prætor sentences the thief
to give me double what he has stolen; and if the man does not pay it
by the appointed day, he addicts him to me as a bondman for debt. In
the same manner, if I sue any one for a purchase and he cannot deny
the debt (_æs confessum_), I demand his _addictio_ for a certain time.
This was a _vinculum fidei_, an intimidation, so that the debtor, of
course, strained every nerve to pay. To this only did the expression
_vinculum fidei_ refer, not to the _nexum_; as vindication was here
allowed, and there was no question about the fulfilment of a contract.
When a Roman was _in nexu_, having sold himself to another in the event
of his not paying, as the Merchant of Venice did to Shylock, he had to
pay the taxes on his freehold all the same, however heavily incumbered
it might be; for _nexo solutoque idem jus esto_, was the law of the
twelve tables. But quite different is the case of the addictus, who
is the creditor’s own, and has no personal rights. Thus we have the
solution of the enigma in the accounts given in our books, that debtors
who had sold themselves (that is to say, _nexi_) served notwithstanding
in the legions.[91] Livy does not enter into this subject, because he
was not conscious of the difficulty: Dionysius indeed remarks it, but
he is embarrassed by it.
In a certain measure, this system was just as necessary as our strict
rules of exchange; yet its abuse was unavoidable, as the rich man is
not always kind-hearted, but is often harsh, and will abide by the law
in its utmost rigour. This idolizing of mammon reigned in Rome, and the
tyranny of positive law was often very oppressive. Besides which, the
right was all on one side. When a patrician got into difficulties, his
kinsmen or dependants had to get him out of them; the plebeians were
forced in most cases to borrow money from the patricians. Now the fate
of an addicted plebeian was one in which there might be much variety.
He might find a mild master who allowed him to buy his freedom by
work, or else a hard one who would shut him up in the _ergastulum_, put
him in chains, and treat him cruelly, that his friends might be obliged
to pay for his release.
This was the state of these relations about the year 260. All at
once an extraordinary general distress arose, like the one nearly a
hundred years later, after the Gallic calamity. Before that time we
find nothing at all resembling it. The reason for this must have been
the war of Porsena, from which we may draw the inference that it ought
to be placed much later than we find it in Livy. The distress caused
commotions among the people, of the breaking out of which Livy’s
account may be tolerably well founded. An old warrior, covered with
scars, falls into the hands of his creditors, because his house had
been burnt down and his property carried off; he escapes from the
dungeon in which he has been most barbarously treated by his master,
and shows himself in the market-place, starving, clothed in rags, and
disfigured with stripes. This sight gives rise to a general uproar,
and the _Plebes_ renounce the rule of their tyrants. Livy’s account
of the way in which the tumult spreads wider and wider is a model of
beautiful writing, being taken from the very nature of man; yet its
details do not contain any real tradition, but it is to be looked upon
as an historical romance. When the senate and the consuls had now
arrived at the terrible conviction that the commonalty could not be
ruled when once it did not choose to obey, either the report was spread
that the Volscians were at hand, or they actually advanced when they
heard of the dissensions in Rome. The senate resolved upon raising an
army. According to the original law, the senate had no authority by
itself to declare war; but it brought the motion before the curies,
and these had to give it their approval. According to Servius’ laws,
the motion ought to have gone to the centuries also; but this was no
more thought of; the annalists mention only the senate. The latter
decreed that an army should be raised. As the burthen of the service
on foot lay on the Plebes only, its _juniores_ were summoned by
tribes (_nominatim citabantur_); to answer to the summons was termed
_nomen dare_; to refuse, _nomen abnuere_. This conscription remained
unchanged in all essential points to the latest times of the republic.
But when the _Plebes_ refused to serve, it did not answer (_non
respondebat_): such a silence is the most awful that can be. Since this
now happened, the consuls knew not which way to turn. A loud outcry
arose, that people would not be so foolish as to shed their blood for
their tyrant-masters; that the whole gain of the war fell to the lot
of the patricians; that the booty was shared among them, and that it
passed into the _publicum_ (the chest of the patricians), not into the
_ærarium_; that the plebeian became poorer and poorer, and that he was
obliged to pledge himself and his to the patrician, and to serve him
as a bondman. Among the patricians a split began to show itself. Livy
tells us, that the _minores natu_ among the _patres_ were foremost
in the fray;--probably this ought to be the _minores_, who are the
Luceres, as it is impossible to think of young patricians at that time
as members of the senate, which in reality was a γερουσία. The consuls
(A. 259) belonged to opposite parties; Appius Claudius representing the
interest of the most furious oligarchs, Servilius being moderate. In
the danger which was threatening, one could only succeed by mildness:
every attempt to raise an army by force disgracefully failed. Servilius
had himself authorized by the senate to arrange matters. He issued a
proclamation calling upon all those who had been pledged for debt to
present themselves, and he gave them security as long as they should be
in the field, and for their children and dependants as well. Numbers
now crowded to the standards, and with the army thus formed, Servilius
went out to war, and returned victorious. He had promised to do his
utmost with the senate to make them cancel the contracts for debt;
but the senate did not grant any thing, and the army was dismissed.
Appius Claudius undertook the jurisdiction, and, without paying any
regard to the word of the consul, addicted all those who had been in
the field to their creditors, or obliged them to enter into a _nexum_.
The rest of the year was passed in the greatest commotion. The consuls
who came next, A. Virginius and T. Vetusius (A. 260), were both of
them men of moderate views;--a proof that the election lay still
with the centuries, as the curies would have chosen the most violent
oligarchs. Yet they were not able to do any thing either with the
senate or their own order. It was again attempted to raise an army, and
the difficulties were the same as before. The consuls were reproached
with cowardice; others who wanted to strike terror into the people,
had to think of saving their lives instead. Real danger there was only
on market days; the _Plebes_ consisting of peasants who lived in the
country. In Italy tillage requires extraordinary care. The land must be
weeded several times during summer; the Romans plough the fallow ground
five, six, or seven times; they weed the fields, and weed them again,
until the corn is grown about three inches high. It is incredible how
much work this requires; the peasant therefore is busy the whole of the
year, and has no time to go about idle. In the city there were usually
only those plebeians who were townsmen. The patricians were therefore
safe: they had strong men among them, and a great number of clients,
whereas the plebeians in the four _tribus urbanæ_ were certainly the
minority. Thus the fact may also be accounted for, that the patricians
were able to rule the plebeians even without regular troops. The
houses (Geschlechter) also of the German towns had for a long time the
commonalties in their power, although the latter were superior to them
in numbers. Had the plebeians been a rabble, the patricians would all
of them have been soon slain by them.
When the attempt proved again unsuccessful, some proposed to carry out
the concessions of Servilius, and to abide by them; but Appius said,
that the resistance ought to be put down, and a dictator therefore
elected. It had been one of the objects of the institution of the
dictatorship, to be enabled to evade the limitations placed upon the
power of the consuls, not only by the appeal to the curies, but also
by that to the tribes, which Valerius had established. Appius wanted
the dictator to seize every one who refused to serve, and to have him
put to death. This mad project could not but have caused the most
dreadful commotion. The assembly passed an insane resolution, but
the good genius of Rome guided them to choose as dictator the most
moderate man, M. Valerius,--thus he is called by all the authorities,
less correctly by Dionysius alone Manius Valerius, which is a mere
figment, devised because Marcus was said to have been killed at the
Regillus,--a clansman, or, according to our narratives, a brother of P.
Valerius Poplicola. He renews the edict of Servilius, and, whilst the
Volscians, Æquians, and Sabines were in arms, raises an army without
difficulty. That it is stated to have consisted of ten legions, can
only excite our smile. To each consul he gave a part of the army; he
took one likewise himself, and returned victorious. He now demanded of
the senate the fulfilment of his promises; and declared, that the law
should not be departed from. Valerius resigned his dignity. Now there
were still both of the consular armies, or at least one of them under
arms, the return of which the patricians did not wish to allow; for as
long as there was an army in the camp, its services might be commanded.
Dionysius expressly tells us, that the consuls, owing to a Lex Valeria,
held absolute sway, extending from one mile beyond Rome by virtue of
their _imperium_, and that consequently they might punish by martial
law anybody who was _obnoxius_ to them, without needing the decision of
a military tribunal. For this reason the senate did not wish to allow
the army to return. This was an atrocious policy, since the army must
some time or other be dismissed, and the whole safety therefore of
the senate only rested in the conscientiousness of the _Plebes_, the
oath being so sacred to the Romans. But the rebellion actually broke
out in the camp, though with great moderation. It is related, that
the soldiers had wished at first to slay the consul, that they might
be relieved from their oath, which was only sworn to him personally.
Yet they merely renounced their allegiance; made L. Sicinius Bellutus
their leader; passed the Anio in arms; and encamped three or four miles
from thence on a hill which was afterwards consecrated, and therefore
called the _mons sacer_. Thus a whole population withdrew from the
city, and there remained behind the patricians and their slaves,
besides the wives and children of the emigrants. The patricians did
not, however, seize upon these as hostages; whilst, on the other hand,
the plebeians also practised no further hostility, but kept themselves
from all devastation, and foraged in the neighbouring country only
to supply their immediate wants. The patricians now acted like human
beings. As long as their authority was not put in jeopardy, there was
nothing which they dared not do, and so in every instance until the Lex
Hortensia; yet their power once being broken, they became dispirited,
and each new contest ends only in disgrace. They had thought that the
plebeians would have no courage; they ever said among themselves, This
time they will lay down their arms, one has only to overawe them.
One feels giddy at the sight of madness like this; and yet, so long
as the world lasts, it will ever be renewed. When the plebeians had
raised their standard, the scales fell from their eyes. Within the town
the _Plebes_ had only two quarters,[92] the Aventine with the Vallis
Murcia, and the Esquiline, both of them very strong, and provided with
gates, certainly guarded by armed men. The plebeians might therefore
have taken possession of Rome without any resistance, as their friends
would have opened the gates to them. They would, however, have been
obliged to take the other hills, all of which were fortified, and the
forum by storm; which would have been their country’s ruin, since the
other nations would not have kept quiet. The conduct of the _Patres_
therefore appears mad, and it is inconceivable that the _Plebes_,
when once in arms, did not go further: in Florence the Guelphs and
Ghibelines fought against each other in the streets. A key to this
seems to be found in the fact that the Latins were at peace, and that
therefore with their help the senate was able to make head against the
_Plebes_. It ought to be borne in mind that in confederate republics
similarity of constitution has no influence whatever on the mutual
support: democratically governed nations protect the governments of
aristocratical ones. In the great insurrection of Lucerne and Berne, in
the year 1657, the democratical cantons came to the assistance of the
oligarchical governments against the peasants. This explains also how
it was that the senate could hold out under such circumstances. There
are allusions to it from the annals still extant in Dionysius. Appius
says, that the Latins, if isopolity were granted them, would assist
them against the _Plebes_.
According to Dionysius, the secession lasted four months, from August
to December; and this he proves from the circumstance, that the tribune
always entered upon their office on the 10th of December. There was
likewise a tradition that on the Ides of September the dictator had
knocked in the _clavus_, and that consequently about that time there
had been no consuls at Rome. Yet the troubles are said to have broken
out under the consuls Virginius and Vetusius; these consuls then,
so Dionysius concludes, must have resigned their office at the end
of August, and the insurrection have lasted four months. Had the
succession of the tribunes never been interrupted at all, there
would have been no difficulty whatever as to the same rule having
applied to the time of their inauguration from the first, as that
which was afterwards followed; but Dionysius overlooks the fact, that
during the decemvirate the tribunate had ceased to exist, so that the
tribunes hardly entered upon their office on the same day as before,
but rather as soon as they were allowed to meet again. The consuls
were inaugurated on the first of August, and it seems certain that the
peace between the two orders was concluded by the new consuls Vetusius
and Virginius. The secession cannot have lasted longer than about a
fortnight: the city could not have held out in this condition; a famine
would have broken out if the legions had occupied the fields. The
rapidity of Livy’s narrative allows us to suppose a short duration only.
The patricians saw too late that they had driven matters to extremity,
and that they must give way. They had to make very lowering concessions
as to the form, and to send envoys. The list of the ten envoys which
Dionysius gives, is certainly authentic, and taken from the _libri
augurales_: forgery must have been carried on to a great extent if
such statements were not genuine. The end of the secession is only
explicable when we have a clear insight into the relations owing to
which the ruling power could not only defend itself in the city, but
also dispose of the confederates; for, these had sworn fealty to
the Roman state, that is to say, to the senate and the _Populus_;
so that numbers do not by any means turn the scale between the two
orders. A peace was concluded in due form by _fetiales_, as between
two free nations. The patricians sent ambassadors and conducted the
negotiation, with great humiliation as to the formalities, yet with a
prudence which is worthy of admiration. It was their aim to get off as
cheaply as possible after the faults which they had made. They could
only manage to retrieve matters, either by strengthening themselves
from abroad with the aid of the allies, or by dividing the _Plebes_.
For the latter purpose, two ways lay open to them. They might draw to
their own side the chief plebeians, but in that case they would have
lessened their own power; or they might separate the mass of the people
from its leaders. The second was an infallible device. The plebeians
were granted remission of debts for the insolvent debtors; the Addicti
were freed, and the Nexum dissolved, without any general rule being
made with regard to the law of debt: of course an amnesty also was
stipulated. The remission of debts was no great loss for the creditors,
as the interest had long outgrown the capital. A hundred and fifty
years afterwards the rate of interest was lowered to ten per cent.; at
that time it may have been about fifty per cent. A similar course was
pursued by Sully.
A lasting result was the institution of the office of the _Tribuni
Plebis_. These tribunes were no innovation in themselves. At the
restoration of the tribunate after the second secession, the commonalty
had twenty chiefs, viz. one for each tribe; among these two are
invested with the power. The tribes in fact make up two decuries,
and for each of these there is a chief; just as in the senate there
were ten decuries, each of which had a _primus_, all of whom together
constituted the board of the _decem primi_. Symmetrical arrangements
every where recur in the old institutions, wherefore we may by
induction from a known quantity arrive at the unknown. Thus, when we
read that the first tribunes had been two, who made choice of three
more to join them; it is certain that those two were the foremen of
the existing twenty or twenty-one tribunes, who in a new state of
things merely rose to a higher sphere of official functions. The
difference without doubt was this, that the old tribunes were elected
by the several tribes (as the phylarchs in the Greek states were by
each phyle); the new ones, on the contrary, by the whole commonalty.
C. Licinius and L. Albinius are mentioned as the two first tribunes;
Sicinius, the general of the _Plebes_ at the secession, is one of the
three who were chosen in addition. The plebeians were not able to
recover their good right which the Servian constitution had given them;
they had to be content with defending themselves against oppression.
Their magistracy was therefore _auxilii ferendi gratia_; the tribunes
by an oath were declared inviolable (_corpora sacrosancta_), so that
they might step in between the holders of power and those who were
aggrieved and protect the latter. Before that, owing to the spirit
of caste and the pride of office among the patricians, the tribune
who impeached a consul, would have in vain incurred the peril of the
prosecution, as there was another consul with equal pretensions, and
all the patricians sided with him;--indeed the consul would have
caused the tribune who appealed against him to the commonalty, to be
arrested and chastised. Whoever henceforth laid hand on a tribune, was
proscribed as an outlaw; and if the consul did not put the outlawry
in force against him, the tribune might after the expiration of his
period of office, summon him before the tribunal of the curies, or
even perhaps of the tribes. The tribunes were perhaps scarcely a
magistracy in the commonalty, certainly not in the state. Justus
Lipsius, an ingenious and very learned man, with whom as a philologist
I am not worthy to be compared, has by his authority, great as he is
as a grammarian, done much mischief with regard to Roman antiquities.
Whenever a magistracy, or a military arrangement is mentioned, he,
and all those who follow in his wake, never distinguish between the
different ages. A tribune at the end of the third century is by no
means like a tribune of Cicero’s time. It is just the same in Roman
topography; a clear-headed man like Sarti does not put all the
buildings in Rome of the different ages side by side, as the common
herd do. People fancied that the tribunes had the Veto, and likewise
the self-same privilege which they got afterwards, of proposing
resolutions; but the first tribunes are perhaps to be looked upon in
no other light but that of an ambassador in a foreign state, who is
to protect the subjects of his sovereign. The patricians had until
now wielded their power without any check; the plebeians had no share
in the administration: and therefore a magistracy became necessary
which might come forward as protectors against public authorities as
well as against individuals, whenever any members of their order had
to complain of ill usage. Their houses were therefore open by day and
night, and they were not allowed to absent themselves from the city:
like a physician they were always to be in readiness to give help. This
is a grand idea, quite peculiar to Rome; there is nothing analogous
to it in Greek antiquity. Besides this the tribunes had the right of
calling together their commonalty, and of making propositions;--yet
there are very few traces indeed of this in the earlier times. The
resolutions which the tribunes moved among the _Plebes_ were mere
bye-laws, rules at pleasure, _plebiscita_; whilst, on the other hand,
those of the patricians were called _leges_. To this allusion is made
in a passage of Livy, where the Etruscans say, that the Romans were now
two peoples, each of them _suis magistratibus, suis legibus_, a notice
of the importance of which Livy was entirely unconscious. He does not
in general alter the materials which he finds; but he merely drops
part of them. The _plebiscita_ had as yet no authority whatever over
the whole community; after more than twenty years they could only be
considered as an opinion offered by an assembly of states, which might
pass into a law (283). The only real magistracy among the plebeians
were the ædiles, a name which among the Latins also was borne by the
local magistrates. In all likelihood, these were judges in the disputes
of the plebeians among themselves; whereas the tribunes were no judges
in the earlier times, though perhaps there may have been an appeal to
them from the ædiles. No change was probably made at that time in the
civil law.
These prerogatives of the tribunes are still very insignificant and
humble, being either merely negative, or else administrative in a
narrow sphere, and least of all legislative. I do not believe that
they had the right of moving any change of the civil law in favour of
their own order. Strange to say, the election of the tribunes was now
committed to the centuries, although it ought far more naturally to
have remained with the tribes. From this also we see, how small the
advantages were which the _Plebes_ obtained by the first secession;
for the patricians had great influence in the centuries by means of
their clients: about ten years afterwards, they had formed, owing to
this mode of election, a party among the tribunes. The statement that
they were elected by the curies is a palpable falsehood; yet there
is thus much of truth in it, that they were to be confirmed by the
curies in order that no obnoxious people might be chosen; just as the
curule magistrates were by the centuries. It is the same as when the
English government claimed a veto in the election of the Irish [Roman
Catholic] bishops. This relation, according to Livy, ceases already
before the passing of the Publilian law. Piso thinks that before the
Publilian law, by which the election was transferred to the tribes,
there had been only two tribunes. I believe that the number five is
of later date; yet I do not deem it likely that it should have first
come in with the Publilian law: for as this number corresponds to the
five classes, how should it have come into use, when it was no more the
classes, but the tribes which had had to elect? It seems to me highly
probable, that under the pretext of a fair compromise, the patricians
still managed also to gain an advantage for themselves. I explain from
this the perplexing circumstance that ten years later we find the
curies in possession of the consular election instead of the centuries.
The plebeians by concession only get the election to one office for
the centuries; the other remains with the curies until the restoration
of the consulship after the time of the decemvirs. Perhaps a grant of
land was made besides, and very likely the promise was given to restore
the old system of the _ager publicus_. The result of the secession was
therefore by no means such a decided victory of the plebeians over
the patricians, as is stated by our historians. A firm groundwork was
indeed gained, which they afterwards knew how to make use of; yet the
fruits were only to be reaped by dint of hard exertions.
The compromise between the two orders was now concluded in form like a
peace, and also with sacrifice, by a _senatus-consultum_ and a decree
of the curies on the one side and by a resolution of the plebeians
in arms on the other. They called down curses on themselves if they
should do anything to break the vow; and yet the patricians did all
they could to shake off the yoke. The deputies of the _Plebes_, and the
Decem Primi of the senate, made an offering in common; order returned;
things became better; yet, of course, the seeds of new commotions and
agitations were still sown for a long time to come. I have called this
settlement “a peace.” This word is used elsewhere on similar occasions:
the Magna Charta in Lüttich, the union between the burghers and the
commonalty, was likewise called _la paix de Fexhe_. In German there is
for such an agreement the fine expression _eine Richtung_ (a righting).
The Latins were now rewarded for what they had done for the senate, as
Dionysius particularly mentions from the excellent record on which his
narrative is based. They receive isopolity (_jus municipii_) in its
first meaning by the treaty of Sp. Cassius, of which we have spoken
before.
WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND ÆQUIANS. LEAGUE WITH THE HERNICANS.
Immediately after this gleam of light, the same darkness comes upon
us as before, for some time only the Fasti remain to us. In Livy here
follows the story of Coriolanus.
If in a book a sheet is misplaced, it ought to be set right unless
we would have the writer talk nonsense. The case is the same when an
historical fact is placed in a wrong time. I see no reason why I should
not believe that a Siceliote king in a famine had sent corn to Rome;
yet the tyrants of Sicily first make their appearance some Olympiads
later than the period assigned for the story of Coriolanus. I believe
that Coriolanus was first of all brought to trial by the _Plebes_; yet
the latter would not indeed have ventured upon such a thing before the
Publilian law. The Romans also could not have quarrelled under Sp.
Cassius about the distribution of the _ager publicus_, if the Volscians
had advanced as far as Lavinium. I believe moreover, that a L. Junius
Brutus established the heavy penalties against the interruption of the
tribunes when they addressed the people; but he who placed this history
in the year 262, could not have believed any thing of all this. For
this reason I maintain that it does not belong to this epoch, but that
it can only have happened after the passing of the Publilian law. Cn.
or C. Marcius may perhaps have stood his ground in the war against the
Antiates; but he cannot have conquered Corioli, as it takes part that
very same year in the league of the Latin towns. We must either reject
the whole story as a romance, or date it from quite a different period.
A further combination was attempted with regard to it. The temple of
_Fortuna muliebris_ in the Via Latina, between the fourth and the fifth
milestones, happened to be on the same spot where Coriolanus encamped
as an exile, and the reconciliation took place. Now the supplication
of the mother and the matrons, which may be historical, was connected
with the name of the _Fortuna muliebris_; and it was believed that this
temple, the time of the building of which was known, had been erected
in consequence of that event. Yet _Fortuna muliebris_ corresponds with
_Fortuna virilis_, who had a temple in Rome, a male and a female deity,
as _Tellus_ and _Tellumo_. The same contraposition is also exhibited in
_animus_ and _anima_.[93]
Livy says that he would not be astonished if his readers felt tired of
the wars of the Volscians and Æquians. And indeed every one has this
feeling from the time when he first became acquainted with Livy. The
narrative spoils the elegance of the first decade. What has made these
wars so peculiarly troublesome to him, is the circumstance that he
does not distinguish between them, nor divide them into periods. With
the exception of what remains in Dionysius on the subject, he is the
only source we have, and so it is difficult for us to get a general
view of the events. The first period reaches down to the last years
of the decennium from 280 to 290. Its beginning is shrouded in great
darkness; the conquests of Tarquin the Proud are very vague. Afterwards
we find the Volscians under the name of Auruncians invading the Latin
territory; then follow a number of petty wars to about 290; in the last
years we see the Volscians in possession of Antium, though they soon
lose it again. In the second period the tables are turned: the Æquians
take an energetic part in the war of the Volscians; Latium is entirely
crushed; the war takes a very unfortunate turn for the Romans, Latins
and Hernicans. This lasts to about 296, when the Romans make peace
with the Volscians properly so called, and the danger is warded off.
In the third period, the Romans carry on the war singlehanded against
the Æquians: it has lost its dangerous character, and is on both sides
carried on very languidly. Then follows another Volscian war against
the Ecetrans, leagued with the Æquians. This fourth period is ushered
in by the great victory of A. Postumius Tubertus (324); from which time
the Romans keep advancing until the war with the Gauls, conquering
many Volscian towns, and weakening the Æquians. In the Gallic war the
Æquians also may have suffered much. Afterwards,--and this is the fifth
period,--the wars begin anew, but their character is quite different.
The Æquians are insignificant foes, and the Volscians amalgamated with
the Latins, fighting like them for their own independence.
I will not go through these wars. No memory is capable of retaining
them; and they are also deficient in authenticity, and that because
the historian, weary of them, has read and written them in too great
a hurry. After the Latin league, the enemy make a fierce onslaught,
without, however, conquering much. Circeii in the time of Sp. Cassius
is still a Latin town.
An event of relatively great importance for the Romans was the league
with the Hernicans (267). Isopolity must already have existed early,
if it be true, that under Tarquin the Proud these had a share in the
festival of Jupiter Latiaris. A Roman tradition even mentions them
as allies of Tullus Hostilius. After the humiliation of Rome by the
Etruscans, they must, like the Latins, and the Tyrrhenian towns on the
sea coast, have set themselves free. The league restored the relations
in a manner very advantageous for them. Romans, Latins, and Hernicans
were to be quite on the same footing; the booty, as well in money
as in land, was divided in equal shares; if a colony were sent out,
the colonists were taken from all the three. Whether the annalists
have rightly understood the matter,--Livy and Dionysius differ very
much from each other,--or whether they merely took it for granted
that whenever a peace is concluded, it must have been preceded by a
war, cannot be decided. Yet I am inclined to believe that the league
was brought about by mutual necessity, as both were hemmed in by the
Volscians and Æquians, and the fortified towns of the Hernicans were
of great consequence to the Romans: a war would at least have been
very absurd. The Hernicans dwelt in five towns, Anagnia, Alatrum,
Ferentina, Frusino, and Verulæ, remarkable for their Cyclopian
fortifications, and extending from the West to the East. According to
the statements in Servius and the Veronese scholiast on Virgil, whom
Mai has incorrectly edited, the Hernicans were a people sprung from the
Marsians and Sabines; their name is said to be derived from _hernæ_,
which in the Sabine language meant a rock, (Arndt compares to it the
German _Firn_[94]), so that they were mountaineers. But it is strange
that a people should in its own language have borne a mere epithet as
its name, especially as the Marsians, Marrucinians, and Pelignians
dwelt on much higher mountains. The Sabine descent of the Hernicans is
therefore somewhat suspicious; it might, however, be maintained, even
if the derivation of the name were a mere subtlety. Another difficulty
is this: if they have come forth from the Marsians, they must have
broken through the Æquians, which is altogether unlikely; and besides,
in the sequel they have no connexion whatever with the Marsians. Julius
Hyginus declares them to have been Pelasgians.
The Hernicans are remarkable in history. They kept off the Romans with
brilliant courage; the alliance with them is historically certain.
It was a joint league with the Romans and Latins, and therefore they
received the third part of the booty. Nevertheless Roman antiquaries
would have it, and Dionysius has allowed himself to be deceived by
them, that the Romans had exclusively the supremacy; that therefore
they had had two-thirds, and the Latins one-third of the booty; and
that of those two-thirds the Romans had generously given half to the
Hernicans. Yet when Romans and Latins conclude together an alliance
with that brave people, it is no more than reasonable that each of
them should have given up a sixth. Rome, according to Dionysius’ own
version, had by no means the supremacy over the Latins. These relations
must afterwards have been dissolved by some compromise. At a later
period, by insisting upon their privileges the Hernicans brought on
their own ruin.
Spurius Cassius is by far the most distinguished man of that age.
In the times which are now quite dark, the most remarkable events
are connected with his name; first the alliance with the Sabines
(252),--without doubt accompanied by isopolity, to judge from the
rolls of the census,--then this league with the Hernicans. In this
alliance, Rome is placed in quite a different position from what it
had been in the former one; just as the relations of Athens to its
allies are changed about Ol. 100, after the battle at Naxos. When
Athens established its second naval supremacy, the towns were far from
being as dependent as formerly; and Demosthenes, when he founded his
great league, with all the wisdom of an enlightened statesman no more
demands that Athens should have the rule, but merely that it should be
the life and the soul of the confederacy. For this, traitors to their
country like Æschines, taxed him with having degraded it, inasmuch as
the messenger of Athens was of no more weight than that of an Eubœan
town. They wanted, so they falsely said, to see the sovereignty of
Athens. Yet the question at that time was merely this, to preserve
their freedom against Philip; and therefore Demosthenes readily
concluded peace with any town that wished for it, and took the lead
only by the power of his intellect. The same position is gained for
Rome by Cassius; and this very fact shows him to have been a great man,
with a clear head and a sound judgment. The Etruscan war had crushed
the dominion of Rome on the right bank of the Tiber; the Volscians and
Æquians were both of them advancing; the towns on the coasts were lost;
it was necessary to arrange matters, not as one wished, but as one
could. This the so-called historians of later days wanted to disguise
from themselves, owing to their blinded partiality for their own native
country. Livy--and the writers in whose wake Dionysius followed, were
full of senseless veneration for the greatness of their forefathers.
Rome, they thought, could never have been small. Indeed at that time
also, there may have been people like Æschines, and fools, who thought
Cassius a traitor, because he accommodated himself to circumstances.
Cassius in his third consulship, after the league with the Hernicans,
wished to be just to the _Plebes_ also. This leads us to the important
agrarian law.
THE AGRARIAN LAW. SP. CASSIUS. EMIGRATION OF THE FABII. THE PUBLILIAN
ROGATIONS.
The ancient nations, when they waged war, held on the whole a different
principle of right from what we do. We look upon war as a duel between
the genii of two states,--between two ideal states: the individual is
not affected by it as to his person, his liberty, and his property;
the law of war intends him to be injured as little as possible, he
is never to be the immediate object of hostility, he is only to be
placed in jeopardy when it cannot be helped. But among the ancients,
the hostilities were common to every one that belonged to the state;
and whilst with us the conquered state indeed loses its right to the
land, but every individual remains as he was, just as if there had
been no war, these had quite different views on the subject. It was not
only in wars of extermination that they took away the whole property
of the vanquished, and made them slaves; in the common wars also the
goods and chattels of the inhabitants were forfeited. Even when a place
surrendered voluntarily, these with their wives and children fell into
the hands of the conquerors, as we see from the forms of dedition.
The conqueror in the latter case did not make them slaves; yet they
were bondmen, and the whole of their landed property became the prize
of the victor. If such a place had suffered but little, and it still
seemed worth while to preserve it, there were sent thither from Rome
three hundred colonists, one from each _Gens_, and these were a φρουρά,
a φυλακή. They got each of them a garden of two _jugera_; without
doubt they had the whole, or at least the greater part of the public
demesne, and a third of the district as arable land, two-thirds being
left to the old inhabitants. These are the original colonies. In other
instances no colonies were sent, it not being deemed requisite to take
occupation of the place. Sometimes the inhabitants were cast out, at
other times they were allowed to remain, and a tax was laid upon them,
generally the tithe; yet they then held their tenures as it were on
sufferance, being always removable at pleasure. In countries which
had been devastated by war, or from which the inhabitants had been
driven out, the Romans used to act according to a law quite peculiar
to themselves, for which there is no parallel whatever in the Greek
institutions.
This _jus agrarium_ is of so much the greater importance for me as it
first led me to critical researches on Roman history, whilst before
that I had occupied myself more with Greek antiquities. When as a
youth I read Plutarch’s parallels and Appian, the system of the _lex
agraria_ was quite a riddle to me. It was thought to have really been
a violation of property, which it was to limit to a certain standard,
so that he who had more than five hundred _jugera_ was deprived of
the surplus, by which means an increase of the plebeian holdings was
created at the expense of the patrician proprietors. This exposition
of the law in such an extreme sense met with much applause. From
Machiavell, as he lived in a revolutionary age, and in his opinion the
end sanctified the means; and not less from Montesquieu on the other
hand, who looked upon the repetition of the past as a thing which
was out of the question, since in his time a revolution was still as
far off as possible. His example shows how bold speculative minds
may become in relations which are unknown to them, and which seem
impossible. At that time, revolutionary ideas, in an apparently quite
innocent manner, were generally current, even among men who in the
revolution itself went over to the extreme opposite side.
As Plutarch and Appian expressly state that the law applied to the γῆ
δημοσία only, it was evident that something else must have been meant
by it. The first who thought here of the _ager publicus_ was Heyne, in
a programme the occasion for which was taken from the revolutionary
confiscations; yet the question, What then was the _ager publicus_?
was not cleared up, as Heyne so often had a general notion of the
truth which he but rarely worked out. Afterwards also, the historical
writers who treated of the Gracchi were still completely in the dark
with regard to it. Once upon a time, when I did not yet see my way
into these riddles, I asked the great F. A. Wolf his opinion on it.
Yet he, with all the distinguished qualities of his mind, had this
fault, that he sought to have the credit of knowing every thing, and
then gave himself the air of not wishing to commit himself. He too did
not know how to get over this difficulty. I was brought to the subject
by chance. In Holstein at that time bondage was abolished. Instead of
the peasants, serfs as well as freemen, having hereditary abodes on
the estates as formerly, their possessions were taken from them, and
changed into tenant farms, whilst they themselves were arbitrarily
transferred to small and worse farms. This was quite abominable. Even
where there were no serfs, the same measures were now to be enforced.
I called to Heaven against this injustice, and came to raise the
question,--“What right have they to do this?” On this occasion I was
led to inquire into the nature of tenure at will, and traced it among
various nations; and this gave me the key to the Roman _jus agrarium_.
The general notion of the Italian nations was this, that there is an
indissoluble relation between the land and the right of citizenship;
that every kind of ownership in the soil is derived from the state
alone. The soil is merely the substratum on which the preconceived
idea of the civil organization rests. There is a great similarity in
this to the feudal system. According to strict feudal law, there is
no land whatever but what has a liege-lord. All fiefs derive from the
prince as the lord paramount, and then follow the mesne tenures. In
point of fact, this idea has never indeed been carried out in its full
meaning. Another analogous case is in the East, especially in the East
Indies, where we find the sovereign the real owner of the soil, and the
peasant’s tenure to be only at will (_precario_). Thus also among the
Italian nations, all right of property in the soil is from the soil.
We read in Appian a statement, of which it is evident that it has not
sprung from his own intellectual resources, but that it is an extract
from the history of the Gracchi by Posidonius, who was not inferior to
Polybius, and whom he uses as his chief authority for that period, as
he did Dionysius before, and then Polybius, Fabius, and at last, in
all probability, Rutilius. Now, if we see it mentioned by him, that
the _ager publicus_ was partly turned into colonies and demesnes, and
partly sold or let on lease (the latter notice is found in Plutarch
only), we may ask ourselves, How was it possible that difficulties
should have arisen on this subject? The Roman republic had only to lay
down the law, that no one should possess more than a certain number of
lots, and all the evil consequences were prevented. The fact is that
Appian and Plutarch misunderstood the ambiguous expression of their
predecessor. There is no question of any letting on lease; but a tax
was laid on the estates, the tithe (_decuma_), from corn; the fifth
(_quinta_), from fruit; and from every thing else in proportion. If,
then, the corn was taken in kind, the state was obliged to establish
great storehouses; for the cattle it had to pay the pasturage; so that
of course the revenue was different in different years. A new system
was therefore adopted of letting out the revenue from those taxes to
_publicani_. The political forms of the Romans have almost always an
analogy in the Greek constitutions, and so has often the civil law;
but with regard to the _jus agrarium_ the Romans stand alone. The
Greek state made conquests and founded colonies, but the _possessio
agri publici_ is unknown to that people: in one instance only does any
thing like it happen. We see from Xenophon’s Anabasis that he devoted
an estate at Scillus to the Artemis of Ephesus; and that the temple
did not cause the estate to be let on lease, but received the tithe
from it, and that this was farmed. As the victim was never offered
as ὁλόκαυστον, but a part of it only was burnt in honour of the god;
thus of such an estate, not the whole proceeds, but a part only, was
offered as a gift. According to the system of Roman law, the state did
not keep as much as possible of what was _publicum_ for itself; but it
proclaimed that every Romanus Quiris who wished to cultivate a part of
the conquered country, might take it. This was called _occupatio agri
publici_. At first, those who were patricians, as the oldest citizens,
might take a plot wherever they liked. This was for the most part
waste land, become desolate in the war, on the hostile frontier, and
therefore there was no great competition for it. From the very first,
the obligation was imposed of paying the _decumæ_ and _quintæ_. It was
this revenue which was farmed, and this has always been overlooked.
The terms _agrum locare_ and _agrum vendere_ are synonymous, and mean
neither more nor less than _fructus agri vendere_, _agrum fruendum
locare_. One really had the possession of such an estate very much as
if it were one’s own, so that a third party could not claim it; just
like the tenant at will, from whom the landlord may under certain
conditions take his farm, but who enjoys perfect protection against
any one else. This was secured among the Romans by the possessory
interdicts, so that this possession might also become hereditary.
But the state, on the other hand, might at any time interfere, and
say, “Now I want to establish a colony here, or to divide the land
_viritim_, the occupant has therefore notice to quit;” and in that case
the latter had no _auctoritas_ whatever against the state. From this it
is evident that the state could always dispose of the _ager publicus_,
so that, for instance, no more than a certain number of _jugera_ came
into the possession of a single person; for others would thus have been
excluded from it, and the excessive influence of an individual, from
the immense number of his clients, might have become dangerous to the
whole community.
This is the great difference between property and a mere _possessio_.
The _possessio_ was given by the prætor in the edict by which one
was called upon to take it; the prætorian right of inheritance rests
wholly and entirely upon this ground: the prætor gives _possessionem
bonorum secundum tabulas_. Property, one might leave by will as one
liked; but possession (occupancy) one could only transfer to another
by a sale before witnesses according to a fair arrangement, and he
who had received it, proved the legal acceptance, and armed himself
with his _interdictum possessorium_; he had witnesses of his having
got possession _neque vi, neque clam, neque precario_. But how was
it when the possessor died? By his will he could utterly disinherit
his children, and leave what he had in property to the most unworthy
person, without the prætor in the earlier times being able to
interfere; but the prætor could do so when the tenure was that of
possession, and as being the source of possession, he decided in the
latter case according to a principle quite different from that which
applied to the former, as the chancellor of England does in Equity.
Even those who entertain unfavourable views of the _Plebes_ and the
tribunes, as for instance Livy and Dionysius, cannot deny that the
patricians were _usurpatores agri publici_; yet these might according
to the letter of the law rightly make their claims, and it is moreover
not impossible that they appeared to have been perfectly honest. It
is in general a great result of historical research, that one learns
to judge fairly, and can see that there are good men in the most
opposite parties; that the distinctions of party do not constitute
the worth of man. Thus it was with regard to the patricians. When
Livy and Dionysius, although against the _Plebes_, state that the
_ager publicus_ had been occupied _per injuriam_ ὑπὸ τῶν ἀναιδεστάτων
πατρικίων, their remarks are unjust; a fact which can only be
understood by going back to the origin of the matter.
Only the original Roman citizen of the three old tribes, that is to
say, the patrician, could, according to the earliest law, be admitted
to the _possessio_. He got from the prætor as much as he thought he
could cultivate, no limits whatever being fixed; and for this he
had nothing to pay, but only to invest his capital in making the
land productive. The _Plebes_ now grew up at the side of this order.
These were the real strength of Rome: they furnished the whole of the
infantry; their blood was shed in the wars; and they achieved the
conquests. It was therefore undoubtedly also the right of the _Plebes_
to have their share in these conquests: the _Populus_, however,
continued to look upon these as their own property. Servius Tullius
had already ordered that no more unlimited grants should be made, but
that a part of the conquered land should remain with the state, and
that the rest should be divided among the _Plebes_ as their freeholds.
According to the rules of the augural system, squares were made, and
then lots were numbered, and tickets issued to all those who were to
have a share: each of these tickets represented a square (_centuria_).
This is called _assignatio_. Such is the law of Servius Tullius, which
is inseparably connected with the constitution of the _Plebes_. From
Sallust’s expressions, we are to suppose that after the expulsion of
the kings the Servian institutions were restored. Yet they were again
done away by the patricians. Only the _ager regius_ was as yet divided;
afterwards every thing remained with the patricians, who likewise
dispensed themselves from paying the tithes. The tribunes were anything
but mutinous; they only wished as the natural advocates of their
order to make good its right. Perhaps the plebeians felt particularly
aggrieved by the Etruscan war, as they had to sustain the deficiency of
the lost third.
Sp. Cassius was the first who brought in an agrarian law, first in
the senate, then in the curies, and lastly in the centuries; or else
perhaps, first in the centuries, and then in the curies. It was his
proposition, to restore the Servian law; to re-establish the tithes
and fifths; to sell part of the conquered country, and to mete out the
remainder and assign it to the _Plebes_. This is all that we know of
the _lex Cassia_. All the rest of Dionysius’ statement, as I positively
assert after mature consideration, bears evident traces of having
been taken from a writer of the second half of the seventh century,
and is invented with great ignorance of the old state of things.
The _senatus-consultum_ of which he speaks has not the slightest
authenticity. The law for the division of the land is so closely
connected with the whole fate of the plebeians, that there is every
likelihood that it was already mooted in the peace on the _Mons Sacer_;
under Cassius it is fully brought out. According to all appearance, it
was carried; as the _Lex agraria_, down to the time of the decemvirs,
is spoken of as a right of which the _Plebes_ were in possession, but
which was not kept as they were promised. Thus Cassius stands out as a
remarkable man; in Cicero he is mentioned as being well known, and yet
there is very little said about him.
It is historical that Sp. Cassius was executed in the following year
for high treason, and that from his estate (_ex Cassiana familia_) a
votive-gift was offered in the temple of Tellus on the Carinæ. It was
probably in order to remove from this deed the appearance of crying
injustice, that the tale of his having been judged by his father
was invented. Dionysius already is justly startled at the fact that
Cassius, who at that time had no less than thrice been invested with
the consulship, should have been put to death by his father. The _leges
annales_ were indeed not yet then in force; but nevertheless it is
incredible that one who had been thrice consul, and had triumphed,
should have still remained under his father’s rule. Another tradition
gives a milder version, which is followed by Dionysius and Cicero _de
Republica_. The father of Sp. Cassius is said to have declared before
the court that he considered his son as guilty, and on this the latter
was executed. The truth is that the public accusers (Rüge Herrn), the
_quæstores parricidii_ impeach Cassius before the curies; and the
curies, as the community to which he belongs, cause him to be executed.
This is intelligible: he had most grievously offended his order, and
therefore they are only too glad to wreak their vengeance upon him.
Dionysius is perplexed with the account; Livy gets over the difficulty.
According to him, it is the _Plebes_, which condemns Cassius, as the
tribunes are envious of him:--as if these had at that time already
been able to bring forward any proposition of the kind! A question
which has before now been mooted by the ancients, is whether he was
guilty or not. Dionysius believes him guilty; Dio Cassius holds him
to have been innocent; the all-seeing God alone can decide on it. What
he did was done with the clearest right; yet the same act may have
sprung from the best or from the most perverse intentions, and he may
either have wished to further the welfare of the state, or he may have
aspired to the royal dignity. To suspect such a design twenty-five
years after the expulsion of the kings, was by no means so absurd as
when, seventy years later, Sp. Mælius was charged with it. Cassius was
no common man, otherwise he would not in those times have been thrice
consul, which was then a thing quite unheard of: no one besides had
been invested so often with that dignity but P. Valerius Poplicola,
and with regard to him also the Fasti are very indistinct. The manner
in which Cassius concluded his leagues betokens a great soul. It is
therefore quite possible that he entertained the purest intentions of
wisdom and justice; for Rome’s position in consequence of the spread
of the Volscians was not free from danger, and it was necessary to
keep together, and to concentrate all her forces. Guilty or innocent,
a great man he was, and detestable the faction which condemned him.
With him his clan disappears from among the patricians. Very strange
is what Dionysius says about his having had children, and that a
question thereupon had risen of executing them also; but that they were
spared, and ever since the children of criminals likewise. This looks
like a quotation from the law books relative to the establishment of
a new juridical institution; yet it may be something quite different.
We shall afterwards find a son of Sp. Cassius, and in a place where
we should certainly have least expected to have met with him. In all
likelihood, the stern judge, L. Cassius Longinus, 640, as also the
murderer of Julius Cæsar, are sprung from his stock: it is no wonder
that this family went over to the _Plebes_. The condemnation of Sp.
Cassius by a Fabius lays the foundation of that greatness of the Fabian
house, of which no other instance is to be discovered in the Roman
Fasti. During seven years (269-275), we always find a Fabius consul; as
in the beginning of the republic the Valerii were for five years. The
conclusion therefore is quite natural, that the Fabii were at that time
in possession of a rightful claim, and that the second tribe, that of
the Tities, was represented by them.
One of the drawbacks of a free government is the extreme difficulty of
retrieving a fault which has been once committed. The efforts of rulers
to amend it are rarely acknowledged by the people. An independent
prince may do so without weakening his authority, and without any
danger to himself. But the case is different in republics. If the
people were good-natured and conscientious enough to hold out the hand
of reconciliation, it would do. But it is not so. If a government
wishes to make amends to those whom it has injured, the first step
which these take is to revenge themselves. This must excuse the
Romans who were in power,--especially if Sp. Cassius fell an innocent
victim,--when they were guilty of another arbitrary act, and after
his death once more changed the constitution in their own favour.
The government could not now stop short; and least of all, if it was
conscious of guilt. If it had let the constitution remain as it was,
it had to expect, that in the free election of the centuries for the
consulship the plebeians would only have allowed patricians who were
like Sp. Cassius to get it. They were therefore obliged to do what
Dionysius so strangely describes, when he tells us that the _Plebes_
had withdrawn from the elections, and that these were now conducted by
the principal men alone. As if under the Servian constitution any other
but the principal men could ever have turned the scale! The fact is
quite different. I state it as it is; the proofs I will not adduce here.
In the year after Cassius’ death, or even in the same year, when
consuls were to be elected, the election was no more held by the
centuries; but the senate nominated the candidates, and the curies
confirmed them. Yet owing to this there arose the most violent
contention between the _Plebes_ headed by the tribunes and the consuls.
For though the tribunes at that time were still confirmed by the
curies, yet the wrong was so glaring, that even the meekest could not
have borne it. And hence the character of the tribunate is now suddenly
changed. Up to that time no traces are found of tribunician commotions.
The honour of the order was too deeply wounded: on one side the
agrarian law had not been carried out; on the other, unlawfully elected
consuls were in power. The tribune Ti. Pontificius therefore puts a
veto to the levy, on the ground that the people ought not to serve
under an illegal government. The old annals would hardly have recorded
his name, if his resistance had not been the first made by a tribune.
The enlistment was then carried on by force, be it, that open defiance
was now bidden to the tribunes, and that those who did not answer
were seized and punished; or that the consuls ordered the houses of
those living in the country to be set on fire, and their cattle to be
driven away; or finally, that they transferred the place of enlistment
from the town to the country, whither the power of the tribunes did
not reach. An army being raised in this manner, the despair of the
plebeians went so far that they would rather let themselves be killed
by the enemy like victims, than fight in behalf of their tyrants. This
fermentation lasted for two years, and at length it came to such a
height, that the senate, as if by a free act of grace, consented to
give up to the _Plebes_ the election of one consul by the centuries,
perhaps without a senatus-consultum. The consequence of which was, that
the consul whom the centuries had chosen, met with no resistance from
the plebeians; whilst, on the other hand, they in every possible way
opposed the other. Meanwhile the times were so bad, the neighbouring
nations also growing more and more bold against Rome, that the
tribunes themselves saw, that one ought rather to put up with a wrong,
than to let the commonwealth go to ruin. The _Plebes_ therefore in the
following year (272) conceded to the senate and the curies the election
of one of the consuls. Yet on that occasion it must also have wrung
from them the right, that the tribunes no more needed to be confirmed
by the curies. Publilius could never have become a tribune, if this
change had not already taken place before his law was passed. According
to the traditions, there must even at that time have been as many as
five tribunes.
During this period the Volscian wars continued, yet they may not have
been of great importance, so that the Latins and Hernicans could
by themselves make head against them. But another war weighed upon
Rome alone,--that against the Veientines. Veientine wars are already
mentioned under all the kings beginning with Romulus; but they are
quite apocryphal. Veii, according to the latest researches, was about
one German mile (5 Engl.) in circumference, as was Rome in the days
of Servius Tullius. That there should have been two such large towns
so near each other, almost within two or three German miles, is very
remarkable: it shows how strong the opposition must have been in those
times between the Latins and the Etruscans. The incidents of the war
are diffusely told by Livy and Dionysius; and very prettily indeed
by the former, who deemed it all to be true. A long and severe war
against the Veientines may be held to be authentic. The details are
found in Livy; there is nothing improbable in them, and the story of
the death of Cn. Manlius, that vain attempt to elude Fate, has quite
the colouring of antiquity. If the accounts of this fight be compared
with those of the battle at the lake Regillus, a marked difference will
be found. The many narratives of it are most likely taken from the
laudations of the Fabian family, which were a tissue of repetitions,
like the panegyrical λόγοι ἐπιτάφιοι. I believe that the plebeians
always refused obedience to the consul elected by the patricians. The
Fabii doubted also this time whether the plebeians would obey their
orders; yet when the latter were filled with ardour for the fray, their
co-operation decided the battle, and the Fabii were thus reconciled
to them. With this reconciliation all the relations changed. Of the
chiefs of the Fabii, who are mentioned as three brothers (they may
have been clansmen), one had been slain; the two others who remained
at the head of their house, had their eyes opened to the fact that
the oligarchs had brought the state into a wretched condition. The
Veientines were beaten; but the war still lasted, and although the
Latins and Hernicans had been called into the field, the Volscians
spread more and more. What was therefore most requisite was union.
For this reason the Fabii themselves declared that the agrarian law
must be granted; and in consequence from henceforth no Fabius became
patrician consul, while on the other hand, the plebeians now elected
Cæso Fabius, their former enemy, to be their consul. The most frightful
commotion arose; the Fabii were looked upon by their own order as
traitors. When their propositions are rejected, they leave the city,
three hundred and six of them, and found on the Cremera a settlement
of their clan and of several thousand plebeians who had joined them.
This must have been a settlement of a peculiar kind; a colony it was
not, as it had arisen _per secessionem_: it was a political emigration;
for the Fabii were at feud with their order, and therefore established
for themselves an abode distinct from Rome.[95] It is therefore stated
that only one single Fabius, who as a child had been left sick in
Rome, had remained behind. Perizonius has sifted this matter before now
with able criticism, and has shown how preposterous it is, that three
hundred and six strong men should all but one have been childless. This
child we again meet with a few years afterwards as already consul. The
probability is this, that the number 306 is not indeed symbolical; nor
did it comprehend, as Livy has it, merely warriors, nay, leaders only,
but the whole of the _Gens Fabia_ engaged in the settlement, women and
children included. If we take them to have been three hundred and six
men able to bear arms, we should be obliged to estimate the number of
the patricians at something beyond all belief. That they had a vast
number of clients is not to be doubted; and the circumstance that these
emigrated with them, is a remarkable evidence of the nature of the
clientship.[96]
The destruction of the Fabii at the Cremera is a positive fact; but
the accounts of it are different, one being poetical, and the other
annalistic. According to the poetical version of the story, the Fabii,
relying on the peace concluded with the Etruscans, had gone from the
Cremera to Rome, in order to offer a _sacrum gentilicium_ in the city,
a rite which indeed had to be performed at Rome, and at which all the
_gentiles_ had to be present; and as they were not aware that the
Veientines intended any hostility, they had marched without their arms.
But the Veientines called on the allies of their race, and beset the
road on which the Fabii were travelling; and these were surrounded
by thousands, who did not, however, venture to attack them at close
quarters, but struck them down from a distance with slings and arrows.
The gentilician _Sacrum_ is doubtless the _statum sacrificium_ of
the Fabian _gens_ on the Quirinal, which is mentioned in the Gallic
calamity.[97]
The other account is this, that the Fabii had been enticed by means
of herds which were grazing in the neighbourhood, to go farther and
farther; and that they had then been slain in a woodland glade by
the countless host of the Etruscans. Nothing more is said about the
clients; but the stronghold on the banks of the Cremera is taken by
the Veientines. One might feel inclined to see some treason in this,
even that the rulers of Rome had betrayed them into the hands of the
Etruscans: one of the Roman consuls, T. Menenius, is said to have
been near, and to have been afterwards capitally arraigned on that
account. Yet this is hardly to be supposed. If the consul behaved with
treachery, we can only see in it a private hatred of his own. The same
consul was defeated: he fled to Rome, and the fugitives came into the
town without even being able to maintain the Janiculum. The garrison of
that place escaped with them; the other consul Horatius appeared just
in time to ward off the greatest danger, and it was all they could do
to break up the bridge. There was yet a wall, it is true, extending
from the Capitol to the Aventine, which protected the city on that side
of the river; but it was necessary to break up the bridge, in order to
isolate the suburb. The Veientines were now masters of the whole field;
they encamped on the Janiculum, crossed the river and pillaged the
whole of the Roman territory on the left bank of the Tiber. This was in
the midst of summer, the first of August being the period of the change
of consuls, in which the new ones entered into office. The enemy had
unexpectedly passed over the river on rafts; and thus the harvest may
also have been to a great extent destroyed, the farm-houses burnt down,
and man and beast have fallen into the hands of the enemy. The distress
in the city was extreme. The Roman armies were encamped before the
town, and the Veientines pressed upon them hard; on which, in despair,
they resolved to venture on a piece of daring which must end either in
the ruin of Rome, or in its deliverance. They crossed the river, and
defeated the Etruscans; part of them stormed the Janiculum, others made
an attack higher up the river. They indeed suffered an immense loss in
men, but they drove off the enemy by this means. In this story, as we
have remarked before, there is a striking similarity to that of the
wars of Porsena. A year after, an armistice was concluded for forty
years of ten months, which was also actually kept.
After these events, the importance of the tribunate manifests itself in
a peculiar way. The tribunes summon the consuls of the past year before
the people; not, as our writers represent it, before the _Plebes_, for
as yet it was much too powerless to sit in judgment on the sovereign
magistrates; nor even before the centuries, which also were in fact
chiefly plebeian. But it was either not the tribunes at all, but on
the contrary, the quæstors; or what was much more likely, a great
change had taken place, so that the tribunes insisted upon the right
of prosecuting the consuls before their own community, the _Populus_,
because those whose proper duty it was, had forborne to do it. On
the conviction of the defendants, which ended in a moderate fine,
they proceeded to impeach the consuls, their successors. These were
acquitted; but the exasperation rose higher and higher. The tribunes
had brought their charge before the body of the citizens for matters
which it was authorized to judge; it was _majestas populi Romani
imminuta re male gesta_, therefore a _crimen majestatis_. Now they went
still farther. They summoned before the body of the _Plebes_ every one
of the consuls, who had been in office since Sp. Cassius, for not
having satisfied the people with regard to the _lex agraria_; according
to the old Italian principle that when two nations were bound together
by a treaty, the complaint of its breach was to be made before the
injured people. It is at variance with our ideas, that any one should
be judge in his own cause; yet it is every where the case among the old
Italian nations, so that the Romans even held the principle of giving
up to allied nations citizens who had wronged them. Of this we have
instances in the giving up of Mancinus to the Numantines; of Postumius
and his companions to the Samnites after the defeat of Caudium; of
Fabius who had aggrieved the envoys of Apollonia. This dedition of
those _qui in noxa sunt_ is generally demanded when a _rerum repetitio_
occurs. The Greeks did not hold this principle. There is, on the one
hand, a very generous notion at the bottom of it, that the oath taken
before judging the cause, would give sufficient protection; and on the
other, an idea which was also entertained by the ancient Germans. With
our forefathers, every member of a house was to bear witness for his
clansmen when called upon to do so (_consacramentales_), which is based
on the noble idea of faith and loyalty. A member of one’s own class
one cannot judge, but only defend, a principle which, it is true, has
been dreadfully abused. It is wonderful how impartial the tribunals
at Rome often were. The case also became less difficult owing to the
circumstance that the accused, until the passing of the sentence, was
at liberty to go away from Rome, and to betake himself to some town
allied by isopolity, as there were many. In Cære, for instance, one
could demand to be received as a citizen. The origin of that right
was in the Roman books dated as far back as T. Tatius, who refused to
give up to the people of Lavinium his kinsmen, by whom they had been
aggrieved; for which he was murdered. Afterwards, the Romans bring
those who had wronged the Lavinians, and the latter the murderers of
T. Tatius, mutually before each other’s tribunal.
A tribune of the people, Cn. Genucius, of a family already then
important, had appointed the charge against the former consuls _in
trinundinum_; and here the _Plebes_ itself was to judge. Its right,
according to the treaty solemnly sworn on the Sacred Mount, was by
no means doubtful, as little indeed as the issue of the trial. The
patricians, as the rage of faction was at its height, now found their
readiest expedient in an atrocious crime, in the murder of Genucius;
and thus the impeachment was put an end to. Dionysius justly remarks,
that if the perpetrators had contented themselves with this enormity,
the panic which they had spread might have sufficed. The tribunes
were thoroughly alarmed: their sacred office had been violated; as
their houses were to be open day and night, no precaution could guard
them against such foul play, against the intrusion of disguised
assassins;--the bravest man shrinks from such a danger. The assassins
of Genucius were not discovered; every one was paralysed with terror.
The patricians were in high glee at what they had done; and they
thought to make use of the first moment of fear for levying an army,
adding insult and outrage to crime. It was their intention to enlist
the most illustrious plebeians, and to execute them in the field, or
to let them fall a prey to the enemy. But they overshot themselves in
their overbearing insolence: for in their exultation they could not
wait, and they caused a distinguished plebeian, Volero Publilius, who
had before been a centurion, to be summoned, and wanted to enrol him as
a common soldier. Among the plebeians, as well as among the patricians,
there were distinguished families, there were rich and poor: to the
former class the Publilii belonged. Publilius refused; the consuls
sent their lictors to drag him _obtorto collo_ before their tribunal,
to strip him, and to flog him _servili modo_. The toga was a very wide
garment, of one piece, in the form of a semicircle, on which nothing
was sewn; the Romans entirely wrapped themselves up in it. Now, if one
was to be taken before the authorities, the beadles flung the ends of
the toga round his head, and thus dragged him before the magistrate,
often throttling him so tight about the neck that the blood flowed from
his mouth and nose. A man who was thus dragged away, tried to defend
himself by drawing the end of the toga to himself and pressing his arm
against it, on which the lictor would take a knife, and slit the toga:
he had then a place where he might lay hold on the prisoner and pull
him away. This was called _vestem scindere_. Yet the beadles were very
shy of having recourse to this means. Volero Publilius was resolute: he
flung the lictors aside, threw himself among the _Plebes_, and called
upon the tribunes for help. The tribunes were silent. Then he turned
to those of his own order, and a crowd collected fast, and easily kept
the lictors at bay. The young patricians hastened to the spot, and an
affray took place, in which the tyrants after a short time were driven
from the forum. The day after, the consuls again attempted to make a
levy with equally bad success; and they were obliged to give it up for
the whole of the year: the murder of Genucius had made matters much
worse. In the following year, Volero Publilius was elected tribune; a
proof that the confirmation by the curies was no more requisite.
An ordinary man would have brought the consuls of the bygone year
before the tribunal of the _Plebes_; yet this would have been but a
pitiful revenge. Publilius considered that the thorough exasperation of
the commonalty might be made use of to gain permanent rights for it;
and for this reason, contrary to the general expectation, he took a
step which he ought not to have taken, but which became the beginning
of a new order of things. He promulgated an address to the people,
declaring that they had a right to deliberate on matters of state at
the motion of the tribune; and, moreover, that the tribunes ought no
longer to be elected by the centuries, but by the tribes. In these
rogations, which are much more explicitly given in Dionysius and Dio
Cassius (in the abstract of Zonaras), we only miss one circumstance,
which was that such resolutions of the tribes were to be confirmed by
the senate and the curies; for it could not possibly be, that the Lex
Publilia should already put forth the claims of the Lex Hortensia. But
this is evident from the examples themselves.
This was now the order of business. The tribunes made their proposals
of laws on a market-day. For, the people, _Populus_ as well as
_Plebes_, could not legally transact business on every day; the curies
and the centuries only on the _dies comitiales_; the tribes only on the
_nundina_; by the Lex Hortensia, it was first allowed to assemble also
the centuries on the nundines. The special expressions are, _populus
jubet_, _plebs sciscit_; but it was never said, _plebs jubet_, or
_populiscitum_. The _Plebes_ in former times assembled in the Forum,
afterwards in the _Area Capitolina_: the _Populus_ in the Comitium, or
in a grove outside the Pomœrium, the _Æsculetum_ or _Lucus Petelinus_.
In the _concilium plebis_, they voted _tabellis_; in the concilium of
the curies, _viva voce_. In the _concilium populi_, no previous notice
needed to be given. Nothing could be taken to the _Plebes_ direct from
the senate; the latter could only commission the consuls to confer
with the tribunes about any thing: the curies on the other hand could
do no business without a _senatus-consultum_, and in their assemblies
nothing could be brought forward without a curule magistrate or an
_interrex_: in the assemblies of the _Plebes_ these did not even dare
to show themselves.[98] If the tribunes wished to propose a law for
deliberation to the commons, they set it up in the forum _in albo, in
trinundinum_, that is to say, to be decided upon after fifteen days,
the first nundines being included with them. A _concio advocata_ could
take place at any time: the forum was full every day; the tribune might
mount the rostra and harangue the people, and also allow others to
speak, especially those who wished to make themselves heard against
his proposal (_edocere plebem_). Yet this deliberation is only a
preliminary, not a decisive one; as when, for instance, the English
Parliament goes into committee, or the French Chambers deliberate in
the _bureaux_: different from it is that which takes place on the
day of voting. Every resolution, as well of the _Populus_ as of the
_Plebes_, was to be carried before sunset; otherwise the day was lost.
Auspices were valid for the _Plebes_ only in later times; as for the
_Populus_, a flash of lightning, or a similar phenomenon, broke up the
assembly (_dies diffisus_). If the tribune had announced the rogation
_in albo_ fifteen days before the decisive debate came on, we generally
imagine the affair to have been more tumultuous than it was. People
assembled early in the morning; the discussion lasted the whole day;
one after another stood up to speak for and against; the opponents
tried _eximere diem_, that the measure might not be passed before
sunset; the sunset was seen from the steps of the Curia Hostilia,[99]
and the _suprema tempestas_ proclaimed. The tribune had now to
wait again eight days, and to make a fresh announcement _in trinum
nundinum_. This form must have been used from the very earliest times
in all the resolutions of the _Plebes_; for _plebiscita_[100] there
have been as long as the _Plebes_ existed. But if, on the contrary,
one wished to go to the vote, the discussion was then closed, and the
tribune bade the patricians and the clients withdraw. The rostra stood
between the comitium and the forum, and to the former the _Populus_
retired. Hereupon ropes were drawn dividing the forum into a certain
number of squares; into each of these a tribe entered, and every tribe
then voted by itself under the direction of its tribune. When it was
now settled that such a resolution was passed by the tribes, the
patricians by law might throw it out, just as the Upper House and the
King may a bill of the Lower One; yet if the latter is earnestly and
decidedly bent upon having it carried, its rejection would be quite
impossible, as it would give the signal for the dissolution of the
state. They did not wish things to go so far; they therefore tried
to defeat a motion of this kind before hand. Yet what was gained by
its having miscarried to-day, when it might again be brought forward
on the morrow? A very great deal; in fact, three weeks’ time, within
which perhaps a war might arise, which would prevent it all. Nay, they
might drag it on through a whole year; only the evil in that case grew
worse and worse, and the struggle yet fiercer. This is the folly of
all oligarchs, which they continually repeat. The patricians were so
infatuated as not to see, that, if they gained over a sufficiently
strong party in the _Plebes_ itself against the measure, it would to
all intents and purposes be the same as if the resolution had been
actually carried, and then rejected; and yet that odium would not be
excited. In the end, the patricians never show the courage of letting
matters come to a crisis; but they yield with an ill grace, reserving
to themselves their old rights, from which they will never abate unless
driven to it by sheer force.
The great importance of the Publilian law is this, that the tribunes
now obtain the initiative. Hitherto it had entirely depended upon the
senate and the patricians whether a law should be discussed or not. The
consul first made a motion in the senate; the latter decided on it,
and then it came to the curies, or to the curies and centuries. But
if the tribunes were now free to propose a matter for debate in their
own community, they could by this means generally bring any subject
to discussion which needed it. There were points, many of them of the
highest importance, which urgently required change, and, but for the
Publilian rogation, never could have been mooted in a legal manner.
The Publilian laws were therefore beneficial, and yet I do not at all
blame the then holders of power for not acknowledging this: the fury
only with which they opposed them, was as blameable as it was ruinous.
By the manner of their resistance, the charge of illegality in point
of form, under which indeed the proposals of Publilius lay, was thrown
on the opposite side. The senate needed not have deliberated at all in
such a _plebiscitum_; yet when the tribunes requested the _Populus_ to
leave the Forum, the patricians refused to withdraw, and, spreading
with their clients over the whole of the forum, so that the plebeians
could not come to give their votes, they drove away the beadles who
carried the urns, threw out the voting tablets, and did many other
things of the same kind. When this had been tried more than once, there
was at last a fight, in which the patricians and their consul Appius
Claudius were driven from the market-place. The consequence of this was
a general panic among the patricians. Yet matters did not stop there,
but the _Plebes_ put themselves in possession of the Capitol, though
without abusing their victory; for, the oppressed party frequently
restrains itself after having conquered: they only needed their victory
that they might carry their resolutions. Although Appius even now
exerted all his influence to make the senate withhold its sanction, yet
the senators saw the danger too well, and assented to the law. Livy
refers this law merely to the election of the tribunes; Dionysius and
Dio Cassius in Zonaras contain the more correct view. Livy, however,
at the conclusion of his narrative, in touching upon some points,
presupposes all the rest.
If the patricians had been wise, they ought to have been rejoiced at
the result; at least, nobody could have deemed it to be a misfortune.
From such a law it is not possible to retrograde; but instead of
seeing this, the patricians were ever trying to undo what had been
done, and to take revenge. The plebeians still continued to refuse
obedience to the consul whom they had not elected. This was the plight
in which Appius Claudius found himself, when he led an army against
the Volscians. He began on the march ruthlessly to punish the soldiers
for the most trifling offences,--to torture them--even, as Dionysius
from old traditions very credibly relates. The plebeians opposed to
him a dogged resistance, and let themselves rather be punished, than
obey him. Immediately before the battle they resolved upon flight, and
they fled into the camp, although the Volscians did not the less for
this pursue and slay them: they even left the camp, and did not stop
until they had reached the Roman territory. On this, Appius now did
what might seem to us incredible, if it were not accounted for by the
influence of the allies, the Hernicans and Latins, who were under his
command. He decimated the army, and led the decimated troops back to
Rome. For this he was impeached the year after by the tribunes before
the _Plebes_. Livy’s masterly narrative of it we may consider as
derived from an actual eye-witness of the event. Appius displays the
greatest insolence and pride before the _Plebes_, disdaining to soothe
it by prayers; even the tribunes allow themselves to be overawed by
him. The two historians agree in stating that the tribunes granted him
a respite that he might die by his own hand; and that he made use of it
before the dawn of the following day, to save himself from a shameful
death.
Hereupon the home dissensions are at rest for a while, and the foreign
wars acquire considerable importance.
WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND ÆQUIANS. PLAGUE. CINCINNATUS. CÆSO
QUINCTIUS. CORIOLANUS.
In the year 286, the Romans conquer Antium, or, according to another
more probable account, Antium opens its gates to them. In the narrative
as we have it, the town is Volscian, and part of the population fly to
the Volscians at Ecetræ. Antium, just like Agylla and the other towns
on the coast, was originally Tyrrhenian; yet there may have been a
party uppermost in it, which, feeling itself too weak, called in the
Volscians, and Ecetræ, the south-eastern capital of this people, may
have sent a colony thither. This colony again was opposed by part of
the citizens; these called in the Romans, and the Volscians returned
to Ecetræ. The Volscians now wished to regain what they had lost, and
thence arose these obstinate wars. After Antium had surrendered to the
Romans and their allies, it received a colony of Romans, Latins, and
Hernicans,--a proof, that these three people divided their conquests in
equal shares. It is evident enough how this is perverted in Dionysius:
Livy thinks that too few Romans had liked to go thither. Antium was
now linked to the three confederates. The old Antiates formed the
commonalty, and the citizens of the three united states its colony,
there being probably three hundred from each, and four hundred from
the Hernicans only; for among these the division into four seems to
have been prevalent, whence also the _cohortes quadringenariæ_ are
mentioned. The _Antiates mille milites_, who are met with in the later
Volscian wars, seem to have reference to this colony. But as the
Romans at that time were not the strongest in the field, and the old
inhabitants were always badly off in a colony, it is quite accountable,
that Antium after ten years should have fallen off again, in the same
manner as it had joined the Romans.
This success of the Romans in the war was but transitory. Here ends our
first period, and these contests now assume quite a new character.
The Æquians, who at that time must have been a great people (Cicero
also calls them _gens magna_), seem until then to have taken little
share in the war: yet by the loss of Antium, not only the Volscians of
Ecetræ were roused to vigorous exertions, but also the Æquians. Over
the disasters of the Romans which followed, a veil has been drawn. The
enemy appear to have advanced to the confines of the Roman borders; in
another place, we find the Volscians in the neighbourhood of Velitræ;
and now they are every year on the Algidus, and get possession of the
Arx of Tusculum, which is only with difficulty wrested from them.
Several Latin towns utterly disappear: Corioli is destroyed; Lavici
becomes an Æquian town; Gabii was as late as in Dionysius’ times
devastated within its walls; Præneste is no more spoken of, and, when
after a hundred years it is mentioned again, it is hostile to Rome; the
nearest places only, as Tusculum and Lavinium, remain with the Romans;
Rome’s boundary is on the other side of the hills of Tusculum, Circeii,
Velitræ, Norba, and other places farther to the east, are lost. Thus it
is certain that more than half of Latium is conquered; by the Æquians,
from the Anio, and by the Volscians, from the sea shore.
We find some sort of allusion to this in the story of Coriolanus; for
the Romans tried to console themselves by attributing these victories
to one of their own countrymen, as indeed is so natural. Yet the whole
story of Coriolanus is for all that neither more nor less than a poem,
in which on one man and into one period events are concentrated which
are spread over several years; and besides this, it is dated too
early. However hard pressed the Romans may have been, it is not to be
supposed that whilst the enemy were marching victorious from one town
to the other, there should have been nothing said either of consuls
or of armies sent against them. Only in the enumeration of the places
which were destroyed, have we the intimation of those, which after the
breaking up of Latium became Volscian.
The Volscians advanced so far that men and beasts had to be brought
within the walls of Rome, and a plague arose from this crowded state
of the city. Lowness of spirits always makes people susceptible to
epidemics. Thus in the Peloponnesian war, it was the despair of the
Attic peasants, at seeing from the battlements their farms set fire
to, and their olive groves cut down, which developed the seeds of the
epidemic; the yellow fever at Cadiz in 1800 grew much more violent from
the despondency of the host of people which had flocked in without any
means of livelihood. The unfavourable season,--it was in August,--the
unwonted manner of life, the effluvia from the cattle, the want of
water and of cleanliness, might have contributed much to the breaking
out of the plague; yet it is likely that the great epidemic, which
thirty years later broke out in Greece, and afterwards in Carthage,
had begun already then. The mortality was very great; it was a true
pestilence, not a mere fever, which might have been brought on by
passing the night in the open air. There died the two consuls, two of
the four augurs, the _Curio Maximus_, the fourth part of the senate,
and a countless number of citizens of all ranks; so that the dead
carts did not suffice even to throw the corpses into the river. They
were cast into the sewers by which the evil became still greater. In
the meanwhile, the Volscians and Æquians were overrunning Latium. The
Latins resisted, but suffered a terrible defeat in the valley of Grotta
Ferrara. In the following year, we read nothing of victories: the
disease may have attacked the enemy also, and Rome thereby been saved.
After some years, the plague shows itself again.
The details of the accounts of this war are in part deserving of no
notice whatever: many of them were invented only very late, in order
to enliven with some cheerful images that dismal time. The scene of
the wars is always on the Algidus, which is not a mountain, but a cold
rugged height extending several leagues between Tusculum and Velitræ,
where the different streams divide, which partly flow towards the
Liris and the Pontine marshes, and partly towards the Anio. Horace
says, _nigræ feraci frondis in Algido_. The country round is barren,
and was in olden times, as is it to this day, overgrown with evergreen
holm oaks. It was several years ago the constant haunt of robbers, so
that I did not see it; but I have gathered very accurate information
concerning it. Here the Æquians and Volscians always appear, and unite
their armies. Here also is the scene of the poetical tale of the
victory of Cincinnatus over the Volscians. This, at least in the form
in which it has been handed down to us, belongs to a very fine cycle of
legends; but it is connected with the earlier events which happened at
home.
The Publilian law could not remain without consequences unfavourable to
peace. The great grievance was the unlimited rule of the consuls. The
consuls had come into the place of the kings, and though restricted as
to time, in their power they were hardly beneath them, the consequences
of which became apparent when there was an enlistment of troops. As
the tribunes were now authorized to propose laws, it was first moved
by C. Terentilius Harsa to appoint five men who were to draw up a law
declaring the limits of the consular authority. This undertaking was
very difficult to carry out. In reality, the supreme power can never
be perfectly defined, and least of all in free republics: it ought to
have a certain degree of pliancy, in order to admit of extraordinary
expedients. The Roman republic acknowledges this principle in the
formula, _videant Consules, ne quid detrimenti res publica capiat_,
which in the earlier times was something quite ordinary; and in such
conjunctures the limits of lawful use or of abuse could not be
easily laid down. This is one of those points with regard to which we
may fully understand, how with the greatest honesty on both sides,
people may have spoken for and against. At the same time, if there
existed a difference of opinion, it ought not to have been envenomed.
The question may, however, from the very beginning have had a wider
meaning: it was perhaps intended by it to divide the consulship equally
between the two orders.
During the first year, the commotions were still moderate; in the
next they grew more violent, since another tribune, according to
Dionysius’ account, again took up the _lex Terentilia_, but with this
addition, that Decemvirs,--five from the _Patres_, and five from
the plebeians,--were to make a general revision of the laws. The
legislations of old did not only comprehend civil and criminal law
and judicial procedure, but political law besides, and even transient
measures also. Solon’s legislation, for instance, was a complete
alteration of the constitution; but it likewise contained regulations
concerning matters of quite momentary interest, as for the payment
of debts. The idea so lately in vogue, that general legislations
were to issue from a great assembly of men learned in the law, was
quite foreign to the ancients, who were well aware, that a few only
ought to discuss the laws, and the larger assembly merely to adopt
or reject, inasmuch as it had to sanction them. This is the natural
course of legislation, and for this reason the ancients for the most
part held the principle, that lawgiving ought to be quite independent
of magistracy. In all the republics of antiquity, one or a few were
appointed to make the laws, and the people said yes or no. It was
the same among the Romans: ten men were to be nominated _legibus
scribundis_, to whom moreover consular power was to be granted. When we
see from the remnants of the Roman laws, how lengthy a single statute
was, the fact is easily accounted for that few only read them; yet
the majority did not know in the least what was spoken of, and thus
republican form in such transactions is necessarily a mere phantom.
Dionysius has this very happy expression, that the Romans had aimed
at ἰσονομία, and that they had attained to ἰσηγορία.[101] From an
occasional remark of Tacitus we know, that the ancient laws were for
the most part ascribed to kings, Romulus, Numa, Tullus, and Ancus.
This shows, that each of the three old tribes and the _Plebes_ had
their own peculiar law which was derived from their first founders.
These tribes and the _Plebes_, which had originally been separate
civic communities, had retained their old statutes when they united
into one state. I think I have been told of more than a hundred sets
of statutes, all of which, before the revolution, were in force in
the States of the Church. Many a village in Italy which does not
number a hundred hearths, has its own common law: Abbate Morelli has
collected three hundred different varieties of statutes in Italy. This
is likewise the case in many districts of Germany; yet there are also
very large tracts of country there, in which one and the same law of
the land prevails. It cannot even be stated with certainty whether
the whole of the _Plebes_ had the same law; whether in places like
Medullia and Politorium a different system was not in vogue. This
seems indeed to be contradicted by the fact that Servius Tullius swept
away every difference among the plebeians; but on the other hand it
seems confirmed by the circumstance that there were towns like Cameria
and others, which existed as _Coloniæ Romanæ_, and formed separate
communities. The ancients had a tradition according to which the clause
in the Twelve Tables, that the _Fortes_ and the _Sanates_ were to have
equal rights, applied to certain places, as for instance, to Tibur.
On the establishment of such an equality, the chiefs of the _Plebes_
might very well insist, as the disadvantages of this difference of
usages must have been great enough to have been very severely felt.
Abolition of all that constituted a glaring and oppressive inequality
was the object of this reform, and this the tribunes might certainly
demand. Still there existed no _connubium_ between patricians and
plebeians; the child took its rank from the parent of the worse blood
(_deteriorem partem sequi_). Thus in the Italian cities, Lombards,
Franks, Romans, and others, lived together for centuries under their
own peculiar laws; but this, by its very inconvenience, afterwards gave
rise to the statute law with equal rights.
Yet the tribunes went further: as the laws also affected political
rights, the lawgivers had likewise to reform the constitution. By the
Publilian Rogations, a life had been awakened in the nation which
was not in harmony with the ruling power: a new state of things was
necessarily to spring up from it; but against this new state of things
the old was arrayed in opposition. The most violent resistance was
made to this law, and the patricians had recourse to the same outrages
of which they had formerly been guilty. In this Cæso Quinctius, a son
of Cincinnatus, particularly distinguished himself. He repeated all
the intrigues of Appius Claudius, and at the head of the young men
of his order and of the clients, he again prevented the plebeians
by force from voting. Against this, either at that time, or a year
before, a law had been passed, the _lex Junia_, which is inconceivably
dated by Dionysius[102] thirty years earlier (262). By virtue of it,
any one who molested the tribunes in the discharge of their duty was
guilty of high treason against the commonalty. He had to find bail
for an amount to be fixed by the tribunes (the usual number was ten
sureties, for three thousand asses each), and if he did not attend
to receive sentence, the sureties and their goods were forfeited to
the commonalty. When the trial began, the charge was brought against
him, that with a gang of young patricians he had caused the death of
a plebeian by ill usage. Thus the Pentalides ran about in Mitylene
with clubs, and ill used the plebeians there; as late as during the
minority of Louis XIV. similar scenes took place in Paris, where people
would not go out into the streets unarmed, as they were afraid of
being attacked; in the times of Queen Anne, there was also in London
a band of young men of rank, called Mohocks, who infested the streets
in disguise; under King William, Lord Bolingbroke belonged to such a
crew, as we see from Swift’s correspondence. The charge raised such
a feeling of exasperation against Cæso Quinctius, that he left the
city. It is now stated that his father was ruined in consequence, the
tribunes having cruelly exacted the whole amount of the bail from
him. This is impossible; for the tribunes could only come upon the
securities. If these chose to come upon the father, a _sponsio_ must
have preceded; and even then, a man of so distinguished a house could
not possibly have been bereft of rights which belonged to the very
meanest of his order, but he might have called upon his clansmen and
clients to indemnify him. The story is a fiction, like so many others
which go a step beyond the truth. These embellishments might have been
made skilfully so as to deceive us; but luckily we cannot be mistaken
in this case.
Cincinnatus is one of those characters which have a very great name in
tradition, but of which the notices in history are scanty, and nearly
worthless. He occurs afterwards as a consul, and on that occasion
nothing more of any consequence is recorded. Striking facts are told of
him only in the Æquian war. There is a _prestige_ of wealth and also of
poverty about him: the latter shines forth especially in a rhetorical
age, when no one has a mind to be poor, and it seems so much the more
inconceivable if a great man is poor. We may leave the old account as
it is; but the enthusiasm which has arisen from it, is only foisted
into history. Perizonius has remarked, that the same story as that
of Cincinnatus was told of the dictator Atilius Serranus (_te sulco
Serrane serentem_), and therefore is quite apocryphal. He thinks that
in all likelihood it was made from the name (_Serranus_ from _serere_),
which was certainly older than the dictator Serranus. The story of
Cincinnatus is preserved in a poem on his dictatorship.
A Roman army under the consul Minucius was surrounded on the Algidus
by the Æquians; the senate, as is stated, then sent a deputation to
Cincinnatus, which found him ploughing his little farm of four _jugera_
beyond the river; he is said to have received the invitation of the
senate, and to have obeyed it with a bleeding heart, since he had still
the fate of his son before his mind. He then chose a brave but poor
patrician, L. Tarquitius, as his Master of the Horse; and gave orders
that all who were able to bear arms should present themselves, and that
each should bring with him twelve palisades, and provisions for five
days. In the night they accordingly set out, arrived on the following
morning, and formed the army in a line around the Æquian camp. The
consul broke through from within, and the Æquians, themselves enclosed
by a palisaded ditch, were obliged to surrender.
The whole story is quite as much a day dream, as any tale to be found
in the “Book of Heroes.” If the Roman army was in the middle, and round
it an Æquian one, and round that again another line of Romans, the
latter must have occupied a circuit of at least a league; so that the
Æquians could have broken through without any difficulty. Yet I will
not assert that this dictatorship of Cincinnatus is not historical at
all; although it is strange that afterwards a similar account occurs
at the siege of Ardea, and the same Clœlius Gracchus as a general in
it. Cincinnatus now exerts his power, to have Volscius, who had deposed
as a witness against Cæso Quinctius, banished; probably by the curies,
as the centuries had not as yet any judicial authority. At that time,
Cæso Quinctius was no more alive: it is likely that he had already
perished the year before on the following occasion, in which the spirit
of the age shows itself in its true light. When he had expatriated
himself, the tribunes remarked symptoms of a conspiracy among the
patrician youth, and had information that Cæso was in the town.
Moreover it is said that the city was surprised from the Carmental
gate, which was open, by a host of patrician clients, headed by the
Sabine Appius Herdonius who had come down the river in boats. But such
an enlistment of four thousand men must have been known at Rome, as
there was peace with the Sabines, and although the gate was to have
been open on account of a consecration, yet it surely was guarded by
double sentries; the enemy could not possibly have passed the Field of
Mars unheeded, and have occupied the Capitoline hill; the Clivus at
all events was closed. There must therefore have been treason here.
In the night people were awakened by the cry, that the enemy had got
hold of the Capitol; all who did not join the enemy were slain; the
slaves were called upon to unite with them. This of course excited
the greatest alarm and general misgiving. The plebeians thought that
it was a stratagem of the patricians, and that they had set on their
clients to take possession of the Capitol, as a means of intimidating
the plebeians; that the consuls would, as in a tumult, require them to
be sworn unconditionally, and would then avail themselves of the oath
to lead them to a place beyond the reach of the tribunician authority,
and demand of them the renunciation of their rights. The tribunes
therefore said that they could not allow the commonalty to take up
arms, before the laws were adopted. We may believe, notwithstanding,
that the government was altogether guiltless. It seems certain, that
there was a conspiracy, in which Cæso Quinctius had a share, and that
they had promised to make Appius Herdonius king. There may have been
here besides a conspiracy of the _Gentes Minores_; for one still finds
a great division between them and the _Majores_. When it was seen how
matters stood, the tribunes consented that the commonalty should take
the military oath; and under the command of the consul, the Capitol
was stormed. Luckily there seems to have been an armistice with the
Æquians; yet such a state of affairs was always dangerous, for one
could not reckon indeed with any safety that the truce would last. The
consul Valerius, the son of Poplicola, the very one who is said to
have been killed at the Regillus, was among the slain; the Capitol was
taken by assault; of those who were in it, the slaves were crucified,
and the freemen were executed. Cæso Quinctius may have been also among
the latter; and for this his father now took a revenge, pardonable
indeed, yet at all events ungenerous, in banishing Volscius, the
prosecutor of his son. The tribunes of the people are stated to have
vetoed this charge; a remarkable instance of their power, which at that
time was very great already: perhaps they only took the accused under
their protection, not allowing him to be brought by force before the
tribunal; the expression _patricios coire non passi sunt_, is first
used in later times. There were disputes about this trial for one or
two years; for Cincinnatus as consul, or as dictator (very likely the
latter), would not resign his office before Volscius was condemned.
Volscius went into exile. His cognomen Fictor is one of those instances
in which either the name arose from the tale, or the tale from the
name, being probably from _fingere_; so that the fact that the plebeian
M. Volscius Fictor had been condemned, gave rise to the story that he
had borne false witness.
It is evident, that Cincinnatus has been preposterously idolized by
posterity. Twenty years after this event, we see him, quite in the
interest of a faction, shedding the innocent blood of Mælius.
After the war of 296, the history takes a different turn. Concerning
the causes of this change we find no special notice; yet the
combination of several circumstances leaves no doubt but that
an alliance of peace and friendship was then concluded with the
Volscians of Ecetræ, of which the condition was to restore Antium to
the Volscians; so that this town now takes that character which it
preserved for a hundred and twenty years, until after the Latin war.
For, from that time the Volscians no longer appear every year on the
Algidus; only the Æquians are enemies still, but indeed enemies of no
consequence. The Antiates and Ecetrans from henceforth take a share in
the festivals on the Alban Mount, the _Feriæ Latinæ_. This is referred
to the days of Tarquin the Proud; but in that age Antium was not yet
Volscian. Before the year 290, the census amounted to 104,000; after
the plague, we find this number reduced not more than an eighth,
although one fourth of the senate had been swept away, which is owing
to the Volscians having been admitted to the right of _municipium_.
Citizens they were not; the census therefore did not comprise the Roman
citizens only. Yet the story of Coriolanus in particular is a proof
of this compromise. Coriolanus is said to have made it a condition
to the Romans, to give back the places which they had taken from the
Volscians, and to receive the Volscians as isopolites. Both of these
things were done: Antium is restored, the isopolity granted. Either to
this tradition has been transferred whatever is historically related of
the great Volscian war, or the story of Coriolanus is the catastrophe
of this struggle which brings on the peace; that is to say, Coriolanus
is really commander and mediator in this war.
That his history is not in its proper place, is manifest. The law
against those who should disturb the popular assembly could not
certainly have been made before the Publilian Rogations. If the
Volscians had advanced to the gates of Rome as early as we find it
stated in our books, there would not have been left any demesne for
the distribution of which Sp. Cassius could have proposed a law; and,
in fact, after the disastrous Volscian wars the agitations about the
agrarian laws are at an end, because there was then no occasion for
them. Moreover, if the war of Coriolanus in the year 262, had been
carried on in the manner in which it appears to have been from the
narrative, the Romans would not have had to restore any thing to the
Volscians; but after the great Volscian war, these possessed Antium.
Lastly, the demanded isopolity was really granted in the year 296,
as is proved by the numbers of the census.--As to the giving up of
Antium, the Romans say that it had fallen off: yet this is absurd
with regard to a colony. The Roman colony was simply withdrawn, and
the old Tyrrhenian population left to the Volscians. Even what is
mentioned as the cause of the breaking out of the war of Coriolanus,
that is to say, the account of the famine, during which a Greek king
of Sicily was said to have sent a gift of corn, points to a later
period. After the destructive Veientine war, under the consulship of
Virginius and Servilius, the surrounding country had been burnt and
devastated during the harvest and seed-time. In the year 262, Gelon
was at most only prince of the insignificant town of Gela. Dionysius
of Halicarnassus shows himself very clever at the expense of the old
annalists who mention here the tyrant Dionysius, when he proves that
the latter began his reign some eighty years later; yet he deserves
much more severe censure himself, as he names Gelon. But after the
Veientine war, according to the more probable chronology, Gelon, or at
least his brother Hiero, was ruler of Syracuse, and had, on account of
his hostility against the Etruscans, substantial reason to support the
Romans. All the circumstances indicate the time which we have fixed
upon. What gave rise to the mistake, was the mention of the temple of
the _Fortuna Muliebris_, as has been remarked before; yet this surely
belongs to an earlier period. The daughter of Valerius Poplicola is
mentioned as the first priestess; if it were at all connected with the
history of Coriolanus, his wife, or his mother, would have been the
first priestess. The account is now as follows.
C. or as others call him, Cn. Marcius Coriolanus, a young patrician of
eminence, very likely of the lesser clans, as these are on the whole
most opposed to the _Plebes_, had distinguished himself in the wars
against the Antiates. He had been commanding officer in the army which
the consuls had led against the Volscians, at a time which of course
the poem does not specify. The army besieged Corioli; the Volscians,
advancing from Antium, wished to relieve it; Coriolanus took it by
storm, whilst the army of the consul fought against the Antiates. For
this his name was given him, and he was highly extolled. Yet the same
person who in the war appears as a youth, is also a member of the
senate, and stands there at the head of the oligarchic faction. There
was a famine; and in contradiction to the plebeian statement that the
_Plebes_ during the secession had not been guilty of pillage, it is
now said that the land had been devastated by them. The whole story
is evidently of patrician origin; it glaringly shows the colouring of
the caste. Fruitless attempts were made to procure corn: money was
sent to Sicily to buy some; but the Greek king returned the money,
and gave the corn as a present. Perhaps it was a gift from Carthage.
Now it had been discussed in the senate what should be done with this
corn. Coriolanus had proposed, that it should neither be sold nor
distributed, unless the commonalty renounced its newly acquired rights,
selling them for a mess of pottage. Another proposition not much more
commendable, was that it should be sold to the commonalty as a body,
so that individuals had to buy it of second hand. In this manner
the patricians got double the prime cost. This plan was adopted. As
might be expected, it excited great exasperation; at the same time, it
also transpired that Coriolanus had insisted upon making use of the
opportunity to do away with the privileges. The sequel is briefly told
by Livy; Dionysius relates it at great length. According to Livy, the
tribunes brought a charge against him, as one who had broken the peace;
and they had a full right to do so by virtue of the agreement sworn at
the Sacred Mount. The impeachment, of course, was brought before the
_Plebes_, a fact indeed which Dionysius does not perceive. Coriolanus
therefore was put on his trial before the tribes, with permission
to leave the country before the decision was pronounced. This might
be done, if bail were found; only not in the way that is generally
imagined. Coriolanus is said to have met the charge proudly: Livy,
however, tells us that he had not appeared on the day that judgment
was given, but had withdrawn before the sentence was made known. Now
if he had settled in some place where he had received the right of
citizenship, the sentence could not be passed; or, if it were passed,
it was null and void, though his sureties had to pay the sums for which
they had bound themselves. Coriolanus was perhaps the first who was
allowed on this charge to find bail. According to the general account,
he now betook himself to the Volscians. This is true;--I believe
every thing as far as here,--yet his presenting himself to Attius
Tullius at Antium is apocryphal, and entirely copied from the visit
of Themistocles to Admetus, the king of the Molossians. It is then
stated, that he induced the Volscians, who had been quite disheartened,
to hazard a war once more. This is Roman exaggeration, intended to
disguise the distress which had been brought on by the Volscian arms.
It is related, how he conquered the towns one by one, first Circeri,
then those lying to the south of the Appian Way, then those on the
Latin road; and how at last he advanced against Rome itself. This
does not agree with what follows. Coriolanus now appears on the Roman
frontier near the Marrana, the canal which carries the water of the low
ground at Grotta Ferrara into the Tiber, five miles from Rome. Here the
Romans send an embassy to him: first of all, ten senators; he grants
them thirty days, and then three, as the Fetiales did whenever a war
was not yet declared; afterwards they send the priests, and at length
the matrons also. These last move his heart, and prevail upon him to
turn back.
This is all very pretty, but, if we look a little closer to it,
impossible. Livy makes on this occasion a most remarkable assertion.
He says that one would not indeed have known that the consuls of that
year had waged war with the Volscians, had it not been evident from
the league of Sp. Cassius with the Latins that one of them, Postumus
Cominius, had been absent; for Sp. Cassius had concluded that treaty
alone. To account for this, Livy alleges the eclipsing fame of
Coriolanus. This is a most valuable notice. The old traditions then do
not mention at all that the consul had taken Corioli, but merely that
Coriolanus had. Now, as we have seen before, it is not true that he
received his cognomen from the conquest of the town, as such surnames
do not occur before Scipio Africanus; moreover, Corioli was at that
time not a Volscian, but a Latin town, which first became Volscian
in the great Volscian war which we call that of Coriolanus, and was
destroyed only later. That it was Latin, is plain from the list of the
thirty towns which shared in the fight at the Regillus; and yet indeed
that list in all likelihood was not originally made out with reference
to this, but to the league of Sp. Cassius. Thus the name of Coriolanus
meant no more than that of Regillensis, Vibulanus, Mugillanus, and
others, whether it was that Corioli stood in a relation of proxeny or
clientship to his family, or from any other reason. We have therefore
nothing historical concerning Coriolanus, but that he wished to break
the treaty with the plebeians, and was therefore condemned. It is the
same with all the rest of his story. Coriolanus was condemned as one
who had transgressed against the sworn rights (_leges sacratæ_, the
German _Frohnenrechte_). He who violated them, made both himself and
his family accursed; and it was said that such persons were to be sold
for slaves at the temple of Ceres. How then could his wife and children
have stayed behind in Rome, if such a sentence had been passed upon
them? Mercy is not to be thought of in those times. The places against
which Coriolanus waged war, were in alliance with Rome; whosoever
therefore warred against them, was at war with the Romans, and Rome
would already then have been obliged to take the field. And so, when he
appeared before Rome, he could no more offer war or peace, but merely
an armistice, nor could he settle the conditions of the truce; while on
the other hand, the Romans could not possibly conclude peace on their
own account without bringing in the Latins and Hernicans. Moreover, it
is stated in the old narrative, that repeal of the _interdictio aquæ et
ignis_ had been announced to Coriolanus; but that he had not accepted
it, but had put forth claims in the name of the Volscians. Yet, after
the matrons had moved him, he goes off, and abandons all the conditions
made in their behalf. Thenceforward we find no more traces of him
beyond the notice in Fabius, that to the end of his days he dwelt among
the Volscians; and that it was a remark of his, that in old age one
began really to feel, what it was to live away from one’s native land.
Others were well aware that the Volscians could not have let things
pass off in this way; and hence we are told that they had followed
him on account of his personal superiority, but that afterwards,
when he left them, they stoned him to death at the instigation of
Attius Tullius. Yet even Livy does not believe in this, because it is
contradicted by the statement of Fabius.
The story is not altogether a fiction: Coriolanus lives too much in
the Roman legends for this to be the case. As for the assertion that
he was general of the Volscians, it is to be attributed to the natural
feeling that it is less painful to be conquered by one’s own countryman
than by a foreigner. From such a feeling of national pride, the Romans
gave a false colouring to the Volscian war, and thus softened down,
for themselves and the Latins, the disgrace of a defeat which led
to such great conquests of the Volscians. In the same spirit, they
devised the tale of the magnanimity of Coriolanus, and likewise of his
death; and I am convinced that Fabius Pictor was right in asserting
that Coriolanus, even to an advanced age, lived in exile among the
Volscians. That Rome was on the brink of utter ruin, is likely; the
distress, as represented, is perhaps not quite fictitious; but, that
the expedients for warding off the danger, namely, the three embassies,
of the senate, the priests, and the matrons, were invented to glorify
the hero, is not to be denied. The different orders in their narratives
mutually revile each other; and thus the _Plebes_ here shows itself at
once discouraged, and the patricians proud, as if they did not wish for
a reconciliation with Coriolanus.
I believe that the real truth is something quite different. At that
period when so many emigrants of the times of the Tarquins still
existed, who flocked together wherever a new gathering point presented
itself, I consider Coriolanus as one, who, on his retiring to the
Volscians, formed such a centre. As he finds an army of Roman emigrants
who are joined by the Volscians, he makes his appearance with them
on the Roman frontier. He could not, however, have had any idea of
forcing the walls of the city; but he encamped, just like a man in the
history of Dittmarsch who had renounced his country, and he threatened
war against it. He grants a respite, at first of thirty days, that the
senate might deliberate whether his demands were to be conceded or
no; and when this was not done, he waited for three days more, this
being the time which the state or the general asking for satisfaction,
still took to consider, whether war was to be declared, or how to
decide on any proposals which might have been made. Coriolanus had come
with partisans of the Tarquins, and likewise with many who had fled
the country for their crimes, and lastly with Volscians. The republic
invited him to return; the supplications of the mother, the wife, and
the matrons could have had no other meaning--but to urge him at least
to come alone, and not to bring back the terrible band. He probably
answered, that he could not enter alone, that he could not leave his
companions. If he returned, nothing remained for him but to be a tyrant
in his own native land, as we know from Greek history that the return
of the φυγάδες is an awful calamity; the ousted party cannot but crush
the other entirely. We see him here as a noble-hearted man, who will
not thus return, but rather dismisses his followers upon whom he must
have made an impression by his having renounced his country; such a
paramount influence could easily be exercised by a great man in times
like those. He did not compromise the interests of the Volscians: it
is possible that he really mediated for them, and obtained the cession
of Antium and isopolity. Thus he fulfilled his duty towards those who
had received him, and for Rome he gained the immense advantage that it
was now reconciled with its most dangerous enemy; for, the Volscians
had pressed upon Rome the hardest, and henceforth there remained only
the Æquians, whom it was easy to resist. The childish vanity of the
Romans has thrown so thick a veil upon this Volscian peace, but for
which every thing would be unconnected. It saved Rome, and gave it new
strength; and the state, with great wisdom, now turned this time to
account.
It is one of the distinguishing features of Roman history, that many
an event which seemed necessarily to lead to ruin, only brought out a
new career of prosperity. After the plague, one might have expected
the fall of Rome; and the peace with the Volscians was in the eyes of
the later Romans, who for this very reason tried to conceal it, in
some measure a humiliation; yet we have seen, how wise and fortunate
it was. From it there arose a source of power for Rome, which, even in
the most successful issue of the war, it would have been far from ever
possessing. The dissolution of the Latin state destroyed _de facto_ the
equality which was established in the league. The general opinion in
Dionysius, and also in Livy, is this, that the Latins were subjects of
the Romans, and that the war under Manlius and Decius in the year 410
(415), was a kind of rebellion. This is contradicted by the notice of
Cincius in Festus, according to which,--in his opinion, since Tullus
Hostilius--the Latins had their separate republic, and the supremacy
alternately with Rome. The true account is as follows: In the times
from Servius Tullius down to Tarquin the Proud, the Latins were on
a footing of equality with Rome; under Tarquin, they were subjects.
This state of submission was done away with by the defection of Latium
after the expulsion of the kings; after the battle at the Regillus,
it was perhaps restored for a couple of years; and at last, equality
was again established in the league of Sp. Cassius. In point of fact,
it continued for thirty years; but when the Latin towns were partly
occupied, partly destroyed by the Volscians, scarcely the fourth part
of the Latin league was left, and this could no more put forth the same
claims to equality as the whole state had done. It is evident, that
in the beginning of the fourth century, no ties of home policy bind
the Latin towns together any more. They have hardly a common tribunal
still: some towns, Ardea for instance, were entirely severed from
the rest. And thus the Latins are once more subjected to the Roman
sovereignty, as they were under Tarquin the Proud. The distinction
between the different times is the only clue to this labyrinth. Of the
Hernicans I cannot assert this with positive certainty; yet it seems
to me very likely. After the burning of the city by the Gauls, the
Latins again broke loose from the Roman sway, and renewed their claims
to equality; and, in consequence, there arose a war of thirty-two,
or according to the more probable chronology, of twenty-eight years,
which ended in a peace by which the old league of Sp. Cassius was
re-established. In the meanwhile, the Volscian war had for Rome this
advantage, that it stood alone indeed, but unmolested.
In Rome there was still at that time a considerable degree of
fermentation. According to Dio Cassius, it was by no means seldom that
distinguished plebeians were made away with by assassination. During
these dissensions, the agrarian law, and that on the νομοθέται, are
brought forward at every turn. It cannot be made out what interest the
_Plebes_ had in the increase of the number of tribunes to ten, two for
each class: their authority could not have been raised by this means.
A strange story, which is, however, enveloped in great obscurity,
belongs to this time of the increase of the tribunes. It is stated
in Valerius Maximus, that a tribune, P. Mucius, had caused his nine
colleagues to be burnt alive as traitors, because, headed by Sp.
Cassius, they had hindered the election of the magistrates. There is
here an evident confusion of dates, as ten tribunes were first elected
in 297, twenty-eight years after the consulship of Sp. Cassius. Two
hypotheses may be set up to account for this. Either these tribunes
were traitors to the _Plebes_, which is not likely, as the election
lay with the tribes; or P. Mucius was not a tribune of the people;
or at least he did not pronounce the sentence, but it was the curies
which did so, and they must have condemned the tribunes as breakers
of the peace. There must be something in this story, as Zonaras (from
Dio) likewise mentions it; perhaps this event is identical with the
impeachment of nine tribunes in Livy, about the time of the Canuleian
quarrels.
LEGISLATION OF THE TWELVE TABLES.
We pass over the unimportant wars with the Æquians and Sabines, and
over some laws which indeed are of the greatest moment for the study
of antiquity. If we could review in detail the debates on the Lex
Terentilia concerning the equalization of the two orders, it would be
very interesting; but this is impossible, and we can only dwell on
quite detached notices. One of them is this, that a trireme was sent
out from Rome with three envoys to collect the Greek laws, particularly
those of Athens. The credibility of this story has been much discussed.
I now retract the opinion which I expressed in the first edition of
my Roman History. I had considered as little as my predecessors, that
the questions whether the Roman laws have sprung from the Attic ones,
or whether envoys went from Rome to Athens, are quite distinct. If the
question be put in this way,--“Are the Roman laws borrowed from those
of the Athenians?” the answer is a decided “No.” Two laws of Solon
only are quoted in support of it, which are said to be met with in the
Pandects; yet these are not only quite insignificant, but they are also
such as might just as well be borrowed from other codes: we may find
as many detached Germanic laws, which coincide with the Roman ones.
Nor can we know how far the common descent from the Pelasgian stock
may have produced a similarity of laws. All that is distinctive in the
Roman law, is not to be found in the Athenian; and distinctive it is
with regard to the rights of persons and things. Never had the Greeks
the right of paternal authority like the Romans; never the law, that
the wife by her marriage entered into the relation of a daughter and
co-heiress; never the _jus mancipii_, the formality in the purchase.
The difference between property by formal purchase and simple property,
between property and hereditary possession, does not exist in the
Attic law: the Roman law of inheritance, the Roman law of debt; the
Roman system in contracts of borrowing and lending, are quite foreign
to the Athenians; the Roman method of procedure is thoroughly different
from the Attic. The Attic law belongs to a much later time, when the
forms were already very polished; and we behold in Athens a social
body which is deficient in the very features which distinguish the
Romans. And what we also know of the laws of the other Greek nations
has nothing to do with the Romans. If the laws of the states in Magna
Græcia should chance to bear any resemblance to those of Rome, this
is certainly much rather owing to their having sprung from the same
Italian source. Thus in the _tabula Heracleensis_, the law of the _ager
limitatus_ seems to have been similar to that which was in force at
Rome.
For this reason, therefore, the story has been deemed untrue; yet for
all this, the real facts may have been quite different. Every one has
often in his life done things after long consideration which have never
attained their object: the same may happen to a state. The embassy
falls just within the time of Pericles, between the Persian and the
Peloponnesian wars, the period when Athens was most flourishing, and
the fame of that most powerful and enlightened city was certainly
spread far and wide. That the senate at a much later age, in the days
of Cassander, when wishing to set up a bust of the wisest Greek, did
not make choice of Socrates but Pythagoras, was quite in the spirit of
the Italian nation; yet that they selected Alcibiades as the bravest,
proves how familiar Athens was to the minds of the Romans. They may
therefore indeed have sent this embassy not wholly without purpose,
as they seem to have derived advantage from it for their political
constitution.
There is yet this other tradition concerning this legislation, that
a wise Ephesian named Hermodorus, who was staying at Rome, had been
consulted about it by the decemvirs. He is said to have been a friend
of the great Heraclitus, and to have been banished from Ephesus because
he was too wise (ἡμέων μηδεὶς ὀνήϊστος ἔστω). Down to a late period,
there was shown at Rome a _statua palliata_ which was referred to
him. The tradition is old, and Hermodorus was not so renowned that
the Romans should have called him their teacher without good reasons.
He could play the part of adviser, as the object of the legislation
was laid down, which was to do away with the difference between the
two orders, and so far to modify the constitution, that both of these
might as much as possible constitute one whole; then also to effect a
limitation of the _imperium_ of the consuls. For all this the civil
code has no Greek sources whatever. There are points in the Roman law,
of which we know for certain that Solon had already abolished them; and
in the criminal code there are still greater discrepancies.
The plan from the very first, was to appoint a mixed commission for
making laws. In Livy it looks as if the plebeians had entertained the
preposterous idea of appointing the lawgivers exclusively from their
own order, five in number; but Dionysius has the number ten, evidently
therefore there were to be five patricians, and five plebeians. Very
strange again is the statement of Livy that the plebeians had earnestly
requested, that, if it was once intended to have a revision of the
laws, and the patricians did not wish the plebeians to have a share
in it, these would begin alone, and come to an agreement with them
with regard to the fundamental principles only. People were therefore
sensible enough to see, that a mixed commission would only breed the
most bitter quarrels among its members; and that on that account all
had better be chosen from one order, when the main points were once
settled. Nevertheless it is remarkable that all the writers agree
in asserting that the obnoxious laws, the ones which were hostile
to the liberty of the plebeians, were on the two last tables, which
derived their origin from the second set of decemvirs. The ten first
are not attacked; they merely granted isonomy, which had already been
agreed upon, as Appius in Livy says, _se omnia jura summis infimisque
æquasse_. The quite different rights of patricians and plebeians were
made equals; so that with regard to the patricians also, personal
arrest, and personal bail could take place.
Undoubtedly, the ten first decemvirs were all patricians from old
families; _decemviri consulari potestate legibus scribundis_, was
their name according to the consular Fasti which have been recently
discovered. They were appointed in the place of the consuls, the
city præfect, and the quæstors. But, are Livy and Dionysius correct
in stating that the tribunate also was abolished? It is not to be
believed. It would have been madness, if the plebeians had thus given
themselves up with their hands fettered. At the second decemvirate
only, we find them _appellationi invicem cedentes_: we then meet with
C. Julius, who brings a criminal cause before the people. The tribunes
must have said, we are willing that there shall be ten patrician
lawgivers, but the continuance of the _leges sacratæ_ is to us the
guarantee of our rights; for the _leges sacratæ_ referred to the
tribunate. The mistake may easily be accounted for; it arose, because
such was the case under the second tribunate. On this supposition,
that the tribunate was not abolished during the first decemvirate, and
that a general law of the land was the object aimed at, every thing is
clear. All the points about which there might be dispute, were reserved.
Besides drawing up a general code of laws, they were also commissioned
to settle the constitution on the basis of equality between the two
orders. In this constitution which they worked out, the tribunate was
to be done away with, and the supreme authority to be held by men of
both classes. The five last names which Livy mentions in the second
decemvirate, are plebeian, from families which do not occur in the
Fasti before the Licinian laws. Three among them, Dionysius expressly
names as such; with regard to the two others, who, it is stated,
were chosen by Appius and the chief men from the lesser clans, it is
equally evident to any one who knows the Roman houses, and therefore
Livy places them at the bottom of the list. The mistake of Dionysius
arises from his having confounded the two decemvirates. The first
decemvirate represented the _decem primi_ of the senate, chosen by
the centuries from a προβούλευμα of the Patres; the second, on the
contrary, was a συναρχία after the pattern of the archons of Attica,
perhaps even originating in the knowledge of the Athenian laws. The
second election was quite different; the most eminent as well as the
most humble patricians solicited the votes of the plebeians. Here for
the first time we meet with canvassing, and therefore perfect freedom
of election. There were six _Tribuni Militares_, three patricians and
three plebeians, who were intrusted with the real command in war: of
the rest, two are to be considered as invested with the censorial
power, combined with that of the _Præfectus Urbi_, and with the
presidency of the senate; the two others, with the authority of the
quæstors, being also in certain cases charged with military functions.
Of course, in each of these two pairs were also one patrician and one
plebeian. If, therefore, Dionysius had read that there were three
patrician and three plebeian _Tribuni Militares_, he might,--as the
old books were surely written in very obscure language,--have easily
overlooked the circumstance that the other four were likewise equally
divided among the two orders. The three plebeians, acknowledged as such
by Dionysius, are Q. Poetelius, C. Duilius, and Sp. Oppius.
This constitution was intended to last for ever, and it is easy to
see what was the object which its authors had before them, and in
what manner it was secured. From that time, the distinctions between
the older and the younger clans (_gentes majores_ and _minores_),
altogether disappear. These lawgivers took the same view of the state,
as the government. For they reasoned thus:--that, as the state had
become unprosperous since the Publilian law, the question was merely
this, that the decemvirs should have the authority of the tribunes to
bring any matter to discussion. In this manner, the _Plebes_ would
obtain all that it could reasonably ask for: _Plebes_ and _Populus_
would stand each for itself by the side of the other, but should
together form a whole. The _Plebes_ would not then want any more
tribunes, as one might indeed appeal from the patrician to the plebeian
decemvirs. Moreover, it was fair that the patricians and the plebeians
should share the senate, yet that the plebeians should only come in
by degrees, until they had a certain number. The two orders were to
be carefully distinguished; but yet be invested with equal power. The
former law, that the _gentes_ should send their representatives into
the senate, and that when a gens became extinct, the cury, or perhaps
the consuls, had the election,--these last, however, having a power
far more limited than the censors afterwards, were to be replaced by a
new institution. A special authority was to be created, which had to
superintend and to decide on the changes from one step to another in
the scale of civic rank; which should receive the _ærarius_ into the
_Plebes_, and place the plebeian nobles on an equal footing with the
patrician ones. These are the chief points of the second decemviral
legislation: what were the results of these laws, and how little they
answered men’s expectations, is shown by the subsequent history.
Of the statutes of the Twelve Tables concerning the civil law, there
has hardly any thing been preserved. Among the little that we know, is
a decree, which was on one of the two last Tables, that there should
not be any _connubium_ between the _Plebes_ and the _Patres_. This
principle is fraught with such consequences, that the spirit of the
whole legislation may be judged from it. The ordinance is generally
looked upon as an innovation, for instance, by Dionysius, and by Cicero
in the books _De Republica_; but this is all grounded upon the mistaken
belief that this body of laws was entirely new, as if the Romans before
that time had either had no laws at all, or altogether different ones.
No one in the ancient world took it into his head to make quite a new
system of laws; they merely amended those which they had inherited. As
it was now intended to bring the orders nearer to each other, and to
equalise their rights, they surely could not have established such a
separation between them as a new institution. In the middle ages also,
a legislation merely sprung from the will of the lawgiver is scarcely
to be traced anywhere: it is to be found in the laws of the emperor
Frederic II. only, as Savigny has observed. The opinion of the above
mentioned writers is therefore based on nothing but their own fancy;
so that there is no authority for it, but on the contrary its extreme
improbability in every respect is against it.
New, however, is another and most important point, the unlimited right
of disposing by will which was granted by the _leges XII. tabularum_.
This right was bestowed upon every _pater familias_, and it gave to
the later jurists occasion for most important changes: it cannot have
existed from the earlier ages. The consequence of it was a double form
of will, before the curies and _in procinctu_, that is, before the
symbol of the centuries, these representing the _exercitus vocatus_.
Before these the testator declared his will: if it was on the eve of
a battle, the soldier made his declaration before the army itself; if
a patrician wished to dispose of his fortune, the Pontifex maximus
summoned the curies, and these were first to confirm the dispositions
of the will. The reason of this was founded on the respective position
of the parties. If a person left children, then in the earliest times
it may only have been rarely that a will was made; if he remained
childless and there were cousins, the latter inherited, otherwise the
clans; but, if the clan was quite extinct, the cury inherited. Now,
when Plautus says in the Aulularia,[103]
_Nam noster nostræ qui est magister curiæ,_
_Dividere argenti dixit nummos in viros_,
I was formerly of opinion, that this was a mere translation from the
Greek; for, Euclio represents an _ærarius_, and what had he to do
with a cury? But it is rather a Roman state of things: some property
has accrued by death to the cury, and this inheritance is divided
_viritim_.[104] In the same manner, the plebeians may have had
gentilician inheritances, which at last fell in to the tribes; if,
however, there was a will, the _exercitus vocatus_, that is to say
the centuries, had to give their consent, because for making a will
auguries had been requisite, which the tribes of the plebeians had
not. A similar system of inheritance still exists to this day in the
island of Fehmern, where there are two clans with Dittmarsch rights
and customs. If any one belonging to them wishes to make his will, he
is obliged to give the cousins a small sum, as compensation for the
money which would properly be due to them. This has been kept up there,
whilst in Dittmarsch it has become quite obsolete, nor have I anywhere
among all the other clans in Germany found any trace of it; from which
circumstance we may see, how of important general rights only a few
scattered relics will oftentimes remain behind.--The curies might, of
course, originally give a negative answer in the case of such a will;
but when it was laid down in the Twelve Tables, _Paterfamilias uti
legassit super pecunia tutelave suæ rei, ita jus esto_, it is clear
that the consent was only _dicis causa_. This ordinance has had an
immense influence on the Roman manners: yet it was necessary, because
the _connubium_ of the two orders had not been permitted. Even the
child of a plebeian by a patrician woman could not inherit by law,
and therefore it was necessary to have a law of inheritance. When
the prohibition of the _connubium_ was afterwards removed, the free
disposition of property was still allowed, and in the later profligate
ages, it gave rise to the most shameful abuse. That in early times
such a tendency was already perceptible, is proved by the _Lex Furia
testamentaria_, which I have good ground for placing about the year 450.
The law of debt must also have been on one of the two last tables,
as Cicero describes it as thoroughly unfair. It was binding for
plebeians only. Those two tables, we may be sure, consisted chiefly of
exceptions. The most important part of the legislation of the Twelve
Tables, is that _jus publicum_ which was entirely overlooked by the
earlier commentators, who believed them to have been a code of laws
like that of Justinian, only most imperfect and barbarous. But Cicero
and Livy call them expressly _fons omnis publici privatique juris_; and
Cicero, in the examples in his books _de Legibus_ which are taken from
the laws of the Twelve Tables, speaks also of public administration.
Yet the Twelve Tables certainly did not touch upon any subject that
remained unchanged, as for instance, the whole system of the centuries;
of the alterations in the political law which were found in them,
we have only a few traces. One of these is the enactment that no
_privilegia_ should be issued any more, that is to say, no laws against
individuals, nor condemnations of individuals; there must therefore at
that time have been methods of proceeding with regard to individuals
similar to ostracism at Athens. It is moreover likely that charges were
no longer brought by one of the two orders before the other, and that
the centuries were looked upon as a grand national court of justice. We
have no authority for this; yet, though every story cannot be warranted
in detail, thus much on the whole is certain from the events which
occurred, that until then accusations were made before the _Plebes_
by the tribunes, and before the curies by the quæstors, but that
afterwards such impeachments are no more heard of. Prosecutions before
the tribes on account of individual offences are indeed met with; but
they are no more connected with the antagonism of the two orders.
Probably at that time also the change arose which is afterwards clearly
to be perceived, that the clients entered into the tribes; for the
plebeian tribes, besides what they were from their particular nature,
were also intended to be a general national division, of which we find
several hints. Yet it may also have taken place a hundred, or a hundred
and twenty years later. If Camillus was condemned by the tribes, it may
perhaps be explained in this way, as in his trial his fellow-tribesmen
are spoken of. Cicero among the wise laws of the Twelve Tables which he
receives in his _Leges_, mentions, with reference to his own tumultuary
condemnation by the tribes, that _de capite civis_ could only be judged
_per comitiatum maximum_. It cannot indeed be positively asserted,
that previous to the legislation of the decemvirs, the centuries had
not been called upon to give judgment; I have, however, discovered
a formula which belongs to an earlier time, and perhaps refers to
trials by the centuries, and something definite may yet be found
with regard to this point. If it was so, the practice must have been
introduced shortly before the time of the decemvirs; previous to this,
the _judicia capitis_ were with the curies and tribes. The trials of
Coriolanus and C. Quinctius are not yet held before the centuries.
If in after times one still finds an instance of a condemnation by
the curies, it is an unlawful act of arbitrary power. The tribunes
therefore now bring the charge of a _crimen capitis_ before the
centuries, and a mere _multa_ before the tribes; and it often happens
in such a case, that the person condemned goes into exile, and loses
his right of citizenship. Here the saying of Cicero in his oration
_pro Cæcina_ holds good, that exile does not necessarily imply the loss
of the right of citizenship; for, exile being no punishment, the loss
of the right of citizenship is incurred only by the reception into the
foreign state. In this light we must look upon the condemnation of
Camillus, if ever he was condemned by the tribes, and not, as is far
more probable, by the curies.
In this manner, the sphere of the nation as a whole, was very much
enlarged, and instead of distinct appeals to one of the two orders,
there are scarcely any appeals but those to the centuries to be met
with. The existence of this law is quite enough to prove how wrong they
are who believe, that in this the decemvirs had arrogated to themselves
the whole of the jurisdiction. They have confounded with it the fact,
that now that the old appeal to the orders was done away, one had
to appeal from one board to the other. Instances of appeal from the
consuls to the people are very seldom met with from henceforth; and
even then, they are altogether problematical. It is most likely that
the appeal to the tribunal of the assembled commonalty was abolished,
and that the tribunes as the direct representatives of the commonalty
took its place, and that by a natural development of the constitution;
for a resolution of the commonalty at large is after all a mere form.
Other laws also which are mentioned, might be considered as
innovations; for instance, that one who is pledged for debt should have
equal rights with him that is free.
From the time of the battle at the Regillus, the narratives of
Dionysius and Livy are in many years quite in agreement with each
other, and there are rarely any discrepancies of importance. The
history of the legislation of the decemvirs is also an instance of
this harmony. Other accounts, however, few as we have remaining, do
not at all tally with them; so that their accordance is not exactly a
proof of their historical truth, and we must suppose that both these
historians happened to make use of the same sources for that period.
The narrative, especially in Livy, is exceedingly fine and highly
wrought. It has already been remarked, that probably the intention was
to establish the decemvirs as a permanent magistracy, the consulship
and tribunate being abolished; and that the decemvirs of the second
year were not chosen as lawgivers, but as supreme rulers, although they
were authorised to add two more tables. Another supposition which I
set forth pretty positively, is this,--that these decemvirs were not
elected merely for one year, but for several, perhaps for five. There
is a tradition handed down to us, that they did not go out of office on
the Ides of May, and this is considered as an usurpation. If it were
so, this would be a real δυναστεία in the true Greek acceptation of the
word (it is used in contraposition to τυραννίς, a distinction which
is foreign to the Roman language, although not without an example in
ancient history).[105] According to an invariable principle, it must
have been intended in the election of the decemvirs, that those who
should be invested with this dignity, should forthwith pass into the
senate; but ten persons every year would give too great an increase.
It seems much more likely that the fact of their being appointed for
longer than one year was overlooked, than that they should arbitrarily
have prolonged their tenure of office, which they indeed could hardly
have ventured upon doing.
The history now shows us in the second year the decemvirs in possession
of every magisterial power. They are stated to have kept a guard of
an hundred and twenty lictors (ῥαβδοφόροι), twelve men each. This
was in the style of all the Greek oligarchs; these lictors therefore
had quite a different meaning from those of the consuls; they are
the σωματοφύλακες of the Greek tyrants. Now the decemvirs of Livy
and Dionysius are represented as criminal tyrants. This account is,
however, to be received with just as much caution as most of the
stories of the ancient tyrants; for, the worst monsters of history
in most instances did not commit crimes for the sake of outrage, but
for quite different purposes. Thus also Cicero tells us, that though
the decemvirs did not altogether behave as good citizens, yet one
of them, C. Julius, respected the public liberties, and summoned
the people to pass judgment on one who was not _reus manifestus_.
Among them were Appius Claudius and Sp. Oppius, the presidents of
the senate; these exercised the jurisdiction in the city, and they
seem also to have possessed the censorial power. Now, it is stated by
Livy in a very lively description, that the Forum and the Curia had
grown silent, that the senate had been called together but rarely,
and that no _comitia_ had been holden. This was quite natural. The
tribunes were done away with, there was therefore nobody to harangue
the people in the Forum; politics there were none, the constitution
being quite new, nor was there any change to be made in the civil law;
the senate was convoked but rarely, because the board of the decemvirs
could manage most of the affairs alone; the patricians therefore
went into the country, and minded their estates, and the city passed
all at once into a state of the most unruffled peace. Yet the people
was so much used to excitement, that it longed for fresh agitation;
there was an uncomfortable feeling abroad, because every thing that
had filled the whole mind of the public had now for once ceased to
exist. In unsettled times, such a transition is very dangerous; just
as when one who is accustomed to the use of strong stimulants, or
to gambling, is suddenly obliged to give them up. Thus it was in the
year 1648, when the Dutch had concluded the peace of Munster with the
Spaniards according to the accounts of contemporary writers, people
found the state of things insufferably tedious, and thence arose a
wild sort of life, and the differences between William II. and the
city of Amsterdam. Every circumstance, be it ever so trifling, was
laid hold of on which men might vent their passions. The very same
thing occurred in France just after the restoration. When such a temper
prevails, the necessary consequence is a very sore feeling between
government and people. The Romans became discontented with their new
constitution. Even though the decemvirs had not been had, or no one
else but Appius Claudius had been such, they could not have been borne
with, and the people would not have remained quiet. Much besides may
be guessed. The plebeians had been mistaken in the men of their order
who had become decemvirs. Just at first indeed, the protection of the
tribunes is stated not to have been missed; but gradually these persons
thought fit to use their power for their own benefit, and to show the
same exclusive spirit as the rest. It is easy to understand that the
plebeian Sp. Oppius was decidedly most obnoxious, since he addicted the
debtor as much as Ap. Claudius did. Such accusations had until then
been brought against patricians only.
That a war broke out with the Æquians and Sabines, was an event of
which the decemvirs might indeed have been glad, as they gained by it
an opportunity of giving the people employment. We are now told that
patriots, L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus, had got up in
the senate, and had required the decemvirs first to resign their power;
but that the majority of the senate had decided upon the levy. The
speeches which are found in Livy on this occasion, I look upon as empty
declamations which have arisen from the belief, that the decemvirs had
usurped their office. The enemy had invaded and plundered the country;
resistance was necessary; there was no time for deliberation. Also
there was nothing more easy than such an enlistment, as there were no
more tribunes. Just as little foundation does there seem to be for the
story of the assassination of L. Siccius; it looks too poetical. The
only fact which we can gather from it is, that two Roman armies took
the field, of which the larger host stood on the Algidus against the
Æquians. In the meanwhile a crime happened in Rome, of a nature which
was quite common in the Greek oligarchies, Appius Claudius having
fallen in love with the daughter of a centurion L. Virginius, very
likely a relative of the tribune Virginius. That her death, like that
of Lucretia, became the cause of the downfall of the decemvirs, is
uniformly stated by all the accounts; the story is most ancient, and
there is no reason to doubt it. The rape of women and boys is quite
a common crime of the tyrants against their subjects. Aristotle and
Polybius also tell us explicitly that the overthrow of oligarchies was
often brought about by such outrages against female virtue. Appius
Claudius suborned a false accuser, one of his clients, to assert that
the real mother of Virginia had been his slave, who had sold her to
the wife of Virginius, as the latter, being barren, wished to pass off
the child as her own; and this he offered to prove by the testimony
of false witnesses. Appius was resolved upon adjudging the slave to
him; yet this was contrary to the law of the Twelve Tables, for, if
the freedom of a Roman citizen was impugned, he could claim to remain
in possession of it; only he had to give bail, as the value of the
person might be estimated in money. This was called _vindiciæ secundum
libertatem_; Appius wanted to give them _contra libertatem_. Upon this,
all who were in the Forum flocked together, and adjured him to put off
the sentence, at least until the father, who was serving in the field,
should be able to return. When the lictor tried to use force, such a
number of plebeians filled the market-place, that Appius had not the
courage to insist upon his decision, but requested the plaintiff to
rest content with the surety until the next court-day; yet in order
to prevent any thing that might appear like a conspiracy, the morrow
was named for the trial. At the same time, he sent messengers into the
camp to have the father detained with the army; but the latter had
already been fetched beforehand by the betrothed lover of the maiden,
and other kinsmen, and he appeared on the following day in the Forum.
The semblance of justice was now abandoned. Had Appius allowed the
cause to be tried in due form, the father would have unmasked the
lie; and so he said that he was satisfied that the damsel was the
slave of the plaintiff, and ordered her to be taken away. Amidst the
general dismay at this decision, Virginius collected himself; and
while pretending to bid farewell to his daughter, and to put some
questions to the nurse, he stabbed her with a knife taken from one of
the stalls in the Forum, under a portico, and with the bloody weapon
walked unmolested out of the city back into the camp again. Here the
soldiers unanimously refused obedience to the decemvirs, the two armies
joining. But the accounts contradict each other: some state that they
occupied the Sacred Mount, and at the first secession the Aventine;
others the reverse. It is to be remarked that the commonalty has now
twenty leaders, and is therefore standing again under the guardianship
of its tribunes (phylarchs). These elected among themselves two men
who were to hold the presidency, and to treat with the authorities,
whom the people in the city had abandoned. The _tribuni sacrosancti_
were abolished by the decemviral constitution; but the _tribuni_
had continued as wardens of their tribes. With these at their head,
they held out against the senate and the decemvirs in a more decided
insurrection than that of forty years before; for at that time they had
separated themselves in order to recover their rights, but now they
were completely armed as for war. In this contest the decemvirs must
needs have succumbed, especially as many patricians evidently fell off
from them, although, as Livy correctly remarks, they were for the most
part well pleased with the decemviral constitution, as they were freed
by it from the tribunician power. Nevertheless there were many, as for
instance Valerius and Horatius, who were for the restoration of the old
constitution, because they were convinced that the tribunate worked in
a very wholesome manner as a check upon the power of the consuls. Thus
it was determined to treat with the _Plebes_, and a peace was concluded.
We have yet some remnants of discrepant accounts concerning the
downfall of the decemvirs. Quite different from ours is that of
Diodorus, which might have been borrowed from Fabius, did it not
contain a fact which is rather strange. According to this version, the
decision happened much sooner than Livy places it; on the day after
the occupation of the Aventine, peace had been already concluded.
According to Cicero, the secession lasted for a long time; nor does
he know anything of what Livy says about Valerius and Horatius having
been the mediators. Valerius he afterwards mentions as consul, and as
continually engaged in reconciling all parties. These are signs of
a discrepancy in the traditions, although the character of this age
was on the whole quite different from what it had been before, and
thoroughly historical. There is an account in Cicero that the plebeians
went from the Sacred Mount to the Aventine, which is certainly false.
They always occupied the Aventine; and the obscure Lex Icilia had also
probably reference to this point, that the Aventine should be excluded
from the union with Rome, and, as the peculiar seat of the plebeians,
be ruled by their own magistrates. We must therefore understand this
statement of his to mean, that the army had betaken itself to the _Mons
Sacer_, and that it had then marched to the towns, and united with the
men of its own order on the Aventine. The Capitol was given up to
the armed troops, and the circumstance of this surrender is a marked
proof of the difference of the then plebeians from those of forty years
before. The plebeians were conquerors to all intents and purposes.
The decemvirs laid down their office. The first election which was
now proceeded with, was that of the ten tribunes under the presidency
of the _Pontifex Maximus_, which is the strongest possible form of
acknowledgment on the part of the patricians; the plebeian magistracy
makes its own inviolability part and parcel of the sacred law. By a
most remarkable anomaly, they hold the councils in what was in later
times the _Circus Flaminius_, which was for the plebeians what the
_Circus Maximus_ was for the patricians. This happened in December:
since that time the tribunes regularly entered upon their office
in that month. In order to settle the affairs of the state, it was
resolved to elect again two patrician magistrates; yet not under
the former title of prætors, but under that of consuls, as Zonaras
tells us. This change of designation proves, that the magistracy was
considered as distinct from the former one; it was a less elevated
dignity: _prætores_ were “such as took the lead, generals;” _consules_
were only “colleagues,” quite a general name like _decemviri_. This
new form of the consulate was not, however, designed to reintroduce
the old constitution, and to abolish the decemvirate; but it was
merely an extraordinary and temporary measure, a proof of which is
the further extension, at this period, of the law which denounced
outlawry against him who had offended against tribunes or ædiles, in
favour of the tribunes, ædiles, judges, and decemvirs. This law has
been much discussed; the mention of the decemvirs in it is a certain
fact. The great Antonius Augustinus, bishop of Tarragona,--a man
highly distinguished for his knowledge of the old monuments and of the
political law, but who, with great historical talent, was unfortunately
deficient in grammatical acuteness,--has already seen that the
_judices_ here are the _Centumviri_, the judges who were appointed by
the _Plebes_, three for each tribe, to decide in all causes concerning
Quiritary property. He merely threw out this assertion; I have proved
it fully in the latest edition of my History. Even as these _judices_
were said to have meant the consuls, and the inviolability of these
were derived from thence, thus also with equal incorrectness, the
decemvirs in the law were made out to have been the _decemviri
stlitibus judicandis_; yet these were first appointed in the fifth
century. It refers without doubt to the former _decemviri consulari
potestate_, and indeed to the plebeians among them, as the patricians
were already protected by their old laws.
When the tribunate was restored, the patricians might say, “You were
in the right; the power, which the former prætors had, was too great,
and therefore we shared the decemvirate with you. But now that you
have again your tribunes, the power which you would gain, would be
excessive; and therefore you must leave the decemvirate to us alone.”
This the plebeians did not choose to do; and thus the negotiations for
the restoration of the decemvirate came to a stand still. The consular
power was retained, yet with a considerable modification. According to
trustworthy accounts, the assembly of the electors, down to the year
269, was in possession of an unfettered and real elective franchise.
From that time, first by usurpation and then by compromise, the change
was introduced that one consul was previously to be chosen by the
senate and confirmed by the curies, and the other to be elected by the
centuries. At this period, the election of the centuries was again
perfectly free, with the reservation of its being confirmed by the
curies,--as was the case with all other acts of the centuries,--very
likely a consequence of the legislation of the decemvirs.
The tribunes also had their authority altered in an essential point.
Formerly in that board the majority of votes decided; now, according
to Dionysius, the right was established by virtue of which the protest
of one tribune might paralyse the influence of the whole college, which
is equivalent to an appeal to the tribes. The principle was applied
to them, _vetantis major potestas_. According to Livy this right had
existed already before; yet it is probable that at least it was now
first acknowledged, as the relation of the tribunes to the commonalty
was changed. They were no more the deputies, but the representatives
of their order; which in fact was a corruption of the right, though
the evil consequences of it only became manifest some generations
afterwards. In this point also the government gave a signal proof of
adroitness; for they might always hope to find some one in the board
who would side with them. Cicero says, that the tribunate of the
people preserved Rome from a revolution; that unless tribunes had been
granted to the people, the kings must needs have been retained. The
centuries had now gotten a right of jurisdiction; yet according to the
sacred law, the _comitia centuriata_ had auspices, as the gods were
asked with regard to the matters which were to be discussed, whether
it was their pleasure that they should. Since the tribunes might now
prosecute before the centuries, it also follows that they must have
been empowered to hold auspices (_de cœlo observare_). To this the
statement in Zonaras refers, that the tribunes had received permission
to observe auspices. According to a notice in Diodorus, outlawry was
denounced against any one who should be the occasion of the _Plebes’_
remaining without tribune.--It is quite a phenomenon that at the
close of the year two patricians are found among the tribunes: either
these are patricians who have joined the _Plebes_, or the patricians
set forth the thoroughly sound principle, that the tribunes of the
people, owing to their action upon the machinery of the state, were
no longer a magistracy of a part of the nation, but of the whole.
That at this period many patricians went over to the _Plebes_ is
expressly asserted; yet the other version is also very probable. From
this time, we often find the patricians mentioned as fellow-tribesmen
of the plebeians. At the discussion of the project for the separation
of the _Plebes_ and their settling at Veii, the senators are said to
have gone about _prensantes suos quisque tribules_. In like manner we
are told that Mamercus Æmilius, about fifteen years after the time of
the Decemvirs, had been struck from the list of his tribe, and placed
among the _ærarii_. Camillus also appeals to his _tribules_; yet this
may perhaps have meant his patrician clansmen. That afterwards, in
Cicero’s days, all the patricians were in the tribes is well known.
Cæsar belonged to the _Tribus Fabia_; Sulpicius, to the _Lemonia_.
After the war of Hannibal, C. Claudius says in Livy, that to strike one
from the list of all the five and thirty tribes, was to deprive him of
the right of citizenship. M. Livius expels his colleague Claudius from
the tribes. The number of these examples might easily be enlarged. In
the earlier times, there were patrician and plebeian tribes; in the
later, the Ramnes, Tities and Luceres are no more spoken of: they only
make their appearance still as the _sex suffragia_ in the centuries.
The whole Roman nation was now thrown together into the same tribes.
The same was done at Athens, when the ten _phylæ_ of the _Demos_ became
the only ones, and the four old mixed tribes were broken up. I believed
formerly that this was to be attributed to the decemviral legislation;
yet, if we bear in mind how carefully the decemvirs otherwise
distinguish between the two orders, we cannot possibly suppose, that
in this respect they should have aimed at their fusion. We must place
it at a somewhat later period, and we are led to decide upon the time
of the second censors; it was therefore soon after the decemvirs. In
the fragments of Dio Cassius it is mentioned, that the patricians had
preferred the plebeian order on account of its greater power, and had
passed over to it. Greater power at that time the _Plebes_ had not;
but it had greater strength, and it was easy to foresee what it would
attain to. It was for many a more pleasing position to be in the ranks
of those who were advancing, than of those who stood still.
The decemvirs were brought to justice; Appius Claudius and Sp. Oppius
died in prison. The latter was of plebeian extraction, a proof that we
need not regard the plebeians as the holders of particular virtues.
Wherever a state is divided into factions, the strong party abuses
its might, so that our interest turns to the weaker one. Sp. Oppius
was perhaps one of those who formerly had talked a great deal against
tyranny, and now he had become a tyrant himself. Appius was capitally
impeached by L. Virginius (Aulus Virginius is certainly a mistake of
the transcriber, as the copyists had in their mind the former tribune
of that name): L. Virginius as avenger of the blood of his daughter
had been appointed tribune. He wished, by virtue of his tribunitian
authority, to have Appius cast into prison. Livy’s account of this
leads us to a remarkable point. It is indeed a generally received
opinion, that every Roman citizen had the right of saving himself from
the punishment of death by exile. If such had been the case, one might
well have wondered why capital punishments should indeed have been
instituted at all, of which notwithstanding the old Roman laws have so
great a number. Yet these facts are to be looked upon quite in another
light. The views of the ancients with regard to criminal law are very
different from ours, and perhaps more so than with regard to any other
object in life. According to our notions, a man has also a right to
be tried who has been caught in the very act; it is considered as an
obligation of the prisoner to deny his guilt, and to allow himself to
be convicted by evidence; the lawyers may defend him, and endeavour to
lead the judge into error. Of this the ancients had no idea. If any one
was taxed with having committed a _delictum_, the deposition of the
witnesses was sufficient to have him instantly arrested and dragged
before the magistrate; if it was no _delictum manifestum_, and he was a
plebeian, then he applied to the tribune and gave bail. Should he thus
manage to get free, he might leave his sureties in the lurch and go
into exile. But if, on the contrary, he had been caught in a _delictum
manifestum in flagranti_, and the _testes locupletes_ asserted that
they had been present, thereby identifying his person, no trial was
allowed; but he was, _obtorto collo_, his toga drawn over his head,
conducted before the magistrate, who then at once gave judgment. If
it did not happen to be a court-day, the culprit was in the meanwhile
put into prison. Yet if any body committed a crime worthy of death,
but not, however, of a kind in which it would have been possible to
catch him _in flagranti_, the plaintiff had still a remedy in law by
which the defendant was brought into prison.[106] Thus, for instance,
in the case of Appius Claudius, the charge against him was a crime
punishable by death; he had deprived a citizen of liberty. For this
offence, Virginius prosecuted him; and would not allow him to give
bail, lest by this means he should escape. The prosecutor could then
offer to the accused a _sponsio_, a sort of wager, which consisted on
the part of the prosecutor of a sum of money (_sacramentum_) staked
against the personal liberty of his opponent. The prosecutor said,
Thou hast deprived a citizen of his liberty; the defendant denied it:
if the judge, elected for this purpose, decided for the prosecutor, no
further judgment was needed, but the culprit was at once taken before
the magistrate and executed; if he decided against the prosecutor, the
latter lost the _sacramentum_. But, if the defendant would have nothing
to do with the _sponsio_, he was thrown into prison. The question now
was, whether the prosecutor should be obliged to drop the charge, or to
accept bail. The passages which prove this are to be found in Livy and
Cicero. It was only until the court-day that the culprit remained in
prison, which accounts for the _Carcer_ being so exceedingly small. The
staying there, as also its darkness, was already a foretaste of death:
he who entered it was lost. Cicero says, _carcerem vindicem nefariorum
ac manifestorum scelerum majores esse voluerunt_; either his neck was
broken there, or he was led out and executed. The Greek custom with
regard to imprisonment was much nearer our own.
Yet one remark remains to be added. If one had a charge against a
_filius familias_, the father was judge; in causes against the clients,
the patron.
Another part of the Roman criminal law which is likewise utterly
at variance with ours, is that which takes cognizance of political
delinquencies. For many of them no penalty was fixed, as in such cases
it was the decided opinion of the ancients, and held by them as a
general rule, that the state ought to look to its own preservation
(_salus publica suprema lex esto_). They were well aware that offences
against the state might, when taken severally, have the most varied
shades: the same act outwardly may either spring from error, or it may
be the offshoot of the darkest crime, and it is therefore impossible
to assign a distinct penalty for every single case. Hence the Greeks
and Romans had for all the _judicia publica_ this most important right,
that the prosecutor could sue for a certain penalty in proportion to
the matter in question, even though a different degree of punishment
might have been inflicted for the same act in another instance. The
same privilege was applicable, it seems, even to _judicia privata_,
whenever the criminal code was insufficient; instead of which, in
modern times, the foolish notion was entertained that punishment must
only proceed from a distinct law, a wretched opinion which has really
got the upperhand every where. The ancients held just the opposite
principle. The boy who tortured an animal was doomed to die by the
popular assembly of the Athenians, although the laws contained nothing
for the protection of animals. Hence a man might also be condemned to
death, provided that he had committed an act which was contrary to the
general feeling of honour.
Until then the patricians had indeed claimed for themselves the
privilege of not being liable to be imprisoned at all; for we are told
that Appius Claudius had called the _Carcer_ the _domicilium plebis_.
Virginius showed himself generous, and granted to Appius a respite that
he might deprive himself of life. Yet Sp. Oppius was executed, because
his crime was of another kind, and not merely against an individual who
might act with mildness. For that he had ordered an old soldier, who
had served twenty-seven years, to be scourged; and that the man had
come forward as his prosecutor, is evidently a fiction. Twenty-eight
years was the time of effective service for a soldier; and here an old
soldier is now brought in, who was in the last year of his military
obligation, evidently as a general representation of tyranny. The other
decemvirs went into voluntary exile, and their goods were confiscated.
One of them was Q. Fabius, the ancestor of what was afterwards the
_Gens Fabia_. The tribune Duilius now proclaimed an amnesty for all
those who had committed any offence in this unfortunate time. This
incident is of great importance for the history of the Roman method of
procedure. I have already, on a former occasion, explicitly stated my
opinion about it; but since the discovery of Gaius, the case has become
much clearer.
LEX HORATIA VALERIA. FURTHER CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION. MILITARY
TRIBUNATE. CENSORSHIP. SP. MÆLIUS. VICTORY OF A. POSTUMIUS TUBERTUS
OVER THE VOLSCIANS AND ÆQUIANS. CONQUEST OF FIDENÆ AND VEII.
At first the patricians were in great dismay, and they confirmed all
the laws proposed. Among them is that which gave the _plebiscita_
general validity (_ut quod tributim plebes jussisset populum teneret_).
This law is one of the greatest riddles in Roman history; and it
cannot be solved with any historical certainty, although I have formed
for myself an hypothesis on the subject, of the truth of which I am
perfectly convinced. The law is thus given in Livy; afterwards in the
eighth book he says of the second Publilian law, _ut plebiscita omnes
Quirites tenerent_; and in like manner, Pliny and Lælius Felix in
Gellius quote the law of Hortensius which is to be placed a hundred and
sixty years later; Gaius says concerning the latter, _ut plebiscita
populum tenerent_. When we now consider these three laws,--as to the
Publilian, Livy alone mentions it,--they seem all of them to say the
same thing. Is this really the case; or was the enactment only revived
from time to time, because of its having fallen into oblivion? If we
investigate the character of these laws according to their several
ages, we see that the meaning of each was a distinct one, and that the
import of the _plebiscita_ was differently interpreted at different
periods. The result of my researches is this, that Livy in his mention
of the _lex Valeria Horatia_, was certainly not accurate, because he
did not himself clearly see his way, and the generally known Hortensian
law was present to his mind. The law may have been something to this
effect,--_quæ plebs tributim jusserit_, QUARUM RERUM PATRES AUCTORES
FACTI SINT, _ut populum tenerent_; for, from that time the course
of the legislation was frequently this, that when the tribunes had
gotten a proposition adopted by the commonalty, they laid it before the
curies, who immediately put it to the vote; which was an abridgment
of the proper order of business, according to which the laws approved
by the senate had first to go to the centuries, and then only to the
curies. In the new system, the asking the leave of the senate and the
passing through the centuries were done away with. This was a great
change, as now the discussion might originate with the _Plebes_ itself.
That, however, the _plebiscita_ without the approval of the curies
had no legal force, is evident, especially from the struggle on the
occasion of the Licinian laws; wherefore at that time already, _leges_
may be spoken of with reference to the resolutions of the _Plebes_, for
as soon as the curies had sanctioned them, they were _leges_. Whenever
the _Plebes_ and the curies were not kept asunder by class-interests,
every matter was carried. It is also to be borne in mind, that this law
was enacted, not by a tribunician, but by a consular rogation. The _lex
Publilia_ had been rendered superfluous by the decemviral legislation,
as in this there were no _comitia tributa_.
The later Publilian law of the dictator Q. Publilius Philo, has quite a
different intention. By it the sanction of the curies to a resolution
which had been carried in the tribes, was declared superfluous, as
this course was too circuitous, and the senate after all had the
right of proposing. His law, _ut plebiscita omnem populum tenerent_,
must on the other hand run thus,--_ut plebiscita_ QUÆ SENATU AUCTORE
FACTA SINT, _omnes Quirites tenerent_; for from henceforth it happens
with regard to many enactments concerning the administration, that
the senate commissions the consuls to arrange with the tribunes about
making proposals to the tribes which they were to approve of; yet this
was only with reference to administrative ordinances (ψηφίσματα),
(for instance, whether an extraordinary _imperium_ should be given
to any one), and not to legislative ones (νόμοι). This was a useful
simplification: on certain days only, from religious reasons, might
the curies and centuries be convoked; the tribes on the contrary might
assemble, and did assemble, every day, they were not restricted by
the _dies nefasti_. People saw more and more that the form of general
assemblies was a mere semblance, and too much depending on accident: it
is but fancy to think of votes being the expression of personal will;
impulse, the force of example, does every thing. Clearer and clearer
became the conviction, that the more the state increased, the more
necessary it was to have a settled government; and thus what the Romans
had to do, was to find out forms, which might check the arbitrary sway
of the men in power, and secure publicity. In this especially the
Romans differ from the Greeks, that they confidently gave themselves up
to the personal guidance of individuals, which was never the case at
Athens.
Lastly, the Hortensian law again has quite a different object. It
establishes a true democracy, inasmuch as it lays down the rule that
in legislative measures,--for with regard to administrative ones,
the second Publilian law remained in force,--a previous resolution
of the senate was not necessary, but the _Plebes_ could pass any
decree: at the same time, the power of the curies was taken away. This
is a decided victory of the democracy. The administrative measures
were decrees for particular cases, nor could any thing of this kind
be brought before the _Plebes_ without a previous resolution of the
senate, even so late as the end of the sixth century (570); but for
actual laws the resolution of the _Plebes_ was sufficient. By this
means, the older body of citizens lost its power of regeneration,
the equilibrium was destroyed, and the scale was turned in favour
of the democratic side. The curies were bound already by the _lex
Publilia_ of the year 417, before a convocation of the centuries to
declare after a certain form that they sanctioned whatever was going
to be decreed. It was a misfortune for the state that the curies
did not regenerate themselves; yet as long as the resolutions were
still made in the centuries, this mattered nothing. But by the _lex
Hortensia_, by which the whole weight was given to the tribes, all
the wholesome relations between the different elements of the state
were broken, and the balance utterly destroyed. In the _first_ stage
therefore, the _plebiscita_ are mere bye-laws which have no reference
to general affairs; for instance, resolutions at the death of a
person of consequence concerning his burial, &c., or a poll tax. In
the _second_, by virtue of the older Publilian law, the _Plebes_
declared itself competent to pass resolutions on general affairs,
which were, however, to be taken into consideration by the consul,
to be laid before the senate, and by the latter to be brought before
the centuries and curies. In the _third_ stage, according to the
Valerian law, a _plebiscitum_ was just as valid as a resolution of the
centuries: it went at once to the curies, and received their sanction.
And _fourthly_, by the later Publilian law, the _plebiscita_ could do
for the confirmation of resolutions of the senate which, in pressing
circumstances, when one could not wait for the next _dies comitialis_,
were brought by the consul to the tribunes. It was sufficient that
the tribunes proclaimed a concilium: the _dies nefasti_ only affected
curule magistrates and the _Populus_. For instance, let us suppose
that an army was in the field at the conclusion of the year, and that
a decree of the senate had first to be brought to the centuries, and
then to be ratified by the curies; in such a case a shorter course was
taken. The consuls were ordered _ut cum tribunis plebis agerent, quam
primum fieri posset ad plebem ferrent_. This does not occur before
the Publilian law. _Lastly_ and _fifthly_, by the _lex Hortensia_ the
_Plebes_ took upon itself the authority for an independent and inherent
legislation.
The consuls now took the field against the Æquians and Sabines, and
returned after splendid victories, having also probably concluded a
lasting peace with the Sabines. The patricians had in the meanwhile
again taken courage, and those men of their order, who in the general
confusion had sincerely wished for the best, were now the object of
their hatred; and therefore the senate refused them a triumph on their
return. Now for the first time the paramount power of the tribunes
was displayed. They stepped in, and granted the triumph on their own
responsibility: their legal authority for doing so may fairly be
called in question. The consuls accepted the triumph; if they had been
disturbed in it the tribunes would have assisted them. This incident
shows what exasperation then filled men’s minds. In the following year,
it rose to such a height that, as we are told by Livy, the heads of the
patricians assembled and discussed the proposal to rid themselves of
their antagonists by a massacre: but this mad design was not carried
out.
The events which now take place are shrouded in darkness; the piety
of posterity has thrown a veil over them. People had emerged from
the irksome tranquillity of the decemvirate; but the constitution
had not yet recovered its equilibrium, and there was still a contest
for the possession of the government. The plebeians either wished
the consulship to be divided between the two orders, or the form of
the decemviral rule to be restored. The next year, the patricians
showed themselves somewhat more yielding. The criminal judges, until
then a patrician magistracy, were for the first time elected by the
centuries; the choice fell upon the two consuls of the last year,
Valerius and Horatius, which was certainly not accidental. Many of
the ancients are mistaken with regard to this point; for instance,
Tacitus, Plutarch, even Ulpian, but not so Gaius. There were in fact
two kinds of quæstors, the public accusers (_Quæstores parricidii_),
who impeached political offenders before the curies, and the six
_Quæstores Classici_, who in works on antiquities are all along
confounded with the former: Tacitus refers to the latter what ought
to be referred to the former. He says that the quæstors had formerly
been chosen by the kings, and then by the consuls, as was evident
from a _lex curiata_ of Brutus. But this law Tacitus cannot possibly
have seen; for the _Quæstores parricidii_ are synonymous with the
_Duumviri perduellionis_, and it is these who were always elected by
the curies, or rather by the Ramnes and Tities whom they represented.
That Poplicola caused also the _Treasurers_ to be elected, is possible;
but the two, who were formerly elected by the curies, and now, as
Tacitus says, sixty-three years after the expulsion of the kings, and
consequently in the second year after the abolition of the decemvirate,
by the centuries, were the old _Quæstores parricidii_, who continued
until they were changed into the _Ædiles Curules_. Nine tribunes then
made the proposal to leave the offices of censor and quæstor to the
patricians, and, either to divide the consulship, or to introduce
military tribunes with consular power; one only of their colleagues was
of a different opinion. Perhaps to this is to be referred the incident
mentioned before, that the _Populus_ had once condemned nine tribunes
to be burned alive, and that a traitor among the tribunes, P. Mucius,
had ensured the carrying out of this sentence. Without doubt the
_Populus_ means the curies, who had again usurped this power. Among the
nine tribunes was probably a son or grandson of Sp. Cassius, who had
renounced his order, and perished in the attempt to revenge his father.
It was the general wish to re-elect the consuls and tribunes; the
consuls declined it, and Duilius, who had been delegated by his
colleagues to represent them, refused in the name of the tribunate also
to accept any votes. This had evil consequences. A division was caused,
and the tribunes who wished to remain in office, had indeed so much
influence upon their partisans, that they abstained from voting; so
that five tribunes only were elected, who had themselves to elect their
colleagues. It is stated that they likewise elected two patricians,
which is a proof in favour of our assertion that the tribes had
acquired a double character, that is, that they also become a general
national division.
A remarkable change which dates from this time, is the repeal of the
prohibition of intermarriage between patricians and plebeians. This
prohibition, as we know, had been sanctioned by usage since the very
earliest times, and had been first made an enactment in the twelve
tables only; such a custom generally first becomes galling by being
received among the written laws; and thus the storm was raised from
which the _plebiscitum Canuleium_ sprang. This is usually considered
as a great victory of the plebeians: the patricians, so it is said, at
last yielded it in compensation for other rights which they reserved to
themselves; Livy looks upon it as a degradation of the ruling order. If
we take the matter as it really was, it is evident that the existence
of such a prohibition did harm to no one more than to the patricians
themselves. Mixed marriages from both orders must surely have been
common at all times, and they were binding in conscience; yet the son
of a patrician-plebeian marriage never had any gentilician rights,
and was counted among the plebeians; the consequence of which was
that the patricians were fast dwindling away. Wherever the nobles are
limited to marriages within their own class, their order becomes quite
powerless in the course of time. Rehberg mentions, that of the members
of the States of the duchy of Bremen, in whose case sixteen quarters
were required, one-third had become extinct within fifty years. If the
plebeians had meant mischief against the patricians, they ought to have
insisted with all their might upon the prohibition of intermarriage
being kept up: but for the Canuleian law, the patricians would have
lost their position in the state a hundred years sooner. We do not
know, whether the thing was granted as a favour to the patricians
or the plebeians; this is one of those cases in which no probable
hypothesis can be formed; even absurdity is sometimes quite possible.
Afterwards there appear for once three military tribunes instead of
the consuls. Dionysius says that it had been resolved to satisfy the
_Plebes_ by the institution of military tribunes, three of whom were
to be patricians and three plebeians. But there were only three, one
of whom was a plebeian. Livy foolishly takes them all for patricians;
he thinks that the plebeians had wanted indeed to possess the right,
yet that afterwards they had looked upon themselves as unworthy of
exercising it, and had elected patricians only. He speaks of the
plebeians as if they had been unutterably stupid. This is the confused
notion of a man who with all his genius was, after all, no more than a
rhetorician. What is most likely, is that it was agreed upon to drop
the name of consul altogether, as the two orders were indeed no longer
distinct, and to leave the elections free and open to both parties; but
that in the meanwhile all sorts of artifices were nevertheless employed
to turn the scale in favour of the patricians. In the earlier times,
for instance, the clients of the patricians were not in the tribes;
like the patricians, they had to withdraw when the voting began; and
whoever was not in the tribes, was either not in the centuries at all,
or voted in them only with the craftsmen and the _capite censi_. Yet
from henceforth every mention of cases in which _Plebes_ and clients
were opposed, entirely ceases; and this ought to lead us to observe how
trustworthy our accounts are. Could a forger of a later age have so
accurately discriminated between the positions as implied by the law?
A fabulist is always an unlearned man, and even a learned one would
have made here some mistake. The clients now appear in the tribes,
and therefore in the centuries likewise, as is expressly mentioned,
and as we may also partly see from the circumstances themselves. The
discussions of the Plebes now take quite a different character; they
lose all their violence, the struggle of two hostile masses against
each other, is at once entirely at an end. The checks which the
plebeians meet with in the elections, &c., arise no more from any
resistance from without, but they are from within the body itself.
Whilst formerly the boards of the tribunes showed themselves unanimous,
they are now divided; some of the members are even in the interest of
the senate, and only single tribunes yet make such motions as those
which formerly proceeded from the whole college. These are proofs of
the fusion of the orders having been completed.
The military tribunate had been considered as a sort of compromise.
Among the first were, according to Livy, L. Atilius Longus and T.
Cæcilius.[107] For the latter, Dionysius in the eleventh book has
Clœlius. We cannot decide in this question, the readings in the
eleventh book being all of them of very recent date. If it is Cæcilius,
there were two plebeians among their number; and this would account for
the violence with which the patricians insisted upon doing away with
the military tribunate.
In the same year as the military tribunate (311), the censorship seems
to have been instituted. There must have been therefore a common
motive for both, which Livy does not see: and the circumstance that
the first censors are not found as consuls either in the Fasti or in
the _libri magistratum_, but only in one of the _libri lintei_, may
be accounted for by supposing that the censors were already elected
in conformity with the laws of the twelve tables; and that when the
patricians by their violent commotions were carrying every thing with
a high hand, these magistrates who were neither consuls nor military
tribunes,--a fact of which we have only a trace,--acted as consuls,
and thus concluded the peace with the Ardeates. Livy could not explain
this to himself, nor could Macer have done it. Strange indeed is what
Livy mentions, that the military tribunes had been obliged to abdicate
because of the _tabernaculum vitio captum_; and that T. Quinctius
as _Interrex_ (or rather, perhaps, as dictator) had chosen the two
consuls, L. Papirius Magillanus and L. Sempronius Atratinus, whose
names were not, however, recorded in the Fasti. Nevertheless he relates
the thing as certain. It is still more strange that in the following
year he says of these first censors, that in order to indemnify those
_quorum de consulatu dubitabatur, ut eo magistratu parum solidum
magistratum explerent_, they had been elected censors; as if in 312
there could have been any doubt as to what had happened in 311. In
the very same way, Livy in the second Punic war mistakes a certain
Heraclitus for the philosopher of that name.
As to the nature of these military tribunes, their magistracy is for
us a subject of considerable obscurity.[108] Livy says of them, _eos
juribus et insignibus consularibus usos esse_, and they are also
called _tribuni militares consulari potestate_; but Dio Cassius, that
acute observer, who himself had sat in the curule chair, says that
the military tribunes were inferior to the consuls, and that not one
of them had ever been granted a triumph, though many had performed
deeds which were worthy of it. This is in perfect accordance with
history. We also find that a consul was never appointed _Magister
Equitum_, but that the military tribunes certainly were. From this it
seems to be evident that the military tribunes were no _magistratus
curules_, that is to say, none of those magistrates, as Gellius
explains it, who were allowed to make use of a carriage (thus we have
_Juno Curulis_, whose image was carried on a car). The consuls drove
in carriages to the _Curia_; the full triumph was termed _triumphus
curulis_, according to the Monumentum Ancyranum on which the number
of the _triumphi curules_ of Augustus is given; different from this
is the _Ovatio_.[109]--Moreover, the military tribunes never had
any jurisdiction; but originally the censors, and afterwards the
_Præfectus Urbi_ had one, the latter probably holding likewise the
presidency in the senate. This magistracy also had been abolished by
the decemviral legislation; but it now again makes its appearance. The
consular power was weakened in this manner, and so it was afterwards
by the Licinian law; for when at that time the consulship was divided
between patricians and plebeians, the prætorship was separated from
it, and established as a distinct magistracy. We may understand how it
was, that the plebeians preferred the election of military tribunes,
even when they were not taken from their own order: their power was
at all events less. According to Livy’s account, it was the senate
which decided in every instance, whether consuls or military tribunes
were to be elected: it is more probable that it was the curies which
determined it. The mistake may have been occasioned by the ambiguous
word _patres_. The military tribunate is also of a wonderfully variable
character. Sometimes, but seldom, we find three tribunes; more
frequently, four; but from 347 or 348, regularly whenever they occur,
six; once, as many as eight, among whom, however, the two censors are
included. Of the four, one is generally _Præfectus Urbi_: so that in
reality there are after all only three. The claim of the plebeians to
be chosen among the military tribunes is never disputed; but after the
first election it is almost always eluded. How this could be done is
inconceivable; Livy’s explanation of it is silly. On the one hand, it
is quite possible that a compromise was made, and that the patricians
said, we consent to the weaker magistracy’s being established, but
then it must be filled up from our ranks only; or else in the earlier
times the preceding magistrate had the right of not accepting any votes
(_nomina non accipere_) in favour of those who from different reasons
were to be rejected; or again, if six military tribunes were elected,
the curies afterwards gave the _imperium_ to the patricians only, and
denied it to the plebeians. Yet it is incomprehensible in this last
case how the plebeians could have allowed it. Unfortunately Dionysius
fails us here, who, though he did not himself understand these
relations, nevertheless faithfully recorded the facts as he found them:
if we had him, the whole of this period would undoubtedly be clearer to
us. After the last change, when six military tribunes always occur, we
several times find the plebeians in a majority among them; and it is
evident that it was then a settled rule that the number of six should
always be full, and that without any further distinction between the
two orders. This looks very much as if in the change the election had
been transferred from the centuries to the tribes. It now depended only
upon the honesty of the president whether he received the votes or not.
That policy by which Italy became great in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, that wretched ideal of states-craft, is now displayed in the
Roman history, especially in the division in the college of tribunes.
This is one of the causes, which for some time checked the progress of
Rome.
Times in which successful wars are carried on, as was now the case with
Rome until the Gallic invasion, are exceedingly apt to lead subjects
to acquiesce in what they otherwise would never have borne with. The
name of the state was surrounded with a halo of glory; a great deal
of booty was gained, and also many conquests; plebeians as well as
patricians felt comfortable; and although the power was not much liked,
matters were yet allowed to go on as they were. Rome recovered from
the decline into which she had fallen since the _Regifugium_. Moreover
the intermarriage allowed between the two orders, must have exercised
a powerful influence: the families on both sides became more closely
related; the patrician who, born of a plebeian mother, was in the
senate, stood on an equal footing with the plebeians.
A greater, a lasting magistracy, and according to all appearance the
first, the lustre of which far outshone that of the military tribunes,
was the censorship. If we admit that it was instituted by the twelve
tables, we can understand why Cicero also made the censors the first
magistrates. He may have copied this from the laws of the twelve
tables; only he must have left out something, as there they had yet a
greater number of attributes. The consuls are said to have formerly
had the functions of the censors; which is very probable from the
almost kingly power of the consuls, and it is only to be wondered how
they could have got through this immense amount of work. The Greek
states also had τιμηταί, Athens alone excepted, and the Siceliote and
Italiote towns had them as well; yet nowhere in Greece was their power
so extensive as at Rome. According to the Roman law, the censors had
to value and assess; accurate lists were kept of properties, of births
and deaths, of newly admitted citizens. Yet we are to distinguish
between two kinds of lists. The one was of persons, and was arranged
according to names; Q. Mucius, for instance, with all his family and
rateable property, stood under his name among the _Tribus Romilia_: his
sons wearing the _toga virilis_ may perhaps have had each a distinct
_caput_. The other list was topographical; in it the landed estates
were registered according to the districts, for instance, the _Tribus
Romilia_ in all its divisions. The ancients wrote on the whole much
more than is generally imagined; this was done with a prolixity which
was part of the forms of the state. In London, I saw a register of
lands belonging to an Indian province,--in the translation, of course,
as I do not understand a word of the Indian language,--which had a
copiousness of detail of which we can scarcely form an idea. And it
was the same among the ancients: the registers of mortgages at Athens
were very prolix; and so, even in later ages, were the contracts
before the curies at Rome. In the registers of the Roman censors,
the division of the hides was very accurately marked down; under the
_caput_ of every individual, his descent, tribe, station, property,
&c. were entered. Now the censors had also the power of transferring
people from one class to the other, as an honour or a disgrace; yet
what were the qualities for which they pronounced the _ignominia_, as
it is termed? Every one in Rome was to correspond to the definition
of his station; a plebeian was necessarily an agriculturist, either a
land-owner or a free day labourer. This rule was laid down positively;
and still more strictly in its negative bearing, as no one who
carried on a trade or business could be a plebeian. Whoever did so,
was forthwith struck out of the list of the tribe; consequently this
was not so much a personal _ignominia_, as a declaration that he
had passed from one side to the other. But he who badly cultivated
his field was likewise put out of the tribe, that is to say, he was
declared to be _de facto_ no husbandman; and so was the _eques_ who
kept his horse badly: this is the _notatio censoria_. Such a person
was placed among the burghers of the pale (_ærarii_), because he was
not worthy of holding his property. The ærarian, on the other hand,
who distinguished himself, who acquired landed property, was placed as
a mark of honour among the plebeians; the plebeian who distinguished
himself, was transferred into the centuries of the plebeian knights.
Foreigners, however, they could certainly not make citizens: for this
there were fixed rules, or else the popular assembly conferred the
right of citizenship by means of an extraordinary act. In a state, the
changeable elements of which were widely different,--where the _Plebes_
was not an exclusive order, but was allowed to recruit itself; and
where there existed among its ranks an aristocratic order of honour,
that of the knights, which was not bound to the census; there must be
some authority which assigns to every individual his station: for such
an order of honour cannot be exclusive and unchangeable, owing to its
very nature as an order of honour. One might say, that the decision
about it ought to have been left to the people; yet this was not only a
circuitous, but also a preposterous arrangement, as in all probability
the censors,--who were chosen from the most distinguished persons, and
who held their office under the fullest responsibility, whilst moreover
one colleague might even impugn the acts of the other,--would be much
fairer than the whole people, had it been called upon to make the
selection. The senate also needed a careful supervision to fill up its
vacancies, and to secure its respectability. It was indeed originally
an assembly of the clans, every one of which had its representative
senator; but when the clans began to dwindle away, there were taken
from the whole order three hundred,--an hundred from each tribe; so
that in consequence of the extinction of the clans, one clan might
often number several votes, and another become altogether weak or
degenerate. Afterwards the _lex Ovinia Tribunicia_[110] was passed,
in which it is enacted that from the whole order, without regard to
the _gentes_, the most worthy should be chosen. If it dates from
the first times of the censorship, it proves that in those days the
senate still consisted only of patricians, and that from all the three
tribes the most worthy were taken. The statement that by Brutus, or
Valerius Poplicola, plebeians had, under the name of _conscripti_,
been already introduced into the senate, is either a fable, or it
must be considered as quite a temporary arrangement. About the time
of the migration of the commonalty, and likewise at the actual period
itself, not a single plebeian could have been in the senate: towards
the middle of the fourth century we can trace it for the first time.
The senate now became a number of men chosen by the people, inasmuch as
the magistrates were granted the privilege of voting in the senate, and
the right of being elected into it on the publication of the new list;
a right which also extended to the quæstors. Now, when in the year 346
the quæstorship was thrown open to both orders, I see in this the first
occasion on which plebeians were admitted into the senate; and as from
henceforth eight quæstors were appointed every year, the arbitrary
sway of the censors must have been entirely put an end to. They might
indeed exclude the plebeians; but as the senate consisted of no more
than three hundred, and the censors, at the end of every _lustrum_,
always saw forty men before them who had a claim to be elected into the
senate, it is manifest that the senate could soon have become rather a
plebeian than a patrician assembly. The power of the censors therefore
declined in the course of time, like that of all the magistrates,
with the exception of the tribunes: at first, only a censor could
check the resolutions of his colleague; afterwards, the tribunes also
took upon themselves to interfere with the determinations of the
censors. It was formerly thought impossible that the censors should
have had such a power as was granted them by the Lex Ovinia, or it was
deemed detestable; yet they really had in the beginning an immense
discretionary power. But, as in after times it was no more the two
orders exclusively, but government and people who stood opposed against
each other, the people set limits to the government, and the censors
were also deprived of their arbitrary sway. To the patricians the
censorial power had no reference; nor, with the then existing notions
of the auspices, could any body become a patrician by adoption, though
indeed this was done in after times.
Here the question now arises, were the censors authorized to exercise
their power also with regard to morals? were they allowed to strike
a bad man from the lists with a _nota censoria_? This I formerly
denied, except it were perhaps in cases of downright infamy; yet in
the newly discovered _excerpta_ from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a
passage was found, which undeniably speaks of the right of the censor
to take cognisance of any moral turpitude which could not be reached
by the law; as for instance, heartlessness to parents, wives, or
children, harshness towards slaves or neighbours. In fact, Dionysius
in his time no more knew the censorship in its ancient state; yet he
certainly gives us reason to believe that when he describes it, he
rather sets before us the censorship of bygone times, than that of
his own, which was generally known. It is therefore probable that the
power of the censor had this great extent, the limits of which are
still to be traced from the existing materials. The censorship of
Gellius and Lentulus in Cicero’s days, was somewhat irregular.[111]
Whether at that period already some tribes were _minus honestæ_, and
others _honestiores_, cannot be decided. That afterwards the _tribus
urbanæ_, particularly the _Esquilina_, were looked down upon, while the
_Crustumina_ stood high, is certain; yet it would be silly to suppose
that this was also the case in the earlier ages.
The censors were at first elected for five years (a _lustrum_);
and thus, in the true spirit of its system, it seems to have been
the object of the decemviral legislation with regard to all the
magistrates, to apply cooling remedies against the political fever, as
elections always excite the passions most. Whether Mam. Æmilius really
limited the censorial power to eighteen months, and was therefore
branded by his successor with the _ignominia_; or whether this is an
account contained in the books of the censors, which refers an existing
law to one particular person, cannot be decided: certain it is, that
such books of the censors existed.
In the year 315, a famine and terrible scarcity broke out in Rome. Many
Romans drowned themselves in the Tiber not to perish by hunger. On the
whole, the price of corn in those times was endlessly fluctuating,
just as in the middle ages; which gave rise to forestalling and
regrating, especially as in Italy grain may be kept for such a long
time under ground. The distress came quite unexpectedly, and therefore
a _præfectura annonæ_ was established, which seems to have been a
temporary magistracy. L. Minucius Augurinus was invested with this
office. He did all he could to bring down the prices; he ordered the
existing stores to be thrown open for sale at a compulsory rate, and
had purchases made among the neighbouring people; yet his purveyances
not only went on too slowly, but also the means which he employed
did not answer: real help was only afforded by a rich plebeian
knight, Sp. Mælius. This man had great quantities of grain bought
up on his own account in Etruria and the country of the Volscians,
and distributed it all among the poor. Any one who had done so much
good, might in the ancient republics easily be suspected of having
been actuated by questionable motives. Mælius therefore was charged
with having attempted to gain over the people, that by their aid he
might establish a tyranny. Minucius is said to have reported to the
senate that many plebeians assembled in Mælius’ house, and that arms
were conveyed thither. No one can now presume to decide whether this
charge was well founded or not; at all events, such a conspiracy would
have been madness in a man who was distinguished for nothing but his
wealth, and who must have had the tribunes against him as well as the
patricians. However this may be, he was looked upon as the head of a
party; and in order to crush him, the senate and the curies appointed
L. Quinctius Cincinnatus as dictator, who took Servilius Ahala for his
master of horse. Cincinnatus, having occupied during the night the
Capitol and the other strongholds, on the following morning set up
his curule throne in the Forum, and summoned Mælius by Ahala before
his tribunal. Mælius foresaw his fate: as no tribune could protect
him against the dictator, he refused to appear, and mingled with the
crowd of the plebeians. Then Servilius Ahala seized hold of him and
stabbed him. This act is much admired by the ancients; but its merit
is very problematical, as it may have been mere murder. The _Præfectus
Annonæ_, according to a very plausible account, is said to have
separated himself from the _Patres_, gone over to the _Plebes_, and
to have been appointed as the eleventh tribune; and then within a few
weeks to have entirely succeeded in bringing down the prices; which is
a proof that the distress was rather an artificial one. The corn from
the magazines of Sp. Mælius was confiscated, and distributed among the
people. Servilius Ahala, as we are told by Cicero, was impeached by
the _Plebes_ as a murderer, and withdrew into exile: whether he was
recalled afterwards, is unknown to us. This gives the whole affair an
ugly look. Mælius’ house was pulled down; the Æquimælium, the place
where it had stood, was under the walls of the Capitol, and is now
entirely buried in the rubbish which forms a mound at the foot of the
hill. This is a point of some importance for the understanding of Roman
topography.[112]
When the Valerian laws, as we have seen before, so far limited the old
right of the consuls to enforce obedience, that any one sentenced by
them to receive corporal punishment might appeal to his community,
they were yet to be allowed a certain sphere of jurisdiction without
appeal: otherwise their authority would have been reduced to a mere
nothing. That power extended to fines, the fixing of which is also
ascribed to Valerius. Yet this is not likely, as there is too positive
an evidence in the law of the consuls Tarpeius and Aternius, passed by
the centuries, in which the _multa_ was estimated in heads of cattle,
as Cicero _de Republica_ expressly tells us. This would not have been
possible, if the Valerian law had already fixed the limitation; or
else the rulers must afterwards again have seized upon the absolute
authority. On the whole, all that is mentioned of the Valerii is not to
be trusted, as Valerius Antias, who reckoned himself of the Valerian
house, invented a good deal about it, and the Valerii moreover were
rather vain of their popularity. That law fixed two sheep and thirty
oxen as the highest _multa_, with regard to which Gellius makes a very
heedless statement; for he says that sheep were at that time so rare,
that two of them were estimated as equal to thirty beeves, though he
himself immediately afterwards informs us that a sheep was worth ten,
and an ox a hundred _asses_. The explanation of the fact is simply
this,--that the consuls were obliged to increase the amount of the fine
only by degrees, that the way might always be left open for a return
to obedience: he who did not make his appearance on the first day, was
mulcted of a sheep; on the following day, of two; then of an ox; and so
on. We know from Cicero of another circumstance besides, which proves
to us how little other accounts are to be relied on. Only twenty-five
years later, the value of these payments was fixed in money, and that
at a moderate estimation. Cicero justly looks upon this as denoting a
progress of individual liberty.
The number of the treasurers or masters of the exchequer, whose
election was indeed formerly made by the king or the curies, but
afterwards assigned by Poplicola to the centuries, was raised from
two to four, to be taken alike from patricians and plebeians. At first
the patricians still hinder the carrying out of this clause; but at a
later period the plebeians make good their right. This progress was not
a mere point of honour, but it was a reality; it was closely connected
with the dearest interests of the _Plebes_, as they now shared in the
administration of the common exchequer, which was no more _Publicum_
but _Ærarium_. By this means, as we have already remarked, the senate
was now opened to the plebeians also, and they could be degraded from
it by the power of the censors only.
A further advance to freedom was this, that about twenty years after
the legislation of the decemvirs, the right of declaring war and peace
passed from the curies to the centuries. That the curies originally
had this right, we know from Dionysius; yet as the plebeians alone
were bound to serve on foot, and the patricians withheld the booty
from them, it was natural that the tribunes should have claimed for
their order the right of deciding whether they would have war or not;
and consequently the veto of the tribunes to a declaration of war is
nothing else but a reservation of the rights of the _Plebes_. If the
centuries had carried the resolution, the curies were of course obliged
to confirm it; yet this was certainly not always the case, as the
proposal originated with the senate, and it is not at all likely that
the senate and the curies should not have agreed.
The existence of plebeian senators is now as clear as daylight, and it
is expressly stated that P. Licinius Calvus sat in the senate. Whenever
therefore an interrex was to be elected, it was no longer the _decem
primi_ who met together,--for, they had lost their importance by the
admission of the plebeians,--but all the patricians in the whole of
the senate. This is what is meant by _Patricii coeunt ad Interregem
prodendum_, and it might have been based even on the laws of the Twelve
Tables. One can quite understand that the ancients might have known
the laws of the Twelve Tables by heart, and yet not have perceived,
that something different was written in them from what was afterwards
the rule.
Thus then we have seen, how from the legislation of the decemvirs down
to the conquest of the city by the Gauls, the development of free
institutions at home steadily kept pace with the expansion of the state
abroad; and hence it is manifest that the two were necessarily linked
together.
The history of the Italian nations we know almost exclusively through
the Romans; and yet that history would in fact be the only means for
correctly understanding the foreign relations of Rome, as the account
of these is very often not only defective, but altered moreover in
a lying spirit. The decline of the state after the expulsion of the
kings may have partly arisen from the fermentations at home, and partly
from the quarrel with the Latins. Afterwards, however, the spread of
the Etruscans in the prime of their strength from the North, and at
the same time that of the Sabines and their colonies, exercise their
influence. The Romans call the latter Sabellians; for _Sabellus_ is
the general adjective-termination corresponding with _Sabinus_, like
_Hispanus_ and _Hispellus_, _Græcus_ and _Græculus_, _Pœnus_ and
_Pœnulus_, _Romus_ and _Romulus_; at a later period only the ending
in _-lus_ had a diminutive meaning given it. _Sabellus_ is quite
synonymous with Sabinus, except that according to usage, the name of
Sabellians is given to the whole nation, and that of Sabines to the
inhabitants of the small district. The spread of those nations was
therefore the chief cause of the decline of Rome; otherwise the wars
of Porsena would not have happened. If the Etruscans had spread in any
other direction, and had not the Sabellians, inasmuch as they were
pushed on themselves, been obliged to push on others, the Ausonian
people also, particularly the Æquians, would not have been driven, as
they were, to make conquests.
The period of the greatness of the Etruscans coincides with the middle
of the third century of the city, according to a statement bearing the
authority of Cato, that the Etruscan colony of Capua or Vulturnum was
founded about the year 260, which falls within the time of that war in
which the Romans were so hard pressed by the Veientines. At that time,
the Etruscans, who by the Greeks are called Tyrrhenians, were the most
formidable conquerors; yet a reverse came upon them when the people of
Cumæ with the help of Hiero, towards the close of the third century
(280), destroyed their naval power. The general fact only of that
change can be asserted with certainty; the details of it are, alas!
entirely lost to us; a considerable event in the world’s history here
lies buried in darkness. About the same period also, their power on the
banks of the Tiber is broken. On the other hand, the Sabines in the
last half of the third century are often seen as enemies of the Romans;
the earlier accounts of victories gained over them by Valerius are
utterly apocryphal. Whether they were dangerous to the Romans, we will
not decide here: yet undoubtedly wars took place with the Sabines, as
well as with all the other people of the neighbourhood, though all the
details about them are either fiction or poetry. Towards the end of the
third century, however, the history becomes clearer and clearer, and we
may discern the traces of the old annals. The last Sabine war is that
which Valerius and Horatius victoriously carried on in the first year
of the restoration of the consulship; it is told too circumstantially
to be credited in all its parts; but certain it is, that from that
time, for nearly a hundred and fifty years until Curius, the Sabines
waged no war with the Romans. There must have been some very particular
reason for this, and I find one in a treaty of which no other trace
whatever is left, and in which isopolity was established between the
two peoples: that isopolity existed between them, is attested by
Servius on Virgil. About the year 310, we find a notice that the
people of the Campanians was formed; that is to say, that at Vulturnum
or Capua, the Etruscans received Samnites as ἔποικοι among them, and
shared with them their territory. This is to us a proof of the advance
of the Sabines in those parts, as the Samnites are a Sabine people. The
Æquians and Volscians relax in their attacks on Rome; the Sabine wars
are at an end; consequently we behold the period when the emigration of
the Sabines towards the South leaves off, and the Ausonian mountaineers
no more push forward. The Etruscans now at once stand still, which is
natural in an oligarchically governed nation: when such a people has
once settled down to rest, there is no example of its ever having been
aroused again and gained fresh life. Thus we may link together all the
facts which are confusedly told by the Romans.
During the time from 306 to 323, wars had almost entirely ceased. The
account of the insurrection at Ardea in which the Romans had been
called in, has something in it so strange, that we cannot build any
thing upon it: it is nothing but a repetition of the story of the
enemy’s army being surrounded by Cincinnatus. In the year 323, the war
first breaks out again in good earnest. With regard to the Antiates,
we do not know whether they took any share in it; as to the Ecetrans,
we cannot doubt but that they did. The latter at that time joined
the Æquians on the Algidus. Between Velitræ (which was Volscian),
Tusculum, and the Alban Mount, the Roman armies, sent against them,
lost a battle. A. Postumius Tubertus was therefore appointed dictator.
This war is now described in a perfectly historical and accurate
manner. Whether there be any truth in the tradition that A. Postumius
heightened the power of his _imperium_ on the minds of those who were
under his command by his ruthless treatment of his own son, we may
leave undiscussed. The more general opinion is this, that Manlius
followed his example; From the phrase _imperia Manliana_ no conclusion
can be drawn; Livy’s argument against it is at all events worth
nothing. Postumius led thither all the forces of the republic and the
allies, he gave one army to the consul, and took the other himself:
the former was posted on the road to Lanuvium, the latter, on that
to Tusculum, below the point at which the two highways crossed each
other. The Volscians and Æquians occupied separate camps: to the one
the consul, to the other the dictator was opposed, the two hosts being,
however, very near each other. The enemy during the night attacked the
camp of the consul; in the meanwhile, the dictator, who was prepared
for this, sent a detachment to seize the almost abandoned camp of the
Volscians, and he himself led the greater part of his army to the
help of the consul, and fell upon the enemy’s rear. These last were
completely routed, all but one body, which cut its way through under
the lead of the brave Vettius Messius.
This battle is one of those which are of importance in the world’s
history. It broke the power of the Volscians of Ecetræ, and of the
Æquians; the slaughter must have been frightful. The Æquians sued
at once for peace, and were granted it for eight years; from that
time, they were no more to be dreaded. After this, the Romans spread
more and more; the places also which had been taken from them in the
former wars by the Volscians and Æquians, were now recovered. Of these
there are expressly mentioned, Lavici,[113] formerly one of the great
Latin towns, Bolæ or Bola; Velitræ, Circeii, Anxur, Ferentinum, which
had formerly been Hernican, and must now have been restored to the
Hernicans, as it is always again met with among their places. Thus the
Romans had advanced to the frontiers of Latium proper, even as far
as under the kings. Moreover, at that time also, Setia, Norba, Cora,
Signia, must have been retaken; and, as the Romans and Latins were now
no more on an equal footing, they must likewise have come under the
rule of the Romans alone. In the country of the Æquians, the Romans
advanced as far as the lake Fucinus. The subjugation of the Volscians
made it possible for them to carry on the terrible Veientine war. As
in consequence of these conquests many indigent persons were provided
for, Roman colonies were founded at Lavici and Velitræ, and restored at
Circeii: in the latter place it was perhaps a Latin colony.
After a long interval, the agrarian law begins again to give rise to
serious discussions in the year 345; before that, in the years between
30 and 40, it is once spoken of, but only slightly. The cause of this
silence during the preceding years is not sufficiently explained.
Some assignments of colonies indeed take place; but always in common
with the Latins and Hernicans, and without any consequences for
those who did not wish to give up their Roman home and their rights
as citizens. The times of contentedness and discontent in history
do not by any means correspond with the growth of political rights,
but rather indeed with the stages of general prosperity: when things
are decidedly flourishing, man enjoys life without troubling himself
much about the state of political affairs. In Germany there was such
a period just before the thirty years’ war; every kind of property
improved in value, and matters at home went on very quietly: this
was also the case in France under Henry IV. Such on the whole was
then the condition of Rome; and hence we may perhaps best explain,
why it was that for so long a time no violent internal commotions
took place there. Yet when in such a state of things new energies
have developed themselves, new claims also spring up, which then at
once are fiercely urged. And thus it was now with the agrarian law.
Hitherto the patricians had with great cunning kept the plebeians out
of those honourable offices to which they had a right; often were
consuls elected instead of the military tribunes, and these last again
with less than their full number. But now decided claims began to be
insisted upon. Rome’s humiliation abroad, owing to the wars of the
Etruscans and Volscians, had ceased, the city had quickly risen by
its conquests to a very high position, and under these circumstances
the tribunes raised their voices for the men of their own order. The
first occasion for this, the consequences of which must have been much
more violent than Livy represents them, was afforded by the conquest
of Lavici: a colony was demanded there, but the Roman senate refused
it. The question is now no more about the _Lex Cassia_, but there is
a special _lex tribunicia agraria_ brought by the tribunes before the
tribes: it was demanded that a division of the _ager publicus_ should
be made, and a tax again imposed on the patrician demesne. The latter
clause was originally in all the agrarian laws; but the patricians had
succeeded in evading their obligations. These warnings had directly
no effect beyond this, that colonies of citizens were several times
founded: these were exclusively Roman, and therefore called _coloniæ
Romanæ_. After the conquest of Bolæ, an ill-fated military tribune,
M. Postumius, had caused all the booty to be sold by auction for the
benefit of the _publicum_ (_in publicum redigere_, for _publicum_ is
the separate exchequer of the curies). This excited such an outburst
of rage, that the soldiers rose against the quæstor and slew him.
The military tribune, who had to judge the case, drove them to such
despair, that they mutinied also against him, and stained their hands
with his blood; which is the only instance of the kind before the times
of Sylla. The senate chose to connive at a deed of which the guilt was
but too evident. The consequences of this outbreak must have been very
great, though Livy says nothing on the subject; for from that time only
it never happens that there are less than six military tribunes, and
the election seems to have been now transferred from the centuries to
the tribes, as otherwise it would have been very thoughtless in Livy to
have spoken of a _tribus prærogativa_. The curies conferred, as usual,
the _imperium_, after the election had been made.
Rome now turned her arms against Veii, which was about two German miles
and a half distant, and nearly one German mile in circumference: its
boundary must have reached as far as the Janiculum. This city was a
thorn in the side of Rome, and until she had overthrown this rival,
she could never be great. Fidenæ, which is called an Etruscan town,
but was a Tyrrhenian one, is represented from the earliest times, even
under Romulus already, as being involved in war with Rome: it lay one
German mile above Rome on the Tiber. It was either in 320 or 329, that
the Fidenates rose against the Roman _coloni_ and expelled them. Two
wars are related here, according to all appearances put in the wrong
place: the detailed account occurs at least once too much; probably it
belongs to the year 329. In 320, hostilities may likewise have taken
place; this is at all events the time fixed upon by Diodorus, whom we
may follow. We must look upon these _coloni_ as a garrison of settlers
who had their own hides of land. Three Roman ambassadors appeared at
Fidenæ; and the inhabitants were called upon to justify themselves, and
to reinstate the _coloni_. This seemed to them so unreasonable, that
they slew the ambassadors, and threw themselves into the arms of the
king of Veii, Lars Tolumnius; for all the Etruscan towns had a regal
government, the king being elected for life. Tolumnius came across the
Tiber to their assistance; and since the Romans, as the conquerors of
the Æquians and Volscians, were now formidable to the neighbours, the
Capenates and Faliscans, Oscan tribes, who had maintained themselves
in those parts against the Tyrrhenians, hastened likewise to help the
Fidenates. This host struck terror into the Romans; it lay one mile
from Rome, being separated from it by the Anio only. A dictator was
appointed, and he chose the military tribune A. Cornelius Cossus as
Magister Equitum. The battle was a lucky one, and Cornelius Cossus
slew the Veientine king Tolumnius, to whose charge, no doubt unjustly,
the murder of the ambassadors was laid. The emperor Augustus with
regard to it made the remark to Livy, that Cossus, on the strength of
these _spolia opima_, had taken upon himself consular dignity; for on
the armour he had called himself consul. This is a later addition in
Livy, which, however, is left quite detached, or otherwise he must
have placed the event seven years later. After this victory, Fidenæ
was taken and razed to the ground; the _ager Fidenas_ became _ager
publicus_. With the Veientines a truce was made, which was quite
seasonable for the Romans, as it enabled them to begin by completely
crushing the Æquians and Volscians. Towards the end of the armistice,
the Veientines sent to the other Etruscan peoples for aid against the
Romans. Yet it was refused them, inasmuch as from another side, on the
Apennines, a far more dangerous enemy had appeared, which like a horde
of invading Turks destroyed every thing before it, namely the Gauls.
The Etruscans advised the Veientines to try by all means to maintain
the peace with the Romans: the demands of the latter may, however,
have been too high,--perhaps they wanted the sovereignty over Veii, so
that the Veientines were obliged to choose war as unavoidable. If we
compare the account of the first Veientine war, seventy years before,
the Veientines were then supported by the whole power of the Etruscans;
but now their only remaining champions are the Capenates[114] and the
Faliscans: in one single campaign indeed the people of Tarquinii come
to their help. The Cærites were friends with the Romans, and therefore
kept neutral: the Etruscans, it is true, were in the ascendant there;
yet in the main the population may still have been Tyrrhenian. Rome
was obliged to make the strongest efforts when arming herself for this
struggle, and was supported in it by the Latins and Hernicans.
The derision with which Florus speaks of the _bella suburbana_, when
saying, _De Verulis et Bovillis pudet dicere, sed triumphavimus_, is
the sneer of a rhetorician, and we cannot find fault with him for
finding these events rather uninteresting. Wars indeed which were
fought within a narrow field, have not the same claims to our interest
as one like that of Hannibal; still it was in these that the powers of
Rome developed themselves. We will not treat this Veientine war with
contempt, nor yet will we describe it with as much prolixity as Livy
does; but we shall give a sketch of it in very brief outlines. To us,
the spirit is of importance with which the Romans began it; inasmuch
as they undertook it amid difficulties, which under the circumstances
were not less than those of the first Punic war, for instance, and it
was only by long perseverance that they could hope to bring matters
to an issue. A city like Veii, which lay so near, and was so strong,
could not be taken but by a blockade or a siege: when the Veientines
were too weak in the field, they withdrew within their walls, against
which the Romans could do nothing. One was now obliged, either to
invest the town and force it to yield by hunger, or if needs be, by
works, by mines; or else to try and reduce it by distress, fortifying
a place in the neighbourhood (ἐπιτείχισις), as Decelea near Athens,
and from thence devastating the country far and wide, and preventing
its cultivation, so that the enemy are brought into such a strait of
misery that they must strive by every possible means to get out of it.
But to do this, inasmuch as they had to fear the neighbouring places,
as Capena, Falerii, the Romans had to change their former mode of
war. They had until then only undertaken short expeditions during a
few of the summer months,--not unseldom but ten to twelve, nay even
five to six days, especially in the times of the republic: under the
kings it must have been different. There were from the earliest ages
certain months of war, in which they mutually ravaged each other’s
fields; thus it was among the Greeks, and so it is to this day among
the people of Asia. On the frontiers of Georgia, Russia and Persia
make war against each other for a couple of months every year; in the
laws of Charlemagne the period is fixed during which the people are
bound to service. During the intervals, the intercourse was more or
less free; the time of the festivals especially was quite free, as, for
instance, the common festivals of the Etruscans near the temple of the
Voltumna, or that of the Ausonian people near the temple of Feronia.
It was only for the stated period that the soldiers could be kept in
the field, and as soon as it was over, they dispersed. The means of
Rome for keeping up a large force were very much lessened since the
Etruscan and Volscian wars: in former times the army was paid from
the tithes which the possessors of the _ager publicus_ had to give.
But since the _ager publicus_ was lost, every one marched out to war
οἰκόσιτος, the men brought their stock of provisions from home, and
what they wanted besides they tried to get by foraging: if this could
not be done, the army had to return home again. It was owing to this
that so very few sieges took place. But as it was now intended to carry
on the war in right earnest, and not to lay down their arms until Veii
were conquered, the army was to receive pay. This decree was perhaps
connected also with a proposition for levying the tithes again from the
_ager publicus_, and thence defraying the expense of the pay. There is
some ground for the supposition, that in the earliest times already a
_stipendium_ was very generally paid, in a statement that in the census
of Servius Tullius the _equites_ received two thousand asses; without
doubt, therefore, the _pedites_ also got something. I suppose that it
was a hundred _asses_, whether the war lasted a longer or a shorter
time; and that for this sum, the soldier had to find himself in arms
and provisions. With such a system wars of conquest were incompatible,
as in these the soldier must be entirely kept by the state; and this
is the arrangement which was intended, when it is said that the Roman
soldiers now first received a _stipendium_. It would be incorrect to
take it for granted that formerly they had nothing given them; but
there is a very great difference, between their receiving a small sum
at once and their being paid by the day. It may be assumed, that the
ærarians, as they were not obliged to serve in war, had always had to
pay a war tax for the _pedites_, as the _orbi orbæque_ had for the
equites; for, the plebeian could not have been loaded with the double
burthen of serving with his body and with his goods.
The pay of the Romans was from of old a hundred _asses_ per month for
one man, which was in a fair proportion to his wants. Such a pay is
to be met with among the Athenians since Pericles’ days, but scarcely
ever before. The pay of a hoplite at Athens was immense; in Rome, where
the allies paid no contributions, it could not but be much less. The
sum of one hundred _asses_ continued to be paid also in later times;
when the _asses_ were made too light, they were calculated in silver at
the rate of ten to one. Every third day, the soldier got a _denarius_
(as much as one drachma), which is two obols daily. The stipendium was
considered as a unit; yet it was multiplied afterwards (_multiplex
stipendium_: _Domitian_ added a _quartum stipendium_). But this is
always to be understood of one month only. The excellent Radbod Hermann
Schele makes the mistake here of drawing from authorities which are not
worth any thing, the impossible conclusion that the _stipendia_ were
_annua_, which would have been to no purpose whatever: his practical
turn of mind failed him in this instance. The pay was only for the time
when one was really in the field; if the war lasted for one year, a
year’s pay was, of course, allowed. When Appius Claudius says in Livy,
_annua æra habes, annuam operam ede_, this is likewise an incorrect
opinion of Livy.
This innovation was of the utmost importance for the republic, as
without a national army Rome could never have become great. If the
money for the purpose could be supplied without entailing any fresh
tax, it answered perfectly; but if the patrician did not pay the tithe
from the _ager publicus_, or the revenue of the state was otherwise
insufficient, the war was exceedingly burthensome for the plebeian, as
the pay had to be defrayed by a property tax, and the service might
last for an unusually long period. This injustice was an unavoidable
necessity. That the plebeians had not been taxed before, was, very
likely, owing to their inability to pay; but for twenty years Rome had
been increasing in welfare, so that it now became possible, although
new distress was thus created, and prosperity blighted, until there
was even a return of the old system of oppression for debt. But, on
the other hand, it also became possible, to keep an army in the field
throughout the whole of the year.
About the same time, there was a change in the art of war. _Postquam
stipendiarii facti sunt_, says Livy, _scuta pro clupeis habebant_;
he seems to take it for granted that this alteration in the arms was
called forth by the introduction of pay. The first step towards it may
indeed have been already taken before the Gallic invasion.
The Romans entered upon the last Veientine war with the determination
to conquer Veii. The republic, which had extended itself as far as
Anxur, began to feel its own strength, as with the Sabines it was at
least on friendly terms, and it had conquered the Æquians. How far the
Latins took part in this war, is uncertain; their co-operation may
not perhaps have reached beyond the Tiber. According to a statement
which bears the appearance of truth, Circeii also was retaken by the
Romans soon after Anxur: on the outskirts of the mountains, however,
Privernum still maintained itself as a Volscian town. The weakness of
the Ausonian peoples arose from the spread of the Samnites, and must
have inclined them to make peace with the Romans. Thus Rome had leisure
for permanently enlarging its territory, which in all probability it
had no more to share with the Latins.
The last Veientine war had been followed by a twenty years’ truce. The
Etruscans, like very many other nations of antiquity, had the custom
of ending their wars only by armistices for a certain number of years,
which were years of ten months. This may be proved by the fact, that
in almost every instance hostilities break out again earlier than
might be expected from the fixed number of years of twelve months,
and never sooner than after the same number of years calculated at
ten months. The truce between Rome and Veii was concluded in 330, and
in 347 it had already run out (_induciæ exierant_, is the literal
expression). The use of these years of ten months is on the whole very
common among the Romans; such a year was reckoned for mourning, and
for all matters connected with money and interest. In sales of corn a
credit of ten months was an understood thing. Loans for a long term of
years there were none; but all business was done for short periods,
and on the security of personal credit, as debts on bills of exchange.
The Veientines, quite contrary to what they did in former times, try
to evade the war in every possible manner. Without doubt, Veii had
formerly been the chief of many Etrurian towns; probably from its
situation, as in the earlier wars the power of that city appears to
have been very great. Yet the irruption of the Gauls had this effect
with regard to the towns southward of the Apennines, as Arretium,
Fæsulæ, &c., that they were summoned to assist their countrymen on the
other side of the mountains. This assistance was fruitless. The loss
was great, and Etruria shed its lifeblood in the plains of Lombardy.
Tarquinii and Capena alone came to the help of Veii; and also the Æqui
Falisci, not indeed as an Etruscan people, but because they considered
Veii as their bulwark.
At first, the Romans thought that the war could be quickly brought
to an end; they built strong forts in the _Ager Veientanus_, (which
the Greeks call ἐπιτειχίζειν) as Agis did in the second half of the
Peloponnesian war; and from thence they hindered the Veientines from
tilling their fields, or they set fire to the ripe corn, so that famine
and distress soon made their appearance in the town. This system of
warfare is designated here by the term _obsessio_. Once only the Romans
undertook a siege in the simple fashion of that age. Between two
redoubts, and parallel with the wall of the town, a line of rubbish,
sand bags, and fascines was thrown up; wooden scaffoldings (_plutei_)
were then erected on both sides, in order to give the rubbish firmness;
and, what was the chief difficulty, they were pushed further and
further in advance. These wooden works were raised to about the height
of the wall; bridges and scaling ladders were laid on it (_aggerem
muro injungebant_); and then the machines were brought up, first
the battering rams, in aftertimes the catapults and ballistæ,--for
these, which in that age were yet unknown at Rome, were invented at
Syracuse for Dionysius. The people of the town tried on their side to
countermine. Yet the neighbouring nations defeated the Romans, and
destroyed their works. Since then, several years passed without any
camp being again pitched before Veii.
The war of Veii was for the ancients a parallel to that of Troy. They
pictured to themselves another ten years’ siege, and a conquest quite
as marvellous as that of Troy by the wooden horse. Yet not the whole of
the war is poetical fiction; but the old lays were linked to detached
historical points which they embellished, differing in this from the
epics of the earliest history. By the side of these, there is an old
annalistic narrative which is by no means incredible. The defeat of
the tribunes Virginius and Sergius is historical; but the particulars
concerning the Alban lake, and such like things, belong to the old
poem. Whether this was written in prose or in verse is all the same to
me. The account given was as follows.
After Rome had already for eight years worn herself out against
Veii, and the most perfect tranquility reigned with the Æquians and
Volscians, a _prodigium_ came to pass. The waters of the Alban lake,
which otherwise stood always below the brink of the old crater, now
began to swell, and threatened to overflow. This is the general tenor
of the old tradition: with regard to the details the accounts differ.
According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Dio Cassius in Zonaras,
the stream ran straight from the lake into the sea; according to
others, it merely threatened to overflow its banks. The Romans did not
know what to do. They had stationed outposts before Veii, but when
there was no actual fighting, a sort of armistice was kept. On this,
an Etruscan haruspex laughed at the Romans for giving themselves so
much trouble to conquer Veii, saying, that, so long as they were not
masters of the Alban lake, they would not be able to take the town. A
Roman, bearing this in mind, sent for the haruspex under the pretext
of a _procuratio rei domesticæ_, who was then seized by the enemy, and
compelled to tell them, what was to be done. He answered that they
ought to drain the waters of the Alban lake, so that a stream from
thence might reach the sea by a neighbouring river. The same thing
was told by the Delphian god. The Romans now undertook the work and
executed it. When it was all but finished, the Veientines sent an
embassy to Rome, adjuring the Romans to receive them _in deditionem_.
But the Romans would not listen to any such prayer; for they knew that
the spell was broken. The Veientines said that this was true; yet that
it was also stated in their books, that, if Veii were destroyed, Rome
would likewise soon be taken by barbarians, and this the haruspex had
forborne to tell them. The Romans now ran this risk, and appointed
Camillus as dictator, who called upon all the people to share the
booty, and undertook the assault. The sacred matters having been
attended to, human wisdom was in requisition. He ran a gallery under
the Arx of Veii, and led from thence a passage to the temple of Juno;
as the fates had decreed, that he who made the offering in the Arx of
Veii should be victorious. The Romans rushed in by that passage, slew
the Etruscan king, and made the offering. Then the wall was scaled on
all sides.
If we now reflect upon the historical absurdity of this account, we
cannot doubt for one moment, the existence of a poetical fiction. There
are traces of the citadel of Veii to this very day. It is situated
on the Aqua rossa, is almost wholly surrounded by water, and rises
to a considerable height: it is a rock of tufa. The Romans must then
have had to dig a passage under the bed of the river, and to make the
gallery with such consummate art, that no one could observe any thing;
so that when all was done, they would only have quietly to raise the
last stone in the temple and to climb out, as from a trap door.
In all probability, this is what really happened. There were two
sorts of sieges. One was that described above, which only consisted
in heaping up rubbish against the wall. Or else, with huge toil they
undermined its foundations, and shoring it up with a framework of
strong beams, set fire to the timber, and burned it, so that the
masonry might come down with a crash. A positive mention of battering
rams does not occur before the Peloponnesian war; and among the
Romans even somewhat later. If Veii was really taken by means of a
_cuniculus_, it is to be explained by the second mode.
The draining of the Alban lake must surely belong to this period.
We cannot gainsay it, nor is there any reason for putting in here a
work of earlier date. It is likely that owing to some stoppage in the
channels by which it was drained, there was danger of the lake’s
overflowing the whole of Latium; and possibly they may have taken
advantage of the credulity of the people to stir them to this immense
undertaking, though I believe that, if the senate decided upon this
necessary work, it readily found obedience. It is to be supposed
that the Alban lake had a subterraneous outlet through clefts, like
the Fucinus and all lakes which have been formed in the craters of
volcanoes: these chasms may have been filled up by an earthquake. Livy,
somewhat further on, speaks of a severe winter when the Tiber was
covered with ice, and of a sickly summer which followed it. The newly
discovered _excerpta_ of Dionysius place the construction of the tunnel
in the year after that severe winter. Livy says that during that winter
the snow lay seven feet deep, and that the trees were killed by the
frost; a statement quite in the style of the annals, which, although
the old annals were lost at the Gallic invasion, is yet very credible,
as that winter must have survived in the memory of all. Just as severe
was the winter of 483, when the snow lay for forty days on the Forum.
The earlier Roman history shows traces of the average height of the
thermometer having been at that time much less than it is now.[115] In
Roman and Greek history, the periods of extraordinary appearances in
the weather are almost always the precursors of frightful earthquakes:
thus an eruption of Ætna happens at this time (354). Vesuvius was then
quiet; yet the earthquakes were awful. By one of these, the outlets of
the Alban lake may have been stopped: generally speaking, all lakes
which have no _emissarius_, exhibit wonderful periods of rise and
fall. The lake Copais even had artificial drains, which, however, were
afterwards choked up, and Bœotia during the Macedonian era was not
able to pay the cost of clearing them; the consequence of this was,
that the lake began to swell, and overflowed the country all about.
On the whole, as Aristotle has already remarked, Greece may have lost
in the supply of water. The lake Copais is at present merely a marsh,
which one cannot indeed any more call a lake, with stagnant pools, as
in our “turf-moors.”
The work which the Romans executed is wonderful. The tunnel is entire
to this day, and is in length 2,700 paces, half a German league:[116]
the water of the lake is diminished to an appropriate level. This
alone is a considerable advantage, although the country about is now
uncultivated, and has nothing but brushwood growing upon it. More
important, however, is the fact that drinkable water was gained by it;
as the campagna of Rome was much in want of water, and although that
of the lake is by no means good, yet it is better than what is found
in the wells thereabouts. The work is equal to the greatest Etruscan
ones: the entrance from the lake is a vault, executed in the grandest
style like the hall of a temple, and we see that Rome now built again
on as vast a scale as under the kings. This is characteristic of the
time of Camillus. The tunnel is most of it cut through a hard mass of
lava, a small portion only through _peperino_, which is more easily
worked; it is a gallery nine palms high, and five palms broad. By this
means the lake is kept, probably for ever, to a fixed level: moreover,
the _emissarius_ never needs to be repaired. The lake was at that time
about a hundred feet above the level to which it was let off. How such
a work was accomplished, is a very interesting question. If we consider
the imperfect state of the instruments of those days when the use of
the compass was not yet known, the task of finding the correct level
at a distance of half a mile is indeed immense; nay it would even now
be fraught with considerable difficulty, as one must know to a line,
how high one ought to build in order to have a gradually inclined way
for the water. It is known in the country, and stated in some books,
that from the lake to the lower point to which the water was to be led,
open shafts are everywhere seen to this day by which people even now
go down to clean the _emissarius_: these did not serve merely to carry
off the mud,--the lake is not muddy,--but also to calculate the depth,
and to allow the air to come in. By the salt-water of the shafts, they
were able accurately to calculate the line to its extremity. Now-a-days
people are so little practised in levelling, that to a very recent
period it was not known that the lake of Nemi lies higher than that
of Alba. By sinking shafts, it was also possible for a greater number
of people to work, and to bring the whole to a speedy completion:
from each of them two parties might proceed till they mutually met.
In this manner the tunnel was finished to the edge of the lake. The
entrance was no doubt effected by a stone bore of the size of the tube
of a tobacco pipe; for a wall of basalt needs not to be thicker than
two ells for it sufficiently to withstand the whole pressure of the
lake. An opening was made by which the lake sank gradually, so that
the workmen had still time to be raised by a windlass from the shafts;
when the water had discharged itself, the wall was pulled down, and the
break was built to keep off trees, &c.; then it was embellished, and
the magnificent portico and the entrance, similar to that of a temple,
were erected. This shames all the Egyptian works, which are strange and
useless; this, on the contrary, is purely rational.
That Veii was taken by storm, is certain. The nation was annihilated,
and the sack was carried on quite methodically. It is said that the
whole population of Rome was summoned thither to assist in the
plundering. This may have applied to all those who were bound to
military service; partly owing to the short distance of Rome from Veii,
and partly because in that long war all had actually served. The fate
of the inhabitants of the conquered town is the same which befell so
many of the nations of antiquity: those who did not fall by the sword,
were led away into bondage. The Romans took possession of an empty
town: it was, as we may well believe, finer than their own. Rome has a
magnificent situation; yet its picturesque character is fraught with
many disadvantages. The country about the city is liable to frequent
inundations; the communication within its walls, owing to the many
hills and valleys, was very inconvenient for carriages: Veii, on the
contrary, with the exception of its Arx, lay on a plain, and in all
likelihood had fine broad streets. It was therefore no wonder that the
Romans were loath to destroy such a beautiful town. Immediately after
its conquest, quarrels arose between the government and the _Plebes_;
for the latter demanded the division of the fields, and the former
claimed the whole for itself. But this was now no longer possible.
Another difficulty arose from the beauty of the town: it was thought
a pity that it should be left desolate. It is conceivable, that when
the proposal was made to divide the territory, it was also wished that
to those who were in want of dwellings, the houses of Veii might be
assigned. A tribune of the people proposed, that if the patricians
deemed the plebeians too vile, to have their abode in the same place
with them, the _Plebes_ with its magistrates might emigrate to
Veii:--that the proposal was, as Livy has it, that half of the senate
and people should settle at Veii, would be too absurd for belief. Yet
even the former one is very questionable: the plan would have been most
injudicious. The reasons which Livy adduces against any such splitting
of the population, are very weighty: a complete separation would have
been inevitable. And if the project was only to transplant a numerous
colony with a local government to Veii, even this was likewise very
dangerous. A compromise took place. Whilst the patricians received a
great part of the occupied land, the _Plebes_ also got a share; and
indeed not only were the seven _jugera forensia_ assigned to each as
his own lot, but the children were also taken into consideration.
According to Diodorus’ statement, every family gets twenty-eight
jugera; but in that case the size of the Veientine territory must have
been enormous. This assignation did not extend to the _ærarii_. Those
among them who were clients of patricians, got places on the estates of
their patrons.
The sequel shows that at that time in the territory of Veii and Capena,
as well as that of most of the Etruscan cities, there were great rural
districts with subjected towns which during the war threw themselves
into the arms of the Romans: these were no doubt the old inhabitants,
who looked upon them as their liberators.
The conquest of Veii was one of the leading events in history: it
freed Rome from the counterpoise which checked its progress. Now that
the east was entirely pacified, the Romans advanced with irresistible
might into Etruria; as the Etruscans had to concentrate the whole of
their force in the Apennines, in order to keep off the Gauls. The war
was, however, waged against the Faliscans also. These, to judge from
their name, were Volscians, and therefore Virgil calls them _Æqui
Falisci_; according to Strabo, they had ἰδίαν γλῶσσαν, and were ἕτερον
ἔθνος from the Etruscans. The war of Camillus against the Faliscans
is known to us from our earliest childhood, and how he moved them so
strongly by his magnanimity, that they embraced the friendly alliance
of the Romans. In this there is much which is improbable in itself.
The story of the schoolmaster, I will not discuss. Moreover, there was
war against the Vulsinians also: the Romans made conquests in their
territory, and concluded an advantageous peace. By that time, Rome had
already advanced beyond the boundary of the _silva Ciminia_, which
afterwards, in the great war of Fabius, appears to have been fraught
with such dreadful horrors. The line of demarcation then, does not yet
seem to have been very distinct: afterwards, the district may have been
purposely allowed to run wild, in order to form a boundary, just as
there is also a forest between Austrian and Turkish Dalmatia. Of Capena
there is no more mention; it disappears entirely. It was, therefore,
either destroyed by the Romans after the conquest of Veii, or by the
Gauls: certain it is, that after the invasion of the Gauls, all the
Capenates who were left became citizens.
After these victories, Camillus stood forth as the greatest general
of his age. But at this period it happened, that he was accused of
having appropriated to himself out of the spoils of Veii many articles
of great value, particularly the brazen doors of the temple of Juno;
and of having announced too late, that he had made a vow to offer the
tenth part of the booty to the Pythian Apollo. It would be a vain
disquisition to speculate here upon the guilt or innocence of Camillus;
only we must not forget, that every Roman general was justified in
selecting a portion of the booty for himself.[117] Whether Camillus
in this case took more than his share, we cannot decide; where one
man goes by a smaller scale, another employs a greater one. We must
not believe that Camillus did this in secret: he certainly had the
gates put on his own house; if he had intended to use them as metal,
they would long since have been melted down. The reason of the hatred
against Camillus was a political one. He stood at the head of the most
obstinate patrician party, even to the time of his death. The plebeians
were becoming more and more energetic and powerful; owing to the
tranquillity of prosperity, a certain taste for agitation had sprung
up. Camillus was impeached, because he had an influential party against
him; and he was fined the sum of fifteen thousand, according to others,
one hundred thousand, or even five hundred thousand asses. He then went
into exile, to Ardea. Livy says that, previous to his trial, he had
entreated his clients and fellow-tribesmen to make every exertion to
have him acquitted; which would prove, that he was proceeded against
before the centuries, as in this instance there cannot be any question
of the tribes;--that they had, however, declared, that they would pay
his fine, but not acquit him. This clearly proves his guilt. According
to Dionysius, his clansmen and clients really paid it, and he withdrew
from sheer disgust. I believe that the curies condemned him, as, when
he was recalled, they had again to be summoned to the Capitol, to
repeal the decree of banishment; for, it was only in Rome that the
curies could assemble. This would likewise prove that he was found
guilty, a thing not at all unusual in those times with regard to great
men.
MIGRATION OF THE GAULS. CONQUEST OF ROME.
No one had any foreboding of what was now impending upon Rome. She had
become great, because the country which she had conquered had been
weakened by its oligarchical constitution; the subjects also of the
other states willingly went over to her, as they would thus be so much
better off, and moreover, in all likelihood, they were sprung from the
same stock. But even as Basil subjected the Armenians when they were
threatened by the Turks, and soon afterwards the whole of the Greek
empire was assailed by the latter, who took much more from it than it
had gained before; thus it was also with the Romans.
The inroad of the Gauls into Italy is to be looked upon as a migration,
not as a conquest. For what is historical in it, we must depend upon
Polybius and Diodorus, who place it shortly before the taking of Rome
by the Gauls. To Livy’s statement, that driven from their own country
by a famine, they had already come to Italy in the age of Tarquinius
Priscus, no credit is to be given. It originated in the fact that some
Greek historian or other, perhaps Timæus, connected this migration
with the settling of the Phocæans at Massilia. Livy has, perhaps, in
this instance borrowed from Dionysius, and the latter from Timæus;
for as he certainly made use of Dionysius in his eighth book, why
should he not also in the fifth? He himself knew very little of Greek
history.[118] But this account is evidently contradicted by that of
Justin. Trogus Pompeius was born near Massilia, and had also apparently
used for his forty-third book native chronicles; as from them only he
could have got the account of the _decreta honorifica_ of the Romans
to the Massiliotes, in return for the friendship shown them during
the Gallic war, and likewise of the sea-fights of Massilia with the
Carthaginians. Trogus knows nothing of the circumstance that the Gauls
assisted the Phocæans; but according to him, these merely met with a
friendly reception among the Ligurians, who also dwelt there for a long
time. About the year 350, fifteen years therefore before this, Livy
himself says, _gentem invisitatam, novas accolas, Gallos comparuisse_.
Even the story of that Lucumo, who had called in the Gauls, pleads
against it: referred to Clusium alone, it is absurd. Polybius dates
the passage over the Alps from ten to twenty years before the conquest
of Rome; Diodorus makes the Gauls burst upon Rome in one uninterrupted
onslaught. Moreover, it is said that Melpum, in the country of the
Insubrians, had been destroyed on the same day with Veii; and though
we may not positively assert this exact coincidence, there can yet
be no doubt but that the statement, on the whole, has hit the truth.
Cornelius Nepos wrote it, who, as a native of the country beyond the
Po, might have known the facts, and whose chronological accounts were
very highly valued among the Romans. The Gauls can only have passed,
either over the little St. Bernard, or over the Simplon. The former
is not likely, because their country reached to the Ticinus only; if
they had crossed over the little St. Bernard, they must needs also
have occupied the whole of the territory between that mountain and the
Ticinus. Now, the Salassians, for aught that we know, may have been a
Gallic people; but this is not certain, and moreover, on the banks of
the Ticinus, between them and the Gauls who had come over the Alps,
there still dwelt the Lævians; surely then, there were still at that
time also Ligurians on the Ticinus.
Melpum must have stood near the spot where Milan is now. The situation
of Milan is exceedingly favourable, and often as it has been destroyed,
it has been always restored; so that it is not impossible that Melpum
was the same town. Without doubt, the Gallic migration came sweeping on
with headlong impetuosity, like the billows of a stormy sea; how then
can we suppose that Melpum had withstood the barbarians for two hundred
years, or that they had conquered it, and had left the Etruscans
undisturbed during the whole of that time? It is absurd to believe
this, merely to bear out an uncritical assertion of Livy’s. Twelve
years after the taking of Rome, as is usually computed; or, according
to a more correct chronology, nine years later, the Triballians, who
in the times of Herodotus abode in Lower Hungary, were seen in Thrace,
having been driven out of their own country by the Gauls. It is evident
that the same movement which led them to the Middle Danube, extended
likewise to the Po. And should they who in a few days came from Clusium
to Rome, and afterwards appeared also in Apulia, have sat still in a
corner for two hundred years?
These Gauls were partly Celts, but the great body of them were Belgians
or _Cymri_. This may be gleaned from the fact that their king, as
well as he who appears before Delphi, is called Brennus; _Brenin_,
according to Adelung in Mithridates, means in Welsh and _Bas Breton_ a
king. But what gave rise to the whole migration? The statement of Livy
that a famine had driven forth the Gauls, is quite in the character of
all those traditions about national migrations which we find in Saxo
Grammaticus, in Paul Warnefrid from the Swedish lays, in the Tyrrhenian
legends concerning Lydia, and elsewhere. In the case of a people
however, like the Celts, any special account of this kind, in which,
as here, even the leaders are named, is no more worthy of belief than
all other legends among nations who have not the use of writing. It is
indeed certain that the Celts had Greek letters; but they may only have
used them for the purposes of every day life, and it is well known that
they were not allowed to commit the old lays to writing. The Celts,
however, had a tradition which we meet with in Ammianus Marcellinus,
that Britain had been one of their most ancient seats. We now find
them in Britain, Ireland, in different places in Spain, and in two
places in Portugal. For the Celticans and Celts in Portugal, who dwelt
in Algarve and Alemtejo, and between the Mincio and Douro, are pure
Celts; the Celtiberians in Spain are a mixture of Celts and Iberians:
they live in the heart of the mountain range between Saragossa and
Madrid, which is connected with the Pyrenees.[119] Of these Celts in
Spain the same tradition has been preserved, as of their appearance in
Italy: they are said to have been driven thither by famine, and to have
spread by conquest. Yet here is again a confusion of the two opposite
poles in the tradition. In no instance where a national migration has
taken place, is the invading people to be found in scattered spots;
but the inhabitants of such districts, especially in mountains, are
the remnants of the ancient population which has emigrated, or been
changed. Among the Celtiberians, the Iberians prevail; the Celts are
the indigenous people which amalgamated with the Iberians who broke
in from Africa: there may have arisen a sort of mixed language; the
names of places are Iberian. Similar transformations of a people are
sometimes met with in history. The Wendes in Germany, owing to the
insignificance of their colonies, have for the most part adopted the
German language, without there having been any German conquest or
German princes; and yet they were originally Sclavonians, as well as
the Cassubians who speak Wendish to this day. That the Iberians spread
across the Pyrenees, is proved by the existence of the Aquitanians, who
were pure Hispanians, as Cæsar informs us; nor is there any reason to
suppose that this was only a change of later times. Basques are still
dwelling north of the Pyrenees. And there is, moreover, the statement
of Scylax, that the people from the Pyrenees to the Rhone was a mixture
of Iberians and Ligurians. The Celts once possessed the whole of Spain,
with the exception of Andalusia; and besides this, Southern France,
Ireland, and part of England. The boundary of the Iberians in the
north, we cannot lay down with certainty; in the earlier ages, it was
the Sierra Morena. In the south, we find them in Southern Spain; in the
Balearic isles; in Sardinia, Corsica, and Western Sicily; and lastly
also, in Africa.
Distinct from the Celts, but of the same stock, are the _Cymri_ or
Belgians: this distinction, concerning which I have given my opinion
years ago, is of essential importance. Cæsar’s notion that the Belgians
were a mixture of Germans and Celts, is erroneous: there is a wide
difference between them and the Germans, although a small number
of words in their language are Germanic. In Cæsar’s time, they were
undoubtedly Cymri, with a sprinkling of Germans whom they had met with
in their migration. Cymri lived also in a part of Britain: probably
they were the older inhabitants, who had been dislodged by the Gales.
The Gales were pushed on by the Iberians; the Cymri by the Gales; and
the Germans by the Cymri, who at that time were settled in the north of
France and in the Netherlands, where Celts had afterwards their abode.
Southern France from the Pyrenees, Lower Languedoc, and the valley
of the Rhone, the Piemontese country, and Lombardy also as far as
the Etruscans, were inhabited by the Ligurians, a great European
nation. Scylax already says, that in Lower Languedoc, Iberians and
Ligurians were living mixed up together. In later times which cannot be
particularised, the Celts drove the Iberians from Spain to the Garonne;
and the latter pushed on the Ligurians to the neighbourhood of Aix in
Provence;--an event which may be traced in its consequences. By this
impulse the Gauls and Cymri together were driven into emigration: some
of the Cymri part from the Gauls, and go on migrating; others march
with them. Gauls and Cymri differ very much from each other: their
grammar and language are quite distinct. The two great migrations of
Bellovesus and Sigovesus, mentioned by Livy, are to be considered as
true, although the leaders may be looked upon as mere personifications.
Of these expeditions, the one, penetrating through the Etruscan Alpine
tribes and the Ligurians into Italy, overthrows the Etruscan towns in
the Lombard plain; the other proceeds northward from the Alps. The
Rhætians, the Lepontines, the Camunians, the Stonians and other Alpine
peoples in the Tyrol and in the country of the Grisons, including
Verona, stand out alone like islands, amid the immigrating Gauls who
poured round them like a sea; and they remind us of the Celts in Spain.
This migration, in which the Helvetians did not join, I have already
sufficiently discussed in my little historical writings, in the essay
on the Scythians and Sarmatians. It first proceeds round the Black
forest, then stops a while, and then goes on to the middle Danube,
Hungary and Lower Sclavonia: here they undertake the difficult conquest
of the highlands, spread from thence into Macedonia, Thrace, Bulgaria,
and then across the Danube as far as the Dnieper; and then, pushed back
by the Sarmatians, they again throw themselves into Europe. It is the
only known instance, in which it is apparent that such a torrent rushes
forth until it meets with insurmountable obstacles, and then returns
again with unabated violence. As late as the times when Herodotus still
wrote, about 320 A. U. C. the nations on the banks of the middle and
lower Danube were living undisturbed in their abodes. The Scythians
inhabited Moldavia and Wallachia as far as Transylvania; there the
Agathyrsians were settled, and the Triballians in Sclavonia and Lower
Hungary. But nine years after the taking of Rome by the Gauls, the
Triballians make their appearance near Abdera in Thrace, and afterwards
they are seen on the banks of the southern Danube in Bulgaria. The
Scythians, on the other hand, are found as early as the reign of Philip
to have been limited to Bessarabia; at the time of Alexander the Getæ
are in possession of Moldavia and Wallachia. The people, who effect
these changes, are the Gauls, and by means of the same emigration as
that in which they poured themselves over Italy.
Scylax (Ol. 106.) knows of Gauls in the inmost recesses of the
Adriatic, the Carnians and Noricans of later times. They did not, he
says, join the migration: part of the Gauls, who had advanced further,
lived in Sirmium; from thence, under the name of Bastarnians, they
cross the Danube, and compel the Getæ to throw themselves into Hungary
and Transylvania; afterwards they spread in the Ukraine. From the
important inscription of Olbia, which Köhler has edited, we see that
the Galatians, and, together with them, the Scirians, afterwards a
German people, are dwelling near the Dnieper; and this agrees perfectly
well with the fact, that the Scythians now vanish. For in the east also
there is a national migration, that of the Sarmatians, a people which
Herodotus only knows as dwelling beyond the Tanais. Scylax, seventy
years afterwards, speaks of them as being settled on this side of it;
according to the Olbian inscription, they are on the other bank of the
Dnieper; under Augustus, they are in Wallachia: they destroy the Greek
towns in that neighbourhood. This movement was afterwards the cause of
the irruption of the Cymri or Cimbrians, as in the migrations of the
Celts the Cymri were always included. To them belong the Bastarnians,
who dwelt in Southern Poland and in Dacia, and were driven out by
the Sarmatians. Johann von Müller indeed was the first to recognise
the truth of Posidonius’ statement, that the Cimbrians did not come
from Jutland but from the East; but he saw not yet, that they were
originally Belgians, or, as the Greeks called it by a general name,
Κέλται. To claim the victories of the Cimbrians for the German nation
is foolish.
The extent of these emigrations reached in Germany as far as the Mayne
and the Thuringian forest. Celts, before Cæsar’s days, were settled
even in Bohemia, and some tribes of them remained in the time of
Tacitus; the Gothinians at that time still spoke Gallic; the Noricans
in Austria were of Celtic descent. The Rhætians were Etruscans; the
Vindelicians, Liburnians. The Helvetians conquered the greatest part
of Switzerland; yet near the St. Gotthardt some of the old population
were left. The Gauls penetrated into Italy by a very narrow track, very
likely across the Simplon: it was only by means of the Valais that
they kept up the connection with the people of their own stock beyond
the Alps. As far as Aosta, the ancient inhabitants stood their ground:
for, the Salassians, Taurinians, &c., were Ligurians, and the tribes
towards the St. Gotthardt Etruscans. The Ligurians were a warlike
race and held their own; they dwelt on both sides of the Alps: the
Allobroges, however, were pure Celts. On this account, Cisalpine Gaul
appears too large on the maps, even on that of d’Anville: it did not
contain Piedmont, but only the Austrian Milanese, Bergamo and Brescia,
Lombardy south of the Po to the Adriatic, and north of the Po to the
neighbourhood of Lake Garda. All the country, therefore, which they
conquered, was in the plain; and even for this reason their migration
cannot have lasted as long as Livy states.
In the history of the Gallic migration it is again shown how little we
know of the history of Italy in general. Our knowledge is limited to
Rome: it is just the same as if of all the historical sources of the
whole of the German empire, the annals of one imperial town only had
been preserved. From Livy’s account, it might appear as if the Gauls
had advanced against Rome alone, and as if this had been their only
object. And yet this immigration has changed the whole aspect of Italy.
For when once the Gauls had crossed the Apennines, there was nothing
to hinder them from marching by any road into Southern Italy; and
indeed we find some mention of their further progress to the south. The
Umbrians still dwelt as far as the lower Padus in the present Romagna
and Urbino, in parts of which Liburnians also were living. Polybius
says, that many nations there had become tributary to the Gauls; of
the Umbrians this is certain. In history, we first find the Gauls in
Clusium, where they are said to have made their appearance immediately
on their immigration, owing to the revenge of a high-born citizen
of the place who called them in against the town of his birth. Yet
this remains doubtful: if there should be any truth in it, it is much
more likely that the offended man crossed the Apennines, and fetched
the avengers from thence. Clusium had been no more spoken of since
the time of Porsena; that its people seek assistance with Rome, is
a proof how little this northern town of Etruria shared in the fate
of the southern ones; even an alliance with Rome may be conjectured.
The danger was, however, so great, that every jealousy must have been
hushed by it. The natural road for the Gauls would have been down by
the shores of the Adriatic; then through the country of the Umbrians,
who were tributary to them, and already completely broken down; and
through the Romagna, across the Apennines. The Apennines, however,
which separate Tuscany and the Romagna, are very difficult to pass
over, and particularly troublesome for beasts of burthen. As from this
side, therefore, which the Etruscans moreover had purposely allowed
to grow wild, the Gauls could not break in, though they had made an
attempt to do so, they then crossed the Apennines near Clusium, and
appeared before this town. Clusium is the key of the valley of the
Tiber; if it were taken, this as well as the road on the Arno would be
open to the Gauls, who might then advance upon Arezzo in its rear. The
Romans therefore looked upon the fate of Clusium as decisive of their
own. The people of Clusium solicit the alliance of powerful Rome; the
Romans with well-judged readiness accede to it, and send an embassy
to the Gauls, ordering them to go away. According to a more probable
account, the latter had demanded from the Clusians the division of
the land, as a condition of peace; not, as it was customary among the
Romans, as a charge imposed upon a people already conquered: if this be
correct, the Romans sent that embassy trusting to their might. But the
Gauls treated the ambassadors with scorn, and these allowed themselves
to be carried away by their military ardour to join the Etruscans in
fighting against them: it may perhaps have been only a small isolated
affray. This is what Livy tells us; and he proceeds to state, that
the Gauls, as soon as they had become aware of this violation of the
law of nations, had caused the signal for retreat to be sounded, and
had called upon the gods for vengeance, intending forthwith to march
against Rome. Here is evidently a mere legend. A barbarous people could
not possibly have entertained such regards; nor was there in this case
any real violation of international law, as the Romans stood in no
connexion whatever with the Gauls. But the fall of Rome must needs be
laid to the account of a _Nefas_, against which no power of man could
avail. Roman vanity besides plays its part; and the ambassadors were
said to have so greatly distinguished themselves, that they were more
conspicuous than the Etruscans. In contradiction to these events, it
is now stated that the Gauls had sent to Rome to demand the giving up
of those ambassadors; that the senate hesitated and left the decision
to the people, on which the latter not only refused compliance, but
even appointed the same ambassadors as military tribunes; and that
in consequence the Gauls with all their force immediately marched
against the surprised city. Livy here again speaks of the _Populus_,
to which the senate refers the decision; yet this can only be the
patrician community, as it alone could have decided on the fate of
those who belonged to that class. The Romans have, in this instance,
been unfairly charged with want of honesty. But the whole story is
certainly derived from later writers, who conferred upon barbarians a
right, to which none but a people within the pale of international law
could lay any claim. Nor is the statement by any means a general one,
that the three ambassadors, the Fabii, were chosen military tribunes.
A different account is found in Diodorus, who in this place must have
made use of Roman sources written in Greek, that is to say, of Fabius;
as he calls the people of Cære Καίριοι, and not Ἀγυλλαῖοι. He speaks of
one single ambassador, who as a son of a military tribune had fought
against the Gauls. This at least shows how little the history can as
yet be relied upon. The battle of the Alia was on the sixteenth of
July, and the military tribunes entered upon their office the first of
the same month, whilst Clusium is only a good three days’ march from
Rome.
The Gauls marched in innumerable hosts from Clusium to Rome. They were
for a long time the people most dreaded by the Romans, even so late
as in the Cisalpine war of 527; and likewise by all the nations with
which they came into contact, as far as the remotest East and the
Ukraine. For the knowledge of their manners and customs, Polybius and
Diodorus are our best guides: under Cæsar they were already changed.
In the description of their persons, we have a glimpse of the Gael, or
Highlander of the present day;--tall bodies, blue eyes, coarse hair.
Their very dress and arms are those of the Gael; their clothing being
checkered and variegated tartans (_sagula virgata versicoloria_), their
weapons the Highland claymores, broad war-swords without points. They
had an immense number of horns, such as were long to be met with in the
Highlands; and they threw themselves in huge irregular masses, and with
terrible fury upon the enemy, those in the rear pushing on those in
front, so that no line of battle then in use could withstand the shock.
Against them the Romans should have employed the phalanx, and doubled
it, until they became accustomed to such a foe, and gained the mastery
by dint of their superior skill. If they could stand the first onset,
then the Gauls were sure to fall into confusion, and were afterwards
easily routed. The Gauls who in later times were defeated by them, were
the descendants of those who had been born in Italy, and had very much
fallen off in courage and strength. The Goths under Vitigis, not fifty
years after Theodoric’s immigration into Italy, were cowards, and did
not hold their ground against the twenty thousand men of Belisarius:
thus quickly do barbarians degenerate in such a climate. Terrible also
were the Gauls for their appalling cruelty! Wherever they settled, the
original towns and their inhabitants utterly vanished from the face of
the earth. In their own homes they had the feudal system and a priestly
government. The Druids, who were their only rulers, avenged the
oppressed people upon the chiefs, and in their turn were its tyrants.
The whole of the people were serfs; which proves that the Gauls, even
in their own country, were a race of conquerors who had enslaved an
older population. Their wealth in gold is much talked of; and yet there
are no rivers in France by which gold is washed, and the Pyrenees were
at that time no more in their possession: the gold must, therefore,
have been bartered. Much of it may be only exaggeration; and when
individual chieftains wore golden chains, the ancient poets may have
extended this to the whole nation, as popular poetry, particularly in
such embellishments, is apt to give itself great license.
Pliny says, that the _census_ before the Gallic calamity had amounted
to 150,000; but this only includes the men who had votes, and neither
women, children, slaves, nor foreigners. When we take this into the
account, the number of inhabitants was immense. Should this statement,
however, be well founded, it must not be understood of the residents
in the city alone; for these were much fewer. When we read in Diodorus
that every one was called out to fight against the Gauls, and that
forty thousand men assembled at the summons, this is very probable:
there is the testimony of Polybius that Latins and Hernicans were
included in the host. According to another account, the Romans took
the field against the Gauls with twenty-four thousand men; that is to
say, with four country, and four city legions. The country legions
were raised from the plebeians only; they served in the order of the
classes, very likely in maniples. The city legions contained all those
who did not belong to the plebeians and patricians, all the ærarians,
proletarians, freedmen, artisans, who at other times had never yet
faced the enemy; they were certainly not armed with the _pilum_, nor
arrayed _manipulatim_, but provided with pikes, and drawn up in
phalanx. As to the country legions, they consisted half of Latins
and half of Romans, there being in each maniple a Roman and a Latin
century; and if in those days there were four of these legions, this
would be twelve thousand men, as the legion together with its reserve
was then three thousand strong. When therefore one statement gives
twenty-four thousand, we see that it implies four country, and four
irregular city legions. Thus there were only six thousand plebeians,
so that, had the legions contained Romans exclusively, there would not
indeed have been more than twelve thousand of them; but if to these we
add twelve thousand irregular troops and sixteen thousand allies, the
number of forty thousand is then correct. If so, the population of Rome
was not so large as that of Athens in the Peloponnesian war, which is
very likely. The horsemen are not reckoned in this calculation; forty
thousand men must, however, be deemed the maximum of the whole army.
There seems to be no exaggeration in this; so that on the whole, the
battle on the Alia ranks among those events which are historical. It
is surprising that the Romans elected no dictator for the battle; they
cannot be said to have looked upon that war as quite an ordinary one,
as in that case they would not have summoned all their forces to the
fight. Yet they did not estimate the danger to its full extent. There
were always fresh swarms crossing the Alps; the Senonians also now
make their appearance, seeking out places where to dwell. They, like
the Germans afterwards, asked for land, on beholding the Insubrians,
Boians, and others already settled in the country. They had taken up
their abodes in the Umbrian district near the sea; but only till they
should find larger and more convenient ones.
The river Alia has no remarkable features. It would almost seem that
the country in the neighbourhood has changed; it is only by the
distances which are given, that we can tell what river it was. The
ancients describe it as a stream with high embankments; but the river
which we must now take for it, has none. The name is now obsolete.
In the summer, however, all these rivers have very little water; and
therefore the position behind it could not have availed much. The
Romans committed the great fault of giving battle with troops swept
together in haste, to an enemy hitherto invincible. The hills near
which the right wing is said to have been placed, are no more to be
recognised: they may perhaps have been only small mounds of earth.[120]
At all events, the opposing a long line to the huge masses of the
enemy was quite absurd. The Gauls, on the other hand, could without
any trouble turn off to the left; and, passing the river higher up,
where it was more easy to be forded, they very judiciously threw
themselves with the whole of their might on the right wing, which
consisted of the irregulars. These at first stood their ground, but
not for long; and when they fled, all the rest of the line, which as
yet seems to have stood quite useless, was seized with panic. Fright
preceded the Gauls, as, like the Turks, they devastated every thing
wherever they went. (Throughout the _Cispadana_ they destroyed the
towns, they themselves dwelling in villages only: when the Romans
afterwards conquered the country of the Insubrians, they found not a
trace any where of the former population.) This, instead of calling
forth a desperate resistance, paralysed the courage of the Romans.
Thus they were defeated on the Alia in the most inglorious manner. The
Gauls had attacked them in the rear, and cut them off from the road
to Rome: part of them fled to the Tiber, of whom some escaped through
the river, and others were drowned; and part took refuge in a forest.
Yet the slaughter must have been immense; and it is inconceivable, how
Livy could speak only of the disgrace. Had not the Roman army been
all but annihilated, it would not have been necessary to have given
up the defence of the city so entirely, as was done: for it was left
undefended and abandoned by all. Many, instead of returning to Rome,
ran away to Veii; some few only, who had fled along the high road,
entered the city by the _Porta Collina_. Rome was exhausted; its force
was scattered to the winds, its legions powerless; its allies also who
could bear arms had most of them shared in the defeat, and they partly
expected the dreadful enemy in their own homes. In Rome it was believed
that the whole of the army was destroyed: nothing was known of those at
Veii. Within its walls were only old men, women and children; defence
was not to be thought of. It is not, however, to be supposed that the
gates were left open, and that the Gauls, fearing an ambush, had waited
several days before the town. More likely is what others relate, that
the gates were barricaded. We may form a very lively image of the
condition of Rome after this battle, by comparing it with the similar
situation of Moscow just before the fire. People were convinced that
a long defence was impossible, as in all likelihood provisions were
scarce. Livy has a false idea of the evacuation of the city, as if the
defenceless inhabitants in their consternation had remained immoveable,
and part of them had been received into the Capitol. But it had been
resolved to defend the Capitol. The tribune Sulpicius, with about a
thousand men had taken refuge in it. There was an old well there, which
is still in existence, and without which the garrison would soon have
died of thirst. No antiquary knew of it; but I discovered it from the
accounts of the people living there: it is sunk through the rock to
the level of the Tiber, yet its water is not fit to drink. The Capitol
was scarped, and thereby inaccessible: the way to it, leading from
the Forum and the Via Sacra, was a _clivus_, which was shut by a gate
at the bottom and on the top. The rock was not as steep as in later
times,--this is shown by the account of the assault,--but it was still
very strong. Whether, as was the case in Moscow, some remained behind
in the town, who, in their confusion, did not consider what an enemy
they had to deal with, we cannot decide. The story is very fine, and
reminds us of the taking of the Acropolis by the Persians, where also
the old men allow themselves to be put to the sword by the enemy. Yet,
in spite of the improbable character of the incident, I am inclined
to believe, that several old patricians,--the number may not be quite
historical,--seated themselves in their robes of office on the curule
chairs in the Forum; and that the _Pontifex Maximus_ consecrated them
for death. Such consecrations were a well-known Roman custom. And,
surely, it is also true, that the Gauls were astounded at finding the
town forsaken, and only those old men immoveably sitting; and that,
mistaking them for images or phantoms, they did nothing, until one of
them struck a Gaul who touched him; whereupon all were slain. To lay
hand on themselves, was at variance with the habits of the Romans,
whose feelings, on the whole, were in many things much more correct,
and much more akin to ours, than those of many other nations of old.
All hope for their fatherland had indeed been given up by the old men;
but the Capitol was still tenable, and people chose rather to die in
an attempt at resistance, than to flee away to Veii, where, after all,
they would not have been able to hold out. The sacred things were taken
to Cære. The hope of the Romans was now, that the barbarians would get
tired of the siege. The Capitol had been provisioned for some time to
come; there may have been a couple of thousand persons in it; public
and private buildings, all the temples were used as dwellings. The
Gauls made dreadful havoc in Rome, still more so than the Spaniards
and Germans did in 1527. The soldier sacks, destroys, when he finds
no men; he gets drunk, and fire breaks out quite undesignedly, as at
Moscow;--the whole town was laid in ashes, with the exception of some
houses on the Palatine where the chiefs of the Gauls were living. It is
to be wondered at, that single monuments of the earlier times outside
of the Capitol are still talked of; statues were said to have been
preserved: it is true that the _Travertino_ is tolerably fireproof.
That Rome was burnt down, is certain; at the rebuilding of the city,
the old streets were not even restored.
The Gauls were now lying in the town. At first they made an assault on
the _clivus_, and were repulsed with loss; which is rather surprising,
as we know that the Romans had before succeeded in an attack upon the
same _clivus_ against Appius Herdonius. Afterwards they discovered
the footsteps of a messenger, who had been sent from Veii to provide
for the affairs of the city in the due forms of law. For, the Romans
on the Capitol were patricians, they represented the curies and the
government; those who had gathered together at Veii, represented the
tribes, but had no leaders. The tribes had decided upon recalling
Camillus and making him dictator; Pontius Cominius was therefore sent
to Rome to obtain the consent of the senate and the curies. This was
quite in the spirit of the olden times. If the curies had interdicted
him _aqua et igni_, they only could recall him after a previous decree
of the senate. But, if he had gone into voluntary exile, and, by
accepting the right of citizenship at Ardea, had renounced the Roman
one before a decree of the centuries had been passed against him, it
again rested,--he being a patrician,--with the curies alone, to receive
him anew as a citizen; otherwise he would have been no dictator, nor
would he have considered himself as such.
It was in the dogdays that the Gauls came to Rome. But summer has at
all times been pestilential at Rome, especially the two months and
a half until September; and, a thing which Livy also tells us, as
the barbarians bivouacked in the open air amid the ruins, they could
not fail to be attacked and destroyed by diseases like the army of
Frederic Barbarossa before the castle of St. Angelo. Yet it was not the
whole host of the Gauls which was encamped there, but most likely no
more than were necessary to keep the garrison on the Capitol blockaded:
the rest were overrunning the neighbourhood and devastating the flat
country in Latium, all the open places and the isolated houses. Many a
place which existed in the early ages and is no more met with now, may
have been destroyed at that time. Ostia was a strong town, and held
out; for it was able to get provisions by sea, whilst the Gauls were no
adepts in the art of besieging. The Ardeates, the territory of which
the Gauls likewise invaded, made head against them under the command of
Camillus.[121] The Etruscans seem to have caught at this opportunity
of regaining Veii; for it is said that the Romans in Veii under the
command of Cædicius won a battle against them, and were thus encouraged
to reconquer Rome, as they were now in possession of arms.
A Roman, Fabius Dorso, is said to have offered in broad daylight a
gentilician sacrifice on the Quirinal, and the astonished Gauls to have
done him no harm: a tradition which is by no means improbable.
The provisions in the Capitol were about to be exhausted; but the
Gauls, being themselves troubled by contagious diseases, were tired of
their conquests, and not inclined to settle so far from their homes.
They tried yet once more to storm the Capitol, having observed, how the
messenger had gone up and come down again near the Porta Carmentalis
below Araceli, which is in the direction of the Venetian palace. Now
the old rock is covered with rubbish, and is therefore no more to be
recognised. The besieged never dreamed of an attack being made from
that side. There may have been masonry there which had become ruinous;
in southern countries there is always some vegetation springing up
about walls (Virgil says, _Galli per dumos aderant_, Livy also speaks
of _virgulta_); and if this were not attended to, it might easily be
climbed. They had already gained fast footing, as there was no wall on
the top (it was not the Tarpeian rock which they tried to climb, but
the _Arx_), when Manlius, who lived there, roused by the cackling of
the geese, hastened to the spot, and hurled the assailants down. This
made the Gauls still more ready to treat: they were besides called
back by an irruption of the Alpine peoples into Lombardy where they
had their wives and children. They were willing to withdraw on payment
of a ransom of one thousand pounds of gold, about fifty thousand
Frederics d’or (for, the Roman pound is very light, weighing nearly
twenty-three half-ounces of Cologne), which, surely, were to be taken
from the treasure on the Capitol. This was a vast sum for that age:
in Theodosius’ time, there were indeed people in Rome who are said to
have had a revenue of several hundred weight of gold; one even, who
had as much as ten tons. That that sum was paid the Gauls, and that
in consideration of it they left Rome, is historical truth; that in
weighing it they practised a scornful fraud, is very possible. The
_væ victis_ also may be true: we Germans have also lived to see the
same thing previous to the year 1813. Not true, however, is the rest
of Livy’s story, that while they were disputing about it, Camillus
made his appearance with an army, and forbade the fulfilment of the
bargain, as the military tribune had no right to agree to it; and
moreover, that he then drove the Gauls out of the city, and afterwards
in a twofold battle so discomfited them, that not a messenger escaped.
Beaufort, inspired by Gallic patriotism, has most ably shown the utter
groundlessness of this tale. It is quite childish to try and hide the
calamities of one’s ancestors by means of fables. Livy did not invent
that story; he merely copied it from others. At the same time, he would
not let his own better conviction get the upperhand here, as it is his
way to look upon the whole of the earlier history with a kind of irony:
he has half a mind to believe, and yet for all that, he has no belief
in it. Another account, that in Diodorus, is that the Gauls besieged a
town then in alliance with the Romans (the name of which, indeed, must
have been wrongly written, and is said to have probably been Vulsinii);
and that the Romans delivered it, and took back again from the Gauls
the gold which had been paid them: Livy, however, knows nothing of this
siege of Vulsinii. A third account, in Strabo, and also in Diodorus,
does not allow the honour to belong to the Romans; but will have it
that the Cærites pursued the Gauls, and attacked and cut them to pieces
in the country of the Sabines. Just in the same way did the Greeks
endeavour to disguise the fact that the Gauls took the money from the
treasury of Delphi, and that in quite an historical age (Ol. CXX.). The
true explanation is surely the one which is found in Polybius, that the
Gauls were induced by the rising of the people of the Alps to withdraw
from Rome, and that Rome on the other hand had suffered its full meed
of humiliation. What booty the enemy had taken, was spent; conquests
they had made none, they had merely pillaged and devastated everything;
and now they had been lying there for eight months, and there was
nothing more which they could gain but the Capitol, and that very money
which they also thus obtained. From Polybius’ version, many discrepant
accounts may be sifted and reconciled, Livy’s romantic embellishments
included. As a proof of the Gauls having been really beaten, it was
asserted in Rome, that the money taken from them and buried in the
Capitol, amounted to twice as much as the city’s ransom. Yet it is
much more likely that the Romans paid their ransom from the treasure
of the Capitoline Jupiter, and of other temples, and that this was
afterwards made up double by a tax; and this tallies with a notice in
the history of Manlius, that a rate was levied for the payment of the
Gallic ransom. This, however, could not indeed have been done whilst
the Romans were scattered every where during the siege; but afterwards,
to replace the gold which had been taken away. Now, if such a mass of
gold was hoarded at the Capitol, it is evident that people might have
thought that they saw in it a proof that the Gauls had not kept the
treasure.
As late as in Cæsar’s times, they used to show in Rome the spot near
the Carinæ where the Gauls piled up and burnt their dead. It was called
_busta Gallica_, which during the middle ages was corrupted into
_Portogallo_; hence the church which now stands there, is properly
called _S. Andreas in bustis Gallicis_, or, according to later
Latinity, _in busta Gallica_. The Gauls marched off with the gold,
and the Romans were reduced to pay it, being so pinched with hunger,
that they stripped off the leather from their shields, and cooked
it. Annihilated the Gauls certainly were not. We find in Justin the
remarkable statement that the self-same Gauls who had destroyed Rome,
marched into Apulia, and from thence offered the elder Dionysius their
aid for money. From this important account it is manifest, that at
all events they marched through the whole of Italy, and then perhaps
returned along the Adriatic. Their devastations extended far into
Italy; and it is an undoubted fact, that the Æquians received from them
their deathblow, as from henceforth there is no more mention of any
hostilities of the Æquians against Rome: on the other hand, Præneste,
which must formerly have been subdued by the Æquians, appears as an
independent city. During the passage therefore of the Gauls, the
Æquians who inhabited small towns which might easily be destroyed, must
no doubt have been crushed.
RESTORATION OF THE CITY. MANLICUS CAPITOLINUS. THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS.
CONFUSION IN THE CHRONOLOGY. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PRÆTOR URBANUS AND OF
THE ÆDILIS CURULIS.
The most striking feature in Livy’s history, is unquestionably the
view which he takes of the consequences of the Gallic calamity. He
must have pictured it to himself as a passing storm, by which Rome
was bent, but not broken: the army, according to his account, was
only scattered; the Romans come forth just as they were before, as
if all had been nothing but an evil dream, and the only thing to be
done was the rebuilding of the town. Yet the havoc was surely immense
throughout the Roman territory. During eight months, the barbarians
had raged in that country, destroying every trace of tillage, every
farmhouse, all the temples and all the public buildings; they had
purposely pulled down the walls of the city, and carried off a great
number of the inhabitants into slavery: the rest were in great misery
at Veii. Camillus, as dictator, is called a second Romulus; and to him
the glory is due of not having yielded to despair in this crisis. Since
the Volscian war, Rome had been powerful enough no longer to grant
to her former allies, who at that time were weak, the same rights as
before; for nearly seventy years they had been all but her subjects,
although she made a very mild use of her superiority. But all these
nations, which had suffered less than Rome, now no more acknowledged
her supremacy; and this is the _defectio Latinorum qui per centum
fere annos nunquam ambigua fide in amicitia populi Romant fuerant_,
of which Livy speaks. Nothing is more natural than that they should
make themselves independent. It would be very bad indeed, if unnatural
arrangements were of irrefragable force, so that the natural state of
things could not be established at last. That it must have come to
this; that shortly before the Gallic troubles the Romans had in reality
the ascendency, is quite a different question. This had certainly been
the case; just as, under similar circumstances, among the seven Dutch
provinces, equal as they all were in law, Holland in fact took the
lead, holding that position which belonged to it in right of its wealth
and population. In the same way, the Romans might be considered as the
heads of the league; but only so long as Rome was in possession of her
power.
There is an old tradition, that in the famine the aged men were
killed, to spare them the pain of dying of hunger, and that the little
which was left, might be reserved for those who were to propagate the
republic. It was almost as sad as at the destruction of Magdeburg, when
the number of inhabitants was reduced from 30,000 to 3,000. Rome, even
when restored, could for several generations have been only a shadow
of what it was before its overthrow. It is natural, that people in
their despondency should have lost all courage, and that the tribunes
insisted on abandoning Rome, and removing to Veii. To have withstood
this faint-heartedness, was the merit of Camillus, who in this was
upheld by his high aristocratical feeling. It certainly required
enlarged views, to make the right decision:--the gods had forsaken
Veii; Juno had loudly said that she would not reside at Veii, but at
Rome. The discussions on this subject in Livy, are full of his peculiar
beauties. I will not assert that Rome could not have taken root again
in Veii also; but the chances are that it would have quite gone to
ruin: the Latins would have taken for themselves the left bank of the
Tiber, and perhaps have placed a Volscian or a Latin colony on the
seven hills. Rome’s site on a stream between three peoples, was marked
out by heaven with a view to her greatness. The advantages of it are
evident: in Veii, she would perhaps have become Etruscan. The senate
now behaved like a stern father. After having come to the resolution,
which for the poor man was a very hard one, of restoring Rome, it
caused Veii to be destroyed for the purpose of rebuilding the city. It
is said to have granted bricks, stones, and other building materials,
all of which were to be found at Veii. Mean huts were built, and it was
only by degrees that better houses were restored. The senate allowed
every one to build as they liked; for according to Roman principles,
all private property had, owing to the late confusion, fallen in to the
state, which now gave its sanction for a new occupation. The walls were
raised again, and the dangerous place at the Capitol was faced with
hewn stone (_saxo quadrato_). Under Augustus only was Veii restored as
a military colony; but yet as a little Veii; like Gabii, Lavici, &c.
With regard to the rate of interest, and the law of usury at Rome,
there were no clear views whatever at the beginning of this century,
the antiquities of the Roman civil law being utterly neglected at that
time. I make an exception, however, in favour of Schulting. Heineccius
is full of talent and learning; but he did not know which way to take.
Among others, Hugo, the father of scientific jurisprudence, has handled
that subject. He had a fine taste for these things; but he was wanting
in the requisite knowledge: Savigny, as well as myself, has been long
convinced of the worthlessness of what he has written concerning
interest. Savigny did not himself enter into this research; I was led
to it in my inquiries. Schrader has confirmed my opinion, and it is now
generally received.[122] The Roman loans were contracted for years of
ten months, and one ounce in the _As_ was given as interest; that is
to say, a twelfth of the capital, which is equivalent to ten per cent.
in a year of twelve months. Hugo thought that a twelfth was given
monthly; which proves that he had no insight into the state of things,
so as to tell what was possible, and what was not. Jurisprudence in
general has two sides, theory and practice, with regard to the latter
of which we, in Germany, are quite in a wrong track: they manage that
better in other countries. The Roman system of debts and obligations
in later days is entirely borrowed from the Greek law; the calculation
of the _syngraphæ_ and the _centesimæ_, as it was in common use in
Cicero’s time, arose out of the relations in the Greek towns of Athens,
Rhodes, and Alexandria. In Tacitus, it is stated, that the _foenus
unciarium_ was introduced by the laws of the Twelve Tables; in Livy,
that it was adopted in the beginning of the fifth century. People
affected to find in this an irreconcilable contradiction, and once I
also thought myself that Tacitus was mistaken: now I am of a different
opinion. We are to make a distinction here. It does not by any means
follow from Livy, that the _foenus unciarium_ was not mentioned already
in the Twelve Tables. Until the city was destroyed by the Gauls,
there were no complaints of usury; but afterwards, when every one had
to build, the law against usury was in all likelihood abrogated, in
order that people might be enabled, at all events, to get money. This
gave rise to that awful state of debt which followed; and forty years
afterwards the old usury law was again enacted. Thus it may also be
quite true what Livy says, that at one time it was positively forbidden
to take any interest. In the year 1807, friends of mine, contrary to
my earnest representations, carried the abrogation of the usury laws,
a measure which had unhappy results. The money, afterwards, could not
be paid: they then _faciebant versuram_; that is to say, they added the
interest to the principal.
It is wonderful, where, at that time, men were to be found, who could
lend money. People confined themselves, it is true, to what was most
strictly necessary, on which account the senate gave permission to
build as every one pleased. Yet, however much the state might give to
lighten the burthen, the restoration must still have been infinitely
expensive indeed. I believe that the means for it were furnished by
the clients. The grand resolution to restore Rome, which had been
formed in the consciousness of its imperishability, must have commanded
respect, and have led to a belief in the stability of the state; and
thus holders of capital from far and near might have been tempted to
betake themselves to a place, where one could get such high interest:
the patricians could hardly have saved all this immense capital. Now
if a Syracusan, Neapolitan, &c., came with ready money to Rome, he
could not himself put it out to interest; so he became the client of
some patrician, who concluded the _nexum_ for him. And thus, until
the Licinian laws, the condition of the commonalty was exceedingly
wretched; and it was unfair that the order which had already such
advantages in the state, should also receive usurious interests.
If Rome alone had been destroyed, which the reader of Livy, unless he
take a more elevated point of view, must needs believe, it would be
quite incomprehensible to us, how it could have kept the neighbouring
people at bay, when they had become aware of the opportunity of shaking
off the yoke. But the inhabitants of all the country round had indeed
likewise to bear their full share of the calamity; and even when they
succeeded in defending their towns, many of them may have bought
themselves off from being pillaged, at the cost of a heavy war tax.
This state of things reminds us of the times immediately after the
thirty years’ war, when in the same way the wars soon break out anew.
We see clearly that the Etruscans now rose against the Romans, and
that this turned out much to the advantage of the latter. Sutrium and
Nepete were now the border-towns of Rome towards Etruria,--all the
rest, even Falerii also, were lost,--and these towns, moreover, were
sometimes besieged, even taken; and when the Romans had reconquered
them, they changed them into colonies. The war was principally with the
people of Tarquinii and Vulsinii. That the Etruscans tried to wrest
back from the Romans their conquests, shows that the Etruscan league
was also now dissolved; the northern Etruscans fight against the Gauls,
whilst those in the south attack Rome. These Etruscan wars, however,
are in the narratives of the historians as full of unauthenticated
statements as all the former ones. We find every where throughout
that age a breaking up of the old alliances, together with the want
of combining into larger states. This was also the case in Greece.
Latium was then in a state of political dissolution: one may say that
it was no more kept together by any compact bond. Antium, Velitræ and
Circeii, the colonists of which were either driven out, or made common
cause with the Latins and Volscians, were severed from Rome; so were
also the Hernicans; scarcely did the nearest places, like Tusculum
and Lanuvium, still hold to Rome. An important part is now played by
Præneste. The people of that town and those of Tibur seem to have been
allies at that time; Præneste might now perhaps have been the capital
of part of the Æquians. The boundary between the Æquians and Romans
had ceased to be there: it was now on the other side of Præneste. The
respective positions of the different states in the ancient world
changed with extraordinary quickness: this is most strikingly seen in
Arcadia; the three chief Arcadian peoples are at last quite forgotten.
As on the dissolution of Latium, part of the Latins, together with
Velitræ and Antium, rose in hostility against Rome; so did Præneste
likewise, with part of the Æquians. The time of Rome’s supremacy was
now past; Veii only was a permanent gain; and they now received the
inhabitants of Etruscan places, which had already before enjoyed the
right of citizenship without _suffragium_, as full citizens, forming
four tribes of them; so that there were again twenty-five tribes.
Livy says by mistake, that the new tribes were composed of persons who
in the former wars had gone over to Rome. This is impossible, as the
Romans always formed new tribes of a much greater number of individual
voters than there were in the old ones; for on this principle only
they could really unite with them, that while these had equal rights
as individuals, their influence on the votes should be limited. I,
on the contrary, am convinced that all these tribes had formerly
been sovereign places and districts: the districts of Veii, Capena,
Vulsinii, &c., were no doubt mere spectators in the wars of the towns
which ruled them; and they yielded without resistance to the Romans,
as soon as these made their appearance, because they were equally
well or badly off under any state. Many also were on a footing of
neutrality; of which, during the war of Spain and the Netherlands, we
find a similar example in the towns of Brabant, which paid taxes to
both the belligerent parties in order to remain unmolested. Owing to
the destruction of the towns, they became the subjects of Rome. Now it
was certainly these to whom Rome gave the full citizenship, and thus
filled up its lessened numbers. The conduct of the Etruscan towns in
this change was very likely quite passive. Rome had the wisdom to give
its new subjects the full plebeian right of citizenship; it was as
in Jerusalem, when Ezra and Nehemiah, after the return from Babylon,
rebuilt the city.
Of the weakened state of Rome, there is a tradition in Plutarch and
Macrobius, which, indeed, such as it is, seems not to be historical.
While the city was still without walls, armies made their appearance
from quite powerless places in the neighbourhood, like Fidenæ and
Ficulea; so that the Romans had to give hostages. But a trick was
played when this was done; and instead of maidens of high birth, they
sent servant-girls, whose leader, a Greek bondmaid of the name of
Philotis, like another Judith, when the troops, in the celebration of
their unwonted good luck had got drunk, gave a signal with a torch to
the Romans, whereupon these destroyed the enemy. This incident was
dated in Quinctilis, consequently four months after the evacuation
of the town. This story is at all events a proof how weak Rome was
supposed to have become.
On the new country district, which was not inconsiderable, there
again arose a renewal of Rome’s might. At the end of this period, the
disorganised state of things on the left bank is the same as before: on
the right bank, every thing belonged to Rome except Sutrium and Nepete,
which are border fastnesses, and beyond which the _silva Ciminia_
grew into a wilderness. Whenever an _ager publicus_ is now spoken
of, it lies almost exclusively in these parts. It was probably only
with the nearest Latin towns, Tusculum, Lanuvium, Aricia, that Rome
was in relations of isopolity. These events cannot here be told in a
connected narrative; the details would not serve any purpose whatever:
it is only with those which are important in themselves, and in their
consequences, that we have to do. It was otherwise with Livy, who wrote
for his countrymen.
Of much greater consequence are the events which happened at home.
Avarice and usury are among the besetting sins of the Romans; which in
proportion as they found a wider range, became the more oppressive.
A few years after the evacuation of the city, when a distress was
reigning which Livy completely disguises from us, and perhaps from
himself, M. Manlius came forward to befriend the sufferers. The
cognomen of Capitolinus was not given him for having saved the Capitol,
but because he lived there; as T. Manlius, most likely his father,
already twenty years before, occurs with that name in the Fasti. The
deliverance of the Capitol was not the only brilliant achievement of
Manlius: he was acknowledged as one of the most distinguished heroes
in war, and the fact of his not being met with at all in the Fasti,
throws a light upon the position in which he stood. It is generally
told of him, that he entertained _consilia regni affectandi_; but
Livy says, that there were no proofs to be found in the annals of any
such intention, beyond meetings held in his house, and his bounty to
the _Plebes_. It may have been, that he bore a grudge against those
who were in power, because he had received no reward for his deeds:
it may be also, that his great soul was stirred within him by a vast
ambition, and that he yielded to the desire of taking the crown for
his reward. Whatever he did, his were actions which the purest and
most benevolent mind might have done as well. Every day, citizens were
assigned to creditors as bondmen for debt; Manlius paid for them what
they owed, especially for old soldiers; dissolved their _nexum_, and
restored them to their families by the sacrifice of the whole of his
fortune. At the same time, he is said to have charged the patricians
with having embezzled the money which had been retaken from the
Gauls. The suspicion must have arisen from the tax having been laid
on to replace the gold which had been paid to the Gauls; as there was
harshness and fanaticism in calling it in under such circumstances,
although it was destined for the gods. Thus Manlius acquired an
enthusiastic popularity; and therefore the ruling order attacked him
in the most violent manner. Instead of taking the hint, and relieving
the distress, the patricians stood obstinately upon their right, and
thus a race was run between benevolence, or benevolent ambition, and
the most headstrong oligarchy; just as in the year 1822 was the case in
Ireland, where the peasantry, when animals were bled, would fight for
the blood that they might appease their hunger, and yet the landlords
would not for all that abate from the strict letter of their claims.
Thus it was natural, that there should be a feeling among many, that
any change would be better than such a government; and that Manlius, as
a usurper, might be useful, like many of the Greek tyrants. The Roman
government was so little inclined to recede in its course, that it
caused Manlius to be arrested. Yet this was to no purpose: a general
sympathy manifested itself in behalf of a man who until now had not
offended in any thing; the _Plebes_ went into mourning, and flocked
in crowds to the gates of his dungeon. And thus the government was
obliged to release him. Now, one might have thought, he would be sure
to take some step which could not be justified. Manlius had a difficult
part to play. Men often begin under such circumstances with the purest
intentions, and are drawn in by degrees to go dreadfully astray. I
believe that Manlius did not set out with the design of making himself
the tyrant of his country; but when his own kindred now decried him,
and gave his good motives an evil interpretation, his actions were
thus as it were poisoned in the bud, and thence might grow up the
resolution of seizing upon despotic power. And yet there is no proof
to be found of it. The tumult increased. Manlius demanded in the name
of the people, that part of the common land should be sold, and the
debts be paid from the proceeds; a reasonable request as the state had
a right of property in the demesne. But the oligarchs wanted to keep it
in their occupation, and they exulted at the distress of the plebeians.
Embarrassment had made the dependence of the _Plebes_ very great; so
long as the _Præfectus urbi_ had the power of addicting, every one was
in danger of losing his liberty. Manlius now became more proud and
self-assured in consequence of his victory; dangerous thoughts might
daily have been more familiar to him. He was accused: two tribunes
declared for the senate; Camillus, according to Zonaras, was expressly
appointed dictator. Overawed by the dictatorship, he was now brought
before the assembly of the centuries; yet they did not venture to send
him again into prison. Having been liberated on bail, he surrendered
and defended himself; which gives us the strongest presumption of his
innocence, as he might have withdrawn himself. He pleaded his great
military achievements, and his good and kindly deeds, as vouchers for
his motives; he brought forward the spoils of thirty slain enemies, and
forty marks of honour gained in war; he appealed to the citizens whom
he had saved, even to the Master of the horse himself; he pointed to
the Capitol, which is seen from the Campus Martius; and the centuries
acquitted him. But the oligarchy was not satisfied with this. The
senate prosecuted him before the curies (_concilium populi_), which
were to judge him as a patrician in the Peteline grove. Livy, and all
those who followed in his wake, misunderstood this. As the _concilium
populi_ occurs but seldom, he thought of a tribunician impeachment;
yet he cannot deny that the _duumviri_, that is to say, the patrician
public accusers, instituted the proceedings. The assembly was held in
the Peteline grove; not because one could not thence see the Capitol,
but most likely because it was not wished to pronounce a sentence of
death within the town, and yet one was obliged to assemble on a sacred
spot. Manlius was condemned, and thrown headlong from the Tarpeian
rock. This brought on an awful calm which lasted for several years,
just as after the death of Cassius; but the cause of the patricians,
as was always the case, had to suffer for it,[123] although the full
weight of vengeance did not fall upon them. For until C. Gracchus
called the murderers of his brother to account, those who were in power
were not personally made to answer for such outrages; and it was in
truth to this very forbearance that Rome owed the preservation of her
liberty. From Manlius’ blood sprang those, who did not so much avenge
him, as carry out his ideas. Licinius and Sextius were perhaps, or
rather, in all likelihood, his friends; his shameful death animated
them to brave every danger, that they might accomplish their great
work. Encouraged by his example, they did this without bloodshed.
It was about ten or eleven years after the destruction of the city,
that two tribunes of the people, C. Licinius and L. Sextius, put
themselves at the head of their order, with the resolution of at last
placing the two orders on a right footing. The patricians were not to
be done away with as a distinct class; but the plebeians were to exist
by their side with equal rights, and the state, in the true spirit of
its original idea, was to become a double one, being formed of two
perfectly equal communities. The military tribunes were now again
almost always patricians only, which is unaccountable. Something must
be wanting here; unfortunately there is nothing to be found about this
period in the excerpta _de Sententiis_ from Dio Cassius. The patricians
were content with the military tribunate; they wanted no consuls. There
is a silly story current concerning the motives of Licinius in thus
putting himself forward; so that it was an easy task for Beaufort to
show that it was mere fiction. M. Fabius Ambustus was said to have had
two daughters, one of them married to the patrician Sulpicius, the
other to C. Licinius. Sulpicius was a military tribune, and had come
home with the lictors. The younger sister, who was startled at the
noise, was laughed at by the elder one, as if the noise must indeed
have been an unwonted one to her, the wife of a man who could never
attain to this honour. Beaufort has justly remarked that this honour
could not possibly have been unknown to a child of M. Fabius Ambustus;
and it is quite as unhistorical, that the younger Fabia begged her
father and her husband to help her to get it likewise. Plebeians could
indeed be military tribunes just as well as patricians, and M. Fabius
Ambustus besides is afterwards one of those who join in violating the
Licinian laws. The whole is a wretched story, such as we meet with in
memoirs, trumped up by a party who are annoyed at the success of their
opponents’ designs. The motives of men are often mean at bottom; yet
one ought not to make the rule general, and to bury everything great
beneath the littleness of contemptible circumstances. Livy has merely
borrowed the tale from others: in him it is the thoughtlessness of
haste, and the want of entering into the spirit and relations of the
times; he wrote history, not to give an account of facts, but for the
sake of the narrative. He had a generous and noble soul; and although
his patrician predilections sometimes beguile him, it is still quite
true what he says in the preface, that he felt impelled to seek for the
great in the olden times.
Whatever may have been the occasion, it was natural enough to think of
remedying the existing abuses by a radical reform. Theirs embraced two
objects; the alleviation of the temporary distress was the third. The
first law which they proposed, was that no military tribunes should
be elected any more, but consuls, one of whom must of necessity be a
plebeian. The patricians, small as their numbers were, had still the
upperhand in the government; and they tried for along time to evade
the law, until it was made so stringent, that all their artifices
became impossible. It was on account of these tricks, that the law had
to be laid down in such absolute terms. It would not do to say, that
the most worthy from both orders were to be elected, as the curies
had still the confirmation, and could refuse it to a plebeian; and
therefore the election of a plebeian was to be made an indispensable
point. The division was of importance for the patricians themselves;
as otherwise, when the plebeians became powerful in the state, they
would have elected two men of their own order. Only two hundred years
after, the balance turned in favour of the plebeians, who were then
aware that the patricians had quite dwindled, the patrician nobles
being to the plebeian ones in the ratio of 1 to 30. The second law
established the principle, that plebeians as well as patricians might
have a share in the possession of the _ager publicus_; and that with
regard to the past, part of it should be assigned to them as property,
according to the _lex Cassia_, while with regard to the future, one
part of it should be granted to the patricians in possession, and
one part be allotted to the plebeians as property. No individual was
to hold more than five hundred _jugera_; whatever now exceeded this
amount, was to be divided among the _Plebes_ in lots of seven _jugera_.
The number of cattle also, which might be allowed the use of the common
pastures, in summer on the hills, and in winter in the meadows near
the city, was to be according to a certain proportion. The temporary
measure was contained in the third law proposed. Of the debts of the
plebeians, the interest, which had been added to the principal, was to
be cancelled; and the rest was to be paid, no doubt without interest,
in three instalments, at periods of a year of ten months each. This was
indeed a general bankruptcy; but it was the only feasible plan, and
the creditors had previously gained enough in all conscience by their
usury. That was done for individuals, which Sully, after the dismal
times of the _Ligue_, did for the state, when he brought down the debt
by striking off the exorbitant interest already paid, and leaving the
remaining capital to continue at the usual rate of interest. Owing to
this strong measure, France was raised to a high state of prosperity
under Louis XIII.; whilst before that, the marrow of the nation had
only served to fatten the farmers of the revenue and the usurers. In
Rome also, it was without doubt merely the worst people among the
citizens who suffered under it: a more gentle remedy would indeed have
been very desirable; but there was none to be found, and help could not
be withheld.
Against these rogations, the patricians not only now displayed the
greatest determination themselves not to yield, but they also exerted
all their influence in the assemblies for elections; so that for
ten whole years the tribunes, who were re-elected every year, met
with opposition within their own college. Beyond this, the affair is
shrouded in great darkness; on which side the resistance arose, and
wherein the difficulty lay, we cannot tell for certain. Whether the
tribunes themselves made opposition; or whether the patricians managed
to call forth a spirit of indifference and refractoriness within the
commonalty itself; or whether the laws, as rogations, were adopted by
the centuries; must all be left undecided: probably it was different in
different times.
Our authors state that Licinius and Sextius had so stoutly withstood
the election of new magistrates, that for five, or according to
others, for six years, no curule magistrates were chosen. This is one
of those stories which at first sight seem as if they could not have
been invented. We also find in all the Fasti five years, in which
neither consuls nor military tribunes are given, but only Licinius
and Sextius as _tribuni plebis_: their colleagues, who surely ought
likewise to have been mentioned, we also miss. Thus it is in Junius
Gracchanus besides, from whom it passed to Joannes Lydus. Nevertheless
it is false. Undoubtedly the tribunes stopped for some length of time
the elections of the curule magistrates, so that the Fasti were put
out by it: but what a state of confusion there would have been if
this had happened five years running! _Interreges_ were sufficient in
times of peace only, as no one could have led an army into the field;
and were the neighbours quiet all the while? The account arose, in
the first place, from the positive information that the tribunes had
really during the whole struggle hindered the elections, and had only
given way in extreme cases, when a war made the appointment of a curule
magistrate indispensable: the vacancies therefore lasted always for
a short period only, during the delay of the elections. In the next
place, the ancients thought,[124] that Rome had been taken by the
Gauls under the Archon Pyrgion Ol. 98, 1. They read this in Timæus,
and took it for granted, without considering that he was by no means
so sure of this, as would seem from his positive way of speaking.
Fifty Olympiads later, Ol. 148, 1. (corresponding with 565 according
to Cato), Fabius wrote. He knew perfectly well how they now reckoned
in Greece, and he knew likewise that Rome had been taken by the Gauls
two hundred years before; and so he reckoned backwards. But the Fasti
did not tally: six or seven years were wanting between the taking of
Rome and the Licinian rogations, some of which were made up by taking
into the account the substitution of _interreges_ instead of consuls.
This went some way; but it could not fill up the deficiency. After
the Gallic invasion, the consuls were elected _Kalendis Quinctil._;
at that time perhaps _Kal._ or _Id. Aug._, as on those two days of
the month only were elections held. And thus the yearly reckoning was
disturbed. Hence it follows that these statements are as false as they
are incongruous: the Gallic conquest must be placed considerably later,
by at least four years, than it has been. Now the first who composed
our accounts, were by no means of opinion that the tribunes had been
the only magistracy for five years; but they compared the Greek date
with the Roman statements, and yet they did not see their way through
the Fasti. Owing to this, we have the interpolated dictatorships of
entire years in the Fasti of Varro, which are likewise false, and
only grounded on the derangement of the consular year. They then went
beyond the restored consulship of 388; and putting in this place that
impossible anarchy of five or six years, they foisted in the tribunes
of the people, to whom, however, instead of ten years, there were much
too many given. The forger found in the Fasti _tribuni_, without any
further mention of the curule magistrates; and made out from this the
opposition against the elections, which in Livy has been extended to so
great a length.
During these proceedings of the tribunes, there surely were always in
Rome military tribunes, almost without any exception patricians, upon
whom the elections were forced by their presidents; in one instance,
however, half of them were plebeians. The exasperation increased from
day to day: it went so far, that the outbreak of a civil war was
actually to be dreaded. Under the dictator Manlius, the tribunes first
succeeded in having half of the decemvirs who had the charge of the
Sibylline books, chosen from the plebeians, in order to prevent false
assertions concerning the _prodigia_ on the part of the patricians.
Another instance of progress was this, that the dictator P. Manlius
raised a clansman of the tribune Licinius to the dignity of _Magister
equitum_, being indeed authorized to do so by ancient usage. For in
fact the plebeians had also knights of their own, and Brutus, even as
early as in his time, had been _tribunus celerum_. When there was now
no more opposition made by any tribune, and the tribes had adopted the
rogations of Licinius, matters were brought to a crisis; as the senate,
which was almost entirely patrician, refused to give its sanction. The
commonalty showed itself much less obstinately bent upon carrying the
law for the election of consuls, which was all that the plebeian nobles
cared about, than upon having the others passed. The policy of the
senate, of trying to compromise the matter by temporising concessions,
was brought here into play again. But Dio Cassius informs us, that the
tribunes of the people, in order to carry all the laws together at
once, had consolidated them into one; and that Licinius had said, that
if they did not choose to eat, they should not drink either.
In every free state, there are in families political views and
principles which are handed down like heirlooms. Of this there are
many examples in Roman history: people are born members of a party, as
well as of a church. The first tribune of the people was a Licinius;
a Licinius was the first who took the lead of the people in the
insurrection on the Sacred Mount; and a Licinius it was, who 420 years
later, after Sylla’s rule, again asserted the rights of the tribunate:
the Licinii ever continued to be the first plebeian house. It was the
same with the Publilii and the Sicinii. If this seems to us a strange
narrowing of individual freedom, thus to cleave to the principles of
one’s forefathers, as if there were an outward obligation for doing
so, we shall after some experience find it to be the true groundwork
on which the stability and the strength of a nation rest. In the same
manner, there are certain marked political features ever recurring in
many English families.
Licinius therefore combined the different laws in one, that they
might all stand or fall together. Nothing is more praiseworthy in
Roman history, than that a community, which was far superior to its
antagonists in might as well as in numbers, bore with their wiles for
a succession of years with the greatest forbearance and self-command,
and without committing one illegal action. The aged Camillus, who was
past eighty, was now named dictator. In him the old party spirit with
all the old feelings, was still alive: called upon by his order, he
believed that he could make things possible, which were impossible.
To withstand a dictator was more than the plebeians would have dared;
but with consummate wisdom they formed the resolution, should Camillus
take upon himself as dictator to do anything against them contrary to
law, to prosecute him after the expiration of his time of office for
a fine of 500,000 _Asses_. This announcement paralysed Camillus: he
could effect no more than Cincinnatus had been able to do ninety years
before. He himself advised compliance, and made a vow to build a temple
to _Concordia_, if he should succeed in reconciling the two orders.
This temple was consecrated, although not before the death of that
great man. For the Romans of the later ages, it was too mean in its
ancient glory; and under Augustus already it was replaced by another,
under Trajan, by a still more splendid one. Until 1817, it was sought
for in a wrong place: it stood in a corner, under the _Salita_ which
leads from the arch of Septimius Severus to the Capitol. Several votive
tablets were found there; it is behind the church of St. Servius,
which Pope Clement VII. had built in the place of an older one. The
columns, which were of later date, were of Phrygian marble, and of
most elegant workmanship. Trajan was fond of transporting himself into
the past. He coined Roman _denarii_, bearing on one side his head, and
on the other the stamp of some extinct family of distinction (for, in
former times the right of coining was no prerogative); of these _nummi
restituti_ there is a great number in existence. In the same spirit,
Trajan was pleased with the thought of restoring the ancient temple
of _Concordia_: the spot where the golden age of Rome had begun, to
him was hallowed; as it also was to his friends Pliny and Tacitus.
This temple is a classical spot in Rome: it is the symbol of the
constitution, based on freedom and equality.
The reconciliation was now brought about in the following manner.
There were to be elected one plebeian and one patrician consul; yet
the old consulship was not to be restored as it was before the time
of the decemvirs, but there was to be a permanent _præfectus urbi_ as
a new curule magistrate, under the name of a _prætor urbanus_. He was
not, however, so called merely in contradistinction to the _prætor
peregrinus_, a point in which I was formerly, like so many others,
mistaken. This _præfectura urbis_ had existed already before the
institution of the decemvirs, and was to have served in it a different
purpose. The patricians had very strong reasons not to allow it now to
pass into the hands of the plebeians; because the whole of what was
possessed in the _ager publicus_ depended on it. If, for instance, a
father left by will four hundred _jugera_ to a son who had four hundred
already, a conscientious prætor might take from him the three hundred
by which the legal standard was exceeded; but if it was the system of
the prætor to keep down the law, he adjudged the possession, without
taking any cognizance of the objection that the heir was already
possessed _ultra modum_. Besides which, the right was still in the
possession of the _pontifices_; and therefore, the patricians, who
alone had the appointment of the pontiffs, might say, that they alone
were qualified for the prætorship. Another function of the prætor, and
as important a one, was that of nominating the _judex_. In questions
of _meum_ and _tuum_, the _centumviri_ were the judges, and they were
elected by the tribes; but criminal causes had to be tried before the
prætor. Wherever a _delictum manifestum_ was in the case, the culprit
was dragged _obtorto collo_ before the tribunal, and the prætor at once
decided on the amount of punishment. But if the matter were disputed,
the prætor might delegate a _judex_, and direct him to decide in such
or such a manner, according to the issue of the trial. He no doubt had
also the right of giving judgment himself; but he could not possibly
master alone all the cases that occurred. Now these judges were then,
and long afterwards, elected from the senate; and for this reason it
was of immense importance for the patricians to keep the prætorship
for themselves. And hence we may understand the grand character of
the restoration by the Gracchi. For thirty-two years, the patricians
retained the prætorship for the members of their own order: but when
a great part of the _ager publicus_ had passed into the hands of
the plebeians, and the prætor’s functions had likewise changed in
consequence, as he had to command armies, and often to act as consul,
his office necessarily fell within the reach of the plebeians also. The
prætor besides was termed _collega consulum_; and as the two consuls
had together twelve lictors, he had six of them.
It is said moreover that the curule ædiles were now chosen to preside
over the public games. The plebeian ædiles refused, we are told,
to give expensive games in celebration of the peace; on which some
patrician youths took the business upon themselves, and to honour
them the new office was created. I have already shown in the first
edition of my Roman history, that this opinion is absurd. They were
the same as what the old _quæstores parricidii_ had been: they had
to do with accusations before the tribunals of the people, with
state prosecutions, for instance, for poisoning, sorcery, and such
like. This is something quite different from the jurisdiction of the
prætors; if a distinct punishment, fixed by law, was not named in the
indictment, they adjudged the penalty in proportion to the crime. After
the lapse of a year, the plebeians insisted on having a share in this
magistracy also; and for a hundred and thirty years, the ædiles were
always elected by turns, one year, two patricians, and the other, two
plebeians. To the _ludi Romani_ a fourth day was now added for the
plebeians: formerly they had games of their own. From the statements
which Dionysius, at the end of the seventh book, gives from Fabius
concerning the _ludi Romani_, it is manifest, that the state, until
then, gave a great sum yearly to defray the expense; and was compelled
only by the disastrous turn of affairs in the first Punic war, to
saddle individual citizens with the cost. The _ludi_ were now given at
the charge of private persons; and thus the office of the curule ædiles
became a _liturgy_ in the Greek acceptation of the word. The ædiles
had access to all the places of honour; but they had on the other hand
to pay out of their own pocket all the expenses of the games. This was
also continued afterwards, although the state had in the meanwhile
again acquired great wealth. Even trierarchies came into use at that
time, just as at Athens.
That the plebeian ædiles were a general Latin magistracy, is evident
from the mention of them in Latin towns: whether the curule ædiles,
as such a local magistracy, had already existed before among the
patricians; or whether they were newly created, cannot now be made
out. People have hitherto pictured to themselves these curule ædiles
as a police authority. This indeed they also partly were; and in this
respect, they had to compete with those of the plebeians. Yet their
proper duty was not confined to the supervision of the corn trade,
buildings, and so forth, in which we make no distinction between the
patrician and plebeian ones; but it consisted also in conducting, as
public accusers, the trials before the people: of this I have pointed
out several examples. I suppose that the _triumviri capitales_ were
an offshoot of the ædilician power. The ædiles had no lictors, no
_imperium_. How happened it then that these new magistrates were
nominated in the _comitia tributa_? Very likely they were at first
to be chosen by the _comitia tributa_ and _curiata_ alternately,
and to be acknowledged by the others; but when the _lex Mænia_ made
the confirmation by the curies a mere form, this election also was
wholly transferred to the tribes. The petty magistracies, _triumviri
monetales_, _quatuorviri_, and others, were first established after the
_leges Hortensia et Mænia_, when the curies no longer assembled, and
the election was to all intents and purposes made over to the tribes.
As for the prætor, it cannot be doubted but that he was appointed, like
the consuls, by the centuries. The expression is, _iisdem auspiciis_;
but the auspices were taken for the centuries and curies only. Thus the
settled points help us on to the explanation of all that is enigmatical
in the constitution.
INVASION OF THE SENNONIAN GAULS. LEAGUE WITH THE LATINS AND HERNICANS.
CHANGES IN THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF ROME.
According to Joannes Lydus, that is to say, according to Gracchanus, at
the end of the commotions, the government remained for some time under
the sway of the tribunes. This is highly probable. The fact that Varro
in his memoir to Pompeius, _de Senatu habendo_, mentions the _triumviri
rei publicæ constituendæ_ among those who had the right of calling the
senate together, is very strong evidence for it. It may also have been
with reference to that earlier magistracy, that the later triumvirs
called themselves by the very same name. Nor is it at all unlikely
that the first military tribunes were likewise designated in the old
accounts as _triumviri rei publicæ constituendæ_.
When the Licinian laws had been carried, and the first plebeian consul
elected, every thing was nearly on the point of being undone again;
inasmuch as the patricians refused their confirmation to the plebeian
consul. After a great deal of trouble, matters were made up: the
patricians yielded, and acknowledged the plebeian consul L. Sextius.
Thus was brought to a conclusion this moderate, legal, and necessary
revolution, of which the stages were somewhat like the normal changes
in the bodily constitution of one who is growing up out of childhood
into early manhood. That the peace was a hollow one, is not to be
wondered at: the patricians yielded to necessity; but with the fixed
intention to get back by force, at the very first opportunity, all
that they had lost. About twelve years later, 339 according to Cato’s
chronology, which Livy also follows,[125] the struggle was renewed.
The patricians succeeded in engrossing again the second place of the
consulate; and they kept up this contest until 413, during which they
usurped the consulship more than a third of the time. At last they
were obliged with shame to give in, and in the course of the struggle
to yield to claims which the plebeians would not have urged with such
violence, had the treaty been honestly observed.
The beginning of this period is marked by few incidents. Livy’s
statement, that no wars had been waged lest the plebeian consuls
should have an opportunity of gathering laurels, can only be a mere
supposition. The whole of men’s attention was bent on domestic affairs;
and it is but natural, that the immense number of arrangements at home
which followed from the Licinian law, should have entirely absorbed
it. Surveys of the whole of the _ager publicus_ had to be made; a
commission was engaged in regulating the matter of the debts, and a
great deal of other business was lying on hand. The general allotment
of land to the plebeians is to be considered as the cause of the
rebuilding of the city. We do not easily find in history such a speedy
recovery: Rome seems to have become young again, although there are
wars nearly every year. The debts still partly continued, and the right
of the _nexum_ was not done away with; but it became less oppressive by
degrees. The changes extended further than what we know; the treasury
of the patricians now became in all likelihood the general exchequer of
the country. These were also quiet times abroad: the Latins, separated
from Rome, lived in peace; single towns only, like _Tibur_ and
_Præneste_, were hostile, rather from mistrust than from any special
reasons. The people of Tarquinii were the only enemy who threatened
Rome. But from afar a new foe made his appearance--the Sennonian Gauls,
in the year 393, thirty years after the first invasion. What has been
mentioned of earlier inroads of the Gauls, is contradicted by Polybius,
who records all their expeditions, and speaks of this one as being the
first after the destruction of Rome. It seems that the Gauls, after
the taking of Rome, had retired into Apulia, and there had concluded a
treaty with Dionysius of Syracuse: they then returned to their abodes
in what is now-a-days the Romagna, and the territory of Urbino. Yet
there was a new migration over the Alps, which forced its way as far
as the Anio. Here was said to have been the single combat of Manlius
Torquatus, who took from the Gaul his golden chain: this appears to
be historically authenticated, and we have no grounds for deeming it
a fable. A great battle was not fought there: the Romans, who were in
readiness to receive the enemy, were now fully awake, and on their
guard. The Gauls then took up a strong position: they seized upon the
Alban Mount and the heights of Latium, and from thence they wasted the
Latin country, roving beyond Tivoli[126] as far as Campania, even to
Apulia, as is stated in one account. They must therefore have overcome
the Samnites, and passed through their long and narrow territory, as
afterwards the Romans did also.
These events had again the most fortunate consequences for the Romans,
as had been the case with the Volscian war, a hundred years before.
They themselves, as well as the Latins and Hernicans, now came to the
conviction, that their division exposed them to great danger. Between
the Romans and Latins, there was no hostility; between the Hernicans
and Romans there was open war, in which the Romans may have taken the
strong town of Ferentinum: it ended in the return to the old relation.
False is the story that the Hernicans surrendered; for so late as
half a century afterwards, they received one-third of the booty, or
an equivalent in money, until C. Marcius conquered them. Latins and
Hernicans united with Rome, and a new state was now formed which Livy
mentions in two places,[127] without, however, being aware of the
circumstances connected with it. The Latins were to all appearance
no more a compact state: to restore themselves to the condition in
which they were before, was impossible; very many of their towns had
been destroyed by the Volscians and Æquians, or by the Gauls. But
now, the Volscians, their former enemies, were likewise split into
several states:--the Antiates seem to have kept by themselves, but
other towns of them united with Latium; they had urgent reasons for
annexing themselves, as they were hard pressed by the Samnites, who
were making conquests on the upper Liris, and had taken Fregellæ,
and become masters of Casinum. Thus a new Latin political league
was formed, which was joined by the Latin colonies and part of the
Volscians; for with regard to the Latin colonies the Romans seem to
have renounced every claim to hegemony: Sutrium and Nepete, which lay
on the left bank of the Tiber, entered likewise into the confederacy.
Forty-seven peoples shared in the sacrifice on the Alban mount; but
that was in those times when Latium, as a powerful state, stood by
the side of Rome. As a counterpoise to Latium, another part of the
Volscians seems to have been admitted to the rights of full Roman
citizenship; for two new tribes are formed, which had their abode near
the Volscian frontier; just as in the treaty of Sp. Cassius, the Latins
yielded to the Romans the Crustuminian territory. Thus the year 397
is remarkable for Rome’s having renewed the old relations with Latium
and the Hernicans. Festus, in the article _Prætor ad portam_, which is
borrowed from Cincius, speaks as if the Romans, since the fall of Alba,
had always been on a footing of equality with the Latins. This was the
case from the peace of Sp. Cassius to the year 290, and from 397 to
the consulate of Decius Mus; but the intervening period is overlooked.
Cincius has certainly stated what was correct, and indeed has only been
misunderstood by Verrius Flaccus. A very broad distinction is here to
be made between the different times: I was mistaken in this respect for
many years.[128] A Roman and a Latin _imperator_ held by turns, for a
year, each the chief command of the combined army: they offered their
sacrifice in Rome on the Capitol, and were there greeted at the gate.
The new league of the three states had undoubtedly sprung from the fear
of the Gauls, who, although they did not make their appearance that
year on the Tiber, were still very near. It would serve no purpose
to tell in detail how the contest was carried on. It was a dreadful
time for the Romans. The struggle with the Gauls lasted until 406 and
407; and Latium and Campania, especially, had to suffer for twelve or
thirteen years from the continual devastation of the Gauls. Once the
enemy was seen before the Colline gate: the Romans stood their ground
against them, or at least it was a drawn battle. It was on the same
spot where Sylla afterwards defeated the Samnites, and which is now
within the city. It is a prolongation of the Quirinal into table land:
on the left, there is a deep valley; beyond the table ground, there are
other hills, on which the city-wall now stands. It was there, without
doubt, that the Gauls and the Samnites posted themselves.
One of the changes, occasioned by the establishing of the new Latin
league, is this: that, as the older Latium had, according to Cato (in
Priscian), a dictator, this new Latium had also for its chiefs two
prætors, as Livy expressly mentions. A league between the Samnites
and Romans, which is likewise to be found in Livy, belongs to this,
or to a somewhat later period: that, however, before that time, such
relations had already existed between the Samnites and the Romans,
may be surmised, but cannot be asserted with certainty, inasmuch as
a notice of Festus, under the head of _Numerius_, is too vague. As
early as the battle at the Cremera, according to that quotation, one
of the Fabii, who was sent as a hostage to the Gauls, was married
to the daughter of a Samnite of Beneventum; but without a treaty no
_connubium_ took place. It is yet possible that this relation was
instituted between Sabines and Romans alone, and that it was extended
by the Sabines to their Samnite colonies. The motive of the league was
a double one; partly the threats of the Gauls, and in this case it is
to be placed between the second and the third Gallic inroads, those
to the Anio and the Alban mount; and partly, according to a highly
probable supposition, jealousy against Latium. The latter state, when
joined by the Volscians and Æquians, was so powerful, that Rome had
cause to be jealous. The Latins bordered immediately upon the Samnites,
and these tried to spread themselves out on the upper Liris; so that
a league between the Romans and Samnites was very natural, whereas
Rome and Latium were allied indeed, but did not trust one another. A
league of this kind must not of necessity be understood to mean one
of mutual assistance; it is not at all to be looked upon as such. It
is rather a treaty, than an alliance; and in fact there was in such
leagues of the ancients an honest clause, wherein the contracting
parties, on both sides, prescribed to each other the bounds of their
intended encroachments upon other nations. Such was the league of Rome
with Carthage; that of the Carthaginians under Hasdrubal with Spain;
and likewise of Rome with the Ætolians. It is mere declamation, when
in moral disquisitions the division of countries in the new world, as
laid down by Pope Alexander VI., between Spain and Portugal, has so
often been reviled: it was nothing else but such a line of demarcation
for eventual conquests. Even thus was a limit afterwards drawn in the
first actual peace between the Romans and the Samnites, and it was its
want of precision which occasioned the second war.
Notwithstanding the general peace with the Latins, the Tiburtines were
at enmity with the Romans; they seem to have formed a distinct state,
and they took the Gallic armies in their pay. A war against the people
of Tarquinii brought the Roman arms along the coast to Etruria. It was
carried on with great exasperation. The Etruscans advanced even against
Rome; but the plebeian consul C. Marcius utterly routed them, and
compelled them to make a long truce.
At home, there was continual distress in consequence of debt. One
commission after the other was appointed; respites were granted; and
the state again took the matter in hand. The latter, owing to the
tithes which came in from the public fields, was now so well off that
it could effect a general arrangement. The debts were inquired into
by a commission; and all those who owed money, but were able to give
security, received an advance from the treasury to enable them to
discharge their liabilities. This was a wise measure; as by the paying
off of principals the rate of interest was lowered, so that money
became exceedingly plentiful, and it was requisite to find out where
to place it. On the other hand, it was ordered that those who had
property, should not be obliged to sell it, as in that case the price
of estates would have fallen; but that they should be allowed to give
it up for the debt, according to a fair valuation. By this means, the
value of landed property must have risen, and the rate of interest
have been lowered; a most prudent and judicious financial calculation.
It had lasting and excellent consequences, although fresh misery was
caused soon afterwards by new disasters. If the misfortune of an age
is once made decisive by extraordinary events, the wisest of rulers
cannot ward off a state of pressure and distress. Such a calamity,
which befell Rome at that time, was the third Gallic invasion in the
year 405, a much more frightful one than the second. The Gauls appeared
before the city, the Romans did not venture to give them battle; for
though their military science had been brought to a high perfection,
yet it was well judged to confine themselves to the defence of the
town: the consequence of this, however, was the devastation of the open
country. The Gauls, that time, remained long in Latium, even throughout
the winter. If we may believe the account of the Romans, they were then
in the same plight as the barbarians under Radagaise, whom Stilicho
pushed on to the Apennines not far from Fiesole;--even now the name
which the peasants have given to those heights, still refers to that
period:--[129] they must have retired to the Alban hills, that is to
say, the _Monte Cavo_. It is possible, but inconceivable, that they
should have gone of their own accord to mountains covered with snow.
Certain it is, that L. Furius Camillus, a nephew, not a son of the
great Camillus, marched against the Gauls as a distinguished general:
he was in other respects a headstrong patrician who broke the peace
between the two orders, yet _bono publico natus_. It is manifest that
the Romans and Latins combined sent a large force into the field; they
formed ten legions, a number which could have never been raised by
the Romans alone. A very clever campaign was carried on against the
barbarians. The Romans fought no battles, but brought them into great
straits by their entrenched lines. To this perhaps refers the notice of
a grammarian, that the Gauls concluded a treaty with the Romans. They
were allowed to march off; on which they spread over Campania, and
ravaged the country, still going lower down.
Many important changes date from the beginning of the fifth century.
As early as 397, we meet with an account of the tribes deciding on
war. This right we found belonging at first to the curies, then to the
centuries, and now to the tribes. It was natural that when the nation
had grown into more vigorous life, the old customs were no longer kept,
according to which, for instance, the deliberations were to be stopped
because there was a flash of lightning, or because a bird of evil omen
was flying past, and the like; so that no army could then be levied,
and, in short, no resolution of the centuries be passed. Very properly
then was recourse had to the assembly of the tribes, which from the
very first was an institution based on a practical plan, and adapted to
the real wants of the commonwealth.
The enlargement of the plebeian rights is linked to the name of C.
Marcius Rutilus, the first plebeian censor and dictator. He preserved
the peace of the two orders; and we remark in his case a change in the
mode of electing the dictator, which Zonaras also mentions, but which
Livy has entirely overlooked. Down to that time, the patricians had
always had the actual choice of the dictator; that is to say, they had
to select one out of candidates proposed to them. We have a passage
in Livy which expressly states this. Sulpicius was the last dictator
nominated by the curies; there would otherwise have been no occasion
for particularly mentioning it. Livy has merely copied it in a heedless
manner: he has many more notices of the same kind, which appear
superfluous, when one does not know how to explain them from any other
circumstances. Three years later, we find a plebeian dictator, whom
the curies would never have confirmed. Only the senate now decided the
election, and the consul proclaimed it. This is also recorded in the
statement of Dionysius, which has been transferred to an earlier age,
that the nomination of the dictator had been restricted for some time
to the discretion of the consul; I have discussed this in the first
volume of the new edition of my Roman History. The more, therefore,
the curies lose, the more does a power grow up in the senate, which it
had not before. Of very violent commotions which then took place, the
traces have been much obliterated: a mention of it occurs in Cicero,
where he tells us how Popilius Lænas when consul had repressed the
_seditio plebis_, for which he had got a cognomen. This consulship I
place immediately before the election of the plebeian dictator. Thus in
the year 400, the patricians had succeeded in hindering the Licinian
law from being kept, and this lasted for a few years. Another great
change was this: that the nomination of a number of military tribunes
was given to the tribes.
In Etruria, it is said that the town of Cære was obliged to give
up part of its territory in consequence of a truce; so that, what
never happened before, a war must have been waged with Cære. There
is generally a great deal of declamation against this, as a piece of
ingratitude; for Cære had, in the Gallic war, given shelter to the
sacred things of Rome. We do not, however, know any thing positive
about it.
THE FIRST WAR WITH THE SAMNITES. PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION.
_Majora hinc bella narranda sunt_, says Livy. We now arrive at a period
in which great masses come into collision; when Rome struggles with
a great people, which displayed heroic stedfastness, which possessed
great generals and an excellent system of arms (which the Romans even
adopted from them), and which had all the political virtues that give
greatness to a nation in the eyes of posterity. The war for life and
death lasted seventy years, interrupted only by treaties of peace,
or rather, armistices. In the Samnites we have a proof how much is
gained for future generations by heroic perseverance, even though one
be overpowered in the strife; for, their lot was always much more
tolerable than that of many other nations conquered by Rome. Had their
descendants brought down their wishes to the standard of things as
they were; had they not aimed, though in a high and noble spirit, at
impossibilities; had they not intoxicated themselves with feelings, the
season for which was long since gone by; they would not have perished
in the days of Sylla. And indeed, theirs was then a terrible fate,
because they had no longer regard to the circumstances in which they
were placed.
The great event by which Rome emerged from childhood, is the reception
of Capua under her protection. It is involved, however, in obscurity,
and is falsified besides by the Romans.
When we read in the ancients of a colony which turns in hostility
against its mother state, we always think of disloyalty and
ingratitude: the ancients themselves, that is to say, our authors,
look upon such a defection as a domestic feud of the daughter against
the mother. In some detached cases, this may be true; but in most
instances, especially in Italian history, the relation is quite a
different one. We must bear in mind the origin of the colonies; how a
portion of the territory was set apart, and allotted to the _coloni_,
while the rest remained to the old inhabitants; and how the colony then
became, either the representative of the sovereign state, or, should
it get emancipated, itself a sovereign power. The Romans always bound
their colonies closely to themselves; the same appears to have been
done by the Latins. There is scarcely anything similar to this in the
Greek colonies. The Greeks almost always sent their colonies into waste
countries, and built themselves new towns in which they afterwards
would receive burghers of the pale and foreign residents; but they
remained utter strangers to the nations among which they settled. Thus
it was in Libya, on the Black Sea, Asia Minor, Thrace, Gaul, Spain.
The only peoples akin to them were the Pelasgian nations in Italy and
Sicily, and thence arose the rapid increase of the Greek colonies
in those parts. Their colonies generally went out from political
reasons, from discontent, perhaps also from over-population; and as
they immediately emancipated themselves, they owed to the mother state
no other feeling than that of reverence. The Roman colonies, on the
contrary, stood always _in patria potestate_, and were bound to the
discharge of certain duties.
A different system we meet with among the Samnites, perhaps everywhere
among the Sabine states. Just as they had quite a different religion,
different fundamental types of division, a different military
equipment, so had they likewise a different system of rights in the
colonies.--From Strabo we know the tradition of the Samnites concerning
their descent; that sprung from the Sabines, they had found the Oscans
in the country which they occupied. The Oscans inhabited the whole
of that neighbourhood, whilst on the coast there were Pelasgians,
who once upon a time, we do not know when, had also spread over the
midland country. Probably the Pelasgians dwelt at first from the Tiber
to the Garganus: the Oscans from the mountains of Abruzzo, pushed on
by the Sabines, overran these districts; and after these the Sabines,
the stock from which the Samnites sprang, took possession of them,
and advanced into the most southern part of Italy, the most ancient
population perishing before them. Their colonisation therefore, unlike
that of the Romans, was not undertaken with the view of extending
their dominion; but it was merely the overflow of too crowded a state,
whence it happens that there is nowhere a trace of connexion between
the Sabine colonies and the original race. Thus it was likewise with
the Picentines; with the four nations, the Marsians, Marrucinians,
Pelignians, and Vestinians; thus also among the Samnites. These
consisted of four peoples, which formed a confederation, the Pentrians,
Caudinians, Hirpinians, and in all probability, the Frentanians. The
Frentanians were afterwards separated from them; and in their place
another canton, between Surrentum and the Silarus, was introduced,
the inhabitants of which were perhaps called Alfaterians. From the
Samnites other tribes came forth; the Lucanians, and by a cross of
Lucanians, Oscan-Sabellian adventurers, and freedmen, the Bruttians.
When the Sabines had now settled in the middle valley of the Vulturnus,
they also spread into Campania, the most favoured land in Italy: here
there had existed since 280 an Etruscan colony. The oldest inhabitants
of the country were most likely Tyrrhenians, which is the reason why
Capua, like Rome, was derived from Troy. The Tyrrhenians were subdued
by the Oscans, and these in their turn by the Etruscans: among the
latter, Capua is said to have been called Vulturnum. The Oscans must
have been a very great mass; for they quite changed the whole of the
population. But the greatness of the Etruscans lasted only for a
little while: as early as in 320, they began to decline at the Tiber;
how much more therefore in Campania? Now it is natural that Capua,
which was a mere settlement of an oligarchic nation, should not have
been able to hold out against a conquering people: the subjugated
Oscans were not very zealous in the defence of their masters. On this
account, the Tuscans at Capua agreed to a compromise by which they
received ἔποικοι of their enemy, in fact a Samnite colony,--a foolish
arrangement which is so often to be met with in ancient history. Thus
the Amphipolitans received the Chalcidians, and these drove out the old
Athenian colony: Aristotle brings forward many similar examples. Such
towns, in which the ruling community was formed of two distinct races,
had seldom the good fortune, like Rome, of having them well united.
The Samnites conspired against the Tuscans; and with that faithlessness
and cruelty for which all the Sabellians and Oscans are so remarkable,
they murdered them after some time, and kept the city for themselves.
Three years afterwards, the Samnites spread as far as Cumæ, and
conquered that town, which had long been one of the most splendid in
Italy. And thus at Capua, the ruling class were first Etruscans; then
Samnites, and with them a numerous Oscan commonalty. For according to
this system of colonisation, the sovereignty in the colony was given
to an offshoot of the conquering people: part of the old inhabitants
in the towns became clients; another part remained free; while those
in the country, on the other hand, were bondmen or serfs, as in the
conquests of the Franks and Lombards. Similar also is the condition of
the Spanish colonies in Mexico, in which the original population has
likewise continued. This was the state of things in Capua. We now find
it mentioned in Roman history, that the Campanians asked for the help
of the Romans and Latins against the Samnites. But how could the colony
have fallen out with the people from which it came? This is only to be
thus explained. The commonalty of the Oscans, which had been kept in
dependance by the Samnites, gained strength, increased in number, and
recovered itself; and whereas the Roman _Plebes_ gradually united with
the patricians, these broke out into a revolution, and overthrew the
Samnite patricians, Owing to this, Capua and Samnium became enemies;
yet the Samnites seem not to have been destroyed at Capua, but only to
have lost the rule: it is the _equites Campani_, mentioned by Livy, to
whom the whole body of the citizens pays yearly contributions, either
as an indemnity for the _Ager Falernus_, or because they remained
faithful to the Romans. Rome liked oligarchy for dependent peoples.
The Samnites reached at that time from the Adriatic to the Lower Sea.
No ancient author gives a distinct account of their constitution;
and it is only by analogies, and by conclusions from detached
circumstances, that the following facts may be surmised as probable.
They consisted of four cantons, which formed a confederation, perhaps
with subjects and affiliated towns, and were probably quite equal
among themselves. Each of these cantons was sovereign, but united
to the others by a perpetual league. In what rotation the federal
administration went round among them, is more than we know. The
weakness of the Samnites with regard to the Romans, was their not
forming a compact state, as did these from the time that the Latins
were subjected to their sway. They only assembled together in case of
war; yet they must have had a permanent congress: what was the nature
of it, is quite uncertain. Livy never speaks of a Samnite senate;
Dionysius in his fragments makes mention of πρόβουλοι. These were very
likely the delegates of each people, similar to the ἀποκλητοῖς of the
Ætolians; but whether they were fully empowered to decide on peace and
war, or whether, as among the Greek nations, a popular assembly was
convoked for such a decision, is uncertain. If this were the case,
each people had a vote; as the ancients never voted according to the
accidental poll number of those present.[130]
Latium took those who did not belong to it into its league. In the
same manner, Rome had formed from the allied Volscians two tribes,
which dwelt near the Pontine marshes. Rome and Latium therefore agreed
to receive each a portion of the Volscians, and to keep the Hernicans
apart. If now Rome, Latium, and the Hernicans had been allied without
supremacy, and they had had common assemblies, the relation of the
Samnites would have been a similar one. Each of their peoples formed
a sovereign state combining with the others against the foreigner
only. Nations which are threatened with destruction from without, can
scarcely attain to the sound conviction, that they must sacrifice their
individual will to preserve their nationality: the only example to the
contrary is that of the nations of Greece joining the Achæan league.
In the beginning, the Romans and Samnites fought on equal terms; but
the Samnites were never aware of the fundamental defect of their
constitution. Had they remodelled it, and instituted but one senate
with a popular assembly, I have not the least doubt that the whole war
would have taken a different turn. But as it was, now one canton, now
another had the ascendency; sometimes Bovianum and the Pentrians, then
perhaps the Caudinians, carried the decisions; now one people, now
another was attacked, and the chief command changed hands; for in all
likelihood the people which was most threatened at the moment always
had it for the protection of its own frontiers. The highest magistrate
of the confederation was called _Embratur_ (_Imperator_): he is often
mentioned on monuments. It is also not unlikely that each people had
its _Imperator_, and that the general of the one which happened to
hold the chief command, became _Imperator_, or perhaps _Prætor_ of
the whole of the army. As far as we can judge, their constitutions
were thoroughly democratical, as might be expected from mountaineers
like these. Moreover, they must have received the whole of the old
population among themselves; for even after the most dreadful defeats,
numerous as they were, they seem to have been quite unanimous.
The cause which in 412 first engaged the Romans and Samnites in a war
with each other, was the spreading of the Samnites towards the Liris.
As to the Volscians, they were not much thought of any more: their
power was broken, and they were most of them united with the Latins,
or connected with them. The Samnites held the whole of the country to
Casinum, and had subjugated the Volscians as far as Sora and Fregellæ:
sometimes, however, they had to evacuate these districts. Lucania was
not in their league; it was an emancipated colony. But the Samnites had
likewise reached Apulia, and had conquered a great part of it, as for
instance, Luceria. Thus we see that the Samnites were greater than the
Romans and Latins together: their country was equal in extent to half
of Switzerland. Their league with the Romans in the beginning of the
fifth century, we know already; but unhappily, such treaties are only
kept so long as the cravings of ambition, or the lust of conquest, are
not strongly roused. I have no doubt, but that an agreement had been
entered into with Samnium, that neither people should spread beyond
the Liris; yet the Romans might repent of having put to themselves
such narrow limits. Had the Samnites conquered Teanum, they would have
been masters of all the country between the rivers, and have subjected
to themselves the whole district to the Liris. That the Romans were
not warranted in receiving the Campanians into their alliance, is
acknowledged by Livy himself.
It is said that the Campanians had got into a war with the Samnites,
in consequence of their having attacked the Sidicines of Teanum.[131]
The Sidicines probably sprang from the same stock as the Volscians;
they inhabited Teanum, but they may not have been limited to that town.
The Sidicines had betaken themselves at first to the Campanians, as
these were no longer allies of the Samnites, and the Campanian _Plebs_
must have deemed it an advantage to gain this people as a bulwark
against the Samnites on the north. Capua ruled over a number of places
which are said, but without any probability, to have been all of them
Etruscan. This region is called Campania,[132] and is different from
that which is so called on the map; it extends but a little beyond
the Vulturnus, as far as Casilinum to the south, and Calatia and
Saticula to the north.[133] Nola, Neapolis, Pompeii, and Herculanum
did not belong to it: it is therefore quite a little district, and
is nothing more than the townland of the citizens of Capua. The
Campanians, owing to the fruitfulness of their soil, were wealthy
and unwarlike. They wished to ward off the attack; but they could do
nothing against mountaineers, and were defeated. The Samnites took a
position on the hill of Tifata above Capua, and wasted all the country
around. In Capua, it was the old Oscan population which carried on
the war in spite of the Samnite colony; and great troubles now arose,
as the Samnites probably wanted to restore the oligarchic colonial
constitution. The Campanians therefore applied to Rome, or, more
likely, to the federal assembly of the Romans, Latins, and Hernicans.
This is clearly shown by what is stated from L. Cincius; in Livy we see
evident traces of an intentional obliteration of the Roman tradition
respecting it. Alone, the Romans must have been exceedingly embarrassed
by this application: they had pleaded in objection their alliance with
the Samnites, and therefore the Campanians placed themselves under
the protection of the whole league. This _deditio_ must not be taken
for that of a conquered people; it is here to be understood merely of
seeking and receiving protection. In such affairs, the Romans always
hypocritically stuck to the letter of the law, even when they acted in
direct opposition to the spirit of the ordinances of Numa and Ancus.
There was at least that good in it, that they always wished to have
the appearance of right on their side. Yet for all that, we must not
deem the old Roman _fides_ to have been downright hypocrisy: their
respect for the laws certainly kept them from doing many dishonourable
things against the weaker party. They may be excused on the plea that
the Samnites to all appearance became too great for them, and that it
was to be foreseen that the league would sooner or later be broken
up; so that the favourable opportunity ought not to be thrown away.
The Romans were too strongly tempted by the hope of gaining over
the Campanians and all the peoples of that country, by a defensive
alliance. There is no question, but that they were not impelled by the
wish to befriend those who were in need of help; they yielded to the
spirit of evil, and the Samnites were perfectly justified in their
hatred against them. The Romans sent an embassy to the Samnites, and
called upon them to make peace with the Sidicines, and not to devastate
the Campanian territory, as the Campanians had placed themselves upon
their protection. The Samnites proudly spurned these proffers; and now
began their giant struggle against the Romans, Latins, and Hernicans.
This Samnite war is the first great campaign which deserves to be
related, since Rome had a history. However much may be deducted from
the numbers which are given in Livy,--and this may be done the more
safely as it is one of the Valerii of whom these achievements are
told, and Valerias Antias was a client of that family,--the difference
between these battles and the earlier ones is quite evident. In the
year 412, three were fought, the first great battles, besides that of
A. Postumius Tubertus on the Algidus, which are recorded in history.
In this year, the Licinian law was violated for the last time, there
being two patrician consuls, A. Cornelius Cossus, of whom we know but
little, and M. Valerius Corvus, a man in whose favour an exception
might be made at any time. He was one of the greatest and most
successful of men; and it is a just remark of Pliny’s, that even Solon
would have called him such. He is one of the historical heroes of Rome,
although the account of the origin of his surname still belongs to
poetry: Livy himself does not treat it as history. Yet it is a proof
that even in those times heroes were still the subjects of lays. No
one will believe, that in 406, a Gaul had challenged the bravest of
the Romans to a single combat, and that Valerius when no more than
twenty-three years old, had conquered him; for a raven, flying against
the enemy, had pecked and lacerated him, so that the youth had gained
an easy victory. His first consulship falls in his twenty-third year.
(after he had slain the Gaul,) and probably he was consul for the sixth
time, forty-six years later: he nearly reached the age of a hundred,
and lived to see the complete conquest of Italy. As in those days it
often happened that one who had been consul held also the other curule
offices, to these he was repeatedly elected until the latest years of
his life, and he filled them yet in the full vigour of his mind. He
is the man who may give his name to his age; he was the idol of the
soldiers, and not only one of the first generals, but he also ruled
over the hearts of his men by his amiability and brotherly-kindness, in
which notwithstanding he never compromised his authority; the soldiers
saw in him the most able of their equals. If we place ourselves at his
deathbed, and review with him his life so rich in achievements, we have
before us a colossal age, of which we are far from able to give any
adequate image.
Rome sent two consular armies, half of them Romans, and the other half
Latins, to Campania, which was quite open on the side of Samnium, Nola
being even a Samnite colony and Neapolis allied with that people. The
two armies appear in very different positions. That of M. Valerius
in Campania beyond the Vulturnus, was evidently on the defensive;
whilst, on the contrary, the army of Cornelius Cossus was intended
for a diversion in Samnium, Capua very likely being the base of it,
in which enterprise he at that time advanced by the usual road on the
north side of the Vulturnus, from Calatia to Beneventum in Samnium.
Unfortunately we cannot get a distinct view of the events of the war,
and we can only surmise their general course from single facts. We find
Valerius on Mount Gaurus, probably near Nuceria; so that the Romans
enter Samnium from that point, in order to protect Campania. There was
another mount Gaurus, not far from Cumæ and the promontory of Misenum.
If this one be meant, the Romans were pushed back by the Samnites into
this corner, with the sea and the Vulturnus behind them, and their
victory was the result of despair.[134] This would clearly prove, that
at first the Romans suffered some losses, which Livy or his annalists
passed over in silence; but the battle at all events set matters right
again. It was evidently the greatest that had hitherto been known: all
the previous ones had indeed been bloody, but not of any duration; for
if the Gauls had for some hours striven in vain, they would give up
fighting, and the Æquians, Volscians, and Hernicans were insignificant
in number. The Samnites, on the contrary, stood against the Romans
with equal numbers, and most resolutely; and thus they held on during
the whole of the day, without anything being decided, until nightfall,
when the Roman knights, as the _principes juventutis_ (the Samnites had
no cavalry, and the Roman one was very weak as a mounted force), got
off their horses, placed themselves before the ranks, and fought with
noble spirit. The true nobility of the nation put all the rest to the
blush; they followed them, and were irresistible. The slaughter was
tremendous on both sides; the Samnites retreated, but merely retreated
without flight, as was done near Grossgörschen and Bautzen; the victors
followed, but with the greatest caution. Near Suessula, a few miles
off, the Samnites took again a position: the camp and the wounded fell,
of course, into the hands of the Romans. To these, victory gave more
hope than gain; yet the chief point was this, that the battle was an
auspicious omen for the whole of the war, which in all likelihood they
had entered upon, having before them the chance of a termination which
would have utterly ruined them.
The expedition of A. Cornelius Cossus to Samnium certainly took place
in the beginning of the campaign. There he seems to have been opposed
by a general levy of the militia of the Samnites; as on the whole it
was customary with them, to act on the offensive with the regular
army, and to leave the defence of the country to the people. Thus
the invading Roman hosts had mostly to encounter the levies of the
peasantry. Samnium was at that time in its full freshness and vigour.
The Roman general rashly entered the hostile country, though it was
unknown to him and of most difficult access. No army withstood him:
he marched over the ridge of mountains which runs from the North to
the South, crossing it from the west to its eastern side, where there
are nothing but narrow defiles. The first column had already reached
the valley, whilst the last still found itself on the crest of the
hill; for this is what, from the nature of the ground, we must gather
from Livy’s confused account. He most likely wished to get to the road
from Beneventum and the fertile valley of the Calore, so as to keep
the northern and the southern Samnites asunder. In this position, the
Romans remarked that the opposite hill was occupied. They halted.
To retreat in the defile was difficult, and now the Samnites were
advancing in order to occupy a height which commanded the road. The
Romans were nearly surrounded; as the Samnites were already taking
possession of the road in their rear. At this crisis, the tribune
P. Decius Mus, a descendant of one of the most energetic plebeian
families, proposed to the consul, rapidly to ascend the mountain-steep
with a cohort, and to occupy that eminence which the Samnites had
incautiously abandoned; so that he could attack them in the rear, and
there withstand the assaults of the enemy, until the army, keeping the
defile, should have reascended the mountain. This was executed. Decius
reached the height which commanded the pass before the Samnites, who
had now to try to dislodge him. Here he and his men fought, like the
Spartans at Thermopylæ, convinced that they must die, and with such
stedfastness, that the Samnites for that evening desisted from the
attack; but, whilst the Romans retired to the road which had been
abandoned, these took up a position with the resolution of storming
the hill the next morning. The band of Decius was entirely surrounded;
but during the night he ventured upon a sally down the hill, and cut
his way through the enemy, so that with the remainder of his men he
returned to the consul. The Romans, now, are said to have again on the
following morning won a great victory; yet we cannot believe it. The
army of Cossus is no longer spoken of: probably he had got aware of
the dangerous character of his expedition; or a loss had been in the
meanwhile sustained in Campania, and he been called to give help. At
the mount Gaurus, Valerius was alone; but near Suessula the two consuls
are together, and likewise the Samnites had been joined by those who
had followed in the track of Cossus. The two armies were encamped over
against each other; but the Samnites, who were superior in numbers,
felt too sure of success: their general must have been of indifferent
ability. They spread about, plundering the country; especially as
Valerius, entrenched in his camp, gave himself the appearance of being
afraid. When now the Samnites were thus scattered, Valerius suddenly
attacked their camp and took it; then he quickly turned against the
detached bands, and routed them one after the other; so that he and his
colleague had a brilliant victory, and both were allowed to triumph.
The Romans now learned by experience, that in the midst of splendour
and prosperity the pressure of the times may be very grievous. Since
the passing of the Licinian law, there had been continual misery in
Rome; new commissions were appointed to make arrangements concerning
the debts: this was also done after the victory over the Samnites. The
wars rendered a heavy taxation necessary; the plebeians, while they
were serving with the army, had also to provide for the maintenance
of their families; not one half of all those who were able to bear
arms may at that time have remained at home, and so bloody a campaign
must surely have caused the deepest affliction to many families. In
the second year of the war, when either the Latins held the chief
command, or perhaps a truce existed between the Romans and Samnites, a
fermentation took place, which very nearly broke out into an explosion.
Livy is obscure here; much clearer is an extract of Constantinus from
Appian, in which we may distinctly trace Dionysius. The insurrection
of the year 413 was occasioned by the debtors. Livy passes this
over in silence: he says that the Roman army lay in cantonments
in Campania,--probably in consequence of the truce, and that the
temptation had come upon them to seize Capua. The Roman consul, who,
on taking the command, found the army in a state of open mutiny, tried
to get rid of the ringleaders, by sending them off singly on different
errands, and at the same time giving orders to secure every one of
them. This sending off seems to them suspicious; and a cohort which
was sent to Rome, halts near Lautulæ, between Terracina and Fundi;
four or five Italian miles from the former place, on a lonely road
between the hills and the sea, which had ever been a haunt of robbers
and bandits. The mountains there approach the sea almost as close as
at Thermopylæ; but they are not as steep. It is quite a narrow defile,
connecting Latium and Campania, and there appear to have been warm
springs in it; so that in its name also the place resembles Thermopylæ.
The country is now a wilderness. I could not find the springs, and at
Terracina I forgot to inquire for them. In the second Samnite war,
there was fought near Lautulæ one of the greatest battles recorded in
history. Here the cohort mutinied, and was joined by great numbers;
the communication between Rome and the head quarters was cut off, the
messengers of the consuls were intercepted, and the whole of the army
must have refused their obedience. A crowd of bondmen for debt flocked
in to side with them, and now happened that dreadful state of things
which had never before been known: the common people marched against
Rome, without, however, offering any personal violence to the consul.
It was no more the _Plebs_ on the _Mons Sacer_; but proletarians
against the rich, very much like the workmen in manufactories against
their masters. But most fortunately for Rome, poor indeed as they had
become, they still looked upon themselves as plebeians, and the leading
plebeians as their chiefs; so that these last were able to make use
of them to reform the constitution. It is remarkable that they drew
forth an old lame patrician, T. Quinctius, of the Alban district, from
his country seat, and chose him for their captain, as the peasants, in
the Peasants’ War, did Götz Von Berlichingen; on which they advanced
against the city. The distress was very great. The government knew no
longer on whom to rely: all who were in the town, armed as well as they
could; but the city legions would hardly have been able to make head
against the army. Valerius Corvus felt his heart bleed at the thought
of a civil war. Fortunately the _Plebes_ also was not yet become quite
savage; so he held out his hand for reconciliation. The soldiers were
likewise moved, when they saw their kinsmen in the army of the town:
they alleged great grievances, and were ready to listen to terms of
accommodation. On either side, all were unwilling to shed the blood
of their brethren. The consequence of this moderation in both parties
was a reconciliation: peace was concluded, and the debts, according to
Appian (that is to say, Dionysius), were remitted.
The cause of all this, as it is stated in this account, is a most
unlikely one. The sending away of individuals could surely have lasted
only a very short time; but that a whole cohort should have been thus
despatched, is not to be thought of. The other story makes no mention
whatever of a military insurrection, or of the intention to take Capua;
but it speaks of a commotion at home, a secession like the former ones
of the _Plebes_, owing to their indebted state, and the unfair position
in which they stood to the patricians, the Licinian law not having
been kept. The plebeians emigrated into the Alban district, and had
drawn over to them cohorts of the army. It is indeed mentioned that the
senate had gathered troops; but there is nothing said about the two
armies having faced each other, or about the dictatorship of Valerius
(which is found in Livy). Just as they were on the point of drawing the
sword, it was agreed on both sides to put an end to the struggle at any
price.
A great and essentially plebeian legislation by which that of Licinius
was completed, manifests itself as the result of this event. Whatever
may have been the true history of that commotion, it was certainly of
much greater importance than Livy describes it to have been. Whereas
until then the Licinian law, according to which there was always to be
one plebeian consul, had been violated seven times in thirteen years;
from henceforth there are no more infringements of it, notwithstanding
some absurd attempts in later times. In the present fermentation, a
rule must have been made which precluded the possibility of any such
design being successful. Clauses must have been added, perhaps as
stringent as those in the _lex Valeria Horatia_, by which the severest
punishments were denounced against any one who hindered the election of
the tribunes of the people. Moreover, it is said to have been enacted,
that both consuls might also be chosen from the plebeians; but this
seems to be a mistake: that this was not carried out, may easily be
proved. In the war of Hannibal, there was once a special resolution
passed, that both consuls might be taken from the _Plebes_ while the
war lasted; yet it was not acted upon. It was not before 580, that the
natural proportion first won the day, the patrician nobility having
dwindled down to such insignificance, that it became impossible to keep
up the law as had been done hitherto. Another ordinance which Livy
mentions, is of great importance: it shows that there was no longer
a mere question of the opposition of the orders against each other;
but that among the plebeian nobility the same oligarchical intrigues
had manifested themselves, which until then had been confined to the
patricians alone,--a proof, that neither of the two was better than
the other. This law comprised two points: in the first place, that
no one should hold two curule dignities at the same time; secondly,
that whoever had filled a curule office, could only be re-elected to
it after ten years. The first point, as far as the prætorship was
concerned, could effect the patricians only, it having probably often
happened that a patrician consul had caused himself to be elected
prætor as well, so that he might get the upperhand over his colleague;
but with regard to the ædileship, it would also affect the plebeians in
alternate years. Livy says that the law was especially directed against
the _ambitio novorum hominum_. The second point had probably been
mooted by the plebeians themselves, as a check upon the overwhelming
influence of men who belonged to their own order; as until then we
always find the same plebeian names as Popillius Lænas, C. Marcius, C.
Poetelius, in the list of consuls. What was wanted, was to keep the
honours of the state from becoming the property of a few exclusive
families.
With regard to military matters, Livy knows of two laws which date
from the time of these disturbances. The first, that whosoever had
once been a military tribune, should no more become a centurion, is
represented as having been brought forward owing to a certain Salonius,
who is said to have been thus reduced to a lower rank out of spite.
The consuls had full right to appoint whom they chose as centurions;
yet there was a feeling among the soldiers, that when a man had been
a tribune, he could no more be a centurion which was no higher than
a non-commissioned officer. Among the military tribunes, six places
every year were filled by the tribes, the rest by the consuls: one
could not, however, be elected two years running by the same party.
During the year in which a person could not be tribune, he must have
been unemployed. Now Salonius, who had been a tribune, and as such had
no doubt opposed the consuls, was therefore made by these a centurion:
thus the voice of the public promoted, and the consuls degraded him.
It was against this that the law was directed. The organisation of
the class of officers is one of the best things in the Roman system.
Slow advancement, the right to gradual promotion, and the making
provision for officers in old age, were unknown to the Romans: by law,
no one held a permanent commission; every officer was required to be
efficient. They had no notion either of gradually rising by length of
service, or of a standing corps of officers: every military tribune was
appointed for one year only; if he did not show himself equal to his
duty, he was not chosen again; but whoever was efficient was elected
year by year by the people and by the consuls in turn, and this was
his calling, and his desire. Moreover, it was not necessary to pass
through a whole succession of subordinate steps: the young Roman of
rank served as a horseman; the consul had the distinguished ones in his
cohort as staff-officers; there they learned a great deal, and in a
couple of years the young man, in the full prime of life, might become
a military tribune. Regard was had besides to that respectable class
of people who, without any calling for a higher command, were well
qualified to train the soldiers. These were made centurions, what with
us would be sergeants. They were all of them people of humble station;
they had good pay and enjoyed consideration, and they also might in
some cases become tribunes, if they showed remarkable ability. What is
done by the great mass of our subalterns, might be performed as well
by an able non-commissioned officer. In all this, the Roman military
system is as admirable as in its perfect training of the individual
soldier.
The second law may show us how Livy jumbles everything together. The
pay of the _equites_ is said by him to have been lowered, because they
had not taken a share in the insurrection. If the rebels could carry
this through, the state was lost. I believe that this was the period
when the _equites_ ceased to be assigned as a burthen of two thousand
_asses_ upon the widows and orphans, and it was decreed, that they
should have a fixed pay. This was a reasonable change, but a loss for
the _eques publicus_; reasonable, because the state could afford the
expense.
_In luco Petelino_, the curies now voted a complete amnesty for all
that had happened: no one was either in jest or in earnest to be
reproached with it. Livy takes it for a resolution of the centuries
_auctoribus patribus_; but it is evident from the trial of Manlius,
that in the _lucus Petelinus_ the curies alone assembled.
THE WAR AGAINST THE LATINS. THE LAWS OF THE DICTATOR Q. PUBLIUS PHILO.
FURTHER EVENTS.
The Romans now decided upon peace with the Samnites. They had already,
on account of the past year, received from them an indemnity for pay
and keep; or they then received it. The peace was made by the Romans
in a selfish and base manner; as the war had been undertaken in
conjunction with the Latins. They yielded Capua to the Samnites, and
left them at liberty to conquer Teanum. The Sidicines, on the other
hand, threw themselves into the arms of the Latins, and concluded with
the Volscians, Auruncians, and Campanians, a separate league against
the Samnites. The same thing has happened also in modern times; as for
instance, the alliance between Prussia and Russia under Frederic the
Great and Peter III., in the seven years’ war. The Latins now went
on with the war _suo Marte_, which Livy in his way of viewing things
deems an offence in them, as if they had violated the _majestas populi
Romani_. They made war with the Pelignians; from which it may be seen
that the Æquians belonged to them, as otherwise they could not have
touched the Pelignians. The latter allied themselves with the Samnites,
who in their turn applied to the Romans for help or mediation, as the
peace had evidently been immediately followed by an alliance. The
federal compact of Rome with the Latins and Hernicans had now come to
a crisis: the Hernicans were either neutral, or, what is more likely,
in a league with the Romans; as Livy and the Capitoline Fasti do not
mention them among those over whom Mænius triumphed. Such confederacies
may subsist between peoples, none of which is as ambitious and powerful
as the Romans then were; but there were now only three ways open.
Either they might part from each other and remain friends; or they
might enter into a union, like that between Great Britain and Ireland;
or lastly, the fortune of arms had to decide, which was to be master
of the other: to stand side by side, as hitherto, was impossible.
During the last year already, the war had no longer been carried on
in common; the Latins had taken the field under their own standards.
It was therefore now resolved to negociate. Latium had a more solid
constitution than the Samnites; it was governed like Rome. It had two
prætors, as Rome had two consuls; and it must have had a senate, as
_decem primi_ are mentioned, evidently the deputies of as many towns.
These ten leaders betook themselves to Rome, and there they made the
most just proposal that the two states should unite; that the senate
from three hundred members should be doubled to six hundred; that the
popular assembly should be increased,--in which case the seven and
twenty Roman tribes would no doubt have been raised to thirty, and
the Latin towns have voted as so many tribes; that Rome should be the
seat of government, and a Roman and a Latin consul be elected every
year. Had the Romans accepted these terms, Rome and Latium would in
reality have been equal; but every Roman would have had his privileges
lessened. The idea of a Latin consul was odious to the Romans; for, in
all the republics, however democratically they may be disposed, there
is a spirit of exclusiveness. Of this we find a striking instance in
the history of the institutions of Geneva. In that republic there are
_bourgeois_; _natifs_, that is to say, children of the μέτοικοι or
_habitans_; and lastly, _habitans_; all of which have one after the
other acquired the right of citizenship. Nothing is more oligarchical
than the canton of Uri. Patricians as well as plebeians were
discontented. If there was to be only one consul, who should it be, a
patrician or a plebeian? They would rather have agreed to have four
consuls. The embassy of the Latins, as Livy tells us, was received with
general indignation; not that they had disguised from themselves that
the impending struggle would be a war for life and death; but because
vanity and selfishness outweighed this consideration. We are told, that
the consul T. Manlius had declared that he would stab with his own hand
the first Latin in the Roman senate. The story has besides the poetical
addition, that while they were debating in the Capitol, a thunderstorm
and a pelting shower came on; and that the Latin prætor, as he was
retiring, fell down the _centum gradus_ of the Tarpeian rock, and was
taken up lifeless. In later narratives, “lifeless” was prosaically made
out to mean “in a swoon.”
The Sabines, renowned as they were of old for uprightness, had been
quite asleep, and they had no longer any importance whatever: the
northern confederation, the Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucinians, and
Vestinians, in spite of their bravery, only wished to be left quiet
in their mountains. The Romans passed through their territory, and
were in alliance with the Samnites: the latter expected for themselves
the conquest of Capua and Teanum as the result of the war. Had the
Romans now been afraid of letting their open country be wasted by the
Latins, they would have been obliged to keep themselves merely on the
defensive, or else to carry on a tedious war of sieges against the
Latin towns. But here the Roman generals showed themselves great,
and the way in which they dealt with the whole matter, was masterly.
Fixing upon the very boldest plan, they armed the reserve at Rome,
and abandoned the fields, even to the very gates of the city, to the
Latins; then they marched all the way round through the Sabine and
the Marsian country, to join the Samnites; and when this was done,
they advanced with a combined force against Capua. If the Latins had
now left the Campanians to their fate, and had gone beforehand to
meet the Romans, while they were still on their march through the
country of the Æquians, they might have perhaps defeated them in these
impassable regions. This daring enterprise of the Romans is a proof
of high strategical talent; and great men were Manlius and Decius,
who, like all great men, knew very well how to estimate their foes: it
was on the strength of this knowledge that they ventured thus to lead
their armies round in a semicircle. The Latins, by a quick movement,
might have devastated the whole of the Roman territory; and then,
eight days before the Romans could have returned, they might have made
their appearance at the gates of Rome, with an easy retreat to their
fortresses: but the Roman generals must have well known the want of
spirit and the mediocrity of their enemy, and therefore have left
the road to Rome open. The Latins listened to the complaints of the
Campanians, and may perhaps have thought thus to destroy the whole of
the Roman army with one blow, as it could not return. Their force also
might have encouraged them in such a hope: a trifle would have turned
the scale; they might have conquered, as well as have been conquered.
The Romans, no doubt, had sent all that they could muster into the
field, and were not even then equal to the Latins. That the Samnites
joined them, is certain; but the Roman annalists try to deny it, as if
the Samnites had arrived only after the battle. The Latins and their
allies, the Volscians, Æquians, Sidicines, Campanians, and Auruncians,
had pitched their camp on the eastern side of Vesuvius; whether
Veseris, where the battle was fought, is the name of a town or a river,
is not certain. Here the two armies stood for a long time over-against
each other, anxiously awaiting the decisive day. If the Latins had had
an able general, they would, after a defeat, have been far better off
than the Romans: they could retreat to Capua, throw themselves behind
the Liris, and there collect reinforcements from their own country.
Nor were the Romans superior to the Latins in a military point of
view. There had always been a Roman and a Latin century combined as a
maniple in the legion, so that the organisation of the two armies was
the same. Under these circumstances, the consul forbade all single
combats on pain of death; and this he did on account of the moral
effect,--as slight accidents may easily give birth to a prejudice
concerning the issue of the battle,--not on account of the acquaintance
with the enemy, as is stated by Livy. Thus it was forbidden in the
Russian army to accept the challenge of the Turkish Spahis. The
stricter the prohibition was, the louder was the defiance of the Latin
knights; and it moreover happened that the Roman cavalry had always
been the worst part of the army, worse, for instance, than that of the
Ætolians. This gave rise to the duel between the Tusculan Geminius
Metius and the son of consul Manlius. Livy has told this incident in
a masterly style, with the heart of a Roman, and the soul of a poet:
the father, in order to enforce obedience, had his son executed. There
is another circumstance connected with it, which Livy mentions only
cursorily.[135] In the old legend, it was certainly not the son of
Manlius alone, but a centurion besides, who conquers for the _pedites_
as the former did for the _equites_.
The long time which elapsed before the battle began, is a decisive
proof that the Samnites did not stay away altogether. The Romans went
into battle with gloomy forebodings; besides which, both of the consuls
had had a dream, which announced a dismal issue, that one army and
the general of the other were doomed to the infernal gods. On this,
the two consuls agreed that the general of whichever wing[136] was
hard pressed, should devote himself to the infernal gods. Both of them
offered sacrifice; and that of Decius was of evil omen, that of Manlius
propitious. It occurs here, as it often does in such cases, that the
liver had no _caput_, which is, what in Italian is still called _capo_,
the place where the liver is grown to the midriff; the seam was
wanting. The liver exhibits the most varied features: quite healthy
animals may have great differences of formation in their livers. In
the heart and the lungs, no handle for divinations is to be found; the
liver has nearly always some abnormities. Decius now went into battle
with the resolution of sacrificing himself, a resolution which must
have been formed already in Rome, as the pontifex accompanied the army
in order to devote him.
The Roman legion then consisted of five bodies, _hastati_, _principes_,
_triarii_, _rorarii_, _accensi_. Of these, there were three battalions
of the line mixed up with light troops, and a battalion of light
troops, the _rorarii_ with a third of the _hastati_. Of the latter,
nearly two-thirds were from early times armed with spears: the
_principes_ had at that time already _pila_; but the _triarii_ had
still lances. These were the troops of the line; but the _ferentarii_
were light troops with slings, and one-third of the _hastati_,
light soldiers with javelins. In the beginning of the battle, these
skirmishers were thrown out like the ψιλοί of the Greeks, and
afterwards retired through the lines to the rear; yet they always came
forth again, as soon as the enemy retreated. These three battalions
stood in detached maniples with intervals, as at Zama; but certainly
not _en échelons_, such a large interval, as that stated by Livy, being
practically impossible in a line, as the cavalry would have broken
through it at once: probably they were drawn up in a _quincunx_, in
which such intervals might exist. As the whole of the Roman array of
battle was calculated to keep up the exertion of the individual, not,
like the Greek, to form compact masses; the rule was this, that the
two first battalions, covered by the skirmishers, approached the enemy
as close as possible. Every Roman soldier was perfectly trained for
fighting. In the later order of battle, the soldier began the onset
with the _pilum_. The Roman soldiers stood in ten ranks with plenty
of room for moving; if these were closed, the first battalion ran
forward, halted, and then hurled those terrible _pila_ which pierced
through armour, and of which each man had several with him. When they
thus halted, all was not yet over after the first throw; but the front
ranks, after having discharged their _pila_, fell back two steps,
and the rank close behind them came forward too, and took its place
at the side of each, on the same line; the first rank then retired,
and formed the tenth rank. Thus the whole ten advanced in their turn
to use their _pila_. This mode of attack, the only possible and true
one, was terrible to the enemy. From this quiet rotation it may also
be conceived, how it was that the fights lasted a long while, and
that the soldiers did not at once come to close quarters: an hour
surely was taken up in merely throwing the _pila_. Then did the fight
with swords begin, in which the ranks again relieved each other. The
rear ranks were not idle in the meantime. If some of the front ranks
fell, or were worn out, they took their places; and thus the Roman
battle might last a good while. For this, armies must indeed have been
trained and practised, as the Romans were. The dust and the shout of
battle were not as confusing as the smoke and thunder of artillery.
If the _hastati_ had done fighting, they withdrew to the rear of the
_principes_ who now commenced; if the troops were overpowered, they
fell back on the _triarii_, who, at that time, formed a reserve which,
however, was always obliged to enter into the fight. Besides those four
battalions, the three of the line and one of light troops, there was a
fifth, the _accensi_, without armour, and merely intended to fill up
the places of the slain, whose arms they were to take. The _accensi_
and _velati_ were the two centuries which were attached to the fifth
class, though below its census.
It is evident that Manlius, in this instance, did a thing which had
never been done before: he armed the _accensi_, used them to strengthen
his line, instead of the _triarii_ whom he reserved for the last
decision. By this means he saved himself. Not that, as Livy says, the
Latins mistook the _accensi_ for _triarii_; this is not possible,
though it may be that the _accensi_ also were armed with spears, and
advanced as phalangites. The Latins went on in the old routine; and
even then, they had nothing but its common-place elements. In the
meantime, at the wing of Decius the fight was disastrous; the Latins
were conquering. On this, Decius caused himself to be devoted to death
by the pontifex M. Valerius. This devotion had an inspiring effect upon
the army, and one which to their ideas was magical; as the consul had
atoned for the whole nation, which was now deemed invincible. And thus,
according to the legend, the fortune of the battle turned at once; the
legions rallied, and won the completest of victories.
If Rome had been overpowered in this struggle, the whole of her army
would have been annihilated. The Latins, however, would not have been
able to derive the same advantages from it which Rome did; for as
Latium itself was wanting in that unity which is based upon a grand
central point, the supremacy would have been left in abeyance between
it and Samnium. There is every likelihood that Italy would then have
fallen under a foreign yoke; it might perhaps have become the hopeless
prey of Pyrrhus, or at least of the Carthaginians, and the Gauls would
have incessantly wasted it. Had the Italian nations been wise, the same
result would have been brought about without the destruction which now
indeed accompanied it.
The battle must have been a complete defeat to the Latins; so decisive
was it, that all were seized with panic. Capua evidently yielded
at once; and those who had been beaten, did not even try to defend
themselves behind the Vulturnus, but hurried away beyond the Liris. All
fled. At Vescia, however, a new army was formed. Vescia is an Ausonian
town near the Vescinian mountains, probably the present S. Agata di
Goti: there are indeed no ruins there, but many tombs. It is situated
on the natural road from the Liris to the Vulturnus; going to Naples,
one has the mountains on the right hand. The flight of the Latins
cannot then have been so disorderly as Livy describes it. Here those
who had escaped assembled, and were reinforced by fresh contingents
from the old Latin and Volscian towns; the Volscians on the sea coast,
and on the Liris, the Auruncians and Sidicines, consequently the whole
of the country between the Liris and the Vulturnus, were united. This
army offered to the Romans a final battle near Trifanum on the Liris,
between Sinuessa and Minturnæ. The Romans at once attacked, without
resting from their march, and gained a decisive victory, though with a
great loss of men; and this second overthrow of the Latins completed
the destruction of all their resources, especially as they had the
broad river Liris behind them. The contingents dispersed, each to
defend its own town. The Romans quickly followed up the advantage
which they had won, and went on towards Rome, passing through the very
territory of the Latins. Whether Latium was then entirely subdued
already, as Livy tells us, or yet later,--the Latins indeed are
still open enemies the year after,--can only be decided according to
probability. The Roman senate now pronounced judgment at once: perhaps
these had laid down arms in their first fright, and had afterwards
taken them up again; perhaps also the senate, with a grand confidence
in the certainty of eventual success, passed the resolution that the
_ager publicus_ of the Latin state, the Falernian district of the
Campanians, and part of the _ager Privernas_,--Privernum does not seem
to have entered into the league of the Latins,--should be confiscated,
and assigned to the _Plebes viritim_, that is to say, to every one who
had put on the _toga pura_: assignments beyond the Vulturnus would
not have been worth anything to the Romans. The assignation was,
however, of very trifling extent, as the chief men among the plebeians
intrigued with the patricians against the people. It was probably as
a compensation for the _ager Falernus_, that to each of the Campanian
knights a yearly revenue of four hundred and fifty _denarii_, to be
paid by the commonalty of Capua, was adjudged: these, as was already
remarked, were the Samnites of the old colony, who for the sake of
their own interest had taken no share in the struggle. In the following
year, after the Romans had received the submission of the Latins, that
terrible punishment must have driven the latter to despair, and we
see them again under arms. We know from more examples than one, with
what cruelty the Romans dealt with a people that had revolted, for
instance, Pleminius at Locri, during the war of Hannibal; so that we
may believe that the garrisons in each of the towns were allowed to
commit every crime, and such places had long to suffer all the horrors
of a city taken by storm. The Romans now made war against the Latins
from the nearest points of their territory. The insurrection was only
in old Latium proper; in Tibur, Præneste, Pedum, on one side, and in
Aricia, Lavinium, Antium, and Velitræ, on the other: this last town
was originally Latin, then Volscian, at length it received a Roman
colony; Tusculum and Ardea were Roman. These places formed two masses
which defended themselves. The two consuls, Ti. Æmilius Mamercinus
and Q. Publilius Philo, fought against them: Publilius had foiled an
attempt of the Latins in the field;[137] Æmilius besieged Pedum. Here
the united peoples of Tibur and Pedum had intrenched themselves, and
the year passed away without any result. It was resolved to appoint a
dictator; it is uncertain for what reason. Æmilius thence took occasion
to name Publilius for that dignity.
There was now a suspension of arms, and attention was turned to
domestic laws _minuendo juri Patrum_, the necessary results of the
existing state of things, and not to be blamed, as Livy imagines. The
first was, that one of the censors was now, of necessity, to be a
plebeian. This in truth had already before been the case; C. Marcius,
as we know, was the first plebeian censor; but it was only now that it
became lawful, and was always done. The second, that to the laws which
should be brought before the _comitia centuriata_, the patricians were
to give a previous consent, whatever might be the resolution which the
centuries should come to. Formerly the consuls had the initiative in
the laws; afterwards also the prætor, as he too might preside in the
senate, and make motions, his power having sprung from that of the
consuls: the ædiles therefore had not this right, although they had
the _sella curulis_. Yet the decree which the senate had passed on the
motion of the magistrate, was not law; but it went to the centuries,
and then to the curies. This circuitous method began when the _comitia
centuriata_ were added to the constitution. The senate was at first
a patrician committee, and in fact even now the majority was still
patrician; there was, however, already a very powerful plebeian element
in it. Since the decemvirate, a hundred and ten years had elapsed;
many patrician clans therefore must in that time have become extinct,
and others have gone over to the _Plebes_. From Von Stetten’s history
of the houses of Augsburg, we see that out of fifty-one houses in
that city, thirty-eight became extinct in one hundred years; and that
those which were left, then put forth the self-same claims which the
fifty-one, a hundred years before, had not been able to make good.
There was therefore no longer any reason whatever for allowing the
patricians at Rome to have the veto as formerly; if it were taken away,
it would only save a very great deal of unnecessary quarrelling. The
more the patricians dwindled away, the more the ground was felt to
be shaking beneath their feet, the more jealous they became, and the
more they displayed their ill-humour in the weightiest business of the
state. The change therefore made by Publilius, was a well-grounded
one. Nothing, however, was ever formally abolished in Rome; but if old
institutions were no more of use, they were allowed to continue as
forms, so that they could do no harm: and thus it was enacted, that
if the senate wanted anything to be decreed, the curies were to give
their sanction to it beforehand. It is probable that, as in after days,
only the lictors lent themselves to this farce. The third law is, _ut
plebiscita omnes Quirites tenerent_; and it concerns, as was explained
above, government decrees (ψηφίσματα), which were to be confirmed by
the tribes, instead of by the centuries. This too was a mere formality;
for if the tribunes, with whom the consul had previously conferred,
agreed to them, the _Plebs_ also always gave its consent.
The following year 417 is a decisive one: it is that in which the two
hostile masses, the people of Pedum with their neighbours, and the
inhabitants of the sea-coast, were utterly routed by L. Furius Camillus
and C. Mænius, and Pedum taken by storm. C. Mænius is looked upon by
the ancients as the one who decided the war. He conquered on the river
Astura, the position of which is not known; a place of that name was
situated between Circeii and Antium: certain it is, that he gained a
victory on the coast, and Camillus another inland. To Mænius as the
conqueror of the Latin people, an equestrian statue was erected. From
henceforth no Latin army makes a stand any more in the field: the
towns one by one capitulated. Livy’s account of it seems extremely
satisfactory; but, if we compare it with other important notices, it is
not so. He postdates events; some matters he omits, others he conceives
but vaguely; and he makes no distinction between the free and the
dependent _municipium_. Thus it happens, that we have only a general
knowledge of these relations. The whole of the Latin state was broken
up; the single towns, the senate resolved upon keeping, and making them
of use to Rome, which, with extraordinary wisdom was done in different
ways. Tusculum had had from of old the right of Roman citizenship,
but not completely; its inhabitants now became full citizens. To the
people of Lanuvium and of Nomentum, the freedom of Rome was granted, to
become full citizens like the Tusculans; and at the same time, their
population was enrolled in the census as plebeians, and admitted into
the tribes. The Tusculans were put into the _tribus Pupinia_;[138]
the Lanuvinians, and perhaps the Veliturnians, were formed into a
new tribe, probably the _Scaptia_: whether the Nomentans formed the
_Mæcia_, is uncertain. The Aricians also are mentioned by Livy among
those who had received the citizenship; but according to an authentic
account, they stood some years later in the position of a dependent
_municipium_. Thus therefore these peoples attained to great honours.
No place has given birth to so many renowned families as the little
town of Tusculum, the cradle of the Fulvii, Porcii, Coruncanii, Curii,
and others. This is a remark of Cicero’s, and as a general rule, a
particularly large number of great men thus often come from certain
places. Of Lanuvium hardly a family can be named.
Others also became citizens; but not _optimo jure_. From thence begins
the class of citizens _sine suffragio_, which afterwards increases, and
rises to a position of its own. The isopolites of old were _municipes_;
and, if they settled in Rome, they could exercise the full rights of
Roman citizens, a case like that of the freemen from the district of
Florence before the year 1530. Into this relation of isopolity did
those towns now enter, which had received the _civitas sine suffragio_.
There was this difference, that formerly those only were _municipes_,
who came to Rome, but whose native land enjoyed perfect independence
in its political relations with other countries. This was now done
away with. Single places became _municipia_; but were quite dependent
with regard to foreign affairs; in the definition therefore in Festus,
this is the second class of the _municipia_. Such _municipia_ had
_connubium_ with Rome, and their own magistrates, and their inhabitants
might acquire landed property there; but they were entirely dependent
upon Rome, like an _arrogated_ son on his father, or a wife _quæ in
manum convenerat_: with regard to others they had no _persona_. Their
right as regarded Rome, was to have equity at her hands. To that
of Roman citizenship, they might be admitted as individuals by the
censors; yet they did not serve in the legion, because they were not
in the tribes; still they had to furnish troops, not as _socii_, but
in fact as _Romani_, although in separate cohorts. The question may be
mooted, whether they were liable to the _tributum_; that is to say,
whether, if a _tributum_ was levied at Rome, they had to pay according
to the Roman census, and possessed the right of sharing burthens and
advantages with the Roman people; or whether they were assessed at
home. The latter was probably the case, as they raised and paid their
troops themselves, and the _tributum_ was also inherently connected
with the _tribus_. To pay they had at all events; that was a thing of
course. Without doubt, they had a share in the common land: if the
Romans got a general assignation, these places also had a district
assigned to them which they might dispose of in whatever way they
chose. It is thus only, that Capua could have made such considerable
acquisitions after the war of Pyrrhus.
Thus was this decision an important epoch for the Roman state.
There sprang up quite a new class of _municipia_, the consequence
of which was, that the Romans frequently bought estates in those
districts. Soon, however, an inconvenience showed itself; as Romans
had to appear before the tribunal of those who were by no means of
so high a standing as themselves. This was afterwards remedied by
the establishment of a _præfectura_; which the ancients, Livy in
particular, misinterpreted, as if those towns had become quite subject
when such an office was instituted. The province of the præfects
(townwardens, reeves), was that of administering the law to the full
citizens. Such places were then called _fora_ or _conciliabula_, which
was much the same thing as the townhouse in an American township:
here was the court of law, and the markets also. The Roman who,
for instance, bought at Capua a slave according to the law of that
district, could not claim him as his property at Rome; if, however, the
purchase had been made before the præfect according to Roman law, it
could not be impugned on any account.
The fate of the other Latin towns was very hard. From Velitræ, the
old senators, who were probably Volscians, together with a large part
of the inhabitants, were led away across the Tiber into exile; and a
new colony was sent into the place. To Antium, which was a sea-port,
a marine colony was sent; the inhabitants received the inferior right
of Roman citizenship, which the Roman settlers also entered into on
going thither. The Antiates were deprived of their armed vessels
(_interdictum mare_): the Romans detested piracy, and in this way got
most easily out of it: whether the commerce of the Antiates suffered
from it, was all the same to them. The other places were forbidden
_connubium_ and _commercium_ among each other, and also common
deliberations (_concilia_), as in Achaia, Phocis, Bœotia; from none of
them could any thing be bought or sold to the other; besides which,
each had its own burdens; so that, if once by any calamity the landed
property in one of them fell in value, the distress was very great.
They were limited to selling among themselves, or to Roman citizens,
as they had _commercium_ with Romans only. This was the cause of the
decline of these towns; for in proportion as Romans settled there,
their burthens became greater and greater, so that part of them
vanished from the face of the earth. Præneste and Tibur only kept
their footing. They were _agro multati_; but in Polybius’ times they
again make their appearance in possession of the old _jus municipii_.
According to Livy, it might seem as if none but the Laurentines had
retained the old _fœdus_; but it is very possible that this was also
the case with these two, and that, although they at that time lost
their demesne, they still preserved the franchise of the _municipium_.
Both of them had large and fruitful country districts, and they must
have had peculiar vitality in them: Præneste indeed tried more than
once to shake off the Roman yoke. In this isolation all those places
were comprehended, which at the end of the fourth century were leagued
with Latium. The prohibition of the _concilia_ remained in force; for
the _feriæ Latinæ_, the old diet, became a mere shadow, a _conventus_
(πανήγυρις) solely for the celebration of the games. This isolation was
also particularly extended to the Æquians, who doubtless had been in
the Latin league.
This was an expedient which the Romans now invariably employed,
wherever they wanted to break a conquered people, as they did
afterwards in Achaia. By this means, the chief places were entirely
severed; the feeling of unity died away; they looked on each other as
strangers,--and such a separation generally brings on hostility after
it, as in Northern and Southern Dittmarschen. As the Romans placed no
garrisons in the towns, they were obliged to adopt this Machiavellian
policy. In the same manner, the Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Tuscany,
who likewise kept no troops, divided his subjects, and thereby made
them bad.
The Latin colonies, as it seems, were severed from the rest of Latium;
whereas formerly they had been attached in the first instance to
Latium, and did not immediately depend upon Rome. They now became a
peculiar class of subjects, the like of which had not existed before;
as Rome from this time founds Latin colonies by her own absolute
authority. These deserve the admiration with which Machiavel speaks
of them; they are the device of a grand, statesmanlike spirit. They
were increased to thirty, even as there had formerly been thirty
Latin towns. These colonies have their origin in the treaty between
the two peoples. A district conquered in common, was formerly shared
between them both; but those which could not, or which were not to
have been thus divided, were assigned as colonies. Rome also founded
for herself several colonies, which received the Cærite franchise; but
those were called Latin colonies. Here Roman citizens might settle,
and thereby left the tribes; yet they could again become citizens,
if they chose. Afterwards these colonies joined the Latin towns: in
the list of the thirty Latin places, previous to the battle at the
Regillus, in Dionysius, which are certainly those in the treaty of
peace between Rome and Latium, there are some which were stated to have
been founded as Latin colonies by Tarquin the Proud, and are mentioned
as such in the war of Hannibal. With regard to these, there is no
doubt but that those Romans who joined the Latins in them, acquired
equal civil rights. In the Latin colonies, the number of citizens
was much larger than in the Roman ones. Afterwards the Italians were
admitted to take part in the colonies; they also sometimes got a
share of the demesne; and thus the colonies became the great means
for the spread of the Roman dominion, and by the Latin language,
which became that of Roman policy, those of the old inhabitants were
overpowered. They always were from the first dependent upon Rome, and
quite unconnected with each other. Until then, the number of the Latin
colonies was inconsiderable; from henceforth it increases. All these
places were bound to military service, and Rome prescribed to them
their contingent: they mainly contributed to the success of the Romans
in the Samnite wars. The Romans surrounded themselves with colonies,
as their border strongholds. A district was given over to several
thousand men with the obligation to keep it; there were added to them
from Rome as many as liked to join them, and others from Latium and
other nations. The laws were established; the old inhabitants remained
as a commonalty,--the mass of the tradesmen certainly consisted of
them; they amalgamated before long with the _coloni_, and this germ
grew up to be a stately tree. Rome first planted these colonies on the
Liris, and in Campania; then drew this chain as high up as Umbria,
and pushed it on further and further. This double plan of founding
colonies, and of imparting the right of citizenship, without, and in
some cases with the _suffragium_, became the means by which Rome, from
a city-corporation, grew into a state which comprised the whole of
Italy. The _coloni_ were not charged with any personal taxes, which
fell upon foreigners only; they had but to pay tithes from the _Ager_,
_ex formula_.
The revolution which resulted from the conquest of the Latins, is
immense in its consequences. Only two years before, Rome’s destruction
by the Latins was quite a possible event; now all the resources of
Latium had accrued to her, which had not been destroyed during the
struggle. There follows, however, from the reasons mentioned above, an
epoch of decline for the Latin towns.
Among the Campanians the Romans likewise created divisions: they made
a distinction between the _Populus_ and the _Plebes_, the former being
the indemnified knights. The relation with the Hernicans was not
changed; or if it were, they had now in the victories of the Romans
got an equivalent in money. Capua, Cumæ, Suessula, Atella, Fundi,
and Formiæ, receive the free _municipium_ and isopolity; the Romans
therefore nominally acknowledge their full equality.
We are hardly able to form a distinct idea of the then state of the
Roman commonwealth at home, owing to the insufficiency of the accounts
which we have. The war had cost Rome such heavy sacrifices, that
although her sway reached from Sutrium and Nepete as far as Campania,
she suffered from faintness and loss of blood for a long time after;
and thus the calm which ensued is perfectly intelligible. The year
after the decision of the war (418), the prætorship was imparted to
the plebeian order, under certain conditions; so that from that time,
the prætorship, in accordance with the rule laid down, alternated
between patricians and plebeians. This may be historically proved:
the exceptions are worth remarking, and they help to explain the law.
The first plebeian prætor was Q. Publilius Philo; and therefore,
perhaps, some connection between this law and three others which go by
his name, may be surmised. When the second prætorship, the so-called
_prætura peregrina_ was added, one was always a patrician and the
other a plebeian; just as afterwards, when there are four in number,
two are patricians, and two plebeians. But when afterwards there were
six of them, such an equal division could no longer take place, as
the patricians had fast dwindled. The completion of the Licinian law
was a great step in advance; the equality of the two orders had now
become a reality; for the circumstance that the patricians still chose
_interreges_ exclusively from among themselves, is of no importance.
The recurrence of the _interregna_ at that period, indeed shows that
the patricians were still dreaming of evading the law; the gain became
the more tempting, as the number lessened of those who laid claim to
it. Yet these attempts, as far as we can see, did not call forth any
violent reaction: the force of circumstances and the reality of facts
turned the scales.
Abroad there was no war of any consequence. The Romans had to carry
on a petty warfare which was rather welcome to them, and which had
for its object, to make their state a connected whole as far as the
Liris and Campania. On both banks of the Liris dwelt the Auruncians
(called Ausonians by the Greeks, and also in Livy, when he borrows
from Greek sources, namely Fabius, or Dionysius), an Oscan people.
These had taken part against the Romans in the Latin war; but had
afterwards submitted to them as subjects, and were now under their
protection. The Sidicines had been left by the Romans to be conquered
by the Samnites, and must have come to terms with them: so that the
Samnites allowed them to keep their ground, not wishing the barrier
between themselves and the Romans to be pulled down. For this reason,
there was now jealousy between the Romans and Samnites. Nor could it
have been otherwise. It was especially owing to the Samnite conquests
in those parts, that the Volscians had attached themselves to the
Latins, and afterwards to the Romans; as the Samnites, at that time,
were more dangerous to them than the Romans. The great states would
let the small ones make war with each other; for by this means events
might be brought about, in which they would find an opportunity for
coming forth with all their might: these states, were as it were _pour
les coups d’épingles qui précèdent les coups de canon_. The Sidicines,
leagued with the Auruncians of Cales, attacked the other Auruncians;
and therefore the Romans marched against them. The Romans carried on
the war with much policy: they behaved lukewarmly, as it was far from
their interest that the Sidicines should be hard pressed, lest they
should throw themselves into the arms of the Samnites. They took Cales,
between Teanum and Cassilinum, and occupied it by a strong colony. The
system was now, by means of such settlements, to gain a firm footing in
the country between the Liris and the Vulturnus, as far as the Samnites
did not possess it: this course they pursued with great perseverance
and great success. By the colony of Cales, Rome connected Campania,
which was ever suspected, with her own empire. A second colony, founded
soon afterwards, was Fregellæ, which in the seventh century became
so remarkable for its pride and its misfortune: it was situated on
the spot where the Liris is crossed by the Latin road, which leads
through Tusculum to the Hernican towns, and thence by Teanum to Capua.
The planting of this colony was a real usurpation: the Samnites were
masters of the country as far as Monte Casino; they had subjected the
Volscians there, and destroyed Fregellæ; by the treaty moreover, they
were allowed to spread in those parts, and even if they had abandoned
them, the Romans were not to take possession of them. The Samnites had
also taken Sora, and established themselves there, with views certainly
as ambitious as those of Rome. The Romans concluded isopolity with
the Caudinians; nevertheless the two nations were convinced that war
between them was inevitable. Under these circumstances, the Romans
indeed were engaged in as troublous a policy as the interesting one of
the sixteenth century was.
It is certainly not the mere result of chance, when we remark in
history, that at certain periods, in countries far apart, the very
same kind of changes take place, which, owing to the distance of space
and time, cannot have been brought about one by the other, and from
which a new order of things springs up. In this we trace the hand of
Providence, which guides the fortunes of men, and the progress of all
nations, as one whole. Such an epoch is the breaking up of the Latin
league, and the spread of the power of Rome, quite similar to the state
of things towards the end of the fifteenth century. An interesting
parallel may be drawn between the two periods. It is as if the events
which single nations and countries may work out by their own resources,
had been achieved; and as if all the relations of life should now
be changed according to new landmarks. Nations which had ever been
strangers to each other, are now brought into contact; the states,
which had hitherto been the most flourishing, begin to decay, and there
only remains the yellow leaf of autumn; the intellectual brilliance
of the most gifted races is waning fast, never to blaze forth again;
inclinations and tastes take a new turn, as well as the whole of every
day life with its animal wants and enjoyments: even the physical nature
of man is changed, as new diseases make their appearance. Thus it was
at the end of the fifteenth century. The bloom of the Italian towns had
withered, even as, at the period of which we are treating, Greece was
falling into decay. The cause of the prosperity of Greece, the balance
of its many small states, was also that of its decline; for no single
one of these was powerful enough to keep up the whole.--The very same
were the relations of Italy at that time. Florence and Venice stood
side by side with equal power; if Venice had been strong enough to have
had the mastery, a new and better order of things would have arisen.
The battle of Chæronea and the downfall of the Latins took place in
the same year, and this coincidence shows us the hand of Providence
working in secret. The Romans and Samnites, to all appearance, faced
each other as equals; and it seemed as if the struggle must have ended
in the destruction of both, of which foreigners and barbarians would
then have reaped the advantage. For in the North, the Gauls already
held a great part of Italy; and on the other side, the Carthaginians
were threatening. It is true that a short time before, Timoleon had
checked the spread of the latter in Sicily; yet sooner or later, they
could not fail to take that island as well as Corsica, even as they had
already got Sardinia, all but one mountain range. Thus it seemed, that
after the Romans and Samnites had mutually ruined each other, these two
peoples were to divide Italy between themselves.
As for the relations of Rome to the Greeks, there had been hitherto no
political connexion between them. There seems indeed to have been some
intercourse with the inhabitants of Magna Græcia and the Siceliotes;
and I believe that even the learning and science of Magna Græcia
exercised a much greater influence than is generally supposed, and
that the knowledge also of the Greek language may not at that time
have been anything unusual at Rome. Even though Pythagoras should not
have become a Roman citizen, as perhaps he is not even an historical
personage, the Pythagorean philosophy was from an early period known
and admired by the Romans. In the case of some neighbouring places,
communications with Greece are more than once spoken of. Cumæ gave
occasion for this; the Sibylline books were also indeed reputed to have
been kept at Rome. The first missions to Delphi are fabulous, though
in fact the Romans did consult the oracle. What we know besides, is
limited to the transactions with Massilia at the time that the city
was taken by the Gauls, and with the Lipariotes, the guardians of
the Tyrrhenian sea against the pirates. All the rest is grounded on
legends. But the first political relation, by which Rome as a state
comes at length to be connected with the Greeks, dates from that time;
for the treaty with Massilia was in all likelihood nothing more than
a treaty of commerce, which I am strongly led to believe from the
circumstance of Massilia and Carthage being at enmity, on account of
the fisheries, as Justin informs us. By these we are to understand
either the coral fisheries on the African, or the tunny fisheries on
the Italian coast: the inhabitants of Provence were during the whole of
the middle ages in possession of the coral fisheries of Africa. That
first connexion was the treaty between Rome and Alexander, king of
Epirus;--for, one may indeed call the Epirotes Greeks, although they
were of Pelasgian origin, as they were hellenized. Alexander was called
over to Italy by the people of Tarentum, in the year of Rome 420, Ol.
112.
About this time, the glory of Magna Græcia had already vanished; most
of the places, Posidonia, Pyxus, Caulonia, Hipponium, Terina, and
others, had been conquered by the Lucanians and the Bruttians, who
had only been able to keep part of them, and had abandoned the rest:
a few only still held out, but had to struggle for their existence.
Rhegium, Locri, and Croton once so flourishing, had been laid waste by
the Dionysii of Syracuse: these indeed had left them alone again; but
they lay half in ruins, having only been wretchedly patched up, just
as Delhi and Ispahan are now. Thurii and Metapontum had much trouble
to defend themselves against the Lucanians; their territory was almost
entirely lost, and they were like the Italian towns in the sixth and
seventh centuries, when they made head against the Lombards. The only
Greek city which, amid the general calamity, was in the full pride of
its bloom, was Tarentum. It is true that soon after the expedition of
Xerxes, this place had suffered a great defeat from the neighbouring
Messapians; yet it had recovered from it, and when the tyrants of
Syracuse and the Lucanians threatened the other towns, Tarentum began
to flourish. It was undoubtedly increased by the immigration of many
Greeks from the other cities, some of which were ruined, and the rest
in danger. A parallel to this may be found in the growing prosperity of
the Netherlands, and of Switzerland, at the time of the thirty years’
war: the flourishing condition of these countries was chiefly owing to
the misery in Germany, as industry and commerce had sought a refuge
there. In the same way did Tarentum wax great; and it had the advantage
besides, which is always enjoyed by a neutral state between countries
at war, to which we are to add the wisdom of its government.
The Tarentines were much enriched by industry and commerce, by wool
manufactures, by their skill in dyeing, and also by their salt
pastures; and with the exception of Syracuse, none of the Greek cities
in those days, not even Rhodes itself, were perhaps so wealthy as
Tarentum. This town from its position was perfectly peaceful: its
population consisted of excellent seamen. Navigation and fishing in
all likelihood was their element then, as it is now: this life of busy
laziness is the delight of the Greek and the southern Italian; the
Neapolitan is perfectly happy when rocking himself about in his fishing
boat. Nature has given everything in plenty to the country of Tarentum.
Probably the sea is nowhere in Europe so rich in shell and other fish,
as in the bay of Tarentum: the poor Tarentine in his idleness is indeed
as happy as a prince; he lives only on bread, salt, and olives, which
he can always easily procure. Tarentum had no large tracts of land
belonging to it, in which there was room for tillage. The Latin race,
the Etruscans, Umbrians, Sabellians, and the rest, are born husbandmen.
The Italian peasant is an excellent being as long as he is hereditary
owner of the soil: he is honest and respectable, whilst the townspeople
are good for nothing. The Italian, unless he be of Greek extraction,
is quite unfit for a sea life: the Roman coast is supplied with fish
by the southern towns, which were still Greek in the middle ages. The
Greek is a bad husbandman, even as in ancient times, and not to be
compared to the Italian. Although there is a great deal of agricultural
knowledge to be found in Theophrastus’ book, the Greek did not feel
happy in this pursuit: he likes to cultivate the olive-tree, the vine,
but not corn. The Greek soil is also in many places almost wholly unfit
for growing corn, and is far more suited for olives. The Greek is a
cheerful, happy fisherman, and a capital sailor.
The Tarentines were a thoroughly democratic people, like the Athenians
of the Piræeus, as Aristotle already remarks; owing to the revenue
from customs and a variety of other sources, it was a very rich state.
With these vast means they were enabled to keep standing armies, like
the Dutch in the seventeenth century, as it was also then customary
throughout the whole of Greece. General opinion is unfavourable to the
Tarentines. At the time when they were engaged in war with the Romans,
they were indeed a luxurious, unwarlike people; but the blame which is
generally heaped upon them, is in the true spirit of human nature,
which when some one, formerly mighty, has fallen, chooses rather to
trace to the man himself the causes of his own ruin, than to pity him.
I am convinced that in Tarentum, next to Athens, the wisest and most
eminently intellectual men have been bred, and that the commonwealth
made an excellent use of them. A state, which reared Archytas, the
Leibnitz of his age, and which did not look upon him with jealousy, as
the Ephesians did upon Hermodorus, but called him seven times to the
office of general, cannot be lightly thought of; the Grecian mind in
the whole of its fullness must have dwelt there. The wretched anecdotes
which Athenæus, for instance, tells of the Tarentines, are refuted
by that single fact. They do not deserve censure any more than those
great characters reviled in Schiller’s Mary Stuart; a thing which I can
never forgive in that fine poem. It is indeed possible, that Archytas
and the other statesmen of Tarentum looked too much to the interest of
their own town, and were not sufficiently imbued with the spirit of
general Greek patriotism. To such a feeling the Athenians alone have
raised themselves. Archytas may have kept up a good understanding with
the tyrants of Syracuse, having regard rather to the advantage than to
the honour of his city; yet this is a course from which, in unhappy
times, the most worthy men of all countries, when they were at the
helm of the state, have not kept altogether clear. The Tarentines are
reproached with having employed foreign soldiers, and that in whole
armies; first of all, Archidamus of Sparta; then Alexander of Epirus;
then Cleonymus, Agathocles, and at last Pyrrhus. For this, Strabo
taxes them with cowardice, charging them besides with having shown
themselves unthankful to their protectors. Yet it was a general evil
of the times after the Peloponnesian war, that militia soldiers were
no longer brought into the field, but that standing armies came into
use: this was owing to the circumstance, that wars were on a larger
scale, and had become more bloody, so that the old stock of citizens
was destroyed. The devastations which had attended them, had now made
numbers of men homeless, who, especially in Greece, as in modern
times in Switzerland, roved about by thousands, being the greatest
of nuisances. There had indeed for a long time existed in Greece the
fine custom, that the inhabitants of a town which had been conquered
and destroyed, remained free, and were not sold for slaves; but all
that they had was taken from them, and thus they were obliged to live
by robbery. In the thirty years’ war, it also became more easy every
year to find troops, πόλεμος πόλεμον τρέφει. These soldiers, who were
always under arms, were far superior to the militia; and when once it
was begun to employ them, the militia were soon no more able to stand
against them at all. A town like Tarentum could raise no legions. This
can only be done where there is a respectable and numerous peasantry;
whence it happens that there are countries where no other choice is
left but to enlist soldiers, as at Florence when the militia had got
out of practice, whilst the same thing is ruinous for others. The
people of Tarentum would thus have to employ mercenaries, and to keep a
standing army would have been injurious to their freedom; if therefore
they could do without troops, they were quite right in contenting
themselves with their town militia. But if ever it became necessary
to enlist troops, there was in Greece at Tænarus the gathering place
of the men without a home (_latrones_, μισθοφόροι). These, however,
were untrustworthy and faithless, as they followed him who paid the
most, like the _condotti_ in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries;
and a condottiere was very apt to be guilty of treachery, or he became
a tyrant. It was therefore much better to take princes with their
well-trained armies into their service, the honour of the prince
being a pledge to them. Besides which, why should the Tarentines put
themselves out of their way in their trade and business, if they could
do otherwise? It might become dangerous; but they wisely took care of
themselves, as long as they could. In their dealings with Alexander,
they were gainers; with Pyrrhus, however, this was not the case. The
English system of enlistment also has been blamed without any insight
into the merits of it.
The Tarentines got into a quarrel with the Lucanians, by whom Heraclea
and Metapontum, which were in a manner under their protection, had
been attacked. The Lucanians had at that time already lost again that
part of Calabria which was afterwards called Bruttium: the population
there, which was made up of the Pelasgian serfs of the Greek towns, had
collected into a people, and had renounced their allegiance; on which
the former had wisely recognised them, and made them their friends.
In order to indemnify themselves, the Lucanians turned their arms
against Tarentum, and tried to conquer Heraclea. In this strait, the
Tarentines had sent for Archidamus of Sparta, who, with the unfortunate
Phocian refugees, had engaged himself in the service of Crete; but
he was killed on the very day that the battle of Chæronea was lost.
After some years, they called in Alexander the Molossian, of Epirus,
brother to Olympias, the queen of Philip, who also had given him his
daughter Cleopatra in marriage. He had been an appanaged prince, and
his dominions were very small. At first, he had been presented by
Philip with three little towns in Cassopia on the Thesprotian coast;
afterwards the latter, who spread his rule in Epirus, and everywhere
took the strong places, raised him to the throne of the Molossians; yet
Alexander, as king of that people, found that he was hardly able to do
any thing. Philip followed the same line of policy with his relations,
which Napoleon did with his brothers; they were to be kings, but
without power; for which reason, Philip kept a stronghold like Ambracia
for himself. In the times of Alexander of Macedon, our Alexander had to
obey the commands of that old, insolent Antipater; he was not on good
terms with Alexander, and according to the account of the ancients, it
was jealousy of the glory of his nephew which moved him to go to Italy:
he is said to have bitterly complained, that it had been his fate to
fight against men, whilst the other had only women to withstand him. He
went to Italy with views quite different from those of the Tarentines
when they called him in. These had engaged him as a petty prince with a
well trained army, for their protection; but Alexander went over with
the intention of conquering for himself a kingdom, and thus there could
not of course be any good understanding long kept up between them.
He was successful: he overcame the Sallentines; made a diversion to
Posidonia; freed the Greek towns, and united them in a confederacy of
which he naturally became the στρατηγός and ἡγεμών. He was of course
never at a loss for subsidies from the Tarentines, any more than the
belligerent nations of the last century, who had them from England
under Walpole; but the memory of his achievements has almost entirely
past away: we find but a few stray notices in Tzetzes. His success was
brilliant as long as he was on good terms with the Tarentines; but he
betrayed his ambitious views and wanted to assume the title of a king
of Italy (no doubt in the strict sense of the word). This stirred up
the Tarentines, and caused a breach between the two parties. Whether
they concluded a separate peace with the Lucanians, is uncertain; but
as the assembly of the Greek towns was now held at Heraclea, although
Tarentum was the most powerful and distinguished among them, it would
seem that this change was made by Alexander, which clearly shows a
quarrel with the Tarentines. As, however, the power of Alexander was
now too inconsiderable, he seems to have carried on the war as an
adventurer, like Charles XII.: he made roving expeditions. Pandosia,
in the heart of Lucania, where he was surrounded by Lucanians and
Bruttians, became his Pultawa: his army was divided, both divisions
of it annihilated, and he himself slain. He had before that concluded
a treaty with the Romans, which Livy mentions cursorily, but certainly
from Roman annals. This is a proof how the Romans calculated
circumstances; they had nothing to fear from him, and wanted to unite
with him for no other reason than to overawe the Samnites, who had made
a treaty with Tarentum. Real alliance between Rome and Alexander, there
was none; for the treaty with the Samnites was still in force. As far
as we can get an insight into these matters, we must blame the Romans
for having taken the part of foreigners against a native and kindred
people. The Samnites are not mentioned among those who at last made
war against Alexander; but he had come into collision with them by his
excursions: at Posidonia they fought against each other.
What would have been the consequence, had Alexander founded a kingdom
of Italy, is a very interesting speculation. Probably it would only
have made the victories of the Romans more easy; and therefore, also,
their treaty with him was an act of farsighted policy.
In the state of things which now existed between Rome and Samnium,
it was not difficult for the ancient historians, to bring the
circumstances most vividly before their minds; which we particularly
find to be the case with Dionysius, in the _excerpta de Legationibus_.
Both parties saw in each other’s doings arch-knavery and malignity,
and on the whole they may not have been mistaken. The Romans had
kept the peoples who dwelt on the side towards Campania, partly in a
position of isopolity, as the Fundanians and Formians; partly in one
of dependence, as the Privernates. These last tried to shake off their
yoke, as the _civitas sine suffragio_ was only a burthen to them, the
advantages which they enjoyed from it being trifling in proportion;
that they could possess land in the Roman territory, was no great gain
when their own town itself had a fruitful soil. The Romans beheld in
this rebellion an instigation which came from Samnium; and without
doubt, any one who was discontented with the Roman rule, met with
fellow-feeling among the Samnites. The Privernates were joined by
the Fundanians: Vitruvius Vaccus, a Fundanian of high rank, had led
his countrymen into this undertaking; yet they did not follow it up,
but drew out of it. On the Privernates the Romans passed a severe
judgment, of which Livy and Valerius Maximus tell a very pretty story.
The ambassadors were to answer on their conscience, what punishment
they had deserved; and they said that they deserved that punishment
which he ought to have, who has struggled for freedom. The consuls
took this answer in good part, and then asked whether they would keep
the peace? “If you give us a good peace,” they replied, “we will keep
it; if you give us a bad one, we will break it.” The Romans then gave
them the right of citizenship. Dionysius has the same story in the
_excerpta de Legationibus_; but he dates it many years earlier, and
it has perhaps no foundation whatever. Valerius Maximus is really no
authority at all: he is nothing but the echo of Livy. The tale has
perhaps originated with the Gens Æmilia, or the Plautia, who were the
patrons of Privernum, and had the surname of Privernas; the annalists
then foisted it in where it seemed best to tally.[139] A few years
afterwards, the Privernates, according to an unimpeachable statement in
a _plebiscitum_,[140] again revolted. This is, however, struck out, in
order to maintain the old tradition with all its interest. At a later
period, we find Privernum in possession of the right of citizenship,
and that a much more ample one, than the bare Cærite franchise, as
its people constituted the _Tribus Ufentina_. Fundi and Formiæ were
likewise severely punished. This is the natural course of those events
which Livy relates so pathetically; the magnanimity which is there
ascribed to the senate, is quite incredible, and mere declamation.
There is no doubt that the Samnites secretly fomented the disturbances
among the subjects of Rome: they openly demanded the evacuation of
Fregellæ. Justice was undeniably on their side. The Romans had no right
to found a colony on the territory which the Samnites had conquered,
although these were not in possession of Fregellæ at the time that they
took it: such indeed was the state of the case, as otherwise it is not
likely that this would have happened. Yet in matters like these justice
cannot always be done;--want of right and injustice are often very
different things. I would not throw a stone at the leading men among
the Romans for not having given up a place which they had occupied on
a waste soil, although they had positively no business to do so. The
Samnites were spreading rapidly in that neighbourhood; Fregellæ was
a _tête-de-pont_ and a point of defence on the upper Liris against
them, and the advantage which the Romans would have derived from its
possession, was much less than the disadvantage of its being in the
hands of the Samnites. The Latin road would have been laid open as
soon as they gave it up; and their allies, the Hernicans, Latins, and
without doubt, the Æquians also, would have been left at the mercy of
the enemy. It was very like the case which occurred in the year 1803,
after the peace of Amiens, when every one called for the evacuation
of Malta by the English: they could not give it up, notwithstanding
their promise to do so, which indeed they ought never to have made.
The sluggishness of the Samnite senate might have perhaps afforded a
guarantee against any ill use being made of Fregellæ.
The Romans were so prepared for the breaking out of the war, that as
early as two years before, they had an army in cantonments on the
frontier; because they dreaded an attack against Fregellæ. At that
time, the Romans had not only secured a friend by the treaty with
Alexander of Epirus, but they also tried to guard against the enemy by
means of a peace with the Gauls. These had now had their abode in Italy
for more than sixty years. The national migration had stopped; and as
they had nowhere been quite a savage people, they had not failed to
adopt a certain degree of civilization. They betook themselves to the
tilling of land, and became a meek race of peasants; like the Goths
under Vitigis, who were likewise a set of unwarlike husbandmen, so that
the great Totila had to train them anew into soldiers. The Gauls had
two roads to Southern Italy,--the marshes on the Arno; and the Apennine
country, which was grown quite wild, being the bulwark of Etruria,--the
one down the Tiber, through Umbria, to Latium and Campania; the other
through Picenum, along the Adriatic, to Apulia. By the latter of these
they must have advanced more than once; but there they were withstood
by the northern Sabellian peoples in the Abruzzi; and it is also
more difficult than the former. Now, in order not to be troubled by
an attack of the Gauls, which the Samnites might easily have brought
about, the Romans concluded a formal peace with them, which is passed
over in silence by Livy, but is positively mentioned by Polybius, and
which there is no doubt that they bought with a sum of money.
This carefulness of the Romans also makes it highly probable, in my
opinion, that the old account of their having, in common with other
Italian peoples, sent an embassy to Alexander at Babylon, is not
a mere fiction. Alexander had put a limit to his conquests in the
East; to go southwards against the Ethiopian nations would have been
folly; that he would settle down to rest, no one could believe: it
was therefore to be expected that he would turn to the West. People
generally fancy the places in the west to have been much more isolated
than they were; and they will suppose for instance, that the Romans had
known nothing whatever of Alexander. But surely they must have had
at Rome some knowledge of Alexander’s campaigns, just as Clapperton
and Denham, in the interior of Soudan, heard of the insurrection in
Greece, and of the part which individual Europeans took in it. When
my father was at Sana, in the time of the seven years’ war, there
they had quite positive news of what was going on, especially of the
struggle between the English and French; an Arab showed him a map of
Europe: and yet these modern Arabs are people quite lost to the world.
The communication was also much easier in those days, than it was in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though even then there was some
intercourse with the interior of Asia. In Rome there must have been
at that period, maps of the world, as in Greece; individuals among
the Romans may also have been imbued with Greek learning, as the
cognomen of P. Sempronius Sophus seems to prove. That the Samnites
and Lucanians sent ambassadors to Alexander, is disputed by no one;
that this was done by the Romans, the later writers have doubted. The
Lucanians did it, to turn aside from themselves his anger at the death
of his uncle; the Samnites, that they might be good friends with him
should he come to Italy; the Romans, in like manner, so as at least
not to offend him, even though they might not have hoped to gain him
for their friend. Even the Iberians sent to him, when they heard of
his warlike preparations against Carthage. Livy takes it in his head,
that the Romans had perhaps never heard of him. Either they may have
suppressed the above-mentioned notice from pride, or the Greeks have
invented it from vanity; which, however, must have been done at a
time when the Romans were already so powerful, that the homage of
Rome heightened the glory of Alexander. But Clitarchus, by whom that
statement has been handed down to us, was an elegant author who wrote
immediately after the death of Alexander, when the Romans were still
engaged in the doubtful struggle with the Samnites. Aristobulus and
Ptolemy Lagus, who in historical truth stand far above him, speak of
Tyrrhenians and Samnites: in this case, the Romans are comprehended
under the former name, even as all the Sabellian peoples are meant by
the term Samnites. If Alexander had lived, he would first have turned
his arms against Sicily, and from thence have gone against Carthage,
which would certainly have fallen; then to Italy, where the Greeks
would have received him with the same enthusiasm as in Asia Minor;
for he was δεινὸς παρέλκειν. He would have gained them over, have
made leagues with them, and have so weakened those who opposed him,
that the whole of the peninsula would have been his. Livy has on this
subject a discussion which is very finely written, but quite a failure.
Altogether blinded by national vanity, he is grievously mistaken in
his estimate of the contending forces, and likewise, when he thinks
that the whole of Italy would have united in withstanding Alexander.
Had Alexander lived, Rome would have fallen: his death was a necessary
dispensation of Providence in order that Rome might become great.
THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR.
The cause of this war is to be traced to Neapolis and Palæopolis, the
old Parthenope. Palæopolis we find mentioned only in Livy; it was an
old colony of Cumæ, the citizens of which had fled for refuge thither
across the sea. Neapolis has its name from its being a much later
settlement of different Greek peoples: it was probably first founded
Ol. 91, about the time of the Athenian expedition against Sicily, as a
bulwark of the Greeks against the Sabellian nations. The Athenians may
have had a share in its foundation. Both of the towns were, however, of
Chalcidian origin, and constituted a confederate state, which at that
time may perhaps have been in possession of Ischia. About the site of
Palæopolis, a great deal of worthless stuff has been written, most of
all by the Italian antiquaries; we have nothing whatever to build upon
besides the two statements in Livy, that Palæopolis was by the side of
Neapolis, and that the Roman camp was pitched between the two towns.
The old Neapolis undoubtedly lay in the centre of the present city,
above the church of Sta. Rosa, the sea having now considerably receded.
People, however, sought for Palæopolis likewise within the present
city, without considering whether an army could have had room enough
between the two towns. I should never have found out the site. A French
diplomatist, my friend De Serre, who had been an officer in his youth,
and thus had the quick eye of a soldier, discovered it when he was
taking a walk with me. The town was on the outer side of the Posilipo,
where the lazaretto now stands, a nice healthy place in the direction
of Nisida and Limon: perhaps there was in old times a harbour there;
both of the isles have very good harbours. This was also the natural
communication with Ischia: the Posilipo with its prolongations lay
between the two towns in an interval of less than half a German mile;
here the Roman army could have encamped on the mountains, and thus the
two towns have been cut off from each other. Monuments and coins of
Palæopolis are, however, no more to be found. According to the usual
supposition, the two towns would have been so near together, that the
missiles from the walls of either might have reached the other.
The cause of the hostilities was piracy, or at least attacks by sea
against the unprotected merchant-ships of the Romans; who at that time
had no fleet, and, strange to say, wanted to disregard the sea, as if
indeed it could be disregarded. Complaints about the division of the
Falernian territory might likewise have had something to do with it.
Many people, in such divisions, of course sold their lots, and so
this became a running sore to Rome. Yet if the people of Palæopolis
were on this ground at enmity with Rome, the reproach of piracy, which
Dionysius puts forth in such a declamatory style, is quite uncalled
for; as it is but natural that they should try to harass the trade of
a hostile people. The Neapolitans, relying on their alliances with
the Samnites and the people of Nola, refused the satisfaction which
the Romans demanded from them. Nola had an Oscan population with
Chalcidian immigrants: how much the inhabitants were hellenized, may
be seen from the Greek stamp of the coins, which bear the inscription
ΝΩΛΑΙΩΝ. On the whole, the friendliness between the Samnites and the
Greeks is striking: Strabo calls them φιλέλληνες. The Samnites, having
no literature of their own, were certainly open to the Greek one: they
even tried to talk like the Greeks themselves. Romans and Greeks were
always on bad terms with each other; Lucanians and Greeks also were
enemies, although the Lucanians partook of Greek civilization: it is
certainly no fable that the Pythagorean philosophy was homebred among
them. The statement that Pythagoras was a Tyrrhenian of the isles, has
no doubt this meaning, that the roots of the Pythagorean philosophy, so
far as it is theological, are for the most part to be sought among the
Pelasgians in the religion of Samothrace.
Samnite auxiliaries, amounting to four thousand men, together with two
thousand Nolans, threw themselves into the towns of Palæopolis and
Neapolis: the Tarentines also are mentioned as those who had stirred
up Palæopolis. The Tarentines and Samnites were very closely allied;
and the former spent their money in getting up a distant war against
Rome. The Romans looked upon the occupation of Palæopolis by the
Samnites as an act of hostility, and complained of it to the assembly
at Samnium. The evacuation was a moral impossibility; and the answer
was, that one must not quibble about single grievances, that war was
what they wanted, and war they should have. The national assemblies
confirmed this answer. In the meanwhile, the siege of Palæopolis had
lasted a long time, and the Romans had no prospect of success; their
own practice in sieges was still in its very infancy, and the Greeks
opposed to them considerable technical skill: their assaults were
therefore without effect, and the sea remained free. But what force
could not do, treachery brought about. Neapolis had ships of war with
which frequent attacks may have been made against the Roman coasts,
which the Romans were not able to protect: the Samnite garrison, at
least to all appearance, lay for the greater part in Palæopolis, the
Greeks in Neapolis. Two Greeks, Charilaus and Nymphæus, now betrayed
the Samnites to the Roman consul Publilius Philo. They proposed an
expedition against the Roman coast, and the Samnites marched out of
the town ready to embark. The towns were on the side of the harbour
enclosed with walls, so the conspirators now shut the gates behind
them, and let the Romans in by another gate; the ships had also in the
mean time cast off from the shore, and the Samnites were obliged to
save themselves as they best could. Palæopolis disappears, and without
doubt was destroyed on this occasion. Neapolis (Naples) obtained a
favourable alliance; so the conspirators must have been Neapolitans.
This acquisition was of great importance to the Romans; for they thus
got possession of the two harbours of Naples and Nisida, the only
places from which inroads against their territory could possibly be
made by sea. This conquest was achieved by Q. Publilius Philo _pro
Consule_: he is the first whose consular power was on the motion of a
tribune prolonged by a _Senatus consultum_ and a _Plebiscitum_ (429),
his own law on the _plebiscita_ being now applied to him. This is a
great change in the constitution: a magistracy was created, new in its
nature, though not in its form. Until then, no one had triumphed out of
his time of holding office; Publilius triumphed as proconsul.
Now begins the second Samnite war, by far the greatest, most
interesting, and most wonderful, that of Hannibal excepted. On the
whole, it is only with much trouble that we can arrive at somewhat
satisfactory results concerning it. Where the battles were fought, is
in most cases passed over in silence. Livy has described it, sometimes
with a great deal of spirit, at other times with weariness, which comes
from his manner of composing. He had set to work without preparation;
and therefore he wrote indeed with much freshness, but in a way which
was detrimental to anything like criticism or comprehensiveness of
view. If he had made a better use of his annals, we might have a
clearer insight. It is a pity that the books of Dionysius on this war
have been lost: the few fragments in Appian, who copied from him, and
in Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, throw a bright light on many points;
for with regard to these times, Dionysius must have been excellent,
as the annals were now already quite enough to make out real history
from, if one searched as diligently through them as Dionysius did.
Even in that age, there were some detached anonymous chronicles,
dry and obscure as to details. That isochronistic historiography
commences only a hundred years afterwards, does not prejudice this
case. Unfortunately, Livy has made no use whatever of the old materials
which formed the groundwork of the annals; whenever, therefore, their
statements are conflicting, he chooses from among them just what he
likes, and is in most instances quite wrong. Livy does not give us a
comprehensive view of this war, which lasted for twenty-two years;
I succeeded only very late in forming a clear outline of it: it is
divided into several periods.
The first period is from 429 to 433. At its beginning, the behaviour of
the Samnites seems to us quite strange. They had wished for war; and
yet we find them unprepared, and conscious of not being able to carry
it through. The instigators must have lost their popularity. It was
the same with the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war; after the first
and second campaigns, they wished for peace: so did the Venetians after
the battle of Ghiera d’Adda. In England, during the year 1793, the
war against France was quite popular (I was there myself part of the
time); people had not forgotten the meddling conduct of France in the
American war; much was still hoped from the colonies, and the national
hatred on the whole was very great. But when the war was badly managed,
and the power of France increased, it became thoroughly unpopular,
and there was a general outcry for peace: the ministers very wisely
yielded, and entered into negotiations. Then the nation saw that peace
was not possible; new efforts were made, and in 1798 and 1799 the war
again was highly popular; after that it was once more unpopular. Thus
it happened also with the Samnites. The Romans carried the war in quite
a different manner from what these had expected; they saw that their
hopes had not been fulfilled, and wished now for peace. Afterwards,
however, things completely changed. As the war went on, it became a
passion like gambling, especially, of course, when it was not waged
successfully. People will not then draw back; they will sooner perish
than give themselves up to the mercy of the conqueror, and the war
becomes a guerilla struggle. Towards the middle of it therefore, under
much greater disasters, the feeling of the Samnites becomes evident,
that peace was impossible.
The Samnites, as was mentioned before, consisted of four states,
each of which had the _imperium_ in its turn. This was an immense
disadvantage. Whenever a general was chosen, the hatred and the
jealousy there then was among the different leaders may be imagined:
if a great man, like Pontius, held the _imperium_, and if it luckily
happened that the other prætors were honest men, great results might
be arrived at; but all was changed again the year after. Confederate
states always have a heartfelt hatred against each other: thus it is
in America; thus it was in the army of the empire, where one general
was exceedingly glad, if another, who was his confederate, was beaten.
Had the Samnites been unanimous, they would have been more than a
match for the Romans; but the latter got the better of them, owing
to the perfection of the institutions: for the most varied, and even
conflicting elements, were all concentrated by the mere power of the
Roman mind. In the practice of warfare, the Samnites were certainly
equal to the Romans: according to Sallust, the Romans had adopted from
them their arms, and perhaps the whole of their military science; at
least, we find in the battles both armies formed quite in the same
way, and they fought against each other as equals, which is proved by
the accounts of the battles. And here I must give a flat contradiction
to general Vaudoncourt, who asserts that the Italian, Spanish, and
African nations fought in phalanx: their strength was in the sword.
The Italians had cohorts, and in all likelihood used the _pila_, like
the Romans. The Samnites, as it seems, had belonging to them subject
commonalties, or dependencies: the country from Frentum to Luceria
was either thus dependent, or formed into a canton of its own; but
the connexion was so slight, that the inhabitants of Frentum entirely
separated themselves in the course of the war. North of the Samnites,
was the confederacy of the Marsians, Marrucinians, Vestinians, and
Pelignians: of these, the Vestinians were friends to the Samnites;
the others were quite neutral, or had even placed themselves under
the protection of the Romans. Thus the Samnites were in a very bad
plight; but if, as undoubtedly it was their plan, they had carried on
the war along the Liris as far as Capua, they could certainly have
kept the Romans at bay. The Romans, however, had a far bolder plan.
Just as formerly in the Latin war, they described a semicircle round
Samnium; but with much greater risk than at that time. The Samnites
were intensely hated by the Apulians; the latter, the ruling tribes
of whom were Oscan, may have partly overpowered, partly incorporated
with themselves, and partly driven out the old Pelasgian inhabitants.
The country of Apulia is a basin in the midst of mountains; it is
like a theatre. The hills are ranged in the form of a horseshoe, and
they likewise belong to Apulia; but the country directly below these
mountains is a tableland, exceedingly hot, with a chalky soil, almost
like Leon in Spain. They had two chief towns, Arpi and Canusium, both
of which ruled over a large territory, and were very jealous of each
other. At that time, the Samnites had conquered the eastern mountains
of Luceria, and may also have harassed the plain. Tarentum was on
their side; the Apulians therefore turned themselves to the Romans,
and by their mediation may have gained much. It was a grand resolve,
to transport the Roman army into Apulia. There were two roads; one,
through the country of the Æquians (who were friendly with the Romans),
from Tivoli upwards, by the lake of Celano, and by Sulmona, across
the narrow district of Samnium; the other, through the country of the
Sabines, in the direction of Reate, Civita Ducale, and through the
terrible defiles of Antrodoco (the Interocrea of the ancients), the
nature of which is such that a brave people may hold out there for
an extraordinary length of time, although they were so disgracefully
abandoned by the Neapolitans in 1821; then as far as Pescara on the
eastern coast, and thus by an immense way round to Apulia. They may
have taken both roads at different times; at first, the former one.
Now, as long as the Romans were not sure of the Vestinians, and on
the other hand were on friendly terms with the other nations, they
might indeed have chosen the road first spoken of; as on the second,
the Vestinians were the only one of the four northern Sabellian
peoples whose country they were to cross, in order to get to Apulia,
whilst they had besides to fight their way through the land of the
Frentanians. But if they had chosen the first road, the Marsians and
Pelignians would as certainly have withstood them, as the Vestinians
on the other; for it was their interest, not to let the Romans advance
into Apulia. As the Vestinians are now mentioned as being friendly,
it is evident that the army marched by Antrodoco. If the Samnites had
been united, they would indeed have made every exertion to support
the Vestinians. This was not done, and therefore the Romans overthrew
the Vestinians, and reduced them to subjection. They now got a firm
footing in Apulia, and thus compelled the northern confederacy to keep
on a good understanding with them. It was a great advantage, to be in
possession of Apulia. The country of the four Sabellian peoples, and
also the territories of the northern Samnites, Pentrians, Bovians, and
even the Frentanians, are mountain districts and pasture lands on the
Abruzzi; during winter, these tracts are covered with snow, and it
is then impossible to keep the sheep there; they are therefore sent
during that season into Apulia, which is then clothed with fine and
excellent grass; in the spring, the shepherd again takes them to the
mountains. These broad features, which belong to Nature herself, are
necessarily lasting, and were the same in times of old as they are now.
That in those days already there was much sheep-breeding, is proved by
the wool-dying manufactories of Tarentum. When the Romans were now in
possession of Apulia, they protected the pastures of their allies, and
consequently obliged the Marsians, Pelignians, and others, to come to
friendly terms with them: they also harassed the northern Samnites.
This was therefore no blind undertaking, but one which was completely
justified by the nature of the countries: the Romans for all that would
not run the hazard, until they saw that it could not be avoided.
Another alliance, besides the Apulian, the Romans had with the
Lucanians. These are called a Samnite colony, which is to be
understood in a different meaning, from that in which a town-colony is
so called: the Lucanians are most likely an offshoot of the Samnites,
which had severed itself from the mainstock. They were dwelling amidst
Œnotrians (the old Pelasgians), and Greeks; and even as the Samnites
were Sabellians become Oscan, so were the Lucanians Œnotrians become
Samnite. They had spread, from about Ol. 80, since the downfall of
Sybaris, which opened these districts to the Italic peoples: in what
relation the Lucanians and Samnites had formerly stood to each other,
is uncertain. The territory of Lucania is larger than that of Samnium,
yet there is never a corresponding proportion between the power of
the two peoples; never, as we see from the rolls of the census, were
the Lucanians strong, not even in later times, when the Samnites had
been already considerably weakened; the number of their _capita_ did
not amount to any thing like half that of the Samnites, not to so
many as thirty thousand. This shows, that the greater part of the
Lucanian population had no share in the sovereignty: in single places
only, as, for instance, in Petelia, it was more concentrated; it was
a country rent by factions. A portion of them resolved upon uniting
with the Romans; this must, however, have been a small majority,
as a revolution soon followed, in consequence of which this league
was broken up, and the Samnites were called in to garrison their
strongholds. This alliance of the Lucanians and Romans is known to
us from Livy: we are, however, considerably to modify what he states
besides, that the Tarentines, frightened at the power of the Romans,
had persuaded the chief men among the Lucanians to tell the people,
that their ambassadors had been cruelly treated by the Romans; and that
the Lucanians, exasperated by it, had thrown themselves into the arms
of the Samnites. This is the same tale as that which is told of Zopyrus
and of Sextus Tarquin. Traitorous party spirit is in Greece also but
too prevalent in the later ages. The Samnites are therefore masters of
Lucania, and turn its resources in men and money to their own account.
These wars, as far as we are able to get a view of them, are from the
very beginning exceedingly interesting, owing to the resolution, skill,
and steadiness with which the combats were fought. On both sides, it
was a struggle for life and death; they aimed at each other’s hearts,
like two good swordsmen in a duel: if Hannibal, after the battle
of Cannæ, had shown the same determination; if he had not been too
cautious, but had pushed his thrusts against the heart of Rome, even as
the Samnites did, he would have won. Both parties reckoned much on the
discontent of each other’s dependents. The Samnites had their frontier
above Sora in the Abruzzi, Casinum being their chief town: from that
mountain-range they seem always to have chosen the direction of their
operations; from thence they also acted on the offensive, and in fact
with the express purpose of stirring up a rising of the Latin peoples,
who had been still independent so late as fourteen years before, and
were therefore ripe for revolt. The traces of this partial insurrection
are slurred over in Livy, notwithstanding which they may still be
found,--especially those of a rising at Tusculum in conjunction with
Privernum and Velitræ: but the Romans always put down these outbreaks,
and in consequence, many of these Latin towns were ruined. All this is
only to be guessed from detached intimations; for instance, from the
motion of a tribune utterly to destroy the Tusculans, which, however,
was not carried. To this we must also refer the story which sounds so
strange in Livy, of people suddenly flocking together at night, as if
the enemy were in the city; for as the armies were far removed, it was
quite natural, that a rising of the Latins should spread terror to the
very walls of Rome.
The Samnites tried to advance immediately to Rome by the Apennines,
at the sources of the Liris; at the same time, the Romans passed the
Vulturnus, and endeavoured to make an inroad into Campania by Saticula,
and from thence into Samnium. Both parties little heeded where the
blows of the enemy might fall, if they could only successfully deal
their own. They both of them found their advantage in this mode of
warfare; the Romans, that while the Samnites only laid waste the
territory of the allies, they for their part struck at the Samnites
themselves; on the other hand, this could not have had any thing like
the mischievous effect which the devastations of the Samnites had upon
the feelings of the allies. We merely know by the greatest chance, that
the seat of that war was in the neighbourhood of the present abbey of
Subiaco, on the frontier of the Æquians and Hernicans, in the high
mountain-ridges which divide the valleys of the Liris and the Anio.
Livy says that they faced each other near Imbrinium in Samnium; but
even the Italian commentators, as Sigonius and Hermolaus Barbarus,
rightly take this to be Imbrivium, and recognise it as the place,
in the country of the Æquians, near Subiaco, from which the emperor
Claudius led his aqueducts. Livy shows such little proof of care
and exactness, that we cannot but decide for this emendation, which
is recommended not only by probability, but even by necessity. The
Samnites took up a strong position here; and thus cut off the Romans
from the road which leads by Sora to Apulia, so that they were obliged
to keep up their communication by Antrodoco: the spot is marked out
with all the accuracy of a military history. The state of things was so
serious, that in the third year of the war the Romans made L. Papirius
Cursor dictator. The consul L. Furius Camillus was ill. Papirius Cursor
is still remembered as one of the greatest generals of his nation; by
his side was M. Valerius Corvus, who was of the same age with him,
and Q. Fabius Maximus, who was younger, but yet was in all likelihood
outlived by Valerius Corvus.
M. Valerius Corvus was the most popular man of his day: in politics
he stands quite aloof from all party strife. He loved the people,
and was beloved by it; the soldiers had unbounded confidence in him,
and when he was among them in his leisure hours, it was just as if
he were in his own family; he shared with them their toils and their
amusements: his popularity was the heir-loom of the Valerii. It was
this character which enabled him to allay the insurrection in the year
413. L. Papirius Cursor was a rough man, a downright savage, who had
something in him of the nature of Suwarow, except that the latter was
certainly far more educated: he had huge bodily strength, and kept it
in condition by eating and drinking by rule, like the athletes, as
did the emperor Maximin. He teased and worried the soldiers by his
terrible strictness, making their duty as irksome as he could, in
the belief that by this means they were rendered more efficient. He
was just as harsh towards the officers and commanders of the allies:
it was his pleasure, to strike terror into all about him; he never
pardoned the least neglect, and he was capable of inflicting corporal
and even capital punishment for it. He was hated; yet at the same time
he was regarded as quite an unearthly being, as an immense treasure
for the republic, as a last refuge in time of need, Q. Fabius was of
a different stamp from Valerius Corvus; he seems not to have had such
a cheerful, loving, joyous soul: yet for all that, he was _comis_,
being a kind master, a mild and wise man. His wisdom and good luck
were much reckoned on; Papirius had not so much success. He was also
most popular; yet not in the same way as M. Valerius, but rather, it
would seem, from a feeling of respect than of love. He was looked upon
as the first man of his age, and therefore the surname of Maximus was
given him; he was no less a statesman than a general, being as it were
a point of union for all parties. He was an aristocrat by birth and
position; yet a most judicious one: he was able in many cases, when an
umpire, to bend the stubbornness of the oligarchy. We see from his
life, how earnest he was in every thing; how he could control his own
feelings, and sacrifice them for the common good.
In the neighbourhood of Subiaco, the dictator faced the Samnites;
nevertheless there was also an army stationed near Capua, to guard
against the inroads into Campania. The dictator had remarked that the
auspices had not been observed correctly; nor could he take new ones
where he was, as the auspices were different in different places,
some being good in Rome, others in the country of the enemy; he had
therefore to go back to Rome, that he might take fresh ones in the
Capitol. From this, or some other reason, he went to Rome, leaving the
_Magister Equitum_, Q. Fabius, in command, with express orders not to
act on the offensive. This prohibition may have been well grounded;
but perhaps also he did not trust the younger man, or he may indeed
have grudged him everything. The Samnites very soon discovered that the
Romans were not allowed to fight, and they teased and harassed them
the more; besides which, the inactivity of the Romans was dangerous,
as the Latin peoples in their rear were ever ready to rise, if the
Samnites would only lend a helping hand. On this, Fabius, with all
the confidence of youth, resolved upon giving battle to the Samnites,
and he won the victory; according to some, he even conquered twice.
As the prohibition was looked upon in the army to have been an act of
mere envy and jealousy, the _Magister Equitum_ sent in his report, not
to Papirius Cursor, but to the senate direct. The booty he burned, to
deprive the dictator of the _spolia_ for his triumph. In the city,
people were certainly not less alarmed at the consequences, than they
were glad of the victory. Papirius immediately returned to the camp,
his quick journey being also a proof that the army could not have been
far from Rome. Surrounded by his twenty-four lictors, he summoned the
_Magister Equitum_ before his tribunal, and only asked him whether he
had fought against his orders, or no? Everything was in readiness for
the execution of Fabius; but the whole army put on such a threatening
attitude, and men’s minds were so roused against Papirius, that he
himself began to waver, and at the earnest prayer of the soldiers
granted a respite until the following day. During the night, Fabius
fled to Rome, and there he betook himself to the senate. But when
the senators were met together, and Fabius was in the midst of them,
Papirius himself made his appearance and wanted his victim. The senate
showed more than once in after days, that it was not fond of Fabius;
but at that time, the sympathy for the youthful hero was still general,
and it was resolved to protect him. Papirius did not dare to use force.
The matter indeed was not now so desperate, as Livy describes it; for
the patricians had the free right to appeal from the dictator to the
curies, a fact which we know from Verrius Flaccus. What Livy tells
us about calling upon the tribunes, is either a mistake arising from
the expression _provocatio ad populum_, or it meant the confirmation
of the decree of the curies by the _Plebes_; so that, of course, the
whole people had granted an amnesty to Fabius. Even then, Papirius was
unwilling to give way; but the resolution of the two orders snatched
his victim from him. That he was reconciled to Fabius, as Livy makes
out, is impossible: Fabius laid down his office, and Papirius took
another _Magister Equitum_. He returned, loaded with hatred, to the
army; and to this circumstance the unlucky issue of a battle is
attributed. This happened in the year 430.
Fabius is said to have gained the victory very much owing to his having
ordered the _frena_ to be taken off the horses, and the cavalry to rush
in this manner against the enemy. If we take _frena_ to mean bridles,
this would indeed be absurd: the thing may, however, be explained from
the bits found at Pompeii and Herculanum. The curbs and bits which
the Romans use for their horses were exceedingly cruel; so that if,
instead of these, they had now put on the more humane ones of the
Greeks, which Xenophon describes, the horses, being thus eased, would
naturally have pressed forward full of spirit and energy.
The war took such a turn, that the Samnites were in great distress, and
repented of having taken up arms. They obtained a truce on engaging
to furnish a sum for the pay and clothing of the Roman troops; and
then began to treat, believing that they might have a peace, if they
agreed to the first demands of the Romans, which were the occupation
of Naples, and the recognition of the colony of Fregellæ. But there
is no doubt that the Romans now put forth very different claims: they
also required the evacuation of Lucania and Apulia, stipulating, as
they always did in such a peace, that the other party should place
themselves in the same disadvantage, as if they had been quite beaten.
This was one of the maxims which made the Romans a great nation. The
peace was not brought about: the war was renewed; and the Romans now
carried it on with great vigour. Fabius became consul, led his army
into Apulia, and conquered Luceria and many other towns of the Apulians
and Samnites; his repeated victories forced the Samnites to retreat
from Fregellæ, and to make a stand against him. The other Roman army
also had good luck; so that the whole of the following campaign was
crowned with success, and the Samnites at length came to the resolution
of seeking for peace at any price. They now turned their wrath
against the man who was looked upon as the life and soul of the whole
campaign, Papius Brutulus, of the very clan from which, two hundred
years afterwards, C. Papius Mutilus sprang. The Romans again granted
a truce, for which the Samnites had to make great sacrifices. We are
indebted to the _excerpta_ from Dionysius for our knowledge of these
transactions. The Samnites offered to do all they could; they would
punish those who had been the authors of the hostilities. The Romans,
however, had indeed demanded the giving up of Papius Brutulus. The
resolution which the latter conceived, shows him to have been a great
man: he had lived for his people, so long as they wanted to be great;
life had no more value for him when their hearts had failed them,
and he made away with it, that his fellow-citizens might be able to
say, that the author of the war had atoned for it. This is one of the
greatest deeds which were done of old, greater than that of Cato. The
Samnites, to their shame, sent his corpse to Rome.--As the Romans had
the first time already gone further than in their demands before the
war; so they now again went beyond the conditions which had then been
made, and asked the Samnites to acknowledge their hegemony, as Appian
expresses it, that is, _majestatem populi Romani comiter colere_. The
ambassadors of the Samnites had appealed to their clemency; they had
declared that they would agree to everything, if the Romans really
would not abate any of their pretensions; but as for the acknowledging
of Rome’s supremacy, that alone they could not decree; it was only
their community which could. The consequence of such an acknowledgment
of supremacy was a sort of pupilage with regard to other states: the
Samnites would therefore have had to give up their alliance with the
Tarentines and the Lucanians; Roman commissioners would have had the
power of visiting them, and enquiring whether the treaty was duly kept.
This was more than the Samnite people would put up with. They had now
lost their leader, had suffered shame, had suppliantly prayed for an
honourable peace, and all in vain: it was resolved with one consent, to
die rather, than to make such a peace. Thus the Romans had this time
carried their maxim too far. The consequence of this was, that the
Samnites exerted their might to the utmost, and actually began the war
in Apulia on account of the importance of that country in a physical
point of view. Luceria, with the Roman garrison, was besieged by the
Samnites: it had originally been a town of their own, but had been
taken from them by the Apulians. The Romans also now changed their
mode of warfare: as the chief force of the Samnites was stationed at
Apulia, they too resolved to concentrate the whole of their might.
They had already before that betaken themselves to Apulia, and indeed
had gained allies there, but without acquiring a firm footing. They
were therefore obliged to force their way through the Vestinians; yet
this they deemed hazardous, as they ran the risk of getting likewise
into a war with the Marsians, Marrucinians and Pelignians. But here
the unhappy jealousy which these had of the people of their own race
would have come to their aid; and even other nations also to whom
the Romans were obnoxious, such as the Æquians, and the Campanians
themselves, wished well to the Samnites, but did not want them to gain
a decisive victory. These petty nations imagined that the Romans and
the Samnites would wear themselves out against each other, and that
this would be an advantage to them. At the tidings that Luceria was
besieged, the two consular armies forthwith prepared to march into
Apulia, and resolved upon taking the nearest road; that is to say, they
intended to cut their way through Samnium, the Samnites having become
contemptible to them. The way they went was perhaps the same as that
by which A. Cornelius Cossus had marched, being the road from Capua
to Luceria by Beneventum. The general of the Samnites, C. Pontius,
one of the greatest men of ancient times, had foreseen this. He left
before Luceria just what was necessary for the blockade, and encamped
on the road by which the Romans were advancing near Caudium, the
capital of the Caudine Samnites: this town afterwards vanished from
the face of the earth, in order that the shame of the Romans might be
buried. The Romans descended by a defile into the valley; on the other
side, another defile rose high and steep: having nowhere encountered
any enemy, as yet, they marched on quite carelessly. The army had
come down the first defile in a long column; but when the head of it
had begun to ascend the opposite pass, they found it blocked up with
stones and felled trees. It is probable that the Samnites had prepared
themselves in the same way as the Tyrolese in 1809, who fastened large
trunks of trees with ropes, and laid masses of rock behind them, so
that when the enemy were in the valley, they cut the ropes, and the
rocks crushed the army. With this the mention of the stones in Livy
seems to tally. According to his account, the Romans then behaved in
the most cowardly manner: he says that they endeavoured to retrace
their steps, but that when they found that the defile on the other
side was now likewise stopped up, they sat down and encamped in the
valley. This is absurd. Those who are thus hemmed in, try and cut their
way through like madmen. Surely a great battle was fought and lost by
the Romans, as Cicero tells us in plain words (_cum male apud Caudium
pugnatum esset_); Appian, of whom we have here only fragments, says
that those superior officers, who besides the consuls had remained
alive, signed the peace. He mentions twelve tribunes; but, as in a
complete army there were twenty-four, it would follow that twelve had
been killed, or at least, badly wounded. Zonaras also speaks of a lost
battle, and of the taking of the camp. Livy, with incomprehensible
vanity, positively insists upon it as a fact that no battle was fought
near Caudium: he describes the Romans as cowards, in order to disguise
the disgrace of a defeat. What further happened, is shrouded in great
darkness; the results of my inquiries are as follows. According to
Livy’s story, the consuls merely _promised_ that the Roman people would
make peace, and nothing had been done besides; it is evidently his
wish not to represent the Romans as faithless; he states, that half
of the Roman knights (six hundred) were given as hostages. But the
true state of the case is quite different. Appian, who borrows from
Dionysius, tells us that the hostages had been given, ἕως ἅπας ὁ δῆμος
τὴν εἰρήνην ἐπιψηφίσῃ, that is to say, until the curies and the tribes
had decreed the peace. The conditions were reasonable. C. Pontius, in
the heyday of his success, not knowing how to make use of it, invited
his father, Herennius Pontius, a friend of the people of Tarentum, and
of Archytas[141] in particular, to the camp, that he might ask him
how he should treat the Romans. The old man answered that he ought to
butcher them all; and when the son replied, that this would indeed be
too barbarous, he is said to have been told by his father, that he
ought to let them go, without touching a hair of their head, so as to
lay the Romans under obligations by this kindness. But the Romans would
at that time have laughed at such εὐήθεια. This account can only have
had this meaning. Herennius wanted to say, “The only thing to be done
is extermination. How can you ask? If you ask, why then, dismiss them
at once!” But Pontius was a highminded man, he had a strong Italian
feeling, and it was impossible for him to annihilate the army of a
people which protected Italy against invading foreigners, particularly
the Gauls and Carthaginians: he doubted not but that a lasting peace
might be made with the Romans, if one could only lay hold of them.
By great good luck, we know the conditions of it from the fragments.
The consuls and all the commanders pledged their word of honour that
the people would ratify the peace; until then, the knights, who were
sons of the first families, remained as hostages. The _status quo ante
bellum_ was to be restored; all the places which had belonged to the
Samnites were to be given back to them; the colonists were also of
course to be withdrawn from Fregellæ; and the old alliance of equality
between the Romans and Samnites was to be renewed. There is no trace
of any indemnification in money, or of disgraceful conditions: the
Romans might themselves march off; but they were to leave their arms,
all their stores, their military chest, their baggage, their waggons,
horses, &c., behind. This is the common Italian international law. That
the Romans passed under the yoke, is related as a _superbia_ of the
Samnites; but this is quite accounted for by the circumstances of the
case. The Samnites had fairly surrounded them with pallisades, some of
which were now pulled down, and a gateway made of them, through which
the Romans passed singly and unarmed. This had often been done, and was
a thing of course. Pontius, however, was so far from being cruel, that,
according to Appian, he gave the Romans, when they marched off, beasts
of burthen for their wounded, and provisions enough to last for their
journey home. Never was a great victory used more fairly. Now comes
the question, whether the peace was ratified by the Roman people; and
thereupon is based such a serious charge, that Livy throws it into the
shade. The proof of the ratification is the fact that the tribunes of
the people were given up to the Samnites; they either had confirmed the
resolution of the curies concerning the peace, or they had brought a
motion in due form before the _Plebes_. A tribune of the people could
not pass one night outside the precincts of the city; so that they
could not have been among those, who, being with the army, had settled
the peace. The only other possible way of accounting for it would be,
that the tribune had by an express resolution been sent to the army;
yet even this could only be supposed to have taken place with a view
to the ratification. The peace was necessary, in order to get back the
hostages. For this reason, the perfidy was committed of ratifying
the peace, which was afterwards to be broken under the pretext, that
the consuls and the tribunes who had moved it before the senate and
the _Plebes_, were traitors, and should be given up to the Samnites.
This is the most infamous transaction in the Roman history, and the
Romans had indeed good reasons to disguise it. To slur it over, Livy
has falsified the account of the whole of the following year, stating,
that the Romans had then recovered the hostages at the conquest of
Luceria; for in such a violation of the peace they would certainly have
been killed long before. The peace is also plainly to be seen from its
consequences: the next year, we find the Samnites in possession of
Luceria and Fregellæ. We are indeed told that the latter was conquered;
yet this may be false, or the colonists were not willing to relinquish
their abodes, and the Romans left the Samnites at liberty to make the
conquest. At all events, they got possession of the place, which was of
great importance in case of the war breaking out anew. Fregellæ covers
the Latin road which leads from Tusculum through the country of the
Hernicans to the upper Liris and Campania: in this manner, the Romans
had now only the road by Terracina, Lautulæ, and the lower Liris, near
Minturnæ; moreover, if a Roman army was posted in Campania, and another
marched by Subiaco to Apulia, the communication between the two hosts
was thus cut off. Still more important was the occupation afterwards
of Sora by the Samnites; as well for the reasons just mentioned, as
because they thereby acquired a base for their operations. The disaster
at Caudium dates from the year 433 according to Cato. Here ends the
first period of this war.[142]
The Romans now cancelled the peace, giving up to the Samnites the
consuls and the other commanders who had sworn to it. By doing this,
they strove to free themselves from the penalty of perjury; and it
was with this view perhaps, that they had even the hypocrisy to cause
the resolution concerning the peace to be passed by the tribes, and
not by the centuries, so as to exclude the auguries, and to withdraw
the case from the cognisance of the sacred law. Livy, on the giving
up of the tribunes, takes the opportunity of making a most silly
declamation. They, not less than the consuls, were to meet their fate;
and when so deep was the disgrace of their nation, they could hardly
look upon this as such a great calamity. Moreover, we are told that the
consul Postumius had kicked the _fetialis_ who is said to have given
him up to the Caudinians, with the remark, that the Romans might now
carry on the war with justice, as he was a Samnite citizen, and had
violated the international laws. This sounds quite absurd; yet the
thing is possible. We know from Velleius Paterculus, that isopolity
had been concluded with part of the Samnites before the war; perhaps,
they were these very Caudinians, and as now, on being exiled, every
Roman might assume the right of citizenship in such a state, Postumius,
according to the forms of international law, might have claimed the
right of citizenship among them for himself. By means of such a
detestable farce, he thinks to call down the vengeance of heaven upon
the Samnites. However this may be, the peace was faithlessly broken; in
opposition to which the generosity of C. Pontius stands out in noble
contrast, who let all the prisoners go free, saying, that in that
case the Romans ought to send all the legions back to Caudium, that
the affair might be restored _in integrum_; individuals were not his
enemies. This shows C. Pontius to have been an extraordinary man, and
the Samnites a people of high moral feeling.
The Samnites maintained great advantages, although not any lasting
ones; the Romans, on the other hand, made immense exertions, and fell
back upon their former plan of operations in attacking Samnium on the
side of Apulia, and on the western frontier. Q. Publilius Philo and L.
Papirius Cursor became consuls. The latter went to Apulia; the former
is said to have successfully given battle again on the road which
had been so disastrous in 433, and to have fought his way through to
Papirius, who was stationed near Arpi. This is not very likely; yet
we cannot decide on it. The Romans took up a position at Arpi, which
was friendly to them, and from thence besieged Luceria. There, it is
stated, Pontius was shut up with seven thousand Samnites, and the six
hundred hostages; being obliged to capitulate, he had to pass under the
yoke. This account is evidently a mere figment of vanity.
Diodorus is very deserving of attention with regard to these times.
We do not know from what source he has borrowed; perhaps from Fabius,
perhaps from Timæus: the latter is very possible. Timæus may have
treated of this period as an introduction to his history of Pyrrhus,
or else in his Siceliote and Italiote histories. The notices of
Diodorus are very remarkable, though extremely scattered and unequal;
sometimes he drops the thread of his subject, being on the whole a very
wretched writer, sometimes he takes it up again; names of places are
met with in him, which we do not know at all, some of these evidently
misspelt, others, perhaps, written by mistake, or simply unknown to
us.--The account of Livy for the year 434 (but the consuls, at that
time, came into office in September, so that it belongs to the spring
of 435), Diodorus places in the year 439; and this is much more
likely, as Luceria can hardly have been twice conquered. The consuls
perhaps confined themselves to making preparations for the struggle,
and reducing to obedience the allies who had become mutinous. The
greatest efforts of the Romans were now in Apulia. They subdued most
of the peoples of that country, inasmuch as in 436, and 437, there was
a truce between them and the Samnites through the mediation of the
Tarentines, who were very much bent on having peace restored, being
afraid that the Romans might permanently settle in their neighbourhood.
The truce of that time was the curse of the Samnites; we may be sure
that C. Pontius, owing to the jealousy of the other cantons, had not
then the chief command. The Romans had now the upperhand already.
In the year 438, the war breaks out again with extraordinary fury;
it is full of the most remarkable turns and changes of fortune: the
ever memorable campaign of the year 1757 was indeed more brilliant;
yet the one which we have before us, may not unaptly be compared with
it. The Samnites got hold of Sora by treachery; we see therefore that
they again tried to spread their rule at the upper Liris, according
to the same plan which they had followed from the very first. The
Romans, on the other hand, with that lion-hearted intrepidity which
distinguished both nations in this war, besieged Saticula near
Capua, that they might gain ground against Samnium, and confound
the Samnites by a diversion. The details I pass over. A Roman army
was already in the heart of Samnium, the other in Apulia; both were
nearly surrounded, and the tidings of their danger came to Rome. The
Samnites having strengthened themselves on the Liris, the Romans saw
that the whole of this movement was to cut off Campania from Rome;
and they sent in the greatest haste a contingent under the dictator
Q. Fabius into the defile of Lautulæ, from whence it was to join the
army in Campania. Yet even Fabius was not invincible. The Samnites
crossed the mountains in the rear of Fundi, and posted themselves in
the narrow pass, the real Thermopylæ of the country; the Romans seem
to have fallen in with them quite unawares, and were signally beaten
and routed. This is told in plain words by Diodorus (438 or 439); the
_Magister Equitum_, Q. Aulius, allowed himself to be cut down by the
enemy. This victory made a wonderful change in the state of affairs.
The Samnites overran Latium; Satricum joined them; the peoples far and
near either broke out into actual rebellion, or showed themselves
to be disaffected. How it happened that fortune turned round, is a
point as to which Livy leaves us in the dark; for he has only slightly
alluded to the preceding defeats. The Samnites besieged a town which
Diodorus calls Kinna (we do not know what place this is); the Romans,
while relieving it, utterly discomfited the enemy, and again subjected
the towns which had fallen off. Among those who had thus revolted
were the Ausonians, or Auruncians, at the mouth of the Liris; they
may have tried to keep neutral: some of them, being also perhaps the
most compromised, now displayed a degree of baseness which one would
not have deemed possible. Twelve Auruncians come to the Romans, and
give up to them their cities, which are thereupon destroyed by Rome, a
measure which excites the horror of Livy, though as a matter of policy
it was quite right. The more embarrassing their circumstances were, the
more terrible they had to make themselves to their subjects, as they
could not reckon on their attachment. _Deleta Ausonum gens vix certo
defectionis crimine_, says Livy; that we cannot know so positively. The
disposition to revolt spread as far as Præneste: that the insurrection
of this town is to be placed in this year, may be gathered from Livy;
as in his account of the year 449, he says of the Prænestine Q.
Anicius, who was at that time plebeian ædile, _qui paucis annis ante
hostis fuerat_. Most of these people, however, only went far enough to
hurt themselves, without doing any good to the Samnites: they none of
them had the slightest wish that the supremacy of Rome should pass over
to these, and they rather chose to abide in their sorry independence,
apart between the two. Had they been wise, they would have sought for
a union with Rome; and Rome right gladly would have welcomed them. It
is a pity that Livy omits these painful accounts, and that he does
not explain how the two Roman armies extricated themselves from the
danger; this must needs have happened, and the Samnites have thus had
their advantage wrested from them. Livy himself says, _omnes circa
populi defecerant_; the notice of the army of relief under Fabius, we
owe to Diodorus alone. With careful examination, we may very nearly
ascertain the whole extent of the defection. According to Diodorus,
Capua had revolted; according to Livy, it was merely suspected, and
the leaders of the conspiracy committed suicide. The former story is
the more likely one; so that in consequence of that rebellion, a Roman
army under C. Mænius, who was appointed as _Prætor rei gerendi causa_,
marched to Campania, and reconquered the town.
With this year ends the second period of the war: the year 440 is
the turning point. When the battle near Lautulæ and its results had
raised the Samnites to the highest pinnacle of their power, the Romans
succeeded in gaining Fortune over to their side again; for on the
whole, they never showed themselves greater than after a disaster, even
as Horace says, _Merses profundo pulchrior evenit_: they never lost
their heads, but after the battle at the Alia. With such determination,
one is sure to conquer the world; whoever, with singleness of purpose
and sterling qualities, is conscious of his own strength, and
resolutely makes head against his antagonist, in every case has already
won the game. As early as in the next year, Rome paralysed her enemies
by her invincibility; at home indeed she suffered dreadfully from these
exertions, but abroad she was unconquerable.
The year 440 was the twelfth of the war. The Samnites had as yet lost
nothing but the insignificant towns of Saticula and Luceria, and they
still possessed Fregellæ. But now, though they were indeed successful
in some detached undertakings, the scale soon turned in favour of
the Romans. This is the third period of the war. In 441, the Romans
conquered Fregellæ, Atina, Nola (a very important acquisition, not so
much in a military, as in a political and financial point of view,
as they now gained the rich and blissful country east and north of
Vesuvius), and Sora; Nuceria also, between Vesuvius and Salernum,
yielded itself up, but afterwards fell off again. They now waged the
war against Samnium like a siege, in which the trenches are brought
nearer and nearer, until the body of the place is reached. According to
Livy, Luceria had previously fallen off, and was now recovered; but it
is my belief that it had not indeed been taken before, and that this
account is a fiction got up to throw back the disgrace of Caudium on
the Samnites: here the story of the actual siege is twice told. The
Romans now formed the resolution of leaving a garrison in Luceria,
and they sent thither two thousand five hundred colonists. These, on
the district which was assigned to them, had to defend their persons
and their property: they were a permanent garrison, the vacancies of
which were filled up by their children, and they constituted a much
surer defence than cohorts would have done. This plan of founding a
colony at such a distance was looked upon with misgiving even by the
boldest; but boldness was the right thing: the colony kept its ground,
and the passes of Apulia were now Roman. On the Liris also the Romans
gain a footing, carrying out the system of a regular siege by parallels
which they push on further and further: they restore Sora; build quite
a new town, Interamnum; fortify Fregellæ, Casinum, Saticula, and
Suessa Aurunca, to overawe the enemy; Cales they had already occupied
before. Thus every inlet by the Latin road was shut: it was a girdle
of fortresses, like that of Vauban’s on the French frontier. Some
dim traces there are, which show that the Romans now feared that the
Tarentines might in good earnest take part in the war. Tarentum was
a naval power, although not like Athens of old. The Tarentines had
hitherto only given subsidies; they now sent a fleet to Agrigentum
under the command of a Spartan prince, which, as the Greek accounts
will have it, was to put the affairs of Syracuse in order (Ol. 116,
3.): but it was either actually destined against Rome, or the Romans
expected that it would be. They therefore build a fleet, and appoint
_duumviri navales classis ornandæ reficiendæque causa_, who were
independent of the consuls; and moreover, they found a colony in the
Pontian isles, where there was a good harbour. These islands were very
conveniently situated for annoying the coast, and so they were afraid
that the Tarentines might settle on them. Thus circumspect were the
Romans in all things! Having now a firm base in the fortresses, they
transferred the war into the north of Samnium, into the country of the
Pentrians.
In this campaign, the army of the consul C. Junius Bubulcus fell into
great danger. Guerillas sprang up; so that the communication was cut
off, and the troops had much trouble to provide for their subsistence
in a country which was quite hostile and desolate. They now heard that
the Samnites had driven their cattle into the mountains; and when they
tried to get this booty, they were surprised by the enemy, and it
was only with considerable loss that they cut their way through. In
this battle, the consul had vowed to _Salus_ a temple, the one[143]
for which C. Fabius Pictor made an excellent painting. Here we have
the opinion of a judge and lover of art; I have discovered it in a
fragment, where perhaps no one would look for it.[144] This was on the
whole the age of the fine arts in Rome: to this period belongs that
most beautiful figure of the she-wolf (457). We know besides that other
pictures also were at that time offered as votive gifts in the temples;
there were statues erected to C. Mænius and to C. Marcius; and Sp.
Carvilius caused a colossus to be set up on the Capitoline hill, so
that it could be seen from the Alban Mount. From this we may make out
with certainty the hill on which the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter
stood. In after days, Rome fell into imitating Greece: her inventive
powers had died away. This gives important hints for the history of the
fine arts.
The Romans had conquered a great part of the country of the Samnites;
and if the war had been continued in this way, they would in a few
years have attained their object of concluding peace on the terms
which these had rejected previous to the battle of Caudium. But now we
have before us the striking spectacle of the way in which the nations
of ancient Italy were isolated from each other. By this time, it was
already the fourteenth year of the war, and with the exception of the
Tarentines, no people had as yet taken part with the Samnites: the
northern confederacy had until then been at enmity with them, or at
least neutral; and the Etruscans had resolved not to stir, from fear
perhaps of the Gauls. According to an account in Polybius, the Romans
had about this time made a treaty with the Gauls; in all likelihood,
that they might use them in case of need against the Etruscans. Owing
to these circumstances, Samnium had been brought to the lowest ebb;
and it was now only that the Etruscans, headed by the Vulsinians,
declared against Rome; so that she was under the necessity of carrying
on a double war. We may safely suppose that this taking up of arms did
not, as Livy represents it, coincide by mere chance with the end of
the Samnite war, but that it was brought about by the Samnites. The
Samnites were somewhat relieved by it; yet the Romans did not for all
that leave them alone, but they still went on with their offensive war.
To describe these operations in detail, would lead too far, although
the incidents are remarkable enough; as to the Etruscan war, I put off
its history until I have done with that of the Samnites, so as not to
break the thread of the narrative. Interrupted by armistices, it was of
different length for different towns; with Vulsinii, it lasted thirty
years.
How low the Samnites had sunk, may be seen from the fact that a
consular army was too strong for them. It took Bovianum, next to
Maluentum, their most thriving town; which, like all the Samnite places
(unlike those of the Etruscans), was fortified by nature only, to which
it likewise owed an _arx_. The fate of Bovianum gives one a notion
how the Samnite places fared. Three times the Romans took this town;
and thus we may understand how it was, that it had become so small in
Strabo’s time. This was also the case in the thirty years’ war with
Magdeburg, which, after its conquest and destruction by Tilly, was
reduced from 30,000 inhabitants to 3,000; only the cathedral and some
few houses were still standing, and huts were built over the ruins.
Whilst the Romans were fighting in Etruria, the Samnites had evidently
formed the intention of carrying out the great plan which renders the
third Samnite war so remarkable, of transferring their forces to those
countries, and of encountering the Romans on a foreign soil: the people
there were in need of a brave and practised army, and the Samnites
were willing to let them have one. But in the third year already, the
largest of the Etruscan towns concluded a truce with the Romans, and
the hopes, which were founded on that diversion, fell to the ground.
The expeditions of the Romans against Samnium now became real wars
to the knife; as they had not the least prospect of gaining a firm
footing there, so long as a Samnite was yet alive. Their armies could
only hold the ground on which they stood, and they had to suffer from
the want of all the means of subsistence: wherever they came, every
soul had fled to the woods. It was in an expedition of this kind, that
the consul C. Junius Bubullus got into such great danger. When Q.
Fabius afterwards was in Etruria, another Roman army was surrounded in
Samnium, and the consul wounded: at Rome a contingent was levied, and a
dictator appointed. He was to be elected by the senate; the curies had
to confirm him, and to invest him with the _imperium_; and a consul
was then to proclaim him. The choice fell upon Papirius Cursor. One of
the consuls being blockaded in Samnium, the duty of proclaiming him
devolved on Fabius; and to the latter the senate sent a deputation,
entreating him to perform the proclamation, as it was expected that
he would object to it. But Fabius, like a man, got the better of his
feelings, and did it. Papirius answered the hopes of the nation: he
rescued the beleaguered army and defeated the Samnites.
When at the end of three years, the Romans had made peace with the
Etruscans,--at least with part of them,--they again threw themselves
with all their might upon the Samnites; and now the smaller nations
began to see what would be the consequences of Rome’s unchecked
victories. The northern confederacy, with the exception perhaps of
the Vestinians, was drawn into the interest of the Samnites. But now
the time was past: twelve years earlier, this would have led to the
downfall of Rome. Something like this may be found in the history of
the French revolution. These people thought that their kinsmen were now
sufficiently weakened, so that they might lend them their aid without
any risk. The Hernicans also now take the part of the Samnites; and,
as it seems, the Æquians likewise, at least so far as to favour them.
In 446, Fabius turned against Samnium, and gained a great victory
near Allifæ. The exertions of the Samnites had been extraordinary:
they had made use of the years during which the Etruscan war lasted,
to reconquer Sora and Arpinum, consequently to occupy again the Latin
road, and from thence to act upon the neighbouring peoples. Their
efforts were not only directed to the raising of large levies. There
is mention at this period, of a peculiar ornament of their troops,
gold and silver targets; by which we are to understand brazen shields
with gold and silver emblems, like those which have been found at
Pompeii among the armour of Campanian gladiators, evidently of Greek
workmanship. This very circumstance leads one to believe that they had
subsidies from Tarentum; for the country of the Samnites was by this
time thoroughly wasted. The Tarentines may have furnished the clothing
and pay of the soldiers, from which we may also infer that the Samnites
had μισθοφόροι. The Tarentines might do this so much the more readily,
as the Samnites kept the Lucanians in check.
After the battle at Allifæ, there were found among the prisoners some
Hernicans likewise. This was looked upon by the Romans as high treason,
and they demanded that those who were guilty of it should be given
up. The Romans generally treated their prisoners with great severity.
Hannibal used his enemies cruelly, that he might exterminate them;
and his allies kindly, in order to gain them over: the Romans did
just the reverse. They followed the system of compelling the enemy to
acknowledge their supremacy; and when that was done, it was not their
plan to destroy them root and branch: on the contrary, they at that
time rather wished to bring all the Italians into virtual subjection,
and then by degrees to convert them into Romans. But whilst they did
not wish to annihilate their rivals, they held, on the other hand,
the principle of so thoroughly intimidating the smaller nations that
were averse to their sway, that they would not dare to fall away any
more. They therefore let the Samnite prisoners be ransomed, it being
an Italian international right, that a man could buy his freedom for
a certain sum; those who were not Samnites, they sold for slaves; and
the Hernicans, as traitors, were even distributed among the municipal
towns for trial. Three of the towns must have taken no share in the
war; but Anagnia, Frusino, and the rest, as Livy says, demur to the
conditions offered them, which were, to make their submission, and
to ransom the prisoners. The expression _cæteri_ in Livy shows, that
at that period the Hernicans must have been a greater nation than in
the days of old, when they consisted of no more than five peoples.
The Hernicans now took up arms. Rome was glad of it: for by the
fortresses in the south they were cut off from getting Samnite aid;
and they were now enemies of so little importance, that after a battle
they bought a truce for thirty days. This happened quite seasonably
for the Romans, their other army under Postumius being surrounded in
Samnium, and very hard pressed; Marcius therefore advanced by forced
marches, and made his appearance before matters had come to extremity.
The Samnites fought bravely; but the consul who was hemmed in, broke
through them, took their camp, and thereby gained the victory. After
this and another battle, a truce was concluded for three months, during
which the Romans had time to crush the Hernicans. Proud Anagnia, which
then ranked as an independent state, like Thebes in Bœotia, lost its
political existence, and became a municipal town of the second class,
without any intercourse with the foreigner, but with sympolity, that is
to say, _connubium_ and _commercium_ (with Rome); this place moreover
and Frusino were deprived of their principal magistrates, and received
every year from the prætor at Rome a provost to administer justice.
The other Hernicans, who submitted to the laws of Rome, retained their
political existence; but as subjects. This reduction of the Hernicans
was of the greatest importance for Rome, as the alliance with them had
become very burthensome. Nor is it unlikely that the Romans had already
tried before to bring in some alterations, and that this had in fact
excited the Hernicans to revolt.
The peace with the Samnites was broken again, and now the Romans
overran for five months the whole of Samnium; according to Diodorus,
they roamed about like hell-hounds, and wasted the country most
ruthlessly, destroying everything alive that they met with, as Ibrahim
Pacha did in the ill-fated Morea: on the side of the Samnites, the
war had now become a mere guerilla struggle. After this carnage, the
Romans themselves had to fly from such a waste: yet the Samnites were
still untamed. In the following year, both the Roman armies were again
in the heart of Samnium, opposed by two valiant native hosts. The Roman
consul Postumius had fought an unsuccessful battle near Tifernum, and
his colleague was likewise engaged with the enemy near Bovianum. This
campaign bears a great resemblance to that of 1815. Postumius, instead
of falling back upon his base of operations, broke up on hearing the
news of the other battle; and in the evening, after the two armies
had been fighting the whole of the day, he came up just in time to
gain a complete victory which decided the war. The Samnite general
Statius Gellius was taken prisoner. The Samnites could no longer make
a stand in the field: the Romans reconquered Nuceria and the towns in
the country of the Volscians, Sora, Arpinum, and others. The next year
passed away in an armistice, during which the Samnites had to feed a
Roman army in their country. At the end of this period, when the war,
according to Diodorus, had lasted twenty-two years and a half, dating
from the beginning of the hostilities with Palæopolis, peace was
concluded at last.
Its conditions have come down to us in a fragment of Dionysius. The
Samnites acknowledged the _majestas populi Romani_; so that they
were not allowed to conclude any treaties, and had to withdraw their
garrisons from the countries which had been formerly subjected by them.
How far their frontiers were altered, is difficult to make out. The
Volscian land, of course, remained to the Romans; but it is a question
whether Salernum and Buxentum became Roman. This cannot be decided with
certainty: it is most likely, as the Romans from henceforth seem to
be in immediate connexion with the Lucanians; and it is also probable
that the Frentanians remained quite isolated. If so, the territory of
Samnium was considerably reduced on both coasts, and then it was also
severed from Tarentum. The claims to the posts on the Liris, Fregellæ,
and other places, were of course abandoned. Lucania is now again
independent, after having become subject to Samnium during the war:
the Roman party once more got the upperhand, and thus by degrees the
country fell under the power of Rome.
The peace, however, did not last so much as five years, the nature of
its conditions rendering this impossible. The Samnite war was followed
by the reduction of the Æquians, who were still attached to their
independence. The Romans, by a short but fierce war, forced them into
a union with their own state. As the Æquians dwelt in villages built
on hills, they were not so easy to be got at; and in consequence they
received the right of Roman citizenship under favourable conditions.
Hereupon the Romans established a colony at Carseoli in the country
of the Æquians, and another at Alba on the lake Fucinus; the former
was meant against Samnium, the latter revealed to the Marsians and
to the other northern cantons the secret, that they also were to
become subjects of the Romans. All the passes which lead through the
Apennines, were now shut up. The Marsians rose; but peace was very soon
concluded: the Romans wisely granted them very favourable conditions,
by which that warlike nation was entirely gained over, and became one
of the most faithful of allies. This happened in the year 451.
THE ETRUSCAN WAR. OTHER EVENTS DOWN TO THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR.
In the meanwhile, the Etruscan war had broken out in the year 444. A
distinguishing characteristic of the Etruscans is the good faith with
which they observed truces; and to this quality it must be attributed
that the people of Tarquinii did not take any advantage of the
circumstances of the Samnite war. Yet the victory of the Samnites
near Lautulæ seems to have given them the first impulse. The union of
the Etruscan towns was hard to accomplish; for at that time, not to
speak of Cære, which had concluded peace for a hundred years, there
were nine states which had to take that common step, although their
interests were quite different.[145] The people of Tarquinii, for
instance, had nothing to fear from the Gauls; but other states were
threatened by them. When they were still considering, the tables had
already turned, victory having in the meanwhile come back again to the
Romans,--one reason more for the Etruscans to begin the war. Thus in
442, the Romans already looked upon an Etruscan war as unavoidable,
and therefore appointed a dictator: yet the preparations of the
Etruscans took up so much time that the whole of the following year
passed away very quietly. It was only in the second year, that they
commenced hostilities; but they found the Romans prepared. Their army
was, however, considerable; and they acted on the offensive, a power
which they may have acquired in their fierce wars with the Gauls. The
Romans sent Q. Æmilius to Etruria, as the Etruscans were besieging
the Roman border fortress Sutrium. The mountains of Viterbo had since
the Gallic war been the frontier towards Etruria: they are now a bare
ridge of hills; they were then covered with a thick forest. This is
the _Silva Ciminia_ of which Livy gives such a romantic description.
It was nothing but the natural barrier between two nations which were
unfriendly, and did not wish to have much intercourse: such a border
may purposely be allowed to be overgrown with wood, and to become a
wilderness. Such is the boundary between Austrian Croatia and Bosnia,
where, since the memory of man, the wood has been left to itself,
except that there are some wretched roads in it here and there. This
forest was by no means on the scale of a _Silva Hercynia_, to which
Livy likens it; but according to his own account, just broad enough
for the Romans to take about a couple of hours to march through it.
Sutrium and Nepete were the real border strongholds of the Romans;
but always against Vulsinii, not against Tarquinii and Falerii: there
the country was quite open, and had intercourse with Rome. The Roman
consul now made his appearance to relieve Sutrium. Livy gives a very
lively description of the battle; we see from him, that the Romans long
kept back their strong reserve. This they often did to the very latest
moment, allowing the troops engaged to shed their blood to the last
drop: by this means, they gained many a victory. Thus it happened also
this time: after having fought the whole day with the Etruscans, they
conquered in the evening by bringing up the reserve. Livy says that in
this battle the Etruscans had more men killed, while the Romans had the
greater number of wounded; the reason of which is this, that the Romans
fought with the _pilum_ and the sword, but the Etruscans, who were
armed after the Greek fashion, used the lance: these had also a large
body of light troops. Even if we should listen to this account of Livy,
we cannot believe in the result, that the Etruscans had been completely
beaten; as in the following year, they were still encamped before
Sutrium, and Fabius came forth to its relief. As their army was very
great, Fabius thought it hazardous, as well as unnecessary, to attack
them; for in truth, bold as the Romans were, on the whole, they were
rather circumspect: they did not like to open a campaign with a battle.
Livy’s description of these wars is an immense exaggeration, which
is the more to be wondered at, as his other histories of the Fabian
house are so very exact. Fabius Pictor wrote not more than a hundred
years after these events; and he is such an excellent writer, that
we cannot lay the blame to him. There can be no doubt that Fabius was
followed by Diodorus, whose account is here quite plain and credible,
and not in any way to be reconciled with that of Livy: from whom the
latter has taken his, heaven knows. According to Livy, the Etruscans in
three battles must have lost a hundred thousand men; and not to speak
of numbers at all, his description of the siege of Sutrium is quite
incredible. Perhaps the only foundation there is for the first battle
of Fabius in Livy, is, that by a very clever march he threw Roman
troops and provisions into Sutrium. But when the Etruscans did not even
then raise the siege, Fabius conceived the plan, which seemed foolhardy
in the Romans, of invading Etruria itself across the Ciminian forest.
The announcement of it spread terror in Rome. It seemed inevitable that
the army would get between two Etruscan hosts; the Etruscans of Sutrium
might cut off its direct retreat, and their return was only possible by
going a great way round through Umbria, which was likewise a difficult
country to pass. The senate deemed the undertaking so hazardous, that
they sent five delegates, and two tribunes of the people, to dissuade
him from it;--the tribunes accompanied the delegates, evidently to
arrest him, if he should refuse to obey;--but Fabius had started in
all haste, and, when the commissioners reached him, he already stood a
conqueror in the midst of Etruria, just like Prince Eugene, by whom the
order not to fight was read after the battle. Fabius in fact had pushed
his army in advance, but had himself remained behind with the cavalry;
then, leaving his camp standing, he undertook a great reconnoitring,
and by this deceived the Etruscans during the day; towards sunset,
he now followed his army and unexpectedly crossed the mountain.
According to Diodorus, if we adopt the right reading,[146] Fabius, on
the contrary, had invaded Etruria by going all the way round through
Umbria, and had thus taken the Etruscans in the rear: in that case, the
march across the Ciminian forest would be pure invention.
In this rich country, the Romans had their lust of plunder sated to
the full, no enemy having been there for a hundred years, not even
the Gauls. The Etruscans now raised the siege of Sutrium, and marched
to Perusia, where Fabius won a decisive battle against them. Perusia,
Cortona, and Arretium immediately negociated, making peace for a term
of years: thus the western towns, Tarquinii, Vulsinii, Volaterræ,
were left to themselves, and they tried to get a treaty on tolerable
conditions.[147] The Romans did not perhaps wish to enter into a formal
peace: on both sides, they were well pleased to drag on from year to
year with the help of armistices. Vulsinii alone held out for thirty
years, always drawing in single towns along with it; but the war was
constantly interrupted by truces. At Vulsinii, the clients had gained
a voice in the government: but the proud Vulsinians afterwards wished,
by a counter revolution, to bring back the new _Plebes_ to their old
state of dependence; and as they did not succeed, they chose rather to
let their city be destroyed by the Romans, than to share its honours
with their former vassals. It was by raising their subjects, that they
had been enabled to resist so long, whilst the other places, which were
much better off, had already yielded in the first campaign: these had
an enemy in their own subjects.[148]
The Romans had begun to form connexions also with Umbria; they had
concluded a treaty with Camers, and had taken Nequinum, a very strong
place on the Nera, near the northern frontier of the old Sabine
country: the latter they changed into a Latin colony under the name
of Narnia. They extended their colonial system thus far already, and
by this means cut off the communication between Etruria and Samnium:
at the same time, they had built strongholds like these at the mouth
of the Liris, in Minturnæ and Suessa. In Narni, there seems to have
been a garrison of Samnite auxiliaries; for it is said in the Fasti,
that Q. Fabius, in his fifth, and P. Decius, in his fourth consulship,
triumphed over the Umbrians and Samnites. With Samnium, there was peace
by this time; but marauding was common among the Samnites.
A visible consequence of the peace with the Samnites, is shown in the
relation between the Tarentines and Lucanians. During the war, there
is no trace of any unfriendliness between these two peoples; but from
the moment that the peace was concluded, there is hostility between
them, and the Tarentines have to seek for assistance. This is to be
accounted for by the fact, that until then the Samnites had ruled over
the Lucanians, and had also made use of them against the Romans. The
Tarentines called in Cleonymus, because, as the Greek accounts inform
us, they were at war with the Lucanians and Romans: these two nations
therefore must have been leagued together. Cleonymus was a prince
of Sparta, son of the old king Cleomenes; yet as the succession to
the throne there was not fixed, and he might be excluded, he readily
listened to the invitation of the Tarentines: he was no common-place
man; from that time, however, he became an adventurer, and entered the
service of several nations. He brought over with him five thousand men,
engaged a still stronger body, and forced the Lucanians to make peace.
Hereupon, he got possession of Metapontum, in his own name, or in that
of Tarentum; but he oppressed it with contributions, which could not
possibly be paid, and he showed himself there to be a true tyrant. To
the Tarentines he behaved so ill, that they broke off their connexion
with him. They got rid of him; for he was taken into pay by one of the
parties against Agathocles of Syracuse. The undertaking miscarried; and
as Cleonymus on his return found the territory of the Tarentines closed
against him, he seized upon Corcyra, and made it his chief arsenal for
further expeditions. From thence he went against the Sallentines, and
was defeated by a Roman general; then he marched into Venetia, and
through the lagunes, against Padua; but he got on the mudbanks, and
was obliged to retreat with some loss. After having roved about for
more than twenty years, he returned to Sparta, and accommodated himself
to the state of things there: but he was bitterly offended. He then
beguiled Pyrrhus into his ill-fated expedition against Sparta, and must
have died soon afterwards at an advanced age.
From these notices, circumstances may be gathered which the Roman
annals pass over in silence. Not long before this, the Romans had
carried on war in Apulia against the Sallentines, who were staunch
friends of Tarentum. We now find the Romans allied with the Sallentines
against Cleonymus; and hence it is likely that the Tarentines,
throughout the Samnite war, were hostile to Rome, and that they made
peace with her at the same time as the Lucanians. That a treaty
afterwards existed between Rome and Tarentum, is certain; as the
violation of a compact, twenty years later, is given as a cause of the
war between the two states. One of its conditions was this, that no
Roman ship of war was to show itself north of the Lacinian promontory.
This treaty is indeed called an ancient one in Livy; but to an
historical writer who weighs his words so little, a treaty of twenty
years standing may already seem an old one. There cannot have been any
concluded earlier, as the Tarentines until then appear to have been
always hostile to the Romans.
Besides the eminent men of that age already spoken of, we have to
mention Appius Claudius, who on account of the misfortune which befell
him, of losing his eyesight, has become celebrated under the name of
the Blind. He is quite a strange character, and his acts seem to be
most inconsistent, unless we call to mind the times in which he lived.
Born and bred in the pride of the patrician party, he goes to such
lengths as to refuse as _interrex_ to take any votes for the election
of a plebeian consul, a fact which we know from Cicero; and yet he
is the first to bring the sons of freedmen into the senate, passing
over distinguished men: contrary to usage and custom, he tries, when
censor to arrogate to himself extensive powers which had long since
been curtailed by the constitutional laws; and in his old age, he again
appears as the saviour of the state, who in the day of trouble, by his
eloquence upholds the drooping courage of the fainthearted senate.
This character is therefore quite a puzzle. If with Dionysius and the
modern writers, we were to believe that the struggle at Rome, like
that at Athens, was between the rich and the ὄχλος we should think it
indeed strange that Appius admitted the children of freedmen into all
the tribes, and even placed them in the senate. We must therefore look
deeper into the matter, and have before our mind the temper of the
parties and classes which existed at the time. During the fifty years
which followed the passing of the Licinian law, nobility had already
become the attribute of a considerable number of plebeian families,
many of which had even then the _jus imaginum_. Among the patricians,
the number of the ennobled families was now very limited; and it is a
question, whether the plebeian clans of noble rank were not quite as
many as the patrician ones, most of the latter having either become
extinct or impoverished: we commonly find over and over again the
Claudii, Cornelii, Sulpicii, Furii. The plebeians stood in the same
relation to the patricians, as the _nobili_ of the _Terra Firma_ to the
city nobles of Venice; had these _notables_ become a corporation, as
Maffei proposed, they would have formed a _Plebes_: but the nobles of
Venice hated nothing so much as that very nobility of Padua, Verona,
&c., whilst on the contrary they were friendly and kind towards the
native low Venetian. This was the relation of the Roman patrician to
his client, in contradistinction to the free plebeian order: a proud
patrician, like Appius Claudius, looked upon Licinius, Genucius, and
others, as most hateful rivals. Such an aristocracy, looking with a
most jealous eye on clans whose equal rank it cannot gainsay, seeks for
allies from among the very opposites to aristocracy. Such alliances
have been most often seen in the South of Europe: the Santafedists at
Naples were Lazzaroni; the royalist volunteers in Spain were from the
very lowest of the people. Appius appears, on the one hand, as a man of
great name in history; on the other, he is spoken of by Livy as a _homo
vafer_, a trickster: this perhaps was not quite an unfounded opinion of
him. Appius Claudius, and others of his fellow-patricians, seem to have
still entertained the idea of depriving the plebeian nobles of their
influence, by calling in a party which of itself could make no claim to
honour. Principles like these were fatal in every respect, and hindered
the onward march of the constitution. Notwithstanding all this, Appius
Claudius was a most distinguished man; and reasons may even be brought
forward for his innovations, which would in some measure justify them.
He received the children of freedmen into the senate, and distributed
the freedmen themselves among the tribes. From this latter point, we
must go on again.
It was the distinguishing character of the plebeian order, that its
members were landowners, and had their livelihood free and independent,
the very reverse of the condition of the clients. The plebeian,
like the patrician, was to be well-born, εὐγενής, _ingenuus_; and
therefore, as well as his rival, he added to his name those of his
father and grandfather. The _libertinus_ could not thus show proof of
his ancestors: if he was a freedman himself, he could not name any
father at all; if his father was a freedman, he could but mention
him alone; but if his grandfather already had been free, then the
wall of partition fell to the ground,--he was perfectly _ingenuus_,
and could be admitted into the tribes. Now in the course of so long
a war, the numbers of those who were bound to serve, had very much
fallen off, and the conscription was felt to be a heavy burthen. It
is a remark of Aristotle, that the character of the Athenian _Demos_
had been much changed in the Peloponnesian war; for its numbers had
lessened, and the gaps had been filled up by freedmen and others. If
then the Roman people kept to its system of only adding whole tribes,
whilst the vacancies in the old ones were scarcely ever filled up, and
the enlistments were to be made in the same proportions as before,
the citizens who belonged to those old tribes were very hardly dealt
with: hence it was but a natural thought, to increase the number of
those who were bound to serve. But among the Romans, rights and duties
were inseparably united; and thus we may understand why it was that
the censor wished to complete the tribes. He who had to bear the
burthen of the war, was also to enjoy the advantage of belonging to
the commonalty. The undoubted power of the censors to enrol names in
the lists of the tribes, the knights, and the senate, and to strike
them off likewise, warrants the supposition that the deficiency of
two ancestors was not, after all, an insurmountable obstacle to
entering the tribes; and that it could not have been altogether a
thing unheard of, that freedmen were received in them. Yet if it had
been done hitherto, it was in truth but seldom, and in the case of
individuals; and the innovation of Appius consisted in this, that
he placed the freedmen in a mass among the tribes. In one point of
view, this measure was a happy expedient; but there was besides to be
considered the change of relations between the different elements of
the state, which are to be looked upon in history as always tending to
shift their ground. Under the then existing circumstances, the trades
might have become of greater importance than they were formerly. If,
instead of the slaves, many ærarians carried on the trades and enriched
themselves, the relations between the different classes were changed,
and the state was then obliged to have regard to their reasonable
demands: excessive advantages were not indeed to be granted them,
and at the same time, established institutions and vested interests
were to be protected against the too luxuriant growth of what was
fresh and new. With these principles, free states have always been
able to maintain their ground. Thus at that period a class of people
is formed, which we now meet with for the first time, namely, the
notaries, or _scribæ_, who had a wider range than the _tabelliones_
under the emperors. They became a guild, which in Cicero’s times was
exclusive, and into which one had to pay for admission: its members
were people of the most motley description. According to the Roman
constitution, no other kind of knowledge was requisite for holding
an administrative office, but the _artes liberales_, which comprised
everything that a man of good education was supposed to have learned;
on the other hand, the whole mass of that business of which the greater
part of the work of officials is made up, was done by the _scribæ_.
Thus there was an immense deal of writing at the prætor’s office;
yet the minutes were neither kept by the prætor himself, nor by any
other _homo ingenuus_, but by the _scribæ_. This profession was very
lucrative; all transactions were drawn up in writing by them according
to certain forms. These men were employed not by the authorities only,
but in every possible kind of business; for the Romans wrote to a
fearful amount. They kept all the accounts of the ædiles, the laborious
registers of the censors and others, while the functionaries themselves
only superintended the whole; they also did the same services for the
bankers (_negotiatores, equites_), as every Roman was obliged to keep
his own accounts, his books of receipts and expenses, and this in
deference to public opinion, that he might not be considered as a _homo
levis_. For this purpose they frequently kept a _scriba_.
This class now comes forward for the first time, and as a body of
the greatest weight, owing to Cn. Flavius. If Appius wished to drag
down the leading plebeians from the position which they had won, it
was no longer feasible to have recourse to arms in conjunction with
clients and isopolites; but he had to gain his point by cunning, which
was done by uniting a great mass with the patrician order, and so he
introduced _libertini_ into the tribes: he had then a majority in the
resolutions of the _Plebes_. In a like manner, the _municipes_ might
further his plans; and he was himself able, by removing, as censor, the
independent plebeians from the senate, and by bringing into it men of
low birth, to carry measures which were formerly not to be thought of.
Something similar occurs in the undertaking of Sylla, who likewise,
more than two hundred years afterwards, came back to his legislation,
and promoted men of the lowest rank, who were mere proletarians, into
the senate. There is to be found in Livy, from the censorship of Appius
downwards, a difference between the _Plebs sincera_ and the _forensis
factio_; evidently the former is the old _Plebs_, and the latter the
incorporated freedmen and isopolites.
Those who had been newly received into the senate, must therefore
have been only the creatures of Appius Claudius and his party. He
certainly did not think of a _tyrannis_, being too sensible a man to
do so: his son is said to have had such an idea; but he must have been
mad. His plan could therefore have only been for the interest of the
aristocracy: on what is called the “right side” in the French chamber
of deputies, there is indeed no want of people who have been raised
up by the revolution from the very lowest ranks. That Appius entered
_libertini_ upon the rolls of the senate, excited such heartburning,
that the consuls summoned the senate according to its former
composition: he seems in fact to have also made omissions, very likely
among the plebeian senators. His list was therefore never made use of.
The period for which the censorship was held, had for a long time been
reduced from five years to one and a half. Appius claimed all the five
years, and carried his point, until at last he wanted to be consul
and censor both at once. This was against the Genucian law; and the
tribunes had decided upon having him arrested, if he should try and
do this by force: he then resigned the censorship. It is, however,
possible that he wished to retain it, not so much from motives of
ambition, as for the sake of those great works which he had begun
to execute. He made the Appian road, the _regina viarum_. For, the
Latin one, which led through Tusculum, and through the country of the
Hernicans, being then so much infested, and not yet quite restored
to the possession of the Romans, the Appian road was to serve as a
shorter and safer one: it led by Terracina, Fundi, and Mola, to Capua.
At first, he laid it down as far as Velitræ, then to Setia round the
Pontine marshes. That portion which crosses the marshes themselves,
he did not make;--even that which was afterwards constructed, was not
of much use for the Roman troops;--but he cut a canal through them,
in order to drain part of them: for to drain the whole, was not, and
will perhaps never be possible. This canal was meant for the conveyance
of warlike stores from Cisterna to Terracina; which was necessary, as
the Romans had no fleet, and the Tarentines could easily cut off their
communication by sea with Campania. The mainroad for the troops passed
over the mountains, and by Setia, _via Setina_, which, therefore, in
the list of roads is mentioned separately: it is the same road, which
throughout the middle ages, until the times of Pius VI., was again the
common one, when the Pontine marshes were deserted. The Romans chose
it, because the distance between Cisterna and Terracina through the
marshes is too great for one day’s march. There lay indeed between the
two places _Forum Appii_ on the canal; but indeed it must have been
inhabited during the winter only: on the _Via Setina_, on the other
hand, the armies might encamp on the hills during the summer nights.
Had they wished to bivouack in the Pontine marshes during the night,
they would have been destroyed by the malignant fevers; consequently
the _Via Setina_ was a necessity. The _Via Appia_, even if Appius
should have carried it on the whole length to Capua, has not been
executed by him with that magnificence which we now admire in those
parts of it which have not been intentionally destroyed; those closely
fitting polygons of basalt, which thousands of years were not able to
disturb, are of somewhat later date. The road was now made because
it was wanted; and it was not until the year 457, that they began
at all to pave it with _peperino_, and some years later with basalt
(_silex_),--at first a small portion, from the Porta Capena to the
temple of Mars, of which we have positive information in Livy. Before
that time, there were highroads already, which along the mainway had
footpaths paved with _peperino_; that is to say, with flag-stones
(_saxo quadrato_) of that material. For the basaltic pavement, the
fines especially were appropriated.
Appius was also the first who brought an aqueduct to Rome, the _aqua
Appia_. The Roman aqueducts of later times were of immense extent; the
one built by Appius was but a small beginning, being only for immediate
wants. They had to fetch water in Rome from wells, but chiefly from
cisterns (_putei_), as that which is got from the Tiber is so bad.
Those quarters of the city which lay low on marshy ground, as the
Velabrum, the _Forum Olitorium_, had of course no wells, and people
were therefore obliged to do as well as they could with cisterns: to
supply those parts, was the object of the _aqua Appia_. It was brought
to Rome from a distance of eight (Italian) miles, and supplied only the
lower town, not the hills, as Livy expressly states. It was finished
in the middle of the Samnite war, after the year 440, when fortune
began to turn in favour of the Romans; and it was all under ground, as
Frontinus tells us, that it might not be destroyed in some of the many
Latin insurrections. For it was feared that arches built above ground
might be demolished, as was done by the Goths in Belisarius’ times.
It led by the Cœlius under the Porta Capena to the Aventine, as far
as the spot where Piranesi very exactly hit upon it, near the _Clivus
Publicius_, at the corner of the hill. The outlet is now covered with
rubbish, the water having been choked by stalactites, as in several
other aqueducts. This undertaking was a benefit unknown throughout the
whole of Greece.
These two works are said to have induced Appius Claudius not to lay
down his censorship, until they should be completed, and much has been
written here about the struggle between him and the tribunes. If it
was merely his intention to carry out this design, the way in which
the tribunes behaved would have been paltry enough: but perhaps these
works were too grand for the circumstances of the times; and it is a
question, how far he may have burthened the existing generation for
the benefit of those who came after. According to a statement which
Diodorus has taken from Fabius, who, though a patrician himself, was
indeed an enemy to oligarchy, Appius actually undertook them without
any authority from the senate. This would certainly have been an
audacious enterprise; and, to judge from his disposition, it was not
impossible. He seems also to have made sales of the _ager publicus_ for
this purpose; and thus, while the _Plebes_ suffered, the members of his
own order were losers as well.
His real agent seems to have been the Cn. Flavius, who has been
already mentioned. This man was the son of a freedman; he could
therefore use the name of his father only, which was Annius. This is
an Etruscan name; so that Annius was very likely an Etruscan slave,
who had perhaps been a man of consequence in his own country, and had
only lost his freedom (_ingenuitas_) by having been taken prisoner.
Cn. Flavius became the benefactor of the people, in a manner of which
we cannot easily form an idea. According to the most ancient Roman
custom, there were thirty-eight court-days in the year of ten months,
the kings, and then the consuls, sitting in judgment every eighth day,
consequently on the nundines. This was afterwards done away with; the
nundines were no more to be the same as the court-days, as on these the
country plebeians were in such numbers in the town, that a tumult might
easily be raised. The thirty-eight days were therefore distributed
over the whole year of twelve months; and there being too few of them,
single days were added, on which likewise _lege agebatur_. But now
there was a double difficulty; and the patricians took advantage of
the circumstance to keep the plebeians in a state of dependance. The
thirty-eight days had been distributed irregularly throughout the year;
so that if any one wanted, for instance, to sue by a _vindicatio_, he
did not know when the prætor would sit in judgment, but had to make
inquiries in the forum, or of the pontiffs, on what day a _legis actio_
might be brought in. Now it might be answered, that one could surely
have remembered the eight and thirty days: but then there were others
besides, half _fasti_ and half _nefasti_, on which _lege agebatur_;
and others again, on which _comitia_ were appointed to be held, but
yet _lege non agebatur_. And therefore, as we are told, Appius ordered
his _scriba_ Cn. Flavius constantly to find out from the lawyers, on
what days _legi agi posset_; Flavius by this means made a calendar on
a tablet of plaster (_album_), and publicly set it up: it was then
frequently copied, and the plebeians were full of gratitude towards
him. Indeed, to secure their independence still further, he also
published the _formulæ actionum_:--according to Cicero, this was done
after his time only, as the forms themselves were first invented at a
later period; according to others, it was he who did it, which is much
more likely. We must not imagine this to have been a regular system
of laws, although it is generally termed _jus Flavianum_, but a set
of forms of proceeding for every case,--a sort of “Complete Lawyer.”
This was felt to be a heavy blow to the influence of the higher classes
on the common people. Until then, no one could transact any business
without a legal adviser; for certain acts could only be performed on
certain days, and so forth. This manual of law is a great step in the
progress of political freedom.
As a requital for these benefits, Cn. Flavius had the votes of the
plebeians in the election for the ædiles. When it was objected to
him that he could not be an ædile, _quia scriptum faceret_, he took
an oath that he would give up his notary business; from which we
may gather, that, at that time, it was still incompatible with the
condition of an _ingenuus_. Together with him, one Q. Anicius of
Præneste, who a few years before had still been a public enemy of the
Romans,--perhaps the remote ancestor of that Anician family which was
so brilliant in the last days of the western empire,--was elected in
opposition to two distinguished plebeians, a Pœtelius and a Domitius;
which proves that in this case, isopolites and _libertini_, the
_factio forensis_, combined, and decided the election. We find from
Pliny, that Flavius made a vow, _si populo reconciliasset ordines_; by
_populo_ the patricians are meant, and as Flavius performed his vow,
the reconciliation must have been effected: very likely he acted as
mediator during the later censorship of Fabius and Decius, inducing
the _libertini_ to allow their rights to be abridged, as the good of
the republic required. For from the mingling of these men with the
tribes, there arose great fermentation, down to the censorship of Q.
Fabius Maximus and P. Decius. A reconciliation then took place (449):
the _libertini_ could not entirely forego their rights; but they were
combined by Fabius into four tribes, the _tribus urbanæ_, which always
remained _tribus libertinorum_, and consequently _minus honestæ_. This
measure had most beneficial results. For when we call to mind that
the votes were given by tribes, in each of which it was the majority
which decided; we may easily imagine, that if the _libertini_, who were
engaged in trades and dwelt in the city, were scattered through all
the tribes, they, being always present, must have formed the majority
in any meeting which was suddenly called; as among the plebeians of
each tribe, but few of those who lived out of the town, could have made
their appearance: and thus, in such assemblies of the commonalty, the
whole power had passed into the hands of the _libertini_. The system
of Appius would therefore have become most pernicious, without this
wholesome change.
At the time of the second Samnite war, another change took place,
namely, the abolition of the _nexum_, which Livy assigns to the
consulship of C. Pœtelius and L. Papirius; but according to Varro, as
corrected from the MS., it was brought about during the dictatorship
of Poetelius, 441. With this also agrees the circumstance, that the
impoverished state of the families of the bondmen for debt is said to
have been a consequence of the disaster at Caudium. We thus see, how
even at so late a period, events which did not strictly belong to the
province of real political history, were arbitrarily interpolated in
the annals. A youth is ill treated; he rung to the forum; a tumult
arises: then it came to pass that the _nexum_ was abolished, so that
the person of the debtor, or those of his children, were now no more
to be detained. This shows us a state of things in which the mob have
already great power. We cannot doubt but that by this time indeed,
wealthy people pledged themselves _realiter_ by the _fiducia_, if they
had quiritary property; and this kind of mortgage may have become
more general, the more the quiritary property increased among the
plebeians. It was now permitted as the only one, and it was forbidden
to pledge one’s person. But if any one incurred a debt by a _delictum_,
the relation of the _addictio_ remained; and he was to continue in it,
until he redeemed himself: this is certainly the case, even as late
as in the war with Hannibal. The continuance of this relation has led
many into error, and has awakened in them a suspicion of the law of
Pœtelius; but _addictio_ is something quite different from the _nexum_.
Livy calls this law _novum initium libertatis plebis Romanæ_.
In consequence of the Ogulnian law, from the year 462, the number of
the _Pontifices majores_ was increased from four to eight, and those
of the augurs from four to nine: the increase was taken from the
ranks of the plebeians. A ninth pontiff was the _Pontifex maximus_,
who without doubt was chosen _promiscue_ from both orders. Afterwards
_cooptatio_ was by a decree: whether it were thus from the beginning,
is hidden in darkness. Twenty years later, Ti. Coruncanius was the
first plebeian _Pontifex maximus_. Livy gives us the _suasoria_ of
Decius on the occasion of the Ogulnian law; but the speech is not
quite in the character of that age: for, the patricians now knew right
well, that they could no longer keep their privileges. This change is
evident from the fact, that, although at that time there is no doubt
that the nominations to the priesthoods were made by the curies, or by
cooptation on the part of the college, yet the law was not transgressed
at all, and the plebeians were at once admitted to these offices.
Thus the spirit of real life had prevailed over the letter of mere
institutions. People as yet only called themselves patricians and
plebeians; but there existed already the parties of those who were
noble, and of those who were not: the former comprised all the eminent
patrician and plebeian families.
The admission to the priesthoods was a point in which the plebeians
were highly interested; as the pontiffs were the guardians of the civil
law, and the keepers and the fountain head of the whole of the _jus
sacrum_, and the augurs, whose declarations in that age were certainly
still considered authentic, exercised influence upon all transactions
of importance.
THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR.
The peace between the Romans and the Samnites had lasted four years
at most. During this interval, the Samnites had, by the defence
of Nequinum or Narnia, paved the way for the continuance of the
war: they wanted merely to rest themselves, and to collect their
strength. By the conditions of their agreement with Rome, they ought
to have kept themselves from every sort of hostility against the
neighbouring states; yet this was impossible. In Lucania the feuds of
the two parties soon broke out again: the country had recovered its
independence, and attacked Tarentum; the Samnites declared war with
Lucania, and the Lucanians, being hard pressed, put themselves under
the protection of the Romans. As these did not like to see the Samnites
recovering their power, they required them to give up the Lucanian
conquest, in accordance with the peace. The Samnites returned a haughty
answer, and warned the Roman ambassadors not to make their appearance
in Samnium. In the year 454, whilst in Etruria there was at one moment
a truce, and at another a quarrel with some of the towns, open war
broke out again with the Samnites. We behold the Apulians allied with
Samnium; for Apulia was too far away for Rome to have maintained
her dominion there: the Sabines also we find on good terms with the
Samnites, and in some instances even in a league with them. Thus
therefore had circumstances taken a turn by which the condition of
Samnium became somewhat more favourable; on the other hand, the power
of Rome had so much spread in the meanwhile, that she was a much more
terrible enemy for Samnium to face.
This war took quite a different course from the former ones, from which
we may infer that the state of things had changed. The Romans do not
again transfer the scene of war into Apulia, whether it was that the
Apulians had fallen away from them, or because they were hindered by
other circumstances. They now attacked the Samnites in front, who do
not go into the Æquian country, but into the Falernian district in the
neighbourhood of Vescia. The war lasted eight years, and was still more
ruinous for the Samnites than the one before; yet they carried it on
with great energy, and the whole of their plan, although not crowned
with success, is one of the grandest which history can produce; but
_victrix causa Diis placuit_. In the first campaign, the Romans were at
once in the heart of Samnium, and they advanced into Lucania to assist
its people: Rome indeed had also sometimes the worst of it; but she did
not lose any great battles. In the year 455, both the Roman armies,
that of Fabius, and that of Decius, were in Samnium, waging there a war
of extermination, of which the account in Livy clearly bears the stamp
of authenticity: he had genuine memoirs before him; yet these often
contained most irreconcilable statements. The Romans marched from place
to place, and wherever they encamped, they destroyed in the country
round every trace of cultivation: Fabius had his camp in eighty-six,
Decius in forty-five places. They took but few towns; for the Samnites
defended themselves on their hills with such lion-hearted courage, that
it was impossible to reduce them.--In 456, Volumnius and Ap. Claudius
were consuls, Decius proconsul. Volumnius is said to have beaten the
Samnites again and again, and at last to have compelled their army
to flee into Etruria: this is a calumnious misrepresentation of the
heroic spirit and the vast plan of the Samnites. Their army was so
far from having been driven out of the country, that Gellius Egnatius
fought for several years in Etruria; and even after the destruction of
his force, the Samnites a long time held their ground in Samnium: they,
on the contrary, conceived the grand idea of abandoning their country
to the mercy of the enemy, and of carrying the war into Etruria. The
Etruscans had during the last hundred years become better acquainted
with the Gauls, who, being settled in the Romagna, had lost their
love of roving, and were peacefully engaged in husbandry: individuals
only enlisted as warriors. But as on the other side of the Alps the
national migration was still going on, the transalpine hosts from
time to time crossed the mountains, and then the Gauls were again set
in motion. Such a migration must have taken place about this period;
and the Etruscans availed themselves of the favourable moment, to
take the Gauls in their pay against the Romans. It must have cost
them much to come to this resolution; for if the Gauls had settled on
the lower Tiber, amid the ruins of Rome, Etruria was surrounded and
annihilated. Nevertheless, passion and hatred against the Romans were
stronger motives than prudence. The Etruscans, with the exception of
a few townships, had in the hope of this reinforcement again taken up
arms, violating even their accustomed faith with regard to armistices;
Perusia, for instance, did not keep the thirty years’ peace. Now as
the Etruscans were indeed a wealthy, and with their serfs to fight at
their side, a valiant people, but wanting in generals; the Samnites
determined to march through the land of the Pentrians, Marsians,
Sabines, and Umbrians, to Etruria. This is not here the fate of the
heroic Vendeans, who in the month of October 1793, with all their
population passed the Loire, and left their home to be laid waste,
because they could not defend it: the Samnites were but an army,
and the Romans did not hinder their march. This is one of the most
brilliant feats in ancient history, and it excited in Rome not a little
dismay.
The junction of Gellius Egnatius with the Etruscans was difficult to
effect on account of the new Roman colonies: the Samnites had to march
by Antrodoco; Volumnius followed them, but he could not prevent the
union. It took place in 456; and the Romans were so far from looking
upon them as fugitives, that the consul Volumnius received orders
from the senate, to transfer the war from Samnium into Etruria, where
Ap. Claudius seemed not to be equal to the emergency of the case. Ap.
Claudius, in his patrician pride, considered this as an insult; and he
demanded that Volumnius should leave the province: this insolent and
egregious folly might have put the very existence of the republic in
jeopardy. Volumnius was ready to return, and was only induced by the
entreaties of his army to remain. In this year, the Gauls had not yet
stirred; it is possible that the hosts which were expected, had not yet
crossed the Alps.
The campaign of the year 457, is the turning point of the fate of
Italy. The Romans made immense exertions. One body of troops was left
behind on the frontier of Samnium, in order to hinder the Samnites
from any attempt at offensive war against Rome: perhaps it consisted
chiefly of Campanians and Lucanians: it merely acted on the defensive.
The army under the proconsul Volumnius marched against the Gauls;
and the old consular one of Appius, which was stationed in the
neighbourhood of Foligno, was reinforced by two new legions, which
Fabius had enlisted. Besides these, there were two armies of reserve,
consisting of those who had to take up arms in case of need only, part
of them perhaps a mere militia armed with spears: one was encamped
on the Vatican hill before the city; the other was thrown forward as
far as Falerii, in order to keep up the communication. The consul
Decius went to the army, to take the command of the legions; to him
Fabius brought his reinforcement. The Romans had posted themselves in
the Umbrian mountains, near Nuceria, and had gone into cantonments
there; a detachment was sent to Camerinum[149] on the most northern
slope of the Apennines, to prevent the Gauls from marching through
the defiles to Spoleto in the rear of the Romans. The Gauls, we must
assume, passed the Apennines by Ariminum and Sena. Here Polybius comes
to our aid. The legion which had been pushed on as far as Camerinum,
was surprised and cut to pieces; so that the Romans knew nothing of the
defeat, until the Gallic horsemen, charging on, displayed the heads
of the slain Romans stuck on their lances.--The Etruscans, Samnites,
and Umbrians, had combined their forces; until then they had remained
on the defensive. Then the two Roman generals again resolved on an
exceedingly bold undertaking: elsewhere ἀσφάλεια is wont to be the
leading principle of their strategy. They made a movement in flank
against an enemy immensely their superior in numbers; the main army
marched from Nuceria through the Apennines, which are not very high
there, to Sentinum; the Gauls and Samnites were stationed on the right,
the Etruscans and Umbrians on the left of it. Between the two, they
advanced as far as where the Apennines towards the Adriatic end in
ranges of low hills, as if they meant to invade the country of the
Senones; the latter, however, instead of advancing, fell back upon
their frontier, and the Romans disposed themselves _en échelons_. The
consuls called in the reserves. Cn. Fulvius moved from Falerii (Civita
Castellana) into the position which had been left by the main army,
and was detached against Assisium in the neighbourhood of Perusia:
here there is a very high and strong range of mountains, from which
he might invade the country, and entice the Etruscans to separate
themselves from the Gauls. All this is quite certain, and I am led to
think that the second reserve also marched afterwards on to Falerii. At
Rome, they were surely forward enough in their preparations for arming,
to be able to withstand any sudden invasion from Samnium. Another fact
besides is hardly to be doubted, although Polybius merely gives it as a
supposition. Volumnius also, who again faced the Samnites in their own
country, must have been summoned back; so that by forced marches, he
approached on the decisive day through the country of the Sabines above
Terni, and abandoned Samnium to its fate.
The diversion of Fulvius against Perusia was crowned by the most
complete success; the Etruscans and Umbrians detached considerable
divisions of their main army to their own country, to protect the
frontiers from the devastations of the enemy. These were the best
troops of the Etruscans, whilst, on the other hand, Fulvius had the
worst of the Roman. As generals in the battle, there are mentioned only
the two consuls Q. Fabius V. and P. Decius IV.; but most certainly, as
mentioned before, Volumnius also was there as proconsul: about fifty to
sixty thousand men faced an enemy of infinitely superior numbers. There
were a great many reasons for proceeding to Sentinum: in the first
place, to draw the Etruscans away from their own home, so that, if they
should be obliged to retreat, being separated from their allies, they
would have to move by the arc of which the Romans had cut the chord; in
the next place, they made the Gauls tremble for their own country, and
it was to be expected that a great part of them would be scattered in
order to protect their open villages; and lastly, they were afraid of
the ἀπόνοια of the Gauls. If they had cut off the retreat of the Gauls
in the south, these would have fought much more desperately; now they
had the retreat into their own land open before them, and they had not
yet crossed the mountains.
The result rewarded their wisdom. Yet the numbers of the enemy were so
much superior, that the Romans did not trust to the efforts of human
bravery alone; but Decius had resolved upon devoting himself to the
infernal gods, and he had induced the plebeian pontiff M. Livius to
accompany him, in order, if necessary, to perform the consecration in
the midst of the battle. Decius faced the Gauls; Fabius the Etruscans,
Umbrians, and Samnites; the legions of Volumnius may have been
stationed in the centre. Of these enemies, the Samnites were by far
the most formidable. Fabius had a style of his own in his strategy,
as is the case with nearly every distinguished general;[150] he kept
back the reserve to the very last,--a manœuvre the practicability of
which entirely depends upon the composition of the army; it is only
possible with very well trained troops; with young soldiers one risks
a defeat;--when the foremost battalions were nearly destroyed, then
only he led on the reserve, which was still quite fresh, and in this
manner he almost always succeeded. Thus also now against the Samnites.
But a different system was that of Decius against the Gauls, and must
have been: this is the grand characteristic of the Roman order of
battle, that they fought against every enemy in a special manner. The
Greek wars are not by any means interesting, but so much the more are
those of the Romans. The Greek phalanges pushed against each other,
and the masses were immoveable; the Roman method on the contrary was
light and flexible: Polybius, a very good officer, found it adapted
to every circumstance. Fabius tried to weary out the Samnites, as it
was summer, a season which the labourer from the warmer country bears
much more easily than the Samnite, who dwelt in the cooler valleys.
The Gauls also were easily wearied; but they were a numberless swarm
which with the utmost impetuosity threw themselves upon the enemy; the
first onset was the worst; if its shock was resisted, the victory was
almost sure. To meet this first attack, Decius did everything in his
power, but in vain: the innumerable cavalry of the Gauls, although at
first driven back, advanced again with its overwhelming superiority
of numbers; and now they brought forward their thousand war chariots,
which were a terrible sight for the horses of the Romans. These took
fright, and the flight began without any fault of the riders. For two
days, the armies had faced each other; on the morning of the third, the
Romans had an omen which prophesied victory to them; namely, a hind
came down from the mountains, chased by a wolf, who caught her, and
tore her in pieces. The day notwithstanding seemed to end disastrously;
but Decius, after the example of his father, now devotes himself to
death, and he rushes into the midst of the Gallic hosts, adding yet to
the form in use the prayer, that fear and death might go before him.
Hereupon affright is said to have spread through the army of the foe,
and to have stopped it in its career. However this may have been, the
death of Decius decided the battle. The Romans rallied, picked up the
_pila_ from the field of carnage, and hurled them against the Gauls;
the barbarian cavalry, having pushed on too far, was surrounded and
overpowered; and Fabius, who had already discomfited the Samnites,
sent his troops to give aid, and he now also led on the reserve. On
this, the Gauls, who, like the Russians at the battles of Zorndorf and
Austerlitz, were in one dense mass, broke, and could only scatter and
flee: the retreat of the Samnites, Etruscans, and Umbrians to their
camp was less of a rout. The loss of the Romans is stated to have been
about seven thousand men of one army, and twelve hundred of the other;
the Gauls had five and twenty thousand killed, and between seven and
eight thousand taken prisoners, which is very credible. They went back
again into their own land, without troubling themselves about any thing
further, and the Samnites again accomplished an immense undertaking.
Gellius Egnatius himself had fallen, either in the battle, or in the
retreat; but the Samnite army was once more obliged to march round that
of the Romans, or else quite through it, pursued by Volumnius, and
attacked by the peoples into whose territory they trespassed, and whom
they had to plunder in order to live. Five thousand of them reached
their homes.
Thus ended the greatest campaign for achievements, known in the earlier
Roman history. The numbers of the armies are corrupted in most of
the books: Livy has for the Gauls 40,330 foot, and 46,000 horse; the
former number has been left unchanged, but the 46,000 were brought down
to 6,000; it ought, however, to have been 1,000,000 foot and 46,000
horse.[151] These are numbers, however, which do not belong to history,
but merely to the chroniclers. The battle of Sentinum was so glorious,
that the Greeks also knew of it, and Duris of Samos mentions in his
history that a hundred thousand Gauls had been slain in it.
A campaign of such historical importance as that of the year 457,
fills one indeed with pity, but at the same time with the greatest
respect. The end of the third Samnite war brought misery and ruin upon
Samnium. However blind the struggles of the Samnites may seem to have
been, yet in truth they were great. We shall now give a short sketch
of the rest of the war. Until 461, when it ended (the peace itself
was only concluded in 462), it was continued in the same manner, and
the Samnites renewed their attempts to break through into Etruria,
but in vain. The Romans wedge themselves into Samnium; the Samnites
retaliate in the country between the Liris and the Vulturnus. On the
whole, during the last years, they still display mighty efforts: even
as late as the year of the battle of Sentinum, they make an inroad
through Campania. In the second year after,[152] they are said to
have sent two great armies into the field, one of which binds itself
by a solemn oath to fight to the last man. The only wonder is where
they found the means, especially to keep up the style that they did,
as Livy mentions that they had shields embossed with gold and silver:
such magnificence sounds quite fabulous in a people which had been
so reduced for years.[153] That, however, the consuls Postumius and
Carvilius won _spolia_ of extraordinary splendour in their victories
over the Samnites, is an historical fact; from part of these, a brazen
colossus was erected in front of the Capitol.
But in reality, the war was decided as early as in 459 by the consuls
L. Papirius and Sp. Carvilius. It is characteristic of the way in
which it was waged, that the Samnite towns, both then, and afterwards
in the war of Sylla, so entirely vanished from the earth, that the
later geography did not know of them any more; and that no Samnite
antiquities whatever are found in those regions. The last great battle
was fought in the year 460. At that time, the son of the great Fabius,
Q. Fabius Gurges, had marched into the country of the Pentrians;
against him commanded C. Pontius, the conqueror at Caudium: from this
we may infer, that the Caudines certainly took part in the war. The
Romans were beaten, and they lost the whole of their baggage, the news
of which reached Rome: they had, it is true, cut their way through
the enemy; but they were not able to go on with the campaign. Then
Fabius begged hard that the _imperium_ might not be taken from his son;
and he succeeded in carrying a motion to that effect, and in getting
permission to go out as legate to his son with a reinforcement: this
was the greatest reward which the republic could give to that great
man. He now gained a most decisive victory, by which, as Orosius justly
remarks, an end was put to the Samnite war; for, although Eutropius
tells us that it lasted a year longer, he is indeed such a careless
writer, that no stress is to be laid on what he says. The sequel of the
victory was horrid: C. Pontius was taken prisoner, led in the triumph,
and then put to death: a fouler stain than this is not to be found in
the whole of the Roman history. His native city Caudium must also at
that time have been razed to the ground.
At the end of this war, when it was too late to turn the scale, it
happened that new allies declared for the Samnites. These were the
Sabines, whose peace with Rome had lasted for a century and a half, and
that in such a manner, that we must believe what we are told by one
whose authority is otherwise not quite to be trusted, that they had
the right of Roman citizenship. This might have induced the Romans to
grant the Samnites the peace, although they were not crushed: on what
conditions, we are not able to make out. The Romans took advantage of
it to establish on the frontiers of Apulia, Samnium, and Lucania, the
large colony of Venusia, the native place of Horace: twenty thousand
_coloni_ are said to have been sent thither; if this be true, it must
have got a large country district. By means of this colony, Samnium
was cut off from Tarentum, and such indeed was its importance, that
the number given becomes not unlikely: in the war against Pyrrhus,
it saved Rome; without it, after the battle of Heraclea, the army of
Lævinus would have been utterly destroyed. Some time afterwards, they
founded a colony besides at Æsernia in Samnium.
WAR WITH THE SABINES. COMMOTIONS AT HOME. LEX MÆNIA. LEX HORTENSIA.
M’. Curius was called upon to chastise the Sabines. These consisted
of several peoples which were very loosely connected with each other:
Amiternum had already leagued itself before with the Samnites, and
had been taken in the third Samnite war. Hitherto, the fear which
the Romans had of the Gauls, had protected the Sabines; but now the
former no doubt required that they should accept the Cærite citizenship
(sympolity): the Sabines refused, and war broke out. As nearly all
their towns were open, the struggle was short and bloodless, and the
conquest easy; the booty also was immense, owing to the length of time
in which they had lived in peace.
This Sabine war led to a great division of land, as the Roman people by
their many and mighty wars had been brought into great distress, like
that which is described by Massillon in his funeral oration on Louis
XIV. All these great victories appear to us brilliant in a political
point of view; the whole period is grand, and we cannot but own in
our hearts, that if we were Romans, we should have liked to live in
those days, and with men like these: but all this splendour was but
a fair outside which covered very grievous misery, and however much
Augustine and his friend Orosius may exaggerate, they were not so far
wrong at bottom. Before the battle of Sentinum, a miracle had taken
place: the statue of the goddess of victory was found lowered from its
pedestal and turned towards the north; from her altar, milk, blood,
and honey were pouring forth. This was a hard task for the soothsayers:
they interpreted it in this way, that the Romans were to go and meet
the enemy; that the blood meant war; that the honey betokened the
plague, inasmuch as it was wont to be given to those who were thus
stricken; that milk was the sign of a bad harvest, as one had then to
do without corn, and to make shift with whatever grew of itself. This
interpretation is so far-fetched, that evidently it cannot be very old;
yet it is a poetical embodying of what really happened. A pestilence
spread far and wide, which may not even have begun in Rome, but in
Umbria or Samnium: it may have been a sickness which had arisen from
the wars; but perhaps it was connected with a deeper source. The age
was on the whole a time of great physical changes; there are still
traces which show that in Italy all nature was then in a state of
convulsion. Earthquakes are felt, and become quite frightful, until
towards the end of the century; the winters are most bitterly cold; an
eruption of the volcano in the island of Ischia takes place. In the
whole of Europe, epidemics must have reigned: according to Pausanias,
a terrible plague was wasting Greece at the time of Antigonus Gonatas,
which completed the work of depopulation there. At Rome, according
to Livy, it raged for the third year already in 460. There certainly
was also a famine in Latium, owing to the devastation of Campania,
the granary of Rome. On this occasion, the Romans were directed
by the Sibylline books to send an embassy to Epidaurus, and bring
Æsculapius to Rome. It consisted of Q. Ogulnius and another. When the
state trireme arrived, and they laid the request before the people of
Epidaurus, the senate of that town referred them to the god himself: at
the incubation, the god promised them that he would follow; a gigantic
serpent came forth from the sanctuary, and remained on the deck. At
the mouth of the Tiber, it crawled out, plunged into the water, and
swam up the Tiber to the island near the city, where the temple of the
god was then built. The embassy is not by any means to be doubted: in
the temple of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, harmless snakes were kept, one
of which had likewise formerly been carried in a waggon to Sicyon. The
ground work of this legend is true, all the rest is added to it; we are
here on quite different ground from what we were on before. The tale is
also remarkable, as it shows how little the Greek ideas were at that
time foreign to the Romans.
In this great distress, there now arose in Rome, on the one hand, a
great burthen of debt, and on the other, the necessity for a better
state of things. The booty from the Sabines, which was gained just
then, was so considerable, that the historian Fabius, in Strabo, says
that the Romans had first known by this victory what riches were.
Besides money, a great part of it must have been land and cattle.
Curius declared, that there was so much land, that it must have lain
waste, if he had not taken so many prisoners.
This is the obscurest period of Roman history, as here the eleventh
book of Livy is wanting. Certain it is, that Curius had a most fierce
quarrel with the senate, no doubt about the division of the public
land. Curius insisted upon a larger assignation being made to the
people,--for so we must call it, and not commonalty any longer,--and
likewise to the _libertini_, inasmuch as they were in the tribes. The
quarrel was now also with the plebeian nobility; and so great was the
exasperation, that a band of eight hundred youths united to defend
the life of Curius, as the knights did that of Cicero. In this state
of things, the triumvirs wanted to give Curius seven times seven
_jugera_, a whole century at that period; but Curius rejected it,
saying that he was a bad citizen, who was not content with his share.
Of Agrippa Menenius, we may believe that he was poor; but hardly of
Valerius Poplicola, as he was able to build himself a splendid house.
As to M’. Curius, his poverty, and the cheerfulness with which he bore
it, are well attested; and it is likewise well known how the Samnite
ambassadors found him in his farm by his hearth, and how he spurned
their gifts; and also that the senate provided for the maintenance of
his family while he was consul.
Two years afterwards, he executed during his censorship one of the most
magnificent works to be found in the world, the draining of the lake
Velinus, by which the cascade of Terni, which is a hundred and forty
feet high, was called into existence,--the finest fall of water known,
and yet the work of man. Livy calls the Appian Way _monumentum gentis
Appiæ_, this is _monumentum Curii_. The lake Velinus filled a great
valley in the mountains, and had no outlet, a ridge of rocks of no very
great height cutting it off from the Nar (the Nera). Here Curius cut
through the rock; gave the lake _Pié de Luna_ and _Velino_ an outlet;
and thus created several square leagues of the richest soils, the
fields of la campagna Rieti, the _Rosea_ which Cicero calls another
Tempe. It is owing to quite an accidental remark of Cicero’s, that we
know this to have been done by Curius. The water is calcareous, as it
is everywhere in the Apennines; and therefore stalactites are growing
all about it, on which account it has more than once become necessary
since the sixteenth century, the work having been neglected during the
middle ages, to change the course of the stream. The lake has shifted
its bed, so that a bridge built in those ages is now entirely covered
with limestone, and has only been found again a few years ago. A noble
Roman bridge across the canal is still to be seen; yet it is not
visited by strangers, being rather difficult of access: undoubtedly
it is likewise a work of Curius. It was shown to me by an intelligent
peasant, and it is built of large blocks of stone fitted together into
an arch without cement, in the old Etruscan manner. Although earth as
high as a house, on which trees are growing, is lying upon it, yet
there is not a stone moved from its place, even to the breadth of the
back of a knife.
The interval between the third Samnite war and Pyrrhus’ being called
into Italy, which is not quite ten years, is one of the most important
in the whole of ancient history, and the want of a more accurate
knowledge of it we feel most painfully. Were we able to conjure up some
of the lost writings of antiquity, the eleventh book of Livy would be
the most instructive; yet sooner or later, this history will certainly
be one day discovered. I have collected much of it, but not enough
to give a complete historical outline of the time. In the year 462
(according to Cato), the _Lex Mænia_ was passed. Only a few days ago, I
have discovered a passage concerning it, which I had indeed read more
than once before, but in a place where until now it has been overlooked
by every one: otherwise, the law is merely known by a cursory remark
of Cicero’s. It can have no other meaning, but that the _auctoritas_
of the _patres_ for the curule elections was now done away with, even
as forty-six years before it had been by the _Lex Publilia_ for the
laws made by the centuries. This _Lex Mænia_ was absolutely necessary,
as the patricians had already voted once. From henceforth, the senate
gave its _auctoritas_ beforehand; yet the curies were not abolished, as
were at Augsburg the chambers (Stuben), the meetings of the houses. The
_imperium_ was conferred by the mere _simulacrum_ of the curies, that
is, by the lictors, who represented the curies, as the five witnesses
did the classes of the centuries. The carrying of this law is one of
the stormy events which happened during the consulship of M’. Curius.
Quite different from it was the _Lex Hortensia_, about which we should
be so glad to learn something. From Zonaras we knew until now, that
there was much debt, and that from thence arose disturbances; on this
the tribunes moved, that the debts should be cancelled, and when all
was of no avail, the _Plebes_ entrenched itself on the Janiculum, and
was after a long sedition at last brought back by the dictator Q.
Hortensius. From this dictatorship sprang the _Lex Hortensia_, which
is known from Gaius and the _Institutiones_, and of which the purport
is, _ut plebiscita omnes Quirites tenerent_. During the last year
(1828), something more has been found in the _Excerpta de Sententiis_,
edited by Mai, from Dio Cassius, but dreadfully mutilated. I have
tried to restore its connection in the _Rheinische Museum_;[154]
of the correctness of its general meaning, I do not entertain the
slightest doubt. According to that passage, the tribunes moved the
cancelling of the debts (_tabulæ novæ_) in consequence of the general
suffering.[155] Distress and debt are most severely felt in the first
years of peace. The tribunes made the motion on the strength of the
_Lex Publilia_,[156] according to which, the resolution of the _Plebes_
was a bill which was to be confirmed by the curies, before whom nothing
could be brought but what had passed through the senate, by whom it
was to be introduced: the latter might throw out a bill; if it did
not, it went on to the curies. The _Plebes_ was now highly delighted
at the motion and adopted it; but it had to be brought before the
senate, which threw it out. For in those days, we already find the
state of things which is so strongly marked under the Gracchi, namely,
the feud between the people and the nobles: the plebeian nobility
shielded themselves behind the curies, and were very glad when these
rejected the motion. The tribunes then brought in another proposition,
that, if it thought too much to grant a complete cancelling of the
debts, the creditors should fall back to the Licinian law; so that
the interests already paid should be deducted from the capital, and
the remainder be liquidated in three instalments. It was at that time
forbidden to take interest, and money lenders were therefore obliged to
screen themselves behind foreigners. When a loan on which interest was
charged, was to be negotiated, they went to Præneste and Tibur; and the
Tiburtine ostensibly furnished the money, and in his forum also were
the litigations decided which might arise from the transaction. Thus
the prohibition of usury may be reconciled with the fact that interests
were paid after all.
The curies refused to pass the law, even with this modification, and
therefore such a bill had every time to be brought in anew _in trinum
nundinum_; the people would indeed have been quite satisfied with the
proposition as it now stood, but the curies kept on saying no. The
people now became maddened; they marched out of the city, and encamped
on the Janiculum: it can scarcely be supposed that any magistrate
headed the _Plebes_, as in the former secessions. The leaders of the
democratical party thought to make use of these circumstances for their
own ends, and allowed the people to go farther and farther; thus on
the Janiculum it hardly could be said to have behaved as harmlessly
as in the former secessions. And now, when the crowd there, instead
of dispersing, went on strengthening, the rulers of the republic were
frightened, and eagerly wished for a compromise. The insurgents,
however, would have nothing of the sort; they were ever demanding more
and more:--what they wanted, it is impossible for us to say, probably
a new division of the land, and a much more considerable diminution
of the debts. The popular leaders at last put forth the demand, that,
as the opposition of the senate and the curies had shaken the peace,
these should give up their _veto_; and they carried their point. For
the last time, the curies met in the Æsculetum, and decreed their own
dissolution. An analogous case is the _ordinanza della giustizia_ at
Florence, by which a great part of the houses was wholly excluded from
all civil offices; and that through their own fault, as they would
commit any crime, and not appear before the courts of justice.
The Hortensian law comprehended other objects besides. There was but
one dictator Hortensius, down to the time of Cicero, and likewise only
one Hortensian law.
This resolution was an extraordinary event, the first step towards the
fall and the breaking up of the Roman state. Yet the condition of Rome
was so sound, that a hundred and fifty years passed away before the
mischief displayed itself. It is one of the disadvantages of a free
constitution, that what has once been neglected, cannot be so easily
made up. The _Veto_ could not have continued as it was; but what ought
to have been done, and was not done, because it was not done at the
right time, was this: the curies should have been filled up from the
plebeian nobles, and by a number of clans from the allies. The senate
could not have the same weight as a strong aristocratical body; the
_sincera plebes_, the good old country folk, gradually dwindled away,
and the _factio forensis_ got the upperhand; the elements which had
rendered the Roman commonalty so excellent, died off by degrees, and
ought to have been replaced. This must have struck many a person at
that time; for instance, that wise man Fabius, if he was still alive.
Sp. Carvilius, a son or grandson of him who conquered the Samnites,
brought forward a motion in the war of Hannibal, to receive two
members from each senate of the allies into the Roman one; just like
Scipio Maffei, who made a similar proposition in Venice. The former
was all but torn to pieces in the senate; as for the latter, it is
quite a wonder that he got off unpunished. Sallust says, that between
the second and the third Punic war, there had been the strongest
feeling of respect for the laws of Rome; yet this was merely the
peaceful state just before the outbreak of a revolution. Single cases
of evil consequences had not been wanting already; one was, that
from henceforth the admission of the Italians to the full right of
citizenship became more and more difficult, as this would lessen the
influence of the ancient citizens. This afterwards gave rise to a
coalition between the allies and the nobles; but unhappily the nobility
did not form a corporation. The patrician body crumbled to pieces, and
there was nothing to take its place.
Even as the French revolution was very much hastened by the absurd
regulation of old Marshal Ségur, that only nobles were to hold
commissions, which exasperated all the soldiers; thus in Rome also, a
like provocation was given by L. Postumius, an odd character, who--what
at that time was not common--had thrice been consul, and was also
employed in the decisive embassy to Tarentum: he must therefore have
been a man of consequence; but he behaved on this occasion like a
madman. During his consulship, he insulted old Q. Fabius, who was with
the army as proconsul, by driving him away. There is party hatred in
this: Fabius was an aristocrat, but free from all oligarchical spirit.
After the war, Postumius had possessed himself of immense tracts of
land, and had set two thousand soldiers to work at clearing a forest.
For this accumulated insolence, he was impeached by the tribunes, and
condemned to pay a fine of five hundred thousand _asses_. Circumstances
of this kind gave greater offence than anything else, and the more
bitter it became as the oligarchical party fell off in numbers.
In this period is to be placed the appointment of the _triumviri
capitales_. The form _triumviri_ is indeed a solecism, a proof that
even so early as this the _casus obliqui_ were prevalent, as in the
modern Romanesque languages. From _triumvirorum_, which was often
heard, a nominative, _triumviri_, was made; and this form was already
generally current in the times of Cicero.--The _triumviri capitales_
correspond to the Athenian ἕνδεκα; they had the superintendence of the
gaols; beyond this, we are altogether in the dark as to what their
office was. They entered upon the functions which had passed from the
old _Quæstores parricidii_ to the _ædiles curules_. There were many
cases in which there was no further investigation to be made, namely,
those of _delicta manifesta_: but to inquire in every instance whether
a person was _reus manifestus_, the prætor had not time, and there must
have been an authority which informed him that there was a _delictum
manifestum_: this must formerly have been the quæstors, and now the
_tresviri capitales_. Besides this, they were judges in cases of which
the prætor did not take cognisance, in those of foreigners, slaves, and
so forth; and they likewise watched over their punishment, as these
persons were not under the protection of the tribunes: when, however,
there was a doubt, a _judex_ was to be granted. Thus this office had
the mingled powers of a police and of a criminal jurisdiction.
DESTRUCTION OF THE SENONIAN GAULS. C. FABRICIUS LUSCINUS. WAR WITH
TARENTUM. PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS. EVENTS IN SICILY DOWN TO THE FIRST PUNIC
WAR.
According to Zonaras, it was the Tarentines who stirred up the peoples
far and near against the Romans; first the Lucanians, then the
Etruscans, and even the deeply humbled Samnites: the Greek towns were
no longer the closest friends of the people of Tarentum; the latter
looked to their own political advantage, and were ready to leave them
to the mercy of the Lucanians and Bruttians. Either after the third,
or even after the second Samnite war, a peace was concluded between
the Romans and the Tarentines: in 451, or 452, they already seem to
be friends; the Greek writers also speak of it as a treaty of long
standing. They seem on both sides to have checked each other by sea;
for the Romans bound themselves not to appear with any ship of war
north of the Lacinian headland in the gulf of Tarentum, whilst the
Tarentines may have made a similar promise.
An unprejudiced observer must have seen from the issue of the third
Samnite war, that the fate of Italy was decided; and the Italian people
ought to have hastened to unite themselves with Rome on the most
favourable terms which they could get. But men’s passions have no such
wisdom, and they are always looking for some _Deus ex machina_, who
is to change everything. One people after another joined the ranks of
the enemies of Rome. The Lucanians, who were allied with them during
the third Samnite war, availed themselves of their independence to
act according to their own liking, and to reduce the Greek towns to
subjection. The Bruttians likewise became leagued with the enemies of
the Romans; the Greek towns, on the other hand, having been abandoned
by the Tarentines, sought their aid. The Etruscans, disunited among
themselves, still continued to be ever alternating between peace and
war: the Vulsinians alone seem to have carried on uninterrupted war.
The strength of the Samnites was quite broken; yet they tried to rally,
so as again to take up arms, as soon as it could be done with any hope
of success: for the present, they kept aloof, and gave the Romans no
occasion for hostilities. The Tarentines tried to stir up even the
Gauls, doing every thing all the while by means of subsidies only:
they themselves did nothing openly, and to all appearance the good
understanding was kept up. The great distress at home must have obliged
the Romans to dissemble; we merely know that, true to their system of
supporting the weak against the strong, they gave to the Thurinians
their help against the Lucanians. On this occasion, we meet with the
first instance of a Greek town having raised a statue to a Roman.[157]
Rome’s support saved the Thurinians.
In Etruria, the war now took a different turn. The Etruscans seem
to have been so divided among themselves, that the war party called
in the Gauls to join with them in fighting against their opponents.
Arretium in the north-eastern corner of Tuscany, thus exposed to the
Gauls, being governed by the Cilnii, and on friendly terms with Rome,
was besieged by the barbarians. In 469 (according to Cato, in whose
system the birth of Christ is to be placed in 752, not in 754), the
Romans sent to the relief of Arretium the prætor L. Cæcilius Metellus
and two legions with auxiliaries, in all, about 20,000 men. But the
Senonian Gauls, though they dwelt on the other side of the Alps, over
which there was no way, broke through, and defeated Metellus, who
himself was left dead on the field of battle, and eleven thousand
Romans with him: the whole of his force seems to have been utterly
destroyed. Curius was now sent with an army into Etruria, and envoys
were also despatched to the Senonians, to ransom the prisoners. The
Senonians, however, still harboured vengeance on account of the battle
of Sentinum, and Britomaris, a young chieftain whose father had been
killed there, instigated them to murder the ambassadors. On this, the
Romans determined at all hazards to take revenge; and the consul, P.
Cornelius Dolabella, instead of attacking the army of the Gauls, who
were perhaps already dreaming of a new conquest of Rome, adopted the
plan of falling upon the deserted country of the Senonians, where he
partly destroyed the population, and partly carried it away captive.
The army of the Senonians, maddened at the tidings of this disaster,
returned home, and was entirely routed: it is hardly an exaggeration
to say, that the whole of the nation was exterminated. The Boians now
crossed the mountains, joined the Etruscans, and met with a defeat near
the lake Vadimo; yet the Romans did not set foot on their territory,
which reached from the river Trebia to the Romagna. In the following
year, all the fighting men of this tribe came forth again, but with no
greater success; the nation, however, was not annihilated: the women
and children had stayed behind, and so it regenerated itself. It was
not until fifty years later, that the extermination took place. The
Gallic migrations from henceforth were no more turned against Italy,
but against Thrace and Macedon. How matters went on in Etruria, and
what Etruscan towns made their submission, the wretched history of that
period leaves quite untold.
All the time that these dreadful wars were waging on the northern
frontier, at home in the city, everything was quiet in consequence
of the peace of the Janiculum and Æsquiletum; but in Lucania, the
Romans carried on their wars without interruption. In this war, C.
Fabricius Luscinus is mentioned for the first time. The old heroes
were still living: Valerius Corvus, who was now an old man, full of
days, no longer plays any active part; Ap. Claudius was blind, but
had very great influence still; Fabius in all likelihood was dead.
Younger than Appius, but older than Fabricius, was the great warrior
M’. Curius Dentatus, who in his politics was a staunch democrat, but
yet no demagogue. Curius and Fabricius are remarkable men, and in some
respects they are like each other. Of both of them it is certain that
they were really poor; both were proud characters; both of them _novi
homines_, risen by their greatness in war, and by their personal worth.
Fabricius has in all ages been quoted as a pattern of public virtue.
Besides these two men, there were on the other side also some eminent
personages: L. Postumius, who indeed was also a man of energy, but not
so noble as he; P. Cornelius Rufinus, as covetous as Fabricius was
disinterested, whom moreover Fabricius and his colleague Q. Æmilius
Papus removed from the senate for his luxuriousness. And without them,
Rome seems to have abounded in remarkable people: it may likewise have
already stood high in an intellectual proficiency of its own, far above
that of the most celebrated times of the middle ages, and perhaps also
in literature.
Another great man, great as a wise statesman, though he left behind
him no distinct memorial in the state, was Ti. Coruncanius, the first
plebeian _Pontifex maximus_, who enjoyed the reputation of profound
wisdom and knowledge of law. He was always looked upon as the pattern
of a pontiff.
The Romans now became more and more aware of how matters stood between
them and the people of Tarentum. The peace only lasted because
other countries separated them. The wealth of the Tarentines, their
naval power, and the ease with which they were able to enlist Greek
armies, made the Romans very unwilling to go to war with them. When,
however, the troops engaged in Lucania were surrounded on all sides
by guerillas, Rome was obliged to send them their supplies by sea,
notwithstanding the treaty concluded about twenty years before, which
had imposed mutual limits upon that element. The Romans must under
actual circumstances have found it unnatural: they might plead that
at that time Venusia was not yet theirs; and that by founding this
colony, they had tacitly acquired the right of sailing beyond the
Lacinian headland. It seems, however, that they also wished to try
how long the Tarentines would wait before they made war. This is what
is more likely; for according to a notice from a lost book of Livy,
which Zonaras confirms, the Tarentines endeavoured to call into life
a great coalition against the Romans, with which even the expedition
of the Gauls against Arretium is said to have already been connected.
Certain it is, that they wished for one; but each single people came
but slowly into it. The Romans sent a squadron of ten triremes under
the _duumvir navalis_,[158] L. Valerius, to the roadstead of Tarentum.
All the Greek theatres had, if possible, a view of the sea, or at least
they faced it; thus it is at Tusculum, and even at Fæsulæ: in these
the people assembled, as at Rome in the forum. Among the Greeks, it
was less customary to meet together in the ἀγορά, which was a mere
place of business: they felt more comfortable in the theatres where
they could sit down. These were open every day, and if any one had
something to say to the people, he got up upon the stage and spoke from
thence. Unhappily for Tarentum, the people was just assembled in the
theatre, when the Roman ships steered towards the harbour: had it not
been there, the history of the world would have taken another turn; the
στρατηγοί would most likely have requested the Romans to go back, and
nothing would have followed from the expedition. The people excited
one another, and without even coming to any resolution, they all of
them ran down to the harbour, pulled the galleys into the water, manned
them, and fell upon the Romans without the least warning: two or three
ships only saved themselves; most of them were sunk, Valerius himself
was killed. Almost all the Tarentines, who had never before seen a
Roman army, were now exulting in their victory.
In Rome, this event gave rise to great dismay. They knew there that
the whole of Italy was fermenting, and they saw for certain that
the Tarentines relied upon a general outbreak; we find distinct
traces which show, that not even the Latin people was trusted; the
Prænestines, especially, were again ripe for a rising. For this reason,
it was a very critical affair for the Romans. Instead of declaring
war, they sent an embassy to the Tarentines, to protest in the face
of the whole world; so that every one might see that vengeance was
only delayed, and not given up. Delegates were also sent to some of
the allies north of Tarentum, partly to keep them in their faith,
and partly to demand hostages. Among these was C. Fabricius, who, in
violation of the law of nations, was arrested, as it seems, by the
Samnites. At Rome the greatest exertions were now made: they wished
to overawe the enemy, without having at once to begin the war. At
the head of an embassy to Tarentum was L. Postumius. A reckless,
excitable, giddy people, as the Tarentines were, must have felt their
courage rising, when the hated Romans showed themselves frightened;
L. Postumius did not gain any thing by his demand that the Tarentines
should give up the guilty parties, and indeed the Romans could hardly
have expected it. Unfortunately, it was the time of the Dionysia, the
feast of the vintage. The ambassadors in democratical Tarentum were not
brought before the senate, but before the people, in the orchestra;
here they had to speak from below to those above them, instead of
haranguing, as they were wont, from a raised platform: this was of
itself quite enough to make them feel embarrassed and fidgetty. The
whole town was intoxicated; drunken sots and impudent fellows laughed
at every blunder which the ambassadors made in speaking Greek: one of
them even went so far as to befoul the _toga prætexta_ of Postumius. He
did not lose his self-command, but showed the Tarentines the abominable
insult which had been done to him, and loudly complained of it. At
this sight, the drunken populace broke out into a much more violent
laughter. Then Postumius, shaking his garment, said, I prophesy, ye
people of Tarentum, that ye shall wash out this stain with your heart’s
best blood.
The ambassadors returned without the satisfaction which they had
demanded, without even an answer; and they insisted in the Roman senate
upon immediate vengeance. But many senators advised caution, and were
for waiting until more favourable circumstances presented themselves;
the people also, which was labouring under great distress, was at that
time against the war, and thus, when it was first proposed, the measure
was thrown out. Fresh negotiations, backed by an army, were to be set
on foot. Afterwards, however, it was resolved notwithstanding, to send
the army to the frontiers of Tarentum, the consul L. Æmilius Barbula
having instructions, when on his march through Lucania, also to attack
Tarentum. In that city likewise, there were two parties, one of them
mad for war, and the other prudent; the former were aware that the only
way of carrying on the war was by calling over into their country a
foreign prince, and this could be no other than Pyrrhus of Epirus, who
kept a standing army. But then it was to be foreseen, that Pyrrhus,
if victorious, would make himself king of Italy, as he was much more
powerful than Alexander of Epirus. The aristocracy at Tarentum wished
for a union with Rome, that they might bridle the unruly populace; but
those who were in power had so lost all common sense, that instead of
protecting, as heretofore, the Italiote towns, they made common cause
with the Lucanians, and, giving warning to Thurii, an open colony of
the whole of Greece, that their protection was withdrawn, they left
it to the mercy of its foes. This venerable town, distinguished for
its great men, was now taken and sacked by the Lucanians: the Romans
conquered it at a later period, but it never recovered. When Barbula
appeared before Tarentum, peace would perhaps have been concluded, had
not the Tarentines already entered into negotiations with Pyrrhus.
These had not yet led to any definitive result, when the Romans,
laying every thing waste before them, arrived before Tarentum. On this
a _proxenus_ of the Romans, Agis, offered himself for the office of
στρατηγός, that he might mediate; but just as he was about to undertake
the task, the news came that Pyrrhus had accepted the terms proposed
to him. Agis was dismissed, and the war began.
Pyrrhus was at that time in his thirty-seventh year, the very prime of
life; none of his contemporaries in an age in which neither night nor
property was sure, had seen so many vicissitudes as he. For an able
man, the finest thing on earth is a career of activity and strife. That
which he himself has won, a man may well call his own; to enter quietly
into a settled possession, is what any one can do. But action may also
be overstrained, so that a person may lose all power of calmly enjoying
what he has. Such characters are Charles XII. and Pyrrhus, men who,
when they happen to be on the throne, are disastrous to their subjects,
and dangerous to their neighbours.
In the Peloponnesian war, the kingdom of the Molossians had been first
raised from its insignificance by Tharyps, who had been brought up at
Athens. The princely race of the Molossians branched from Philip into
two lines, that of Arymbas, and that of Neoptolemus, the father of
Olympias. This younger branch, by the influence of Macedon, came into
the possession of the throne. By Philip the country had been enlarged
in favour of the relations of his wife; Thesprotia and Chaonia seem
already to have belonged to it. Afterwards Æacidas, the father of
Pyrrhus, of the elder branch, obtained the crown. The lawful power
of these Epirote kings, like that of the sovereigns in the middle
ages, was very much bounded. Aristotle compares them to the kings of
Lacedæmon; but the following of soldiers which they had, was by no
means always inconsiderable: tempted by this power, Æacidas, contrary
to the general wish of his subjects, meddled in a great many matters.
He had attached himself to Olympias, although he had formerly been
driven out of his kingdom by the usurpation of his cousin Alexander of
Epirus, and he had with singular generosity identified himself with
the fate of that fury: by this he incurred the enmity of Cassander, who
co-operated in expelling him from Epirus. At that time, Pyrrhus was
two years old. Cassander wanted to exterminate the whole family, and
it was with the utmost difficulty that the child was saved by faithful
servants. He was brought up by Glaucias, the prince of the Taulantians,
although the latter had been on terms of enmity with Æacidas. Glaucias
grew so fond of the boy, that he did every thing in his power to
protect him against Cassander. Pyrrhus was hardly grown up, when he
went to the court of Demetrius Poliorcetes, and of old Antigonus, the
One-eyed: in this school his extraordinary talent as a general was
developed. Demetrius was indeed a great genius spoiled. Here Pyrrhus
preserved his moral dignity amidst a most infamous crew. He was, by
Demetrius, nominally restored as king of the Molossians; but according
to the fashion of the age, he was the vassal of the greater king, and
had to serve in his army, like the other petty princes of Epirus. He
was with Demetrius and Antigonus in the battle near Ipsus Ol. 119, 4,
in which the empire of Antigonus was overthrown, and himself killed:
Pyrrhus was at that time sixteen years old. After this battle had been
won by the allies, these began to quarrel; and the crafty Demetrius
soon found an opportunity of making up with Ptolemy Soter, who, in
dividing the spoil, had fallen out with his old friend Seleucus,
with Cassander, whom he had ever hated, and likewise with Lysimachus
to boot. Pyrrhus was sent to Alexandria to treat with Ptolemy, and
was given as a hostage for the fulfilment of the conditions. He had
something peculiarly fascinating about him: his wonderful talents were
of the most varied kind, and Heaven had endowed him with the most
enchanting amiability and beauty. These qualities he now used for his
patron’s best advantage, as well as for his own. The Epirote towns were
lost in the meanwhile, and his dominions had to all appearance fallen
into the hands of Neoptolemus, a son of Alexander the Molossian. But
Pyrrhus gained the favour of Ptolemy and Berenice, and was married
to Antigone a daughter of Berenice by her first marriage. With the
help of Ægyptian money, he was again put in possession of his throne;
the attachment of the people soon rid him of his rival Neoptolemus,
though for this he employed, it is true, a certain unjustifiable
means, the like of which was so much in vogue during the sixteenth
century. He now tried to settle himself, for which Fortune soon gave
him an opportunity. Cassander died, and left sons behind him, who were
enemies to each other: one of these yielded to Pyrrhus, in return
for his protection, Ambracia, Amphilochia, and the Epirote provinces
which had until now been united with Macedon. This was of the greatest
importance to Pyrrhus: now, for the first time, Epirus deserved to
be called a state. Pyrrhus indeed did help his ally; but the latter
fell by his own fault, and Pyrrhus remained master of the provinces.
Demetrius Poliorcetes now also got again upon the throne of Macedon;
and with him, Pyrrhus, at first, stood on the same friendly terms as
of old. But Demetrius was an encroaching, grasping prince, and thus it
was not long before war broke out between them. The oriental pride and
haughtiness of Demetrius gave offence to the Macedonians: they fell
off from him, and Pyrrhus leagued himself with Lysimachus. The people
declared for them, and they divided the country between them. But this
division again roused the spirit of the Macedonians: Lysimachus was a
native, Pyrrhus a foreigner, for which reason he was cast off by the
inhabitants of the district which had fallen to his share. The period
of the loss of Macedon is generally dated several years too soon.
Pyrrhus was not stubborn against fortune: he carried on war as an art;
if his stars were unkind, he would give way. War was his happiness and
his life; he raised the science of generalship to its utmost height;
in his method of battle array, he was a mighty master. A fragment of
Livy in Servius, according to a safe emendation, says, _Pyrrhus, unicus
bellandi artifex, magisque in prœlio quam in bello bonus_: the result
of the campaign was what interested him least. Some generals have a
talent for making the disposition of a battle; but they either do not
know at all how to plan a campaign, or, when they have won a battle,
they get tired of the thing; others show a remarkable turn for the
arrangement of the whole campaign, but are less successful in battles.
To the former class belongs the Archduke Charles of Austria, as he
himself acknowledges in his strategical writings: Pyrrhus also cared so
much for the pleasure of winning in the game of war, that he scarcely
ever followed up a battle which he had gained. It may even have been
painful to him, afterwards to annihilate a beaten foe, when there was
no longer any skill in destroying him. This betokens a fine soul, but
the object of the war is in this way lost sight of.
Pyrrhus now took up his residence in Ambracia, and embellished it as
a real city of kings. When the Tarentine ambassadors now made their
appearance, and concluded with him a treaty of subsidies, in which
very likely much remained unsettled; Pyrrhus quickly sent over Cineas
with three thousand men, that he might get a firm footing, and prevent
any revulsion in the anger which had been aroused by the devastations
of the Romans. Cineas, like his princely friend, was an extraordinary
man; he stood by the side of Pyrrhus as one who was quite free, and
had attached himself to him from inclination, and with all his heart.
He was from a people which has produced no other distinguished man,
being of Larissa in Thessaly, probably an Aleuad; and he is called a
pupil of Demosthenes: this is only barely possible, as Demosthenes
had now been dead forty years already. Perhaps this statement merely
rests on a mistake; as he may indeed have been spoken of as a
_sectator Demosthenis_. Few at that time might have still been able
to appreciate Demosthenes; a man like Cineas understood him, and drew
inspiration from his writings. How Cineas became the friend of Pyrrhus,
we cannot tell.
The Tarentines delivered up their citadel to Cineas, who, with great
adroitness, did every thing to keep them in good humour, so as to blind
them with regard to the views of Pyrrhus; he allowed them to go on
living merrily; they did not arm themselves, and he quite won their
confidence. Pyrrhus had not much might of his own; but from several
neighbouring princes he managed to get elephants, engines, ships, and
other necessaries of war;--from Ptolemy Ceraunus, he had five thousand
Macedonian soldiers:--he was a thorn in the side of every one of them,
and they were all glad that he went so far away. He is said to have
gone over with twenty thousand foot, four or five thousand horse, and
a number of elephants: how many there were of these, we are not told.
Early in the year, he was ready; but he had a very bad passage, owing
partly to the imperfect navigation of the time, and still more to the
circumstance that the Epirotes were even less skilled in steering a
ship’s course than the Greeks. Moreover, the sea about the Ceraunian
rocks had then, as it has to this very day, a bad name for sudden
squalls; the swell from the Adriatic to the Syrtes, which is almost
like the great Mexican gulf-stream, made the voyage across a hazardous
one. Several ships of his fleet were lost, others were driven out
of their course; he himself, with a great deal of trouble, reached
the Sallentine coast, at which all who had escaped came together. He
made all haste to get to Tarentum, which opened its gates to him;
but he had hardly collected his scattered fleet, when he took very
serious measures with the people there. He saw that his army alone
was not strong enough for his designs, and yet an enlistment was too
expensive; he therefore had the gates shut, and he raised a levy from
among the Tarentines, whom he forced to serve in his phalanx. They
were highly displeased at this, many tried to escape; but he redoubled
the strictness of his measures, put a stop to the gymnasia and other
public meetings, and soon showed himself to be a tyrannical master.
The Tarentines had indeed been mistaken in their expectations. They
would have treated Pyrrhus, as they did princes who had formerly been
called over; they wanted to stay at home, while he carried on the
war. But Pyrrhus could do no such thing; his territory was but small,
and the war promised to be a bloody one: he therefore demanded the
co-operation of the Tarentines. These began to grumble; but they were
quite powerless against him, as he was in possession of the citadel.
He was thus driven to have recourse to harsh police regulations. Only
a consular army under P. Valerius Lævinus withstood him.--The history
of the time, with the exception of Pyrrhus’ campaigns, is very little
known to us: probably Rome employed a large force against Etruria, in
order to bring it to a definite peace. The whole of Italy was thrown
into a state of fermentation: the Romans took hostages from those
allies who could not be relied on, trying however, nowhere to betray
any fear; and they raised great armaments. But it is inconceivable
how they could have ventured to send only a consular army against
Pyrrhus, who moreover every where gained people over by his manners
and address. He is, among all the barbarian kings, the only character
fraught with all the brilliance of the old Hellenism; and, although not
without faults, he was a being of a higher order, and able to achieve
great things with small means. The Samnites and Lucanians had sent
ambassadors to him already in Epirus; the Apulians, and several Italian
peoples joined him immediately after his arrival; but this did not, for
the moment, lead to any increase of his power. The proconsul L. Æmilius
Barbula was stationed in Samnium, which he frightfully wasted, to
prevent the Samnites from thinking of forming a junction with Pyrrhus
against the army of Lævinus. A correspondence sprang up between Pyrrhus
and Valerius Lævinus, in which the former offered to act as mediator
between Rome and Tarentum. He may indeed have had a high opinion of
the Romans, but he did not understand them after all; for the tone of
his letters, as far as we know them, is entirely mistaken, so that no
agreement took place. The Romans demanded satisfaction from him, for
having, though a stranger, set his foot upon Italian ground. This seems
to have been a national view of theirs. Valerius now went to Lucania.
He wished for a battle, before a confederate army of Samnites and
Lucanians could join the king; as most likely they were kept in check
by the other consul. Pyrrhus had likewise marched against him, seeking
to fight before the two armies formed a junction. He crossed the Siris
in the neighbourhood of Heraclea, which is the finest country in this
part of Italy, and may rank with Campania in fertility and wealth.
He felt confident of victory, and he was bent on humbling the pride
of the Italian allies, by beating the Romans without their help. The
Romans seem to have gone on very slowly with their preparations; he
distressed them very cleverly by cutting off their supply of food, and
they were obliged to fight that they might not have to abandon that
district, and to fall back upon Venusia, which was dangerous on account
of the allies. The evening before the battle, Pyrrhus reconnoitred the
Roman position, and was amazed at the order there. He was accustomed
to fight against Macedonians and Greeks, or against Illyrians; now
he saw the activity and the high state of training of the individual
Roman soldier, and thus he became very serious at the thoughts of the
impending battle. Here the contrary tactics of two excellent armies
came into collision: on the side of the Macedonians, the system was
then carried to the highest perfection, of acting in masses;[159] on
the side of the Romans, that of a line which far outflanked the enemy.
If the Epirote phalanx awaited the shock of the Romans unmoved, the
latter could do nothing; but it was no easy work in cold blood to stand
the furious charge of the Romans, the shower of their _pila_, and the
fierce onset of their swords. Yet Pyrrhus had a great advantage in his
Thessalian cavalry, that of the Romans being badly mounted and badly
armed. The Roman army, to the astonishment of Pyrrhus, now forded
the Siris, and fell upon him: on both sides, they fought with great
fury. The Romans had never yet encountered any Macedonian phalanx.
Seven attacks were repulsed: like madmen, they threw themselves on
the _sarissæ_, in order to break through the phalanx, as did Arnold
Von Winkelried. The day was not yet won; but the Roman cavalry was
very successful in the beginning of the battle: the Epirotes were
already wavering; another moment, and they would have been broken. At
this crisis, Pyrrhus led forth his cavalry, which, contrary to all
expectation, had before that been worsted by the Romans,[160] and also
about twenty elephants with it: the Roman cavalry was terror stricken;
the horses took fright and ran away. The Thessalian cavalry now
dashed into the flanks of the legions, and cut them down with fearful
bloodshed: many Romans were taken prisoners, especially horsemen. The
overthrow was complete: the camp could not be held, and every one fled
singly: had Pyrrhus pursued, the whole of the Roman army would have
been annihilated, as were the French after the battle of Waterloo.
But the Romans, and above all Lævinus, here again behaved admirably:
they collected their forces, as Frederic the Great did after the battle
of Kunersdorf, and retreated to Venusia. This alone could have been
the place in Apulia of which Zonaras speaks; were it not for this
stronghold, they would have had to go across the mountains as far as
Luceria. It was now shown how excellent was the plan of making Venusia
a colony; but for this, not a Roman could have escaped, as the Samnites
and Lucanians would have destroyed them. The Italian allies reached
Pyrrhus after the battle only. Hereupon Pyrrhus at first expected Roman
ambassadors; but as he did not hear of any thing from the Romans, who,
on the contrary, made new armaments, he put himself in motion. The
direct road to Rome lay open before him; he therefore left the Roman
armies on one side, and marched upon the capital, as he held that
most sound principle of always trying to end the war soon. But as he
advanced, he found himself dreadfully mistaken about the condition of
the country: Rufinus had been joined by the remnants of Lævinus’ army;
and probably they had either cut their way through Samnium, or had gone
to Rome through the territory of the Marsians and Marrucinians. Pyrrhus
expected every where to find provisions for his army; but he was struck
with dismay, when he saw the state of Lucania, and especially of
Samnium. According to a newly discovered fragment, he told the Samnites
that they had deceived him, and that their country was a wilderness.
He could therefore advance but slowly. He approached Capua, which,
however, with praiseworthy fidelity shut its gates against him; near
Casilinum, he must have crossed the Vulturnus; and he now tried to
gain the Latin road, so as to reach the discontented towns, Præneste,
Tibur, and others. He reckoned likewise on the Etruscans, perhaps also
on the Gauls. Here we clearly see the hand of Providence. Had not the
Boians been destroyed the year before by the Romans, the Etruscans
would certainly have risen; but now they were confined to their own
resources, and divided among themselves. On this occasion, the Romans
must have shown great adroitness: they no doubt made with the Etruscans
at this very moment συνθήκαι εὐδοκούμεναι, by which these were only
bound to trifling services.
Pyrrhus, who was slowly advancing against Rome with seventy thousand
men, as it is said, availed himself of the interval to enter into
negotiations for peace, and sent Cineas to Rome. The conditions
seemed fair; but when looked at more closely, they were very hard.
He demanded that the Romans should conclude a peace with Tarentum,
Samnium, Lucania, Apulia, and Bruttium, as with equals, and give up
what they had taken from them, namely, Luceria, Fregellæ, Venusia; that
is to say, that they should go back to what they possessed forty years
before. This was exorbitant. We know these conditions from Appian,
who must have taken them from Dionysius: in our books of history, it
looks as if Pyrrhus had wished to beg the peace for the Tarentines. The
defeat, however, had made such a terrible impression, that Rome was
deeply shaken; the majority already began to reconcile themselves to
the thought of it. This is the celebrated negotiation of Cineas, and in
it we perceive his uncommon tact; for he by no means hurried matters,
but tried to win all hearts by personal attentions, in which he was
aided by his extraordinary memory: he called every Roman by his name,
and treated him according to his peculiar disposition. Appius Claudius,
however, turned the scales; and for whatever he may have been guilty of
in the course of his life, he now made amends, by inspiring the senate
with the courage to reject the proposals of Cineas, and to order him to
quit Rome within four and twenty hours. It was not until after these
negotiations, that Pyrrhus made his appearance before Rome.
The history of this war has been handed down to us in such a scanty
form, that we know merely from an incidental notice, that Pyrrhus took
the important town of Fregellæ by storm, and advanced on the Latin road
as far as Præneste, of which he got possession of the citadel. Here,
where he could overlook the _campagna_ of Rome, he found all his hopes
disappointed. The Etruscans had concluded a peace, and the army which
had been fighting against them, was at Rome, where a levy besides was
raised of every one who was able to bear arms; the troops of Lævinus
had been reinforced, and following close on the heels of Pyrrhus, had
advanced by Capua on the Appian road; the allies who remained faithful
had mustered all their forces; and thus he stood in the high Æquian
mountains, at a late season of the year, with an army before him
within the walls of Rome, another at his side, a reserve forming in
his rear, and all this in a country in which retreat was impossible in
winter. With a heavy heart, he therefore resolved upon turning back to
Campania; a Roman army followed him, and another under Lævinus marched
on his flank. Before these two armies could join each other, he wished
to give battle to the Romans; but the courage and alacrity of the
enemy, and the demoralized state of his own troops, who were already
living on bad terms with the allies, so depressed him, that he gave up
the idea, and was glad to return to Tarentum with a great deal of booty
and many prisoners.
Although this campaign ended without any lasting evil consequences for
the Romans, yet they were very much weakened; the number of prisoners
taken by Pyrrhus was far greater than at the battle of Heraclea. They
therefore sent an embassy to treat about the ransom of these, or
to exchange them for Tarentines and Italians. It was then that the
celebrated conversation between Fabricius and Pyrrhus took place,
which certainly the Romans have not been the first to record. Timæus
has written a special work on the war of Pyrrhus; Pyrrhus himself
left memoirs behind him, and from these, most likely, the accounts
we have are derived: they show what a high opinion the Greeks had of
the Romans. The embassy was unsuccessful; but Pyrrhus, owing to the
greatness of his mind, and also to make an impression upon a people
like the Romans, gave leave to the prisoners to go to Rome for the
_Saturnalia_, on their taking an oath that they would return after the
feast was ended. It is asserted that no man dared to break his oath,
and also that the senate and consuls issued a strict edict against
it. On both sides, this act affords a fine proof of the feelings of
that age, and on the whole, the war, from the mutual respect of the
combatants, is one of the finest in history; for although both parties
fought for life and death, they yet carried it on with kindliness for
each other. The embassy of Fabricius, Rufinus, and Dolabella, and
the account of how Pyrrhus tried to get Fabricius to stay with him,
and even to share his kingdom, has passed into an infinite number
of moralizing books. I certainly believe in the fact that the king
wanted to make Fabricius his friend and companion; the story tallies
so exactly with Pyrrhus’ character, that we cannot but take it for
true, though the details are flourishes of the rhetors, particularly
of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It is one of the traits of genius in
Pyrrhus, that he had become an enthusiastic admirer of the Romans: he
courted their friendship. Although we must give up some of the actions
of his life as unjust, yet his whole soul is so great and noble, that
we do not know of any period of history on which one may dwell with
greater pleasure. He was desirous of peace, but of a reasonable one for
his Italian allies, whom he did not choose to abandon.
But the peace was not obtained. Pyrrhus now saw very clearly, that he
could not effect anything by such thrusts against the heart of Rome:
the strongholds in Apulia--Venusia and Luceria--had to be wrested from
the enemy. This was the object of the campaign which followed. In the
meanwhile, an event fell out which made the war still more difficult
for him, and did not allow him to draw any fresh reinforcements from
Macedon. This was the invasion of that kingdom by the Gauls, which
was fatal to Ptolemy Ceraunus by whom he had been hitherto supported.
With his Italian allies also, he must have had some differences; so
that he now carried on the war with nothing like the forces which he
had before. The Romans with both their armies were in Apulia; that
Pyrrhus was besieging a town there when one of the armies came up, is
mentioned, but not the name of the place: very likely it was Venusia.
Here follows the battle near Asculum, the only incident which we know
of this year’s campaign, the different accounts of which in Plutarch
are most perplexing: that of Hieronymus of Cardia, whose sources were
Pyrrhus’ own memoirs, must be our guide. On the first day, there was
a skirmish between the two armies, in which the Romans were afraid to
go down into the plain, lest they should be exposed to the elephants
and cavalry. As the phalanx with the _sarissæ_ would have had to fight
at great disadvantage on broken ground, Pyrrhus, with great skill,
forced his enemy to take a position which was favourable to him; and
here the Romans were beaten, and are said to have lost seven thousand
men. Yet they were so near their camp, and had so well fortified it,
that they retired to it in perfect order: it was not an overthrow, but
merely a lost battle. It seems also that the Apulians in Pyrrhus’ army
stopped the course of the victory; for when the Romans were beginning
to fall back, they plundered the camp of their own allies, so that it
was necessary to send troops to check them. That Pyrrhus did not gain
anything beyond the victory, was already the same to him as a defeat.
In the meanwhile, the winter was now setting in: among the Romans, the
confident hope of victory was on the increase, whereas Pyrrhus had no
more prospects. He could not recruit his own troops, as the Gauls were
advancing into Macedon, and threatening the frontiers of Epirus; his
kingdom was very limited, and his subjects displayed the most decided
unwillingness to go and serve beyond the sea to gratify his ambition,
when the barbarians were already showing themselves at their borders.
Nor had he any trust in the Italians: to control them, he alternately
placed an Italian moveable cohort which fought with the _pilum_, and a
solid battalion of the phalanx,--a plan which may have been better in
theory than it turned out to be in practice. That he had this system,
is evident from Polybius; he employed it near Beneventum, perhaps also
at Asculum.
The Romans, in all likelihood, had for some time reduced the places
on the Liris which had fallen away: public opinion declared for them
in the whole of Italy. On both sides, negotiations were attempted.
The Romans wished to drive Pyrrhus out of Italy, because its conquest
was now sure; Pyrrhus, whose love of roving had been stirred, and who
therefore longed to give up the enterprise, made the Romans repeated
offers, to which, however, they would not listen so long as any foreign
troops had a footing on Italian ground. Now we have new Roman consuls,
one of whom was Fabricius. To this time belongs the story of a noble
Epirote, or the physician, or cupbearer of Pyrrhus (the name also
varies greatly, Timochares, Nicias, &c., being written), having offered
the Roman consuls to poison the king. The thing is not incredible in
itself; but it is so differently told in all the versions, that it
cannot possibly have been publicly known. It seems to me to have been
nothing else but a preconcerted farce, which Pyrrhus had got up, that
he might have a pretext for retreating from Italy. One could hardly
suppose this, had not something like it happened in modern times: the
negotiation between Napoleon and Fox in the year 1806, is a case in
point. They wanted to conclude a truce: Pyrrhus, when the Romans gave
him up that physician, set all the Roman prisoners free without any
ransom; and they, on their side, probably sent him an equal number of
Tarentines and Italians. Pyrrhus now declared to his allies, that in
the rich country of Sicily, which received him with open arms, he would
find the means of aiding them effectually. Thus he now obtained from
the Romans an advantageous truce. The latter did not, however, give
up the right of continuing the war against the Italians: unfortunate
Samnium was left to its fate. Pyrrhus had been in Italy two years and
two months; in Sicily he remained until the fourth year.
The Greek population of Sicily had, owing to the death of Agathocles,
been rent into factions. Tyrants dismembered the island; the
Carthaginians also were spreading over it; and the Mamertines, who
were Oscan mercenaries, had treacherously seized upon Messana.
Pyrrhus was looked upon as a deliverer, especially as he had married
Lanassa, a daughter of Agathocles: his son, whom he brought with him,
received homage at Syracuse as king. He drove out the Carthaginians
from every place but the impregnable stronghold of Lilybæum, and kept
the Mamertines closely shut up within their walls. His friend Cineas
must then have been already dead, as we find him surrounded by other
men, who were his evil geniuses, and led him on to perdition. His
own sound sense inclined him to make peace with the Carthaginians on
splendid terms,--they wanted to keep Lilybæum only; but the cowardly
Siceliotes would not do this, as they believed that they would not be
at all better off, if the Carthaginians still remained in any part
of the island. Their condition would, however, have been very much
improved. Pyrrhus had conquered the Mamertines, and united the whole
of Sicily under the settled rule of an Æacidas. But he now yielded to
these unhappy counsels, which was so much the worse for him, as he
was wanting in perseverance. The siege of Lilybæum was an immense
undertaking; the fortifications of that town were one of the wonders
of the ancient world, and the fleet of the Carthaginians was ever
bringing fresh troops and provisions. The end of all this was, that
Pyrrhus had to raise the siege. He thus lost his credit with the fickle
Siceliotes, and was beguiled into tyrannical measures; so that it was
good news to him when the Italian allies entreated him to return at any
rate, as otherwise they would be forced by the Romans to make a most
disadvantageous peace. He could not cross the strait, as the Mamertines
were masters of Messana, and a mutinous Campanian legion had Rhegium;
but he landed near Locri. While on his passage, he was attacked by the
Carthaginian fleet, which destroyed very many of his ships; and having
now scarcely saved any thing of the treasures which he had brought with
him from Sicily, he arrived very much reduced in men and in money.
During his absence of more than three years, the Romans had carried on
the war with the utmost cruelty. The inhabitants, as was the case in
the last years of the Spanish war, could only form guerillas, which
did much harm to the enemy’s army, but were unable to stand against
it in a pitched battle: they were therefore always beaten. I shall
not now speak of the single places which were destroyed at that time:
old Croton, which was twelve (Italian) miles in circumference, now
received its deathblow, and was entirely bereft of its population;
the enemy took one town after another, and the country became a
wilderness. Pyrrhus returned in the year 477, and restored his army
in the most wonderful way. He had many old soldiers from the army of
Agathocles, deserters also from the Carthaginians, and others; he now
called upon the Tarentines and all the Italians: his army--but most
likely this is an exaggeration--is said to have amounted to eighty
thousand men. He encamped near Taurasia, not far from Beneventum,
being opposed by Curius, who, it seems, had only one army. Pyrrhus was
now already disheartened; he had lost all faith in his invincibility;
dark forebodings and dreams haunted him;--not that he had entirely
lost courage, but his spirit was no more what it had once been. His
dispositions for attacking Curius were beautiful; too much, however,
was left in them to chance, and his luck had forsaken him. His plan
was, that a large body should go round the Roman camp, which was on
the side of a hill, and storm it from above at day break, whilst he,
at the same time, attacked it from below. But as in night marches
people always arrive later than is calculated, the troops which had
been sent, lost their way; the king was waiting for the preconcerted
signal for him to advance while it was still night, and before it
appeared, it became broad day. The Romans then learned that there were
enemies behind them on the mountains; on which they quickly formed, and
the camp was easily defended, whilst the main body faced the army of
Pyrrhus. As they were now already trained to fight against elephants,
they took burning arrows wrapped round with tow, which, when shot with
sufficient force, penetrated into the hide of the beast with such
friction, that the oakum and the pitch caught fire, and maddened it:
they had tried this already at Ascalum, and they now practised it on a
far larger scale. One dam, in particular, whose young one was wounded,
became furious, and in her rage turned against her own masters. The
Epirotes were overpowered, the phalanx utterly broken, and the rout
complete; even the camp could not be maintained: Pyrrhus retired to
Tarentum. The Romans, besides their other booty, had taken eight
elephants. The affair was now decided. Pyrrhus’ only thought was to
abandon the whole undertaking; yet he did not wish entirely to give up
what he possessed in Italy. He therefore left Milo behind in Tarentum
with a considerable force, which was strong enough to keep the enemy
from a siege, but was a dreadful nuisance for the place itself. The
Romans now turned against the several peoples which they had to subdue,
while Pyrrhus made use of a stratagem to get off. For he caused the
report to be spread among the Tarentines, that he intended, first to
settle matters in Macedon, and then to come back again with the whole
power of that country: and really he may have had some thoughts of
the kind. He now returned with a feeble force to Epirus, after having
been away for six years. There he found ample room for enterprises.
Antigonus Gonatas, when scarcely raised to the Macedonian throne, was
abandoned by his troops, and the whole of the land proclaimed Pyrrhus
king; the Macedonians soon became exasperated by the excesses of his
Gallic mercenaries, and again sided with Antigonus. Pyrrhus then
transferred the war into the Peloponnesus, and undertook an expedition
against Sparta, in which he well nigh succeeded; but the victory was
snatched from him when the Epirotes had already entered the town.
Fortune always showed him success very near, in order to wrest it from
him again. From thence he marched to Argos, having been called in by
the republican party against the aristocrats and the tyrant Aristippus,
who had summoned Antigonus to their aid. In a fight with the latter,
within the town itself, Pyrrhus was killed by a woman with a tile. The
history of those times is so scanty, that we do not even know the year
in which this great prince died.
Two years after Pyrrhus had left Italy, L. Papirius the younger and Sp.
Carvilius completed the reduction of Samnium (480). It was indeed in
the confident hope that they would effect this, that they were chosen:
both of them, about five and twenty years before, in the third Samnite
war, had fought the most decisive campaign. The Samnites saw that they
could not struggle against fate, and they saved themselves by a peace,
which, however painful it might be, could not, after all, be called
disgraceful: it was in reality rather a subjection than a peace. We
have no accurate knowledge of its conditions. Thus much is clear, that
the confederacy, of which there were only three cantons left, was
broken up, and that the Samnite peoples, as such, continued to exist
singly. They were to bind themselves _ad majestatem populi Romani
comiter colendam_.
The same Papirius, as consul, or proconsul, took Tarentum. In that
town, Milo had remained behind with a few thousand Epirote troops. Milo
behaved altogether like a rough general, in fact as a distinguished
captain of brigands, like the Spanish generals in the Netherlands: the
military thought themselves allowed to do anything; the term _latro_
is most aptly applied to them. We must imagine Milo to have been a
man like Ali Pacha of Janina and his followers: he was capable of the
deepest dissimulation, no promise, no oath was sacred to him. We have
no idea of what a φρουρά then was, even of friendly troops:--one must
for this be acquainted with the thirty years’ war and that of the
Netherlands;--it was just like a quartering of robbers, about the same
as the soldiers of the “Catholic League” in the thirty years’ war: the
Roman discipline was infinitely better. Milo was a thorough scoundrel.
He gave the Tarentines to understand that he would negotiate the peace
for them, and then leave the town; instead of which, he sold the
town and surrendered the citadel to the Romans, the Tarentines fully
believing all the time, that the peace was about to be proclaimed. One
morning, they were most dismally awakened when Milo had opened to the
Romans the gates of the Acropolis, and had himself embarked. The Romans
must then already have carried off very many precious things. The walls
were partly pulled down; all those who were still alive from the time
of the outrage against Postumius were butchered. The Romans boast of
having restored to the town its liberty, which means, that they left to
it its existence, and allowed the inhabitants the possession of their
landed property, and their own magistrates; but a Roman legion was long
quartered at Tarentum, and the Tarentines had to pay a contribution, as
did all the Greek towns, beginning with Naples, (unless, like Heraclea,
they were treated with particular favour,) in contradistinction to
the Italian ones, from which the Romans, on the other hand, exacted
military service. Only ships were likewise furnished by the Greek towns.
The Lucanians, Bruttians, Sallentines, Picentines, Sarsinates,
Umbrians, now gradually acknowledged Rome’s supremacy; but in most
cases, not before they had kicked against the pricks, and thereby
made their fate worse. The conditions were various. Bruttium had to
yield to the Romans half of the forest of Sila, which is of great
value for shipbuilding; and thus the Romans acquired revenues, as
well as supremacy, in all these countries. They now built a new chain
of fortresses, as the first one of the Samnite war was no longer
sufficient; on the Adriatic, Brundusium; and also on the lower sea,
the sea-port towns of Pyrgi and others. Ten years after the departure
of Pyrrhus, Rome was already mistress of the borders of the Romagna,
Ferrara, Ravenna, the marshes of Pisa, and the river Macra, as far as
the Japygian promontory; and thus she became the most powerful and
compact state in all the world then known. She had also a great number
of free allies, and she so conducted herself, that we clearly see that
there must have been at that time a general law which settled the
position of the Italian _socii_: the object of this is plain, it being
gradually to form out of them one Roman people. The allies had indeed
to blame themselves for having so long struggled against the will of
fate. The different nations managed their own affairs themselves;
they had their own laws, languages, and dialects; only Rome was their
centre, and they were in due time to rub off whatever was incongruous
with it. Italy was divided with reference to taxation, and placed
under a certain number of quæstors, who collected the revenue. Hence
their number was increased from four to eight, as the farmed revenues
of the republic had to be gathered in. Isopolity seems to have been
introduced for nearly all the peoples of Oscan and Sabellian stock:
the Etruscans had a law of their own. In this system, the share was
fixed which each of the nations had to take in every war. There must
have been a sort of rotation for the military service, although
discretionary power was given to the consuls, to state on entering
into office to the commissaries of the allies, who had then to find
themselves at Rome, how many auxiliaries each had to furnish. The
rules in which it is laid down, how much of the _ager publicus_ of
the Romans should be allotted to them, in what proportion they should
be allowed to share in the colonies which were founded, date likewise
from this period. It was settled with regard to all the allies of Rome,
how they should be capable of acquiring the rights of Roman citizens;
and, that too many might not be withdrawn from their homes, the rule
was made, that whoever migrated to Rome was to leave one member of his
family behind in the land of his birth. Every thing that belonged to
the burthen of military service, was regulated by general laws. If we
compare the relation of the allies in other countries of antiquity to
the state which held the hegemony, the result is most favourable to
the Romans. Their allies were placed on a very honourable footing: for
instance, they had to furnish for their soldiers nothing but the pay;
their food was provided by Rome. No new legislation took place: the
old constitution was merely consolidated, and some particular points
defined.
The most important event of that time, is the chastisement which the
Romans inflicted on the legion of Rhegium. The Campanians had furnished
a legion for the Roman service, and, properly speaking, in rank they
stood quite equal to the Romans, as they still had the old right of
the _municipium_: Rome had the superiority _de facto_ only. When the
Romans had got up eight legions against Pyrrhus, there was among them a
Campanian one. This was placed as a garrison in Rhegium, to keep that
Greek town in submission, which indeed at a former period had placed
itself under the protection of the Romans, but now wanted to unite with
Pyrrhus. Several of the Greek cities had already freed themselves by
treachery from such garrisons: a like charge was also brought against
the people of Rhegium. The Campanian general, Decius Jubellius, formed
the resolution of making himself master of the town, and to overcome
all the scruples of his troops, he caused forged letters of the people
of Rhegium to Pyrrhus to be read, as if they intended to betray the
garrison to the king; whereupon the soldiers engaged in a dreadful
massacre, butchering the male inhabitants, and seizing upon the women
and children, just as eight years before, the Mamertines had done
at Messana. The Romans had nothing to do with this foul crime; and
at the end of the war, when these men had already held the town ten
years, they marched to Rhegium. The soldiers had put themselves out
of the pale of all the rights of man, and did not consider any pardon
to be possible; they therefore, reckoning perhaps on the help of the
Carthaginians, tried to stand their ground. The Carthaginian general in
Sicily ought to have acted here with determination; yet this was too
hazardous, owing to the state of feeling in Carthage: had fortune been
unpropitious, he would have been sacrificed. The siege lasted a long
while, and the Carthaginians did not interfere with it at all; at last
the town was taken by storm. Out of the four thousand, there were three
hundred still alive: these were carried to Rome, and beheaded there.
The treaty between the Romans and the Carthaginians had more than
once been renewed and modified according to circumstances, especially
with regard to the rule of Carthage in Sicily and Sardinia; at last,
before the peace of Pyrrhus, they had concluded a formal alliance, and
had bound themselves not to make any separate peace. When, however,
Pyrrhus was in Sicily, both nations became exceedingly jealous of each
other; and when in the second year of the war with Pyrrhus, a fleet
of a hundred and twenty Carthaginian ships arrived before Ostia, and
placed itself under the disposition of the Romans, the latter sent
it back, though with the utmost courtesy. Afterwards, a Carthaginian
fleet appeared in the roadstead of Tarentum to negociate with Milo for
the surrender of the town. This evidently made the Romans hasten their
speed; and they concluded their bargain in a hurry, and paid more than
they would otherwise have done. This is the first misunderstanding
between Rome and Carthage; yet strange to say, not even a hint of it is
given by Polybius, although other writers mention it: and this is the
more wonderful, as nothing could have induced Polybius to conceal it;
for he is a most honest historian.
During the siege of Rhegium, the Romans entered into an alliance with
Hiero of Syracuse, the first ever made with a Greek out of Italy. Hiero
supported them vigorously; for it was his object to recover Messana.
This would be much easier for him to do, if the people of Rhegium were
destroyed, and he hoped to get from the Romans the furtherance of his
ends. But the siege being protracted, the services of Hiero were half
forgotten, and the Romans rather chose to do what formerly they would
have been ashamed of.
The first occasion of the wretchedness which spread over Sicily, was
the unfortunate expedition of the Athenian fleet to Sicily,--the νῆες
ἀρχέκακοι, to speak in the words of the poet, the first link of the
whole fatal chain. This expedition was a blunder; for even if it had
been successful, it was extremely difficult to take advantage of it;
yet it is pardonable in a people full of imagination, and which felt a
strong call for action, to have allowed itself to be beguiled into such
an enterprise. The Athenians were first called in by the Chalcidian
towns, owing to the miserable hatred between the Doric and Ionic race,
which is likewise found in the colonies; but the great expedition under
Alcibiades was caused by the Segestæans, a Pelasgian or Doric people,
at the foot of Mount Eryx in Western Sicily, which was hard pressed
by the Selinuntians, who were Ionians: this expedition, as is well
known, altogether miscarried. When the Syracusans had now become the
sole masters of the island, the Segestæans, dreading their vengeance
for having sought the help of the Athenians, betook themselves to the
Carthaginians as their refuge; and these, with a large army, conquered
Gela, Camarina, and other towns, and encamped before Syracuse, where at
that time Dionysius became tyrant. After a war of many vicissitudes, in
which Dionysius, during the second campaign, by the conquest of Motye
(the surviving inhabitants of which became the founders of Lilybæum),
seemed to get the upperhand, so that there was every appearance that
the Carthaginians would be entirely swept from the island; the peace
was concluded by which these were left in possession of the territories
of Selinus and Himera, consequently of a third of Sicily. The country
was now infamously governed by Dionysius the Younger, rent by domestic
struggles under Dion, and again restored to peace by Timoleon. The
latter defeated the Carthaginians, to whom the conquered province
remained indeed, but on condition that the Greeks might recover their
towns in it. Now follows a time of peace and happiness in Grecian
Sicily; then the dreadful usurpation of Agathocles, and his stormy
reign which was so full of change. This period has often been thought
to have been one of mildness and justice; but it was rather an age
which made the reign of Dionysius to be wished for again, an era of
humanity and prosperity. Agathocles was no common man; but he was a
monster: he wasted the marrow and heart’s blood of the country, that
he might surround himself with splendour. The way in which Sicily was
wasted under this tyrant, and afterwards, was so frightful, that one
cannot understand, how tillage and population could have continued in
such a country; and especially how Syracuse could have been one of
the greatest cities in the world. His wars, on the whole, were marked
by awful calamities; their renown for having been brilliant cannot
be gainsayed: the peace which he made at last with the Carthaginians
was fair enough. The hand of an avenging God was evidently upon him.
Feuds broke out in his own family: he was poisoned, as we can hardly
doubt, by his son or his grandson; but he did not die, he was only
dangerously ill, and he was burned while yet half alive. The curse
which lay on the house of Lysimachus, was also manifest in him. After
his death, democracy was brought in again at Syracuse; yet it was not
able to keep its ground, and the island fell into utter decay. The
Carthaginians had laid Agrigentum waste in the days of Dionysius; it
had somewhat recovered since, and after the death of Agathocles, it
became independent under Phintias, a prince of its own. The condition
of Sicily, even as early as the period described in the letters known
under Plato’s name, was such, that the Hellenic races were threatened
with being crushed by the Pœni and Oscans. This was after the death of
Agathocles, and for this reason I believe that the so-called letters of
Plato--the earlier ones at least, the seventh and the eighth--date from
that time; for, old they are, and they still belong to the classical
era, though they are not genuine, that is to say, not as old as Plato.
Bentley says that there are two ways of proving the spurious character
of a writing, from its contents, and from the language. Against the
former, very little can be objected here; with regard, however, to the
seventh and eighth letters, some discussion might be raised not only
about the language, but also the contents, which evidently bear the
stamp of an age later than that of Plato. We have, for example, the
prophecy that the Greek race would perish, and in the whole island
Oscan or Phœnician be spoken. Agathocles had carried on his wars by
means of mercenaries who were most of them barbarians; many were
Samnites, Lucanians and Oscans, under which last name, at that time,
all the Sabellian peoples also were comprehended. We never find that
Romans served in foreign armies; on the other hand, there were Etruscan
troops in Sicily, especially Mamertines, which is the common name for
the Oscan mercenaries, and indeed we meet with them there at a time
when Rome was at war with their mother country. This shows quite a
different relation of the individual to the state among the Romans,
than among the other nations; and this also accounts for the power of
the Romans. The feeble hands which, after the death of Agathocles, took
the reins of government, were not able to manage these troops, and so
they gave them money to return to Italy. While on their way, these came
to Messana to embark. The people there, unmindful of the curse which,
once upon a time, had been uttered against them by the Zanclæans, whom
they had faithlessly driven out, received them into their houses; but
they massacred the inhabitants, and set themselves up as a nation under
the name of Mamertines, and many other Oscans flocked in to them. The
outrages which these hireling soldiers committed, may be likened to
those which took place in the year 1576, in the Netherlands, when the
mercenary troops sacked whole towns to pay themselves for their wages:
this was among others the fate of Maestricht. The Oscan colony was in a
league with the people of Rhegium, and supported them; and the Romans
only mastered them with the help of Hiero.
Hiero was of an old and noble race in Syracuse. Some there were,
who, perhaps to flatter him, derived his pedigree from Hiero
the son of Dinomenes; so that at a time when the state could be
prosperously governed by a monarchy alone,--which could only be by a
usurpation,--his circumstances peculiarly favoured him for it. He was
first nominated general; and then, by the soldiers, king. They could
not have wished for a better master. During his reign, which lasted
nearly sixty years, was the first Punic war of twenty-four years; and,
of course, the resources of his kingdom were most severely taxed.
Nevertheless, he displayed so much good sense and economy, and he was
withal such a mild ruler, that the Syracusans felt free, and, during
the last twenty years of his government, happy. In his youth he was
also warlike; but this habit he quite lost. One incident of his life,
which is told by the scholiast on the Ibis of Ovid, is seldom noticed.
He is said to have had Theocritus put to death on account of a satire,
which is very likely to have been done by a Greek ruler of those days.
It was the object of Hiero’s endeavours to reduce the Mamertines.
Syracuse had only a few dependent towns; Catana and Taurominium were
allies. The Carthaginians had gotten Agrigentum, and had extended
their frontiers as far as Gela and Camarina, as after the first peace
with Dionysius; if Hiero could but have Messana, he hoped to have in
the Romans a support against the Carthaginians. With these he was
obliged to conclude a peace, in which he yielded to them the conquered
places: he was, however, on very good terms with them, as far as
outward appearances went. When by straining a point in his morality,
he had got rid of his old mutinous mercenaries, whom he betrayed in
the war, and allowed to be slaughtered by the Mamertines; he formed a
new army, and taking the field against the latter, who had spread on
the north-eastern third of the island, he won a decisive battle. To
this refers the beautiful idyll Χάριτες of Theocritus, a poet, from
whom we may form an idea of the freshness of spirit which there was
then in Sicily. Hiero had peace with the Carthaginians, in order not to
have them for enemies; and they forced upon him their support; they
both of them together besieged Messana. Under these circumstances,
the Mamertines saw no help. Hiero wished to exterminate them, as the
destroyers of the Greek population; the Carthaginians had the same
object in view, but not from the same reason. They also wanted to root
them out; because as Oscans and Italians, these were of the same stock
with the Romans, and might easily one day open to them the way into
the island. Without doubt, they likewise thought of use Hiero merely
as their tool, and to get the town for themselves; for, the _fides
Punica_ cannot after all so entirely be denied. In this dilemma, the
Mamertines applied to the Romans. But it was absurd (ἄτοπον is the
expression of Polybius) for the Romans, after having hunted down the
allies of the Italians in Rhegium, to go and take the part of others
who had done the self-same thing. The evil spirit of lust of power had,
however, already got hold of the Romans: they were afraid, lest the
Carthaginians should put themselves in possession of Messana, where,
if these once gained a firm footing, they would find themselves sadly
taken in by their false delicacy. And this is also true, that Carthage
would have become for Rome, just as invulnerable as England was for
Napoleon. The Carthaginians had betrayed their views on Italy when they
sent the fleet to Tarentum. From Messana and its excellent harbour,
they would have had an opportunity of easily sailing over to Calabria;
whereas at present their nearest harbour was Panormus, from which they
could not easily have undertaken such a daring enterprise. The Italians
in Rhegium, it was contended, had disgraced the Roman name; but the
sins of the Mamertines in foreign lands, Rome had nothing to do with.
The most enlightened and moral policy would now have been, to exert
themselves to make Hiero master of Messana, and to gain him over for an
ally. This only seemed hazardous, because in that case, the Mamertines
might have opened their gates to the Carthaginians.
The Roman senate had come to no resolution; nay it seems that from the
fear of doing an unworthy act, or from motives of morality, it declined
the offer. If the constitution had been the same as of yore, that μηδὲν
ἀπροβούλευτον, nothing could be brought to the centuries, but what was
laid before it by the senate, the affair would have been decided; but
now the tribunes, without even calling upon the senate, could go at
once to the people, and the latter resolved upon giving help to the
Mamertines. Polybius accounts for this step by the circumstance that
the people, being burthened with debts, had looked forward to a war,
that they might enrich themselves; if this view be correct, it shows,
that by this time already, the poorer classes had the upperhand in the
assembly. Yet it is likely that Polybius puts forth that motive, only
because he so thought it, and there may have been some others. At any
rate, the resolution was foolhardy. The Carthaginians were masters of
the sea, and the Romans had not one ship of war; they had even in the
conquered sea-ports destroyed all the galleys of Etruria and of other
countries, perhaps in order to prevent piracy, and to escape from the
responsibility which might thus have fallen upon them. To transport
their troops from Rhegium to Messana, they had no other vessels but a
few triremes and penteconters belonging to Greek towns, as Polybius
tells us. Pliny, on the other hand, says that the Romans had for this
purpose in forty days built three hundred triremes; and indeed a
small quantity would not have been enough. From Rhegium, the Romans
treated with the Mamertines. These had already received into their
town a Carthaginian general, but either without any troops at all, or
with only very few: by what stratagem they got him away, is more than
we know. Appius Claudius at first went over with a small body; soon
afterwards, the whole of the army followed. The Carthaginians, whose
fleet was lying near Pelorus, tried to hinder their passage; but the
Romans took advantage of the wind and tide, and got speedily over by
this mad daring. The Carthaginians, who had protected Messana against
Rome, now united, as has been mentioned before, with Hiero, and both
blockaded the town from different sides; probably the Carthaginians
from the North, Hiero from the South. The communication between
the two might be difficult; Messana being situated near a mountain
of considerable extent, it was easy for the Romans to make a sally
and to defeat Hiero separately. He made a stout resistance; but the
Syracusan phalanx was not able to withstand the Roman legions. After
this victory, the latter turned against the Carthaginians, and, as it
seems, without any declaration of war. The Carthaginians retreated,
and the Romans advanced without any hindrance. In the following year,
489, they reached the walls of Syracuse under Valerius Messalla, who is
thus surnamed from Messana. Taurominium, Catana, and other towns opened
their gates to them, and they made preparations likewise to besiege
Syracuse; but Hiero still succeeded in making a peace. A very small
state only was left to him, but he retained the sovereignty of it: he
paid a small war contribution, and concluded an offensive and defensive
alliance with the Romans.
Here should be the beginning of the first Punic war; but for the sake
of connexion, it is usually dated from the passage over the strait.
END OF VOL. I.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The use of letters on the whole is very ancient. It has a threefold
root:--in Egypt, (or perhaps in Æthiopia,) in Phœnicia, and in Babylon,
all three of which are independent of each other. That in Europe
writing is of more ancient date than the time in which we place Homer,
is undeniable, as we have written monuments from such an early period,
leaving, however, the question untouched, whether Homer had committed
his lays to writing or not.
[2] Comp. concerning this chronicle Archive for Ancient German
Historical Research, v. p. 146. Pertz has afterwards (1839) published
it, Monum. Germ. Hist. Script. tom. iii. p. 695 sq.--Note of the German
Editor.
[3] IV, 20.
[4] Very interesting in this respect are the recently published
traditions of the Sandwich islanders, partly narrations, and partly
songs, which have been collected by missionaries.
[5] By some mistake, as it seems, Niebuhr mentions here the Nibelungen
instead of Waltharius, which is a Latin poem of the tenth century, and
from which Aventinus cites the verses I. 9 foll. He often refers to the
old German heroic poems, without, however, quoting them verbatim. Cf.
W. Grimm’s German Heroic Tradition (Heldensage), p. 302.--Note of the
German editor.
[6] XVII, 21 Gellius says that Nævius had come out in the same year
that the divorce of Sp. Carvilius Ruga took place, viz. in 519; but in
IV. 3, he dates the latter fact from the year 523, and thus concerning
the first appearance of Nævius also a difference is made of four years.
Cf. Ritschl, Parerga Plautina. Lips. 1845. tom. I. p. 68-70.--Note of
the German editor.
[7] For the juster estimation of Virgil, it is to be remarked, that
frequently, without directly contradicting the historical statements,
he ensconces himself in the old poetical tradition. Thus he evidently
takes Romulus to be the grandson of Æneas by Ilia, whence also the
misplacing of Æneas at the time of the foundation of Carthage. He
has therefore been unjustly censured with such vehemence for his
chronological inaccuracy precisely by the age which idolized him.
There has not on the whole enough been done by a great deal for the
elucidation of Virgil.
[8] Fabius wrote the history of his people two hundred years after
Herodotus; by so much therefore the Roman literature of history is
later than the Grecian.
[9] The cognomen Pictor occurs rarely by itself; Appian has it, however.
[10] I have a good memory, and yet it has often happened to me before
now that I have made mistakes in names. Cicero relates a similar error
of himself in the letters to Atticus, where the latter had pointed out
to him that he ought to write Phliasii instead of Phliuntii.
[11] Merula places the war of Pyrrhus in the sixth book, because
he could not believe that Ennius had devoted one book only for the
times between. But Ennius has surely not merely versified the Fasti
consulares, but very likely he strung together the principal events
only.
[12] Hieron. Columna and Natalis Comes have both of them the vanity of
pretending to have read authors, who do not either exist at all, or in
Scholiasts only, whom they may indeed have read in more complete MSS.
than we do. Niebuhr.--Claudius Sacerdos is now printed in Endlicher’s
Analecta grammatica. Note of the German Editor.
[13] Festus v. Tarpeiæ.--ED.
[14] The mode of writing in periods among the Romans commences with
Cato, and was particularly elaborated by C. Gracchus, who is on the
whole to be considered as the father of Roman prose. The periodology
has, as well as the hexameter, most likely been engrafted on the Roman
language from the Greek.
[15] IX, 13.
[16] John James Mascov, born 1689 at Dantzic, lived as professor of
history at Leipsic, where he died 1761.--TRANSLATOR.
[17] Whenever Gaius stands upon his own legs, he has no substantiated
historical statements.
[18] It was a necessity to reduce history, which had become too
voluminous, to abstracts. Such were also the tables of Cornelius Nepos
after the example of Apollodorus.
[19] These authors were not mentioned by Niebuhr in his lectures. The
brief notice which is given has been taken from the few MS. leaves of
his papers which I was allowed to make use of. Editor.
[20] V. p. 352 c. Alm.
[21] Lapus is a Florentine short name for Jacob.
[22] The first excellent translation of a Greek author into Latin is
that of Herodian, by Angelus Politian.
[23] By a lapse of memory Niebuhr refers this Greek mode of expression
to the account of the expedition of Cleonymus (X, 2,) whilst it occurs
in that of Alexander of Epirus, VIII, 24.--Note of the German Editor.
[24] The example which the grammarians quote in corroboration, _legati
domum unde venerant redierunt_, is not to be found in our Livy.
[25] This account, which is to be found in M. Seneca, Excerpt. Controv.
1, IV., does not apply to the emperor Caius (_Caligula_), but to the
son of M. Agrippa, whom Augustus had adopted. It is stated in Seneca,
_mortuo in Syria, C. Cæsare_, which can only be said of the latter.
Asinius Pollio died in the year 5 A.D. (Hieron. in Euseb. Chron. ad a.
MMXX,) and could not at any rate have known Livy’s work complete.
[26] Some books of the library of the Greek Emperors may indeed have
remained behind at Constantinople; but they were probably destroyed in
the great fire.
[27] The Arabs never translated historians.
[28] Zonaras is a modern Grecian name, and therefore to be pronounced
Sónaras, not Zonáras. It is altogether incorrect to pronounce the
modern names as the ancient Greek ones.
[29] Zonaras in the beginning of his history made use also of
Plutarch’s Romulus, Numa, and Poplicula, on which account a certain
strange individual, Nicholas Carminius Falco, took it into his head,
that Dio had compiled his history from Plutarch, and that all the rest
was to be found in Zonaras. He then announced a complete restoration
of Dio, yet his ignorance was beyond all belief, so that in the title,
instead of βιβλία ὀγδοήκοντα he wrote, βιβλία ὀκτογίντα (The first vol.
was published Neapol. 1747, fol.)
[30] The Lower Rhine boasted at that time of several men who were of
philological eminence, e. g. F. Fabricius.
[31] 1757--4to.
[32] Before Savigny, these attempts were so imperfect, that Cujatius,
Duarenus, Donellus, if they had seen them, would have expressed
themselves highly displeased with them. The modern more profound
researches also could not always at once hit the right direction on
paths which had still to be paved.
[33] This manuscript would be well worthy of being printed, the
language in it is excellent.
[34] An eclipse of the sun marked also the moment when Mars overpowered
Ilia.
[35] T. Tatius is said to have given him his daughter in marriage, and
yet he is already dead in the fourth year after the foundation of Rome.
[36] The ancient Irish legend, as far as it is accessible to me,
somewhat differs from the statement, as it is given in the text. It
is not Niall the Great who penetrates as far as the Alps, but his
successor Dathy, who, A.D. 427, is struck dead by lightning at the foot
of the Alps. See Keating, General History of Ireland, transl. by Dermod
O’Conor, Lond. 1723, fol. p. 319. M‘Dermot, History of Ireland, Lond.
1820, 8vo. I. p. 411. The accounts of Roman authors concerning Ireland
are collected in O’Conor Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores, T. I. Prolegom.
p. 1.--Note of the German Editor.
[37] The grammarian whose fragment on the Saturnian verse is here
alluded to, is Charisius. Niebuhr transcribed it in the year 1823,
from a Neapolitan MS., and his copy is intrusted to Professor Lachmann
of Berlin, who is preparing it for publication. From a copy made by
O. Müller, Professor Schneidewin, at Gœttingen, has had it printed in
a programme of the year 1841, “_Flavii Sosipatri Charisii de versu
Saturnio commentariolus ex codice Neapolitano nuce primum editus_,” and
at the same time severely criticised Niebuhr’s remarks on the Saturnian
verse. One single glance however at the fragment which is printed in
his programme, shows that Müller’s copy is very defective, and it would
therefore have been but seemly for Professor Schneidewin to have first
instituted more accurate inquiries respecting the contents of Niebuhr’s
copy, before he wrote down expressions which indeed cannot injure
the memory of Niebuhr; but which do not by any means reflect very
favourably on the modesty of their author.--Note of the German Editor.
[38] In the year 1616.
[39] Livy III. 71, 72.
[40] _Theod. Ryckii Diss. de primis Italiæ colonis et Ænea_, in _Luc.
Holstenii Notæ et Castigationes in Steph. Byzantium_. Lugd. Bat. 1684,
_fol._
[41] Salmasius was by far less clear-headed than he was.
[42] The aborigines of Macedon were neither Illyrians nor Thracians,
but neither more nor less than Pelasgians. Cf. O. Müller’s work on
Macedon.
[43] Æschylus already peoples the whole of Greece with Pelasgians.
[44] We may indeed look upon this conclusion as certain, although the
researches on the mysteries themselves will ever remain fruitless.
[45] The Fir-Bolgs belong to the Bardic history of Ireland, which
mentions them as having formed the third immigration in Ireland. The
Scots found them in Ireland ruled by kings. To them the construction
of the Cyclopian walls in Ireland is attributed.--Note of the German
Editor.
[46] In the existing collections of fragments of Cato, I do not find
this statement. I therefore suppose that Cato is here confounded with
Dionysius, who A. R. I, 16, has the notice alluded to.--Note of the
German Editor.
[47] Probably C. Sempronius Tuditanus, the same whom Dionysius A. R. I,
11, calls λογιώτατον τῶν Ῥωμαίων συγγραφέων.--Note of the German Editor.
[48] I entered upon these researches already as a youth; but in the
last edition only of my history I arrived at clear views. I relied too
much on Varro’s authority, though I judged correctly as to the main
point.
[49] _Albanos rerum potitos usque ad Tullum._ _Festus_ s. v. _praetor_.
[50] R. H. I. page 222.
[51] It is well known that there exists in Stobæus a poem on Rome, as
the authoress of which Erinna is mentioned. As Erinna, however, sung
in times in which Rome cannot be supposed to have in any way created a
sensation in Æolia, one has had recourse to the explanation, that it
was a hymn on strength. Strength cannot however be called a daughter of
Mars. The poem is of a far later period, and from these premises some
one might perhaps succeed in guessing the misspelt name of the author.
He certainly belongs to the time after the war of Hannibal, and perhaps
even as late as the times of the emperors: the most likely supposition,
however, seems to me that he was a contemporary of Sylla.
[52] In eastern tales, children are fed with the marrow of lions.
[53] _Serv. on Virg. Æn._ I. 274.--Note of the German editor.
[54] I, 48.
[55] Varro I, l. V. (IV) 42.
[56] I have spent many days in Rome in searching for the old churches
which were pulled down at the brilliant reconstruction of the town; yet
I had no guide to them, until I saw the work of a clergyman, who still
showed their traces. Like him, Varro could point out the Sabine chapels.
[57] See p. 115, 116.
[58] See R. H. II, page 202, 250, and others.
[59] Viz. 4 + 5, as five is the plebeian number.--Note of the German
Editor.
[60] When the Achæans spread over the Peloponnesus, Sicyon first, and
then by degrees the other towns, adopted their νόμιμα. It was tried to
force them also upon the Spartans, but in vain.
[61] Classical Tour, II, p. 195.--Note of the German Editor.
[62] The decay of this monument is the fault of the constructors
themselves, inasmuch as they did not choose better materials.
[63] Rasena, probably not Rasenna; _Ras_ is the root, and _ena_ the
termination, as in Porsena, Cæcina; yet the Etruscans do not double the
consonants any more than the Shemitic nations.
[64] Livy XXII, 57.
[65] I have not chosen to suppress this passage on the Etruscan descent
of Servius, which belongs to the lectures of the year 1826, although
lower down there occurs a different view, of the year 1828. The
disquisition given here, is in connection with that in R. H. I, 422,
foll. but comes forth here more clearly and distinctly.--Note of the
German Editor.
[66] In the earliest times, antiquities and history cannot be entirely
separated. The _Commentarii pontificum_, as well as Livy and Dionysius,
set us an example in this.
[67] Although I cannot succeed in finding an instance of the word
_clientus_, yet the feminine _clienta_ offers sufficient justification
for supposing also the masculine in us.--Note of the Germ. Ed.
[68] Non. 486, 24. _Campas_, _Plaut, Trin._ II, 4, 144. Lind.--Germ. Ed.
[69] These class distinctions under the second Temple, have only been
elucidated by the great Selden, but for whom I should have known
nothing of the matter, as the language and literature are unknown to me.
[70] These relative positions were so familiar to our (German)
forefathers, that in the Mayence translation of Livy, _populus_ is
rendered throughout by _Geschlechter_, _plebes_ by _Gemeinde_. Thus it
says, “There were appointed as burgomasters (consuls), T. Quinctius
by the _Geschlechter_, and L. Genucius by the _Gemeinde_;” where Livy
has _populus_ and _plebes_. The consequence of such an artless view of
the several positions was, that the men of the sixteenth century had
very correct notions of many things, although devoid of the scientific
learning which we cannot do without. I have found this out only a few
weeks ago.
[71] The researches into the histories of the Italian cities, such
as those which I have made, throw a considerable light on the whole
development of the Roman constitution.
[72] The German expression used by Niebuhr is _Hörige_, which is a
derivative of _hören_ to hear.--TRANSL.
[73] Ulpian’s fragm. V, 8.
[74] In the canton of Schwytz the country people were in the same
manner divided into four quarters, to which two were afterwards added.
[75] I have omitted to elucidate this in my history.--Nieb.
[76] This expression puzzles Livy very much at the battle of Fidenæ.
The old annalist had, _classibus certare_; yet Livy mistook the meaning
of this for fleet, and on this doubts whether on the narrow Tiber a
contest with fleets could have taken place. But it means nothing else
but a fight with heavy armed men.
[77] Sixty stivers made a dollar of Cologne, the value of which is
estimated at 23 silver groats (Silbergroschen). An as is therefore
something less than 7 Prussian pennies 6⁹⁄₁₀ths.--GERM. EDIT.
One Prussian dollar = 30 Silv. gr.
One Silver gr. = 12 pennies.
The dollar (thaler) = 2s. 9d.
The as = ²⁵³⁄₄₀₀ penny Sterling.--TRANSL.
[78] The Abbé Sieyes, said, it is true, _La minorité a toujours tort_.
[79] Lyon, Narrative of Travels in Northern Africa, Lond. 1821, vol.
iv. p. 162, gives that notice. The two tribes which inhabit the town,
are the Beni Walid and the Beni Wasid; yet according to his statement,
however, it is precisely in war time that the gate in the wall is
closed.--Germ. Edit.
[80] A palm is about 9 inches.
[81] See above p. 88. It has already been remarked there that the
following disquisition dates from the year 1828, and is therefore to
be considered as the ultimate result of Niebuhr’s researches on this
subject.--Germ. Edit.
[82] Livy V, 1. and the commentators on that passage.
[83] Ulric Becker, in Dahlmann’s Researches in the Field of Ancient
History (_Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Geschichte_.)--Germ.
Edit.
[84] Orelli T. V., II. p. 255.
[85] This is not quite correct. There are native officers in the
Company’s Sepoy regiments; but they are in every case subordinate to
the Europeans.--Note of the English Translator.
[86] The Fasti, such as we have them, mention four Valerii as the sons
of Volesus; Publius Poplicola, Marcus, Manius, and Lucius; the latter,
or his son Caius, only occurs as Quæstor. The old legends, on the other
hand, only knew of two, Publius Poplicola, and Marcus surnamed Maximus.
Volesus, wherever he occurs, is mentioned as a Sabine, in the Annals,
which Dionysius follows in order to fill up the blank of the earliest
times, as a companion of Tatius; others assert, that he had emigrated
to Rome at the bidding of the oracles, and very likely this is the
older tradition. It is a common genealogical mistake to deem all of
them brothers, Dio Cassius calls Marcus only a clansman of Publius,
and the additional term which all the others bestow upon the Valerii,
_Volesi filius_ or _nepos_, originated merely from the general desire
to trace back all the members of a _gens_ to some Hero as the common
ancestor of their race.
[87] Lar is an Etruscan prænomen frequently occurring on the monuments,
and it probably means king or God. Martial’s scansion Porsĕna is
incorrect: in Vibenna, Cæcina, and others, the same termination always
appears with the penultima long.
[88] That this number is the correct one,--the MSS. of Livy having
thirty-one,--is proved in the new edition of the first volume of the
Roman History.
[89] That is to say, the patricians: for these, and not the senate, are
meant by _patres_ in every correct writer.
[90] Boekh, Political Œconomy of the Athenians, vol. ii. p. 12.--Germ.
Ed.
[91] Ingenious and learned men among the commentators of Livy have
written on the relations of the nexi; yet all their researches have
missed their object, with the exception of what Doujat, who if I
remember right, was a councillor of Parliament in Paris, has said about
the matter. Yet those, who wrote after him, did not allow themselves
to be taught by him, but they returned to the former errors; as for
instance, Drakenborch, although he quotes this author, a proof that
learned students, who are not men of the world, may often be mistaken
in such matters.
[92] During the middle ages, in Rome the _popolanti_, with the
exception of the Corso, were no genuine Romans, but Slavonians and
Albanians, who had immigrated under Innocent VIII., and as late as in
the fifteenth century, spoke their own language.
[93] See above, p. 169.
[94] Glacier.
[95] It may have been an attempt to conquer the Veientines by
establishing a strong hold within their own territory, similar to the
ἐπιτειχισμός of Decelea against Athens; for in those ages a campaign
lasted only a very short time, from eight to fourteen days. Either the
armed force of the country marched against the enemy, or it besieged
them within their walls. To prevent the inhabitants therefore from
quietly returning to their fields after the departure of the hostile
army, it often happened that the latter established some fortified
position in the enemy’s territory.
[96] Livy says of the Fabii that they had gone _infelici via, porta
Carmentali, dextro Jano_; and Ovid, _Carmentis portæ dextro via proxima
Jano est: Ire per hanc noli, quisquis es: omen habet_. This is to be
understood as follows. All the Roman gates had a double arch, by one
of which people went out, and by the other they came in; the former
was termed _Janus dexter_, the latter, _Janus sinister_. The Carmental
gate was situated between the Capitoline and the Quirinal hills. Since
therefore those, who wanted to go out, could not pass through the left
Janus, they had to make a great round, even if they wanted to go to a
place quite close to it; for the right Janus was ominous, as the Fabii
had passed through it on their last journey out.
[97] Livy, V, 46.
[98] The works of Sigonius and of Beaufort _sur la Republique Romaine_
are to be recommended as a rich treasure of subject matter treated by
clever men; but they can only be relied on with any safety in the later
period. Manutius also may be mentioned with praise: his commentary on
Cicero’s epistles is quite indispensable for any one who wishes to
understand that age. Yet in the earlier times, he too gropes his way in
the dark, and that still worse than the others.
[99] From the discovery of this place all my researches on Roman
topography have arisen.
[100] Quite incorrect is the spelling _Plebisscita_: _plebi_ is the old
form of the genitive of _plebes_, as _Hercules_, _Herculi_; _Cœles_,
_Cœli_; _dies_, _dii_.
[101] Properly speaking, ἰσονομία (in Herodotus and Thucydides) is
that state of liberty in which no one is beyond or above the law; and
ἰσηγορία (in Demosthenes), the equal dignity of every free citizen. R.
H., II, p. 640, note.
[102] The motive for dating it so early was perhaps this, that
Coriolanus was judged by it.
[103] I, 2, 29. cf. II, 2, 2.--Germ. Edit.
[104] The nature of the cury had essentially altered in the course of
time. R. H. II, p. 178.--Germ. Ed.
[105] The history of the constitution of Elis offers a close parallel
to that of Rome. The highest magistracy in that state was at first held
for life. As late as in the Peloponnesian war, the clans of Elis alone
are sovereign, and the country district is in a state of subjection,
the whole of the power being in the hands of a council of ninety men
who were elected for life. The people was divided into three phylæ, of
thirty clans each. Afterwards the country district obtained the right
of citizenship. The whole of Elis is divided into twelve regions, and
the nation into twelve tribes; four of the latter are lost during
the war, so that eight tribes only remain. This is an unmistakeable
counterpart of the Roman history.
[106] See concerning this relation R. H. II., p. 419-423.--Germ. Ed.
[107] In some recent editions of Livy, we find Clœlius instead of
Cæcilius; yet this is an emendation: in Dionysius the MSS. have
Κλύσιον.--Germ. Edit.
[108] A double disquisition on the same subject (for it occurs here,
and now and then in some other places), is to be accounted for from the
circumstance that it had to be interrupted at the end of a lecture, and
that afterwards in the following one the thread of the argument was not
quite accurately taken up.--Germ. Edit.
[109] Enigmatical is what occurs in Livy and elsewhere, that a special
law had been granted for a dictator, _ut ei equum escendere liceret_.
The way in which this is interpreted, is that the dictator was not
entitled to mount on horseback, whilst the _Magister Equitum_ was.
Perhaps the dictator was not only entitled to make use of a carriage,
but even he was not entitled to appear in any other way but in a
carriage, particularly on his return from battle. To this refers a
line in Varro, _Dictator ubi currum insedit vehitur usque ad oppidum_.
_Oppidum_, according to Varro, is properly speaking the townwall (also
a town surrounded by walls in contradistinction to _pagus_ and _vicus_).
[110] Festus, s. v. Præteriti Senatores, R. H. I. note 1163.--Germ. Ed.
[111] Cic. pro Cluent. c. 42. Ascon. in Orat. Tog. Cand. p. 84 Orell.
[112] The story of a bashaw of Aleppo is quite similar to that of
Sp. Mælius. In a great scarcity he summons the principal men, and
makes every one of them state the amount of all the corn which he
had in store; then he rides to the magazines, and on admeasurement
finds double the quantity of what had been written down from their
statements; so he takes away the surplus, and the scarcity is at an end.
[113] Labici, as it is generally spelled in the editions of Livy, is
a mistake of a copyist in the fourth or fifth century for Lavici, the
reverse of which, Vola instead of Bola, is frequently read in the old
editions.
[114] The Etruscan town of Capena was perhaps as near Rome as Veii was,
though this cannot be decided, as the town disappeared at an early
period. Certain it is that it lay between Veii, Falerii, and the Tiber.
[115] Cf. on the other hand R. H. III. note 1034. I nevertheless did
not wish to suppress the passage given in the text from the year
182⁶⁄₇. According to Arago, the winters in Tuscany are now less cold,
and the summers less warm than they were in olden times. (Berghaus
Länder-und Völkerkunde, I. p. 248.)--Germ. Edit.
[116] This notice is from the lectures of 182⁸⁄₉, and is uniformly
given by all the MSS. In the year 182⁶⁄₇, N. said, the length of the
_emissarius_ is not measured; it is stated to be one (Italian) mile and
a half, 7,500 feet: in R. H. II. p. 570, there are 6,000 feet. Abeken
_Mittel Italien_, p. 179, says:--“The subterraneous drain cuts the
south-western banks of the lake to an extent of nearly four thousand
feet.” The statement of its length, as given in the text, seems
therefore to be founded on a mistake.--Germ. Edit.
[117] See the speech of Fabricius in Dionysius, p. 747. I. 43. Sylb.
from the Exc. de Leg.
[118] See R. H. III. note 485. Above p. 45.
[119] The southern mountains in Spain are connected with the African
ones.
[120] In Lombardy, the battle fields of 1799 are very difficult to make
out since the direction of the roads has been changed. Near Lützen,
near Breitenfeld, and near Leuthen, the sites are also very hard to be
recognised; even near Prague and Collin, it is not easily done.
[121] A difficult passage in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, refers perhaps
to this war. It is stated in it that a heron had risen from the ruins
of the city, after its destruction by the barbarians. The latest
commentators have, without any just authority, tried to connect this
destruction with the war of Hannibal. It might apply to a Samnite
campaign, in which Ardea was burnt down; as Strabo, perhaps, would
induce us to believe, when asserting, that the Samnites had carried
on their conquests as far as Ardea. Yet the Samnites would scarcely
have been called barbarians. Most likely there is here an inversion of
the tradition which we have just mentioned, that the Ardeates under
Camillus had defeated the Gauls.
[122] As an artist, by working in the presence of his pupil, improves
his eye, and thus gives him the best practice, so is it also in
literary pursuits. He who has studied for the whole of his life,
certainly does a service to his hearers, when he shows them how he has
got on, and how also he has sometimes gone back.
[123] Mirabeau said at Marseilles in the year 1789, that C. Gracchus
had called on heaven to requite the shedding of his blood, and that
from this blood Marius had sprung. But Gracchus was a pure-minded,
guiltless man; Marius, a tyrant.
[124] Συμφωνεῖται σχεδὸν ὑπὸ πάντων, says Dionysius; this σχεδὸν shows,
that all were not unanimous. I believe that the excellent Cincius had
placed it in a different year, perhaps Ol. 99, 1. or 2.
[125] The chronology is very unsettled here on account of the uncertain
change of the magistrates. It was not till after the Punic wars, that
the consuls entered regularly into office in spring; and it was only in
the last years of the republic that they did so on the first of January.
[126] I have, in the neighbourhood of Tivoli, still found vestiges of
several places of which nothing is generally known, and which may have
been then destroyed. These are square enclosures of walls on the tops
of hills, without any traces of surrounding ramparts. We may see from
thence how small those towns were, which lay scattered through Italy;
they may have contained about fifty houses each.
[127] Probably VII, 12. and VIII, 6. or 8.; yet it is alluded to in
other places besides.--Germ. Editor.
[128] The triumph on the Alban mount, which is first mentioned of
Papirius Maso after the Punic war, is generally looked upon as a
discretionary act of the generals, when they were refused a triumph
in Rome; but it is undoubtedly a reminiscence of the ancient custom.
Formerly, the Latin general triumphed on the Alban mount, as the Roman
in Rome. When there was now no more a Latin general, the _imperator_,
as general of the allies, took his triumph on the Alban mount, if it
was denied him at Rome.
[129] Monte Sasso _di Castro_, above Mugello, is, according to a
surmise of the editor of the R. H. III, note 144, the name to which N.
here alludes.
[130] By this remark the difficulty is obviated, which otherwise arises
as to how in an assembly wherein those only voted who happened to be
present, it could have been the majority of the votes which decided.
Applying this to Rome, how could the members of the _Tribus Velina_,
the residence of which was very far off, not have felt grievously
prejudiced in comparison with those of the _Palatina_? But all this
is explained by the fact, that each tribe had only one vote; so that
in important discussions the distant ones sent their most able men to
town, and thus arose _de facto_ a representative government.
[131] The war of the Samnites with the Sidicines shows, that the
territory of the Samnites at that time reached to the upper Liris, so
that its limits are drawn too narrowly by d’Anville.
[132] _Campania_ is the district of the Campanians, that is to say,
of the inhabitants of Capua (_Capani_ on coins). _Campas_ instead of
_Campanus_ is met with in Plautus.
[133] Niebuhr’s positions do not here agree with those in
d’Anville.--TRANSL.
[134] In his Roman history (III. 137.), Niebuhr pronounces much more
decidedly for the second view; but it is to be remarked that the same
version as that in this passage occurs already in the first edition
(1812), whilst that, given in our text, dates from the lectures of
182⁸⁄₉. The detailed account of the battle (of the year 1826), on the
other hand, still follows the version adopted before, of which fact, in
order to prevent mistakes, we here expressly remind the reader.--Germ.
Edit.
[135] VIII, 8. towards the end.--Germ. Edit.
[136] It is a common mistake of the moderns, that, when they hear
of _cornu dextrum_ and _sinistrum_, they think of our system, and
then suppose also a main body in the centre (corps de bataille). Yet
the Roman host consisted of those two halves only (_cornua_). All
the modern writers on tactics, with the exception of Guischard, are
mistaken in this respect.
[137] In one MS. only, there is instead of “in the field,” _in campis
Tincetanis_; but evidently as a subsequent filling up of a gap, which
had been left whilst taking the notes. It is therefore probable that
Niebuhr quoted the expression _in campis Ferectanis_, which occurs in
Livy, without adding any further remark.--Germ. Edit.
[138] Also Popinia, Festus, s. v. Pupinia tribus, p. 233. M.
[139] The Plautii preserved on their coins the memory of the conquest
of Privernum as the most glorious event of their family-history, R.
H. III, 201. L. Æmilius Mamercinus Privernas and C. Plautius Decianus
triumphed over the Privernates.--Germ. Edit.
[140] Liv. VIII. 37.
[141] Herennius, as it seems, was on the whole considered as a model
of wisdom among the Samnites. According to a passage in Cicero _De
Senectute_, he occurs as a speaking personage together with Archytas
in a philosophical dialogue of a Pythagorean: a remarkable proof how
intimately those Italiote towns were connected with the Sabellian
peoples, and how far they were from looking upon them as barbarians.
They had a great contempt for the Ὀπικοί, and may therefore have made a
broad distinction between them and the Samnites. This intercourse with
the Greeks accounts for Numa, the fountain head of Sabellian wisdom,
having been imagined to have been a Pythagorean. This is a truly Sabine
tradition. They went so far in their friendly connection, that the
Greeks affected to consider the Samnites as a Spartan colony.
[142] In the lectures of 1826-7, Niebuhr places the end of the first
period _before_ the disaster of Caudium, so that the second period is
the brilliant one of the Samnites.--Germ. Ed.
[143] They consequently were not annihilated, as Zonaras has it.
[144] This is probably the passage from Dionysius, Mai Excerpt XVI, 6
quoted in R. H. III, p. 415. note 604.--Germ. Edit.
[145] See R. H. III, p. 323.--Germ. Edit.
[146] Reading Ὀμβρίκων instead of ὁμόρων. R. H. III, p. 330, note
438.--Germ. Edit.
[147] In the lectures of 1826-7 N. still mentioned here the battle on
the lake of Vadimo, which afterwards he probably rejected, as may be
inferred from R. H. III. 332.--Germ. Edit.
[148] See above, p. 152.
[149] Not Clusium, as Livy has it, for this was called in the language
of the Umbrians Camers. Polybius has the correct name, and a mere
comparison, based on the nature of the locality, might show us that
Clusium is out of question.
[150] During the revolutionary wars I had so fully entered into the
manner of the different generals, that, in very important cases, I
foretold how, for instance, Napoleon would act. People would not
believe in my predictions; yet they were generally fulfilled.
[151] For the arguments for this opinion see R. H. III, p. 431, note
647.--G. Ed.
[152] We always follow here the chronology of Cato; in Varro and in
the Capitoline Fasti whole years are interpolated. This difference
is founded upon a monstrous mistake, which Varro makes in the period
between the conquest of Rome by the Gauls and the Licinian law. That
conquest is dated by him three years earlier than it is in any of the
other accounts: from the building of the city to the Gallic invasion,
Varro and Cato agree with one another. Varro’s mode of reckoning
tallies with the Greek one, and therefore it is sometimes used for
synchronistical purposes. But there is not one among the ancient
historians who makes use of these patch works: Polybius, especially,
follows the era of Cato, which is also to be preferred on this account,
that it may always be shown with certainty why Cato has reckoned in
such or such a manner. A perfectly satisfactory Roman chronology is an
impossibility: it was only in the first Punic war that the beginning of
the year first remained fixed.
[153] See above, p. 501.
[154] Reprinted in the _Kleine historische und philologische
Schriften_. Vol. II. p. 241-256.--G. Ed.
[155] “The benefit of the assignation of land was brought about
at a period, when the people was sorely in want of its domestic
circumstances being bettered, but too late for it to have been
granted.” R. H. III, p. 488.
[156] There is evidently, by some mistake, the _Lex Publilia_ mentioned
instead of the _Lex Valeria Horatia_; as the former merely referred to
administrative measures, whilst the latter was still the only valid
form for actual laws. See above, p. 321.--G. Ed.
[157] To C. Fabricius.
[158] This dignity must have been abolished before the Punic war,
between 471 and 489.
[159] One is not to imagine, that the whole of the phalanx, sixteen
thousand men, stood always in one compact mass sixteen files deep; but
the Macedonians advanced by smaller divisions of about four hundred and
twenty, as is done in most cases even now. These were able to move,
and to find spaces to pass through, which was impossible for the great
phalanx, when it had closed its ranks. This closing in was the resource
of the last moment, and then this mass was impenetrable.
[160] We may see from this, what may be done by determination; as it
was such an excellent cavalry, and so vastly superior in numbers.
J. OGDEN AND CO., PRINTERS, 172, ST. JOHN STREET, E.C.
[Illustration]
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
On page 535, the heading has been changed from "WAR WITH THE SAMNITES"
to "WAR WITH THE SABINES" to match the table of contents and actual
content of the section.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
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