CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE REPUBLIC

[Sidenote: [510-451 B.C.]]

The next task of the Romans was to regain the old position of Servius

Tullius in Latium. Aided by the pressure constantly brought to bear on

the Latins by the Volscians, the Romans also succeeded, in the year

493, in renewing with the former people their earlier alliance--an

alliance based on perfect equality and reciprocity.[19] Highly important,

moreover, from a military point of view was the treaty concluded in 486

between the Romans and the Latins on the one side and the Hernicans on

the other.

About this time began the lingering feuds between the Romans and their

allies and the neighbouring populations on the line that reached from the

Etruscan cities Veii and Fidenæ, through the country of the Sabines and

the Æquians to the scattered colonies of the Volscians on the southern

borders of Latium. These conflicts rarely bore the character of actual

warfare, being confined for the most part to carrying on or repelling

burning and marauding expeditions. Yet there was no lack, especially

with the Etruscans, of more serious engagements which, as we shall see,

had great influence in determining the future of Italy and the Romans.

Meanwhile these struggles served the Romans as an excellent school of

war; but their political importance was not nearly so great as that of

the internal conflicts that marked the development of republican Rome.

The conditions in Rome after the expulsion of the Tarquins were similar

to those which prevailed in Greece under what was called the Eupatridian

rule. The supreme power which was formerly vested in the king, now passed

into the hands of a magisterial body whose members were to be appointed

by vote. These republican officials, now commonly called consuls, were

then given the title of prætors; a title that since the time of the

decemvirs fell into disuse as designating the head of the state, but was

later applied to the incumbents of a newly created office. The weight

of the high civil, military, and judicial authority that passed from

the hands of the king into those of the head of the republic, became

considerably lessened by the action of causes that were, from their very

nature, bound to make themselves more and more strongly felt. From the

beginning of the republic, the Romans always placed two consuls at the

head in order that the actions of the one might be under the restraining

influence of the other’s veto. The term of the highest office was never

longer than one year. At the expiration of the year the consul returned

to the class of citizens to which he belonged, but could at any time be

called to account for his official acts.

This system of one-year tenure of office was later found to have grave

defects: but so much a part was it of the patrician as well as the

democratic republicanism of that day that it never occurred to any

one to change it. To the eminently practical Roman mind, however, the

disadvantages connected with a yearly change of officials must have

been apparent in many ways. As the life of Rome developed in fulness

and freedom, the “scribes,” those lower officials who were permanently

appointed to their posts, came to be of great importance in the actual

conduct of public affairs. In time of war when naturally every head of

the republic did not show equal qualifications for military leadership,

the command of the army was given to some experienced general who

was specially appointed by the proper authorities. When a consul was

confronted by great and unexpected difficulties, he was empowered

by the senate to appoint the best man of the state as dictator, and

this dictator was in his turn to select as his assistant a master of

horse--_magister equitum_. The dictatorship, which was for the term of

but six months, had control over all minor offices, and as the dictator

could not be held accountable, and as there was no appeal from his

decisions, the patricians frequently had recourse, during the course of

internal struggles, to the appointment of one, in order effectually to

quell the plebeian opposition.

The consuls were preceded by but twelve lictors bearing the axe and

fasces, while to the dictators were given twenty-four, like the kings

in earlier days. Owing to the constant increase in the volume of public

affairs the consuls frequently appointed, for the performance of certain

duties, deputies, whose term of office expired with their own. Associated

with the consuls in the keeping of the state archives and treasure were

the two quæstors, probably the same officials to whom was also entrusted

the prosecution of criminals. Two commissioners were appointed by the

consuls to judge cases of sedition and high treason; the consuls had

further to select and instruct two private personages who were to decide

all civil suits. The consuls had unlimited power to impose fines; and

as punishment for disobedience to certain laws, notably those governing

the recruiting service, could even pronounce sentence of death. In cases

requiring corporal or capital punishment the consuls and their aids

had jurisdiction in the first instance; but save in cases that came

under martial law, delinquents whom they had condemned could after the

foundation of the republic (by virtue of the Valerian law, 509 B.C.)

appeal to the higher tribunal of the general assembly, this body having

also, even before 451, entire jurisdiction in regard to heavy fines.

The most marked limitation of the consuls’ power arose from the altered

position of the senate towards them. According to formal law the senators

stood in the same relation to the consuls as they did to the kings, being

not above but under the head of the republic: who every four years, on

the occasion of assessment for taxes, revised the list of senators and

appointed new ones to fill whatever vacancies had occurred. Now, however,

little by little, but ever more sensibly, began to be felt the enormous

predominance held in all ages by any large aristocratic corporation whose

members, all men of great political experience, have a life-long tenure

of office, over functionaries who are appointed to their responsible

positions for but the term of a single year. The senate represented the

unity, and the firmly established traditions of Roman politics and rule.

Not all the proud self-consciousness of a few powerful consuls could

prevent the office as a whole from coming to be considered as merely the

executive organ of the senate.

Since the foundation of the republic the people’s assemblies had also

assumed an entirely different character and position. The necessity felt

by the governing power at the overthrow of the Tarquins, to make sure of

the sympathy of the lower classes had brought the centuriate assembly--in

which both patricians and plebeians were bound together for the rendering

of important decisions--into great prominence. The function of this body

extended to the election of consuls, to the ratification or rejection of

measures proposed by the higher government, to the declaration of wars of

aggression, and lastly to the exercise of jurisdiction in criminal cases

where appeal, now the privilege of the plebeian as well as of the noblest

patrician, was permitted from the sentence of the quæstors.

PLEBEIANS AND PATRICIANS

The plebeians were soon forced to see, however, that under the new order

all the advantages of public life fell to the patricians. If this class

had at that time so far risen above its prejudices as to take into its

own circles the more nearly related plebeian families, to admit them to

equal marriage rights, to rights in the senate, and to eligibility for

the various public offices; and if it had further opened the state’s

domains to the mass of plebeians, and striven by a just apportionment of

the land to found a new and more contented peasant order, there would be

no need now to write the account of a hundred and fifty years’ struggle

between these two classes. But instead of doing these things the Roman

patricians displayed the most tenacious selfishness and greed--qualities

manifested, it is true, in equal degree by all their plebeian kindred.

In matters pertaining to legal marriage, as well as in higher affairs of

state, religious superstition played a very prominent part. It remained

for some decades the honest belief of the patricians that they alone had

the right of holding communications with the gods or of taking correct

auspices, maintaining further that any intermingling by marriage with

plebeian blood would impair if not destroy this power of reading signs.

According to them, auspices taken by plebeians, being of no value, always

failed in their effect; hence there could be no question of appointing

plebeians to offices which were so indissolubly connected with the taking

of public auspices.

Thus it came about that not long after the foundation of the republic,

the _populus_, _i.e._, the patrician body, and the plebeian stood arrayed

against each other like two entirely unrelated races--between whom there

cannot possibly be any unity of feeling or equality of rights. Through

absorption of the Sabellian clan of Appius Claudius--who, at variance

with his own people, had gone over to the side of the Romans and at the

head of five thousand followers had settled on the opposite shore of the

Anio--the patrician party was much the stronger and more numerous, and

having alone the right to make appointments to civil office and to the

priesthood, was the true guardian and promoter of the legal traditions

and spiritual knowledge of the state.

The election of consuls was by no means carried on by free vote;

rather, it appears, a list of nominees was made out beforehand by the

presiding consul and the senate, from which the voters must choose,

having the right at most to reject the candidates offered without that of

substituting others in their places. Should the majority of votes fall

to an opposition candidate, however, the presiding consul was neither

obliged to recognise the votes nor to proclaim the candidate elected. The

curiate assembly of the patricians alone had the right to confer by the

passage of a _lex curiata de imperio_, the supreme power or _imperium_

upon the successful candidate. In the beginning of the republic the

system of allowing colleges of the priesthood to appoint their own

members was introduced, as was also that of appointing isolated priests

and vestals through the pontifical college--an institution modelled

doubtless on that of the pontifex maximus.

It was not those plebeians who enjoyed greater material advantages who

gave the first signs of dissatisfaction at the existing condition of

things; neither was it in the domain of politics, using the word in a

narrow sense, that the first reactionary movements were observed: the

first epoch-making uprising of the plebs had its origin in the social

condition of the poorer peasants and leaseholders.

This class had suffered long under the judicial system of the patricians,

who decided all causes according to a code of laws unknown to the

inferior orders; but still greater was the oppression felt from another

source. It is undoubtedly true that there existed a scale of social

importance among the patrician landholders themselves, and that the

possessions of many of them did not exceed those of the better situated

among the plebeians; yet in other directions there were open to them

opportunities from which the plebeians were debarred. Many of the larger

property owners among the patricians could be reckoned--there having

as yet arisen in Rome no great and independent commercial class--as

capitalists. The trade in products of the soil was entirely in the hands

of these rich proprietors, who in common with the other patricians

besides realised all the profits resulting from the exploitation of the

public lands. A considerable portion of these lands could, with the

consent of the government, be “temporarily” occupied and cultivated by

patrician landowners on payment of a yearly rental--such domains never to

lose their character as state property, nor the government to release the

right of remanding them at any time.

As a matter of fact, however, these terms were rarely kept, and the state

domains were given away, sold, bequeathed or hypothecated exactly as

though they had been private property. Apart from the illegality of such

proceedings, they worked considerable harm to the plebeians, who deeply

and bitterly resented the injustice shown by the authorities in exempting

these estates from payment of rent and taxation. Whenever the situation

of the state made it necessary to tax the patricians, it was their

private property only that was assessed, and this made their condition,

by reason of their large tax-free domains, greatly superior to that of

the plebeians, who possessed only assessable lands. There was further the

extreme severity shown in leaving free from impost the money capital of

the patricians, while in the case of the plebeians no allowance was made

for mortgages on their property.

We touch now upon the darkest spot in the situation of the poorer

plebeians. The conflicts that had repeatedly broken out since the fall of

the Tarquins, between the Roman populations and the neighbouring peoples,

had pressed hard upon the plebeians. The successive calls to arms, the

devastation of their lands, the plundering of their belongings, together

with the heavy war-tax, formed an almost unsupportable burden, which was

but little lightened by the declaration that the increase in impost would

be looked upon by the government as a mere temporary advance and would be

returned at a later period.

The pressure of these conditions plunged the greater part of the poorer

leaseholders heavily in debt. The legal rate of interest was enormously

high, considering the pecuniary shortage that prevailed--so high that it

was welcomed by the plebeians as a great relief when later (probably 357

B.C.) the maximum was reduced to 8⅓ or 10 per cent. In case of failure

to pay the interest on a debt, the accumulated interest was added to the

original debt until the amount owed was increased to an overwhelming

figure. It was a menace to the internal peace of the country that the

creditors of the peasants were usually their patrician neighbours who, as

capitalists, were the only ones in a position to lend. Analogous to the

course pursued in Attica a century before, the Roman manor lords were now

about to make the situation of the plebs one of economic dependence upon

themselves. Hence in Rome, as in Attica, the first attack of the common

people on the patrician classes was made on the ground of the extreme

harshness of the Roman laws governing debt, framed, as they were, by a

race which knew no mercy where its material interests were concerned.

Sometimes the creditor, into whose hands the law gave complete possession

of the person and property of the debtor, left this latter in nominal

control and occupation of his land only to oppress him still further by

demands for rent. To this arrangement the debtor frequently preferred

taking advantage of the _nexum_, or usual form of loan contract under

which he could place himself in bondage to the creditor to serve him as

many years as were required to liquidate the debt, or until the creditor

actually sold him as a slave in a foreign land.

[Illustration: ROMAN PEASANT

(After Racinet)]

It is no wonder that out of conditions so one-sided and oppressive,

the deepest aversion should have arisen among the plebeians against

the patrician rule. There were, indeed, some among the noble families

who sought to establish better and more conciliatory relations between

themselves and the lower people, notably the Valerii and the Horatii; but

for the most part the patricians of those days were characterised by the

harshest egotism and imperiousness. These qualities were particularly

conspicuous in the Sabine Fabii, in the newly settled family of Appius

Claudius,--who later displayed a certain eccentricity in good as well as

evil that belied the usual conservative traits of the aristocracy,--and

in the Quinctii and Manlii, who were the acknowledged supporters of a

sort of iron military discipline to be applied in their relations with

the lower classes. From all this it will be seen that only by a movement

bordering on a general revolution could a new political adjustment be

brought about that would insure an amendment in the social condition of

the plebeians.

[Sidenote: [495-457 B.C.]]

According to the chronology, often faulty, of tradition, the distress of

the plebeians and their consequent dissatisfaction had already, in the

year 495 B.C., reached a momentous pitch. In 494 the plebs consented to

serve only under the dictator Manius Valerius, beloved of the people, who

conducted the first enlistments and met later with success in the field.

But when his proposals looking to a modification of the laws against

debtors fell through in the senate, the patience of the plebeians was

at an end. Valerius, who was rightfully incensed, resigned his office;

and the consuls of that year wishing to continue the war, the plebeian

portion of the army withdrew from the main body and the patrician city,

and under the conduct of their officers retired to the so-called “Sacred

Mount” on the peninsula formed three Roman miles from Rome by the

junction of the Anio and the Tiber.

This move was actuated by a desire on the part of the plebeians to cut

themselves completely off from the rest of the people and establish

themselves as an independent body at an entirely new point. The

seriousness of the situation finally obliged the patricians and the

senate to yield; and negotiations ensued, the effects of which were felt

even as late as the imperial epoch.

The new compact between the two branches of the Roman population, to

which was given an international form, provided that the plebeians

residing in the state should be organised into an independent body,

having their own official representatives that were to rival in power

those of the patricians. In opposition to the consuls were placed two

plebeian tribunes (usually called “people’s tribunes”) who were later

increased in number to four, and after 457 to ten; who were appointed,

according to all probability, by the state assemblies of the plebeians.

Guardians of the community in the true sense of the word, their ædiles

being ever at the service of the plebeians as police and general

administration agents, these chosen tribunes had the right and duty to

protect their fellow plebeians against injustice and maladministration

on the part of the consuls, to resolutely uphold the right of appeal--in

a word, to interfere whenever the interests of the plebeians seemed to

be endangered. They were powerless only against the dictator and the

military jurisdiction or _imperium_ of the consuls outside the city.

In Rome they had the right to prevent, by making prompt and personal

protest, the execution of any patrician order whereat a citizen might

take offence; and also to block or veto any patrician measure recommended

to the citizen body, which was found to be unjust. This was called the

right of intercession, or the veto of the plebeian tribunes.

From these circumstances it ensued that no tribune could, after the

10th of December, the date of accession to office, pass a single night

outside the city during the whole official year;[20] his house, moreover,

having to stand open night and day as a refuge for any who might need

protection. To insure them perfect security in the performance of their

duties the persons of the plebeian tribunes were declared “doubly

sacred” and as such unassailable and inviolable. Whoever committed an

attack on these personages was said to fall under the malediction of

the gods and was, even according to earthly laws, adjudged guilty of a

crime punishable with death. Hence every patrician, consuls included,

who in any way infringed the tribunes’ rights, or offered them personal

indignity could be held to strict account; in serious cases even arrested

and brought before the tribunes themselves, who had power to inflict a

penalty of fines or death. From their judgment however it was possible to

appeal to the plebeian assemblies.

[Sidenote: [457-390 B.C.]]

Up to the time of the great wars with the Veientines and the Celts, the

civil dissensions with which Rome was torn constantly grew in importance

and menace, until shortly after the so-called decemviral period the

class conflicts had assumed a character entirely different from that

borne by them during the first half of the fifth century B.C. Before

the great crisis ushered in by the decemvirate the work of the plebeian

party leaders had been limited to bringing their state within a state

to completer organisation, widening the breach that existed between the

plebeians and the _populus_, or patrician body, and endeavouring by every

means in their power to lessen the authority exercised by patrician

officials over the plebeians. This period during which the two divisions

of the Roman people met in a conflict of unexampled ferocity and hate,

presents little that can be dwelt on with pleasure. Incidents of the most

revolting nature arose from the extreme arrogance of the patrician youth;

even the word assassination has frequently to be employed, while the

internal strife had a serious effect on the fortunes of the nation in the

wars it was constantly waging abroad. Yet even in those troubled times

the foreign foe would singularly misreckon who counted on the connivance

of either patricians or plebeians to open to him the city’s door, since

when an external common danger threatened, the divided factions united as

a rule to present a front solid and impenetrable as a wall of brass.

Fortunately for the future of Rome the bent towards a constantly

widening separation between the plebeians and the patricians received,

in the decemvir period, an entirely different turn. From that time the

plebeian leaders were chiefly occupied in winning for their constituents

their proper social and political position in the Roman state, with the

balance leaning strongly, up to the decisive battle for the hegemony on

the Apennine peninsula, to the side of the purely political questions

of dispute. The sympathy of modern observers is almost entirely with

the plebeians. The demands were moderate and the political views of the

energetic honourable Roman peasants were immeasurably higher than those

of the Greek democrats.[21]

In spite of all the heat and passion evinced on both sides, revolution

was the last thing the parties thought of up to the very time of the

Gracchi. Whereas in Hellas the triumphant party rarely receded from a

position once taken or abandoned any pretensions however lofty, the

Roman peasant assemblies contented themselves with claiming merely what,

according to our modern ideas, was their just due. Attacked as they

frequently were in their deepest interests, the only revenge dreamed

of by the plebeians was secession--the voluntary cutting of themselves

adrift from the patrician state; and their end at last attained, in good

qualities as in bad they manifested precisely the same robust qualities

that characterised their patrician adversaries. Their subsequent acts

fully justified their course, since in their public affairs they revealed

a vigour and capacity well-nigh inexhaustible.

But we must not judge the patrician class too harshly; revolting as

their laws against debtors appear to us, we are not justified in

attributing their adroitly maintained policy of resistance purely to the

arrogance and selfishness of a privileged class, nor their refusal to

admit plebeians to equal marriage laws and municipal offices entirely

to base hypocrisy. We must, moreover, take into account the natural

hesitation of an old, experienced governing body to give the leadership

in public affairs into the hands of new and untried elements; and the

plebeians themselves, far from despising the adversaries they so deeply

hated, never failed to recognise those sterling qualities by which in

peace and war they had achieved such signal service to the state, and

elevated them to the position of models for their own character and

conduct. And finally, at the decisive turning points in the evolution of

Rome’s ancient constitution, it was not before superior might that the

patricians lowered their banner and reached out the hand of friendship to

their foe; it was solely in obedience to their own patriotic perception

of what was best for the state and to the force of inner necessity.

[Sidenote: [510-452 B.C.]]

The wonderful tenacity displayed by both the divisions of the people

in their conflicts with each other, proclaims them to be of one blood,

and to have in actual fact but one cause, that of their agricultural

interests. This kinship further explains the conservative character

of these struggles, and the aristocratic tendencies constantly to be

observed in the Roman administration from the time of the complete

triumph of the plebeians down to that of the elder Cato. It was these

class struggles and the manner in which they were carried on that gave

the Roman constitution, as it gradually developed through succeeding

generations, that stability and elasticity that later excited in more

than one Greek statesman feelings of envy.

One failure, however, was not spared this people, in spite of that

practical sense that led them on only tried political ground, and caused

them to advance by successive cautious steps rather than by means of

dangerous innovations. It was precisely this conservative character

maintained throughout by the Roman constitution that prevented the

problems that confronted it from ever finding complete solution, that

cumbered it with a number of empty, useless forms, and gave new life to

certain dangerous elements--notably that of dualism--that were later,

when the creative power of the people was on the wane and the national

character for ability and skill about to disappear, to unfold in

disastrous might.

The first period of inner dissensions, that extending to the middle

of the fifth century B.C., has not completely been made known to us;

historical accounts being so intermingled with myths and the chronicles

and traditions of noble families as to be wholly unreliable. The

period was certainly characterised, however, by incessant feuds with

the neighbouring populations, and in the interior by the phase of the

conflict between the patricians and the plebeians which revealed the two

factions under their least favourable aspect.

The resentment shown by the burghers and higher officials at the

institution of the plebeian tribunes caused for a number of years the

most common use of the latter’s authority to be the protection from

encroachment by the patricians and from the consequences of their own

acts, such plebeians as had resisted unlawful taxation, or refused to

render military service. The tribunes also, after 476 repeatedly upheld

the rights of the plebeians in cases of breach of the compact with the

patricians, and had the power to condemn any individual patrician who

was guilty of such a breach to a heavy fine or even exile. Gradually the

personal sanctity and inviolability of the tribunes had come to serve

them as a means of aggression rather than of mere defence. Wherever they

chose to interpose, all hindrances disappeared from their path; it was

only when they contemplated some decided step that their fellow tribunes

had the right to interfere, all important measures being adopted by a

council of the tribunes.

This right of intercession soon assumed a high significance. Without

actual legal right to resist the laws passed by patrician rulers the

tribunes yet could, by simply declaring their readiness to support

the plebeians in their passive stand against the demands of senate and

consuls for troops of war, offer effectual opposition to the enforcement

of the state’s decrees. In this way they came to have a widely extended

power of intervention, and at an early date they claimed the right of

being present at all meetings of the senate. Unquestionably the mass

of the citizens would gladly have seen the plebeian tribunes driven

from office, and on both sides party hatred ran high. In this period

tradition, untrustworthy as history, places the murder (473) of Genucius,

the tribune, and the legend of Coriolanus.

SPURIUS CASSIUS AND THE FIRST AGRARIAN LAW

[Sidenote: [494-466 B.C.]]

The taxation abuses and the tyranny of the laws regulating debt, as well

as the monopoly by patricians of state domains, had been allowed to

go uncorrected until 494. In this year a high-minded citizen, Spurius

Cassius Viscellinus, who was appointed consul for the third time in 486

and who then brought about the alliance with the Hernicans, as he had

earlier, in 493, brought about that with the Latins, took an important

conciliatory step in agrarian matters by proposing that the public

lands be surveyed and given out in grants to the poorer plebeians,

the remaining portions to be rented to patricians under much stricter

conditions of payment than formerly. His law, it appears, was passed, but

was never actually enforced.[22] Out of revenge his compeers hurled at

him the accusation, fatal in republican Rome, of having aspired to mount

the throne; and in the following year at the expiration of his term of

office he was sentenced to death.

From this time until 466, when it was again driven into oblivion

by the pressure of outside wars, the tribunes demanded the full

enforcement of the _Lex Cassia_. Important advance in the development

of the constitution was meanwhile made in another direction. With the

institution of the tribunes, the informal, irregularly held meetings of

the peasant assemblies were organised into the officially recognised

diet of the whole plebeian body, which excluding the patricians and

their clients (the latter now casting in their votes with the plebeians

in the centuriata, thus considerably strengthening the position of

the patricians in this assembly) broke up into smaller assemblies

presided over by their tribunes and called the _comitia tributa_ (or

assembly of the tribes) from the twenty-one district tribes into which

the new organisation had divided the plebeians. These assemblies or

comitia offered an opportunity to the tribunes gradually to educate the

commonalty up to the high political standard set by the ablest of the

plebeians.

In this manner alone could the plebeians develop their full strength and

importance as a class, since all the advantages conferred by ancient

tradition and political routine, by a clear insight into their own needs,

and a firmly established social, religious, and political position, were

on the side of the patricians, the plebeians having further to contend

against the disadvantage of being widely scattered over a great extent

of territory and of having received no preparatory political training

or instruction. It was precisely these hindrances to the advancement

of their people that the more active among the tribunes set about to

overcome. A series of truly notable plebeian statesmen now came to the

fore, the most prominent among them being the Icilii, the Virginii, and

later the Duilii.

[Sidenote: [492-452 B.C.]]

As early as 492 an Icilius had passed a law making it a punishable crime

to interrupt or in any way disturb the tribunes when in the act of laying

their criminal decisions before the plebeians in the assembly of the

tribes. Furthermore the tribunes, preventing as they did any violent

interruption of the process of development by holding the plebeians, in

all their upward strivings, strictly to the line of legal right, came

to be the most powerful factor in the gradual development and formation

of the Roman constitution. In domestic legislation they also constantly

took the initiative, being chiefly concerned in gaining for the tribal

assembly and their proceedings--which latter as merely “legislative

monologues” had hitherto remained without result--a recognised position

in the magistracy of the state. The centuriate assembly was at that

time of comparatively little service to the plebeians. The plebeians

eligible to vote greatly outnumbered the patricians of the same class;

yet the arrangement of “voices” in the centuriata was such that the

patricians largely predominated. The first census class consisted of

eighty centuries, the mass of the members possessing the least means

being united into one, while the second, third, fourth, and fifth census

classes--those formed of the peasantry of the middle class--were divided

up into ninety centuries.

[Illustration: PUNISHMENT OF CASSIUS[23]]

[Sidenote: [482-452 B.C.]]

It was long, however, before the tribunes gained for their tribal

assembly the recognition of the state. It was as late as 482, that the

commonalty was entirely bound to the choice of the consuls and senate in

consular elections, and it was only in 473--when the uprising provoked

by the murder of the tribune Genucius, brought an able and energetic

plebeian, Volero Publilius, forward as leader of the plebs--that any

important step was made in advance. In the year 471 this tribune, by

securing the passage of a law providing that the election of the tribunes

and ædiles should be ratified by the tribal assembly, raised this body to

a position beside that of the national assembly as an organ of the state

with a special function in state legislation. The right of the plebs to

deliberate and render decisions in their separate assemblies was thus

recognised, and their hope of one day taking “legislative initiative”

made an actual fact. All measures proposed by them, drawn up in the

form of petitions to the senate, must pass through the hands of the

tribunes, and the senate had no longer the right to reject such proposals

straightway, but must first take counsel upon them with the tribunes. In

case of approval by the senate the rogations (where they did not relate

exclusively to the affairs of the plebeians) were laid before the curiate

assembly as the last step preliminary to their passage as laws.[24]

THE INSTITUTION OF THE DECEMVIRATE

According to the fragmentary accounts that have been handed down there

was a long cessation of the civil strife in consequence of the heavy

burden of wars and pestilence under which Rome at one time laboured: but

the old struggle was finally renewed under conditions that made possible

an entire change of tactics on the part of the plebeian leaders. In the

year 462 the tribune Caius Terentilius Harsa proposed a measure--adopted

the following year by the united college of tribunes--that empowered the

commonalty to appoint a committee of five plebeians who should frame

certain laws for the limiting and regulating of the arbitrary power of

punishment exercised by the consuls in suits against plebeians; just so

much judicial power as the plebeian allowed him should the consul wield,

but he was not to rule according to his own whim and pleasure. The aim

of this measure was to complete the organisation of the plebs as an

independent organ of the state, and to restrict as far as possible the

functions of patrician magistrates in the administration of justice. It

naturally met with the most determined opposition on the part of the

older citizens; and even the most liberal and clear sighted among the

patrician statesmen were alarmed at this incursion of the plebeians

into a new field, since the greatest sufferers from any increase in the

rights and independence of the plebs that would inevitably widen the gulf

already existing between governing power and people, would be themselves.

Bitter and prolonged were the party struggles that ensued, the same

tribunes being appointed year after year by the people’s assemblies,

while the senate and the older citizens, with equal obstinacy, rejected

again and again the same old measures. The senate tried to conciliate

the plebs by making other concessions, but in vain; finally in the year

457 it gave its consent to the number of the tribunes being increased to

ten--a doubtful victory for the plebs, since among so many one or another

could surely be found who could be induced by patrician influence to use

his right of intercession against any plans of his colleagues that might

be troublesome.[25]

[Sidenote: [454-449 B.C.]]

In one of the following years the consuls, A. Aternius and Sp. Tarpeius,

passed a law limiting the hitherto unrestricted right of the consuls to

impose property fines; according to its terms no man (except in cases of

appeal) could be sentenced to a heavier fine than two sheep or thirty

head of cattle in one day. In spite of all this the obstinacy of the

people’s party remained unshaken until the senate finally succeeded in

effecting a compromise, whereby the power of the consuls to inflict

punishment was considerably lessened, while the dangerous power of

initial rogation by the tribunes was completely done away with. Between

454-452 an agreement with the tribunes was reached that both divisions

of the Roman people should have a common civil and criminal code, and

the codification of the new statute book was intrusted to a commission

of ten men appointed by the comitia centuriata. The choice was made

in 452, and the commissioners--decemvirs, so-called, including none

but patricians--entered upon their functions May 15th, 451. A complete

reorganisation of the old system being the work in hand, the magistrates,

particularly consuls and tribunes, were, according to an ancient custom,

suspended from office under a proviso that safeguarded the sworn rights

and liberties of the commonalty, while it bound the tribunes not to make

appeal to the people, and their full power was given into the hands of

the new governing body.

The manner in which the decemvirs at first discharged their duties is

well known; so great was the legislative ability they displayed that

during their first year of office, 451, they brought to completion the

main object of their work. A code was shortly after approved by the

senate, and accepted by the comitia centuriata, and affixed in the

form of ten copper tablets to the speaker’s pulpit in the Forum. Ten

new decemvirs were appointed for the year 450, and among these were

several plebeians, the first non-aristocratic office holders to act as

representatives for the entire Roman people. Whatever may have been the

plan of the politicians of that day, it never reached fulfilment; as

shortly after the completion of the new code, which comprised in all

Twelve Tables, the decemvirate, headed by the brutally arrogant Appius

Claudius,[26] began to assume the character of the most intolerable

despotism. Dissatisfaction reached its height when Appius Claudius and

his associates attempted, against all legal right, to retain their office

after the 15th of May, 449, and undertook war against the Sabines and the

Æquians.[b]

THE STORY OF VIRGINIA TOLD BY DIONYSIUS

[Sidenote: [449 B.C.]]

A plebeian, whose name was Lucius Virginius, a man inferior to none in

military accomplishments, had the command of a century in one of the

five legions that were employed against the Æqui; this person had a

daughter, called from her father, Virginia, who far surpassed all the

Roman virgins in beauty, and was promised in marriage to Lucius, formerly

a tribune, the grandson of that Icilius who first instituted, and was

first invested with, the tribunitian power. Appius Claudius, the chief

of the decemvirs, having seen this virgin, who was now marriageable, as

she was reading in a school (for the schools stood at that time near the

Forum) he was presently captivated with her beauty, and the violence of

his passion forcing him often to return to the school, his frenzy was,

by this time, increased. But, finding it impossible for him to marry

her, both because she was promised to another, and because he himself

was married; and looking upon it, at the same time, to be below him to

marry into a plebeian family, and contrary to the law, which he himself

had inserted among those of the Twelve Tables, he first endeavoured to

corrupt her with money; and, for that purpose, was continually sending

some women to her governesses (for Virginia had lost her mother) and gave

them much, and promised more. The women he sent to tempt the governesses

had orders not to acquaint them with the name of the man who was in love

with Virginia, but only that he was a person who had it in his power to

do good and bad offices to those he thought fit. When he found himself

unable to gain the governesses, and saw the virgin guarded even with

greater care than before, his passion was inflamed, and he resolved upon

more audacious measures. Then, sending for Marcus Claudius, who was one

of his clients, a daring man, and ready for any service, he acquainted

him with his passion; and, having instructed him what he would have

him do and say, he sent him away, accompanied with a band of the most

profligate men. Claudius, going to the school, seized the virgin, and

attempted to lead her away publicly through the Forum; but there being an

outcry, and a great concourse of people, he was hindered from carrying

the virgin to the place he had designed, and addressed himself to a

magistrate. This was Appius, who was then sitting alone in the tribunal

to hear causes, and administer justice to those who applied for it.

But, when Claudius was going to speak, the people, who stood round the

tribunal cried out and expressed their indignation, and all desired he

might stay till the relations of the virgin were present. And Appius

ordered it should be so. In a short time, Publius Numitorius, uncle

to Virginia by her mother, a man of distinction among the plebeians,

appeared with many of his friends and relations; and, not long after,

came Lucius, to whom she had been promised by her father, accompanied

with a strong body of young plebeians. He came to the tribunal out of

breath, and labouring for respiration, and desired to know who it was had

dared to lay hands upon a virgin, who was a Roman citizen, and what he

meant by it.

All being silent, Marcus Claudius, who had laid hold on Virginia, spoke

as follows: “I have committed neither a rash nor a violent action in

relation to this virgin, Appius Claudius; but, as I am her master, I take

her according to law. I shall now inform you by what means she is become

mine. I have a female slave, who belonged to my father, and has served a

great many years. This slave, being with child, was engaged by the wife

of Virginius, whom she was acquainted with, and used to visit, to give

her the child she should be brought to bed of; and, in performance of

this promise, when delivered of this daughter, she pretended to us that

she was brought to bed of a dead child, and gave the girl to Numitoria;

who, having no children, either male, or female, took the child; and,

supposing it, brought it up. For a long time, I was ignorant of all this;

but now being informed of it, and provided with many credible witnesses,

and having also examined the slave, I fly to that law, which is common to

all, and determines that the children shall belong to their mothers, not

to those who suppose them; that, if the mothers are free, the children

shall be free; if those are slaves, the children shall be slaves also;

and that both the children and the mothers shall have the same masters.

In virtue of this law, I desire that I may take the daughter of my

slave, and I am ready to submit my pretensions to a trial; and, if any

one claims her, to give sufficient sureties to produce her at the time

appointed; but if they desire to have this affair speedily determined, I

am willing this minute to plead my cause before you, and shall neither

give security for her appearance, nor offer anything that may create a

delay. Let them choose which of these conditions they like best.”

After Claudius had said this, and added many entreaties that his claim

might not be less regarded than that of his adversaries, because he was

his client, and of mean birth, the uncle of Virginia answered in few

words, and those such as were proper to be addressed to a magistrate,

saying, that Virginius, a plebeian, was the father of this girl, and then

abroad in the service of his country; that Numitoria, his own sister,

a woman of virtue and worth, was her mother, who died not many years

before; that the virgin herself had been educated in such a manner as

became a person of free condition, and a citizen of Rome; that she had

been solemnly betrothed to Icilius, and that the marriage had taken

effect, if the war with the Æqui had not intervened; that, during no

less than fifteen years, Claudius had never attempted to aver anything

of this kind to the relations of Virginia, but that now the virgin was

marriageable, and of distinguished beauty, he was charmed with it, and

published an infamous calumny, contrived not indeed by himself, but by

a man who thought he had a right to gratify all his passions by all the

methods he could invent. He added that, as to the trial, the father

himself would defend the cause of his daughter when he returned from

the campaign; and that, in the meantime, as he was her uncle, and ready

to support her right, he himself claimed her person, to which he was

entitled by the laws; and in this, he insisted upon nothing that was

either new, or not allowed to every Roman, if not to every other man,

which is, that if it is pretended that any person is a slave, not the

man who maintains that he is so, but he who asserts his liberty, shall

have the custody of that person, till the decision of the contest. And

he said that Appius was obliged, on many accounts, to observe this

institution; first, because he had inserted this very law with the rest

in the Twelve Tables; and, in the next place, because he was chief of

the decemvirate; and, besides, that he was invested not only with the

consular, but also with the tribunitian, power, the principal function

of which was to relieve such of the citizens as were weak and destitute

of all other help. He then desired him to compassionate a virgin, who

fled to him for assistance, and who had long since lost her mother, and

was then deprived of her father, and in danger of losing not only her

paternal fortunes, but also her husband, her country, and, the greatest

of all human blessings, her liberty. And, having lamented the abuse to

which the virgin would be delivered up, and by that means raised great

compassion in all present, he at last spoke of the time to be appointed

for the decision of this cause. [He urged that he be given custody of the

girl until the return of her father. Appius however refused this request.

Icilius, the virgin’s betrothed lover, protested that the outrage should

never be consummated while he lived.]

Icilius was going on, when the lictors, by order of the magistrate, kept

him off from the tribunal, and commanded him to obey the sentence. Upon

which Claudius laid hold on the virgin, and was going to take her away,

while she hung upon her uncle, and her spouse. The people, who stood

round the tribunal, seeing her in so moving an agony, cried out all at

once, and, without regarding the authority of the magistrate, fell upon

those who were endeavouring to force her away. So that Claudius, fearing

the violence, quitted Virginia, and fled for refuge under the feet of the

decemvir. Appius, seeing all the people in a rage, was at first greatly

disordered, and in doubt for a considerable time what measures to take;

then calling Claudius to the tribunal, and speaking a few words to him,

as it seemed, he made a sign for the audience to be silent, and said:

“Since I find you are exasperated at the sentence I have pronounced,

citizens, I shall waive the exactness of that part of it which relates to

the giving sureties by Claudius for the appearance of Virginia; and, in

order to gratify you, I have prevailed upon my client to consent that the

relations of the virgin shall bail her till the arrival of her father.

Take away the virgin, therefore, Numitorius, and acknowledge yourself

bound for her appearance to-morrow. For this time is sufficient for you

both to give Virginius notice to-day, and to bring him hither in three or

four hours from the camp to-morrow.” And they desiring further time, he

gave no answer, but rose up, and ordered his seat to be taken away.

He left the Forum full of anguish, distracted with love, and determined

not to relinquish the virgin any more to her relations; but when she was

produced by her surety, to take her away by force; to place a stronger

guard about his person, in order to prevent any violence from the

multitude, and early to post a great number of his friends and clients

round the tribunal. That he might execute this resolution with a show of

justice under the pretence of the non-appearance of the father, he sent

some horsemen, whom he chiefly confided in, to the camp with letters for

Antonius, who commanded the legion in which Virginius served, to desire

he would detain the man in safe custody, lest, when he was informed of

the situation of his daughter, he might escape out of the camp. But

his design was prevented by the son of Numitorius, and the brother of

Icilius, who being sent away by the rest of her relations upon the first

motion of this affair, as they were young, and full of spirit, rode full

speed; and, arriving at the camp before the men sent by Appius, informed

Virginius of everything which had passed; who, going to Antonius, and

concealing the true cause of his request, pretended that he had received

an account of the death of some near relation, whose funeral and burial

he was obliged by the law to perform; and, by that means obtained his

dismission; and, setting out in the evening with the youths, he took

a byroad for fear of being pursued both from the camp, and the city;

which really happened; for Antonius, having received the letters about

the first watch, detached a party of horse after him, and others, sent

from the city, patrolled all night in the road that led from the camp to

Rome. When Appius was informed of the unexpected arrival of Virginius,

he was in a fury; and, going to the tribunal with a great number of

attendants, ordered the relations of Virginia to appear. When they were

come, Claudius repeated what he had said before, and desired Appius to

decide the contest without delay, saying that both his informer and his

witnesses were present, and that he was ready to deliver up the slave

herself to be examined. He ended all with a feigned lamentation, grounded

on a supposed fear of not obtaining the same justice with others, as he

had said before, because he was his client; and also with desiring that

Appius would not relieve those whose complaints were the most affecting,

but whose demands were the most equitable.

On the other side, the father of the virgin, and the rest of her

relations, brought many just and well-grounded proofs to show the child

could not have been supposed; alleging that the sister of Numitorius, and

wife of Virginius, could have no probable reason to suppose a child,

since she was then young, and married to a young man, and had brought

forth a child no very considerable time after her marriage; neither, if

she had been ever so desirous to introduce a foreign offspring into her

own family, would she have taken the child of another person’s slave,

rather than that of a free woman united to her by consanguinity, or

friendship, whose fidelity might have secured to her the possession of

the child she had taken; and, when she had it in her power to take either

a male or a female child, she would have certainly chosen the former.

For, after a woman is brought to bed, if she wants children, she must

necessarily be contented with, and bring up, whatever nature produces;

whereas, a woman who supposes a child will, in all probability, choose

one of that sex which excels the other. As to the informer, and the

credible witnesses which Claudius said he would produce in great numbers,

they disproved their testimony by this reason, drawn from probability,

that Numitoria would never have done a thing openly, and in conjunction

with witnesses of free condition, which required secrecy, and might have

been transacted by one person, and, by that means, have exposed herself

to have the girl taken from her by the master of the mother, after she

had brought her up.

While they were alleging these reasons, and many others of equal weight,

and such as could admit of no reply, and at the same time representing

the calamities of the virgin in a very affecting manner, all who heard

them, when they cast their eyes upon her, compassionated the distresses

in which her beauty had involved her (for, being dressed in mourning,

her looks fixed on the ground, and the lustre of her eyes drowned in

tears, she attracted the regard of all the spectators; such was her

beauty, and such her grace, that she appeared more than mortal), and all

bewailed this unexpected turn of fortune, when they considered from what

prosperity she was fallen, and to what abuses and insults she was going

to be exposed. They also reflected that, since the law which had secured

their liberty was violated, nothing could hinder their own wives and

daughters also from suffering the same treatment. While they were making

these, and the like reflections, and communicating them to one another,

they could not refrain from tears. But Appius, who was not in his nature

a man of sense, being then corrupted with the greatness of his power,

his mind distempered, and his heart inflamed with the love of Virginia,

paid no regard to the reasons alleged in her favour, nor was moved with

her tears, but even resented the compassion shown to her by the audience;

since he looked upon himself to deserve greater compassion and to suffer

greater torments from that beauty which had enslaved him. Wrought up to

madness, therefore, by all these incentives, he had the confidence both

to make a shameless speech, by which he plainly confirmed the suspicion

that he himself had contrived the calumny against the virgin, and to

commit a tyrannical and cruel action.

For, while they were going on to plead in her favour, he commanded

silence; and all being silent, and the people in the Forum flocking to

the tribunal from a desire to hear what he would say, he often turned

his eyes here and there to observe the number of his friends, who by

his orders had posted themselves in different parts of the Forum, and

then spoke as follows: “This is not the first time, Virginius, and you

who attend with him, that I have heard of this affair; I was informed

of it long ago, even before I was invested with this magistracy. Hear

now by what means it came to my knowledge: The father of this Marcus

Claudius, when he was dying, desired me to be trustee for his son, whom

he was leaving an infant; for the Claudii are hereditary clients to our

family. During the time of this trust, I had information given me that

Numitoria had supposed this girl, whom she had received from the slave

of Claudius; and, upon examining into the matter, I found it was so. As

it did not become me to stir in this affair myself, I thought it best to

leave it to this man, when he grew up, either to take away the girl if he

thought fit, or to come up to an accommodation with those who had brought

her up, for a sum of money, or to gratify them with the possession of

her. Since that time, being engaged in public affairs I gave myself no

further concern about those of Claudius. But it is probable that when

he was taking an account of his own fortunes he also received the same

information concerning this girl which had before been given to me;

neither does he claim anything unwarranted by law, in desiring to take

the daughter of his own slave. If they would have accommodated this

matter, it had been well; but, since it is brought into litigation, I

give this testimony in his favour, and decree him to be the master of the

girl.”

When those who were uncorrupted and friends of justice heard this

sentence, they held up their hands to heaven, and raised an outcry mixed

with lamentation and resentment; while the flatterers of the oligarchy

gave acclamations capable of inspiring the men in power with confidence.

And the assembly being inflamed and full of various expressions and

agitations, Appius commanded silence, and said: “Disturbers of the

public tranquillity, and useless both in peace and war, if you cease

not to divide the city and to oppose us in the execution of our office,

necessity shall teach you to submit. Think not that these guards in

the Capitol and the fortress are placed there by us only to secure the

city against a foreign enemy, and that we shall suffer you to sit here

and taint the administration of the government. Be more prudent for the

future than you are now; depart all of you who have nothing to do here,

and mind your own affairs, if you are wise. And do you, Claudius, take

the girl, and lead her through the Forum without fearing anyone, for the

twelve axes of Appius shall attend you.” After he had said this, the

people withdrew from the Forum, sighing, beating their foreheads, and

unable to refrain from tears; while Claudius was taking away the virgin,

who hung round her father, kissing him, and calling upon him with the

most endearing expressions. In this distress Virginius resolved upon

an action, deplorable indeed, and afflicting for a father, but at the

same time becoming a lover of liberty and a man of great spirit; for,

having desired leave to embrace his daughter for the last time without

molestation, and to say what he thought fit to her in private before

she was taken from the Forum, he obtained it from the magistrate; and

his enemies retiring a little, he held her in his arms, while she was

fainting, sinking to the ground, and scarce able to support herself, and

for some time called upon her, kissed her, and wiped off her tears that

flowed without ceasing; then, drawing her on by degrees, when he came

to a cook’s shop, he snatched up a knife from the table and plunged it

in her breast, saying only this, “I send thee, child, to the manes of

thy ancestors with liberty and innocence, for if thou hadst lived, that

tyrant would not have suffered thee to enjoy either.”[27] An outcry

being raised, he held the bloody knife in his hand, and, covered as he

was with the blood of his daughter, he ran like a madman through the city

and called the citizens to liberty. Then, forcing his way through the

gates, he mounted a horse that stood ready for him, and rode to the camp

accompanied by Numitorius, who had attended him from thence to the city.

He was followed by about four hundred other plebeians.[e]

FALL OF THE DECEMVIRATE

[Sidenote: [449-445 B.C.]]

The plebeian legions, infuriated by the story of the outrage, as related

by Virginius, advanced on the city and invested the Aventine. Icilius in

concert with the liberal patricians, L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius

Barbatus, had already organised a party in Rome; and as the decemvirs,

supported by a contingent of the old citizens, persisted in their refusal

to relinquish their office, the plebeians, on the advice of M. Duilius,

again withdrew in a body to the Sacred Mount on the Anio. This new

secession forced the decemvirs to resign; and by means of negotiations

with the senate carried on by Valerius and Horatius in the summer of

449, important concessions were gained, which assured--the old order of

things having meanwhile been resumed--the future position of the plebs

in the Roman state. As before there were appointed two magistrates

(Valerius and Horatius being the first to fill this office) elected by

the free choice of the citizens, to whom the name consul was now for the

first time properly applied, and the plebs were again represented by

their tribunes. The only legacy of the decemvirs to be taken up was the

new system of laws, the complete revision and codification of all the

legal forms and processes that had hitherto been current in Rome. In the

“Twelve Tables” the whole Roman people had now a just and uniform code of

marriage, property, civil, and criminal laws.[28] Apparently an attempt

was made to mitigate their severity in certain respects; but the law of

debtor and creditor still remained extremely harsh, and the maintenance

of the prohibition against marriage between patricians and plebeians,

with the denial of all legal rights to the issue of such marriages, kept

alive the most intense phase of the animosity felt toward each other

by the divided classes. On the other hand the new statutes sought to

overthrow the former evil practices in consequence of which patricians

and plebeians accused of capital political crimes were certain to receive

severe sentence, the first from the tribal assembly, the second from

the curiata. Hereafter the centuriate assembly was to be the sole organ

of the people’s will in the trial and judgment of criminal offences. It

was apparently at this epoch also that the Romans first caused their raw

supplies of copper ore to be minted in copper coins.

Under the conduct of the consuls Horatius and Valerius, and of the able

and energetic tribune of the plebs, M. Duilius, the affairs of Rome

were soon brought into a condition of order and peace. A series of laws

were set in operation which may be looked upon as the Magna Charta of

the plebs, and on the proposition of the consuls the right of appeal

was confirmed by the centuriate assembly, and given the most solemn

and binding form, so that no magistrate (the dictator himself, who had

retained all his former power, not excepted) who had pronounced sentence

of death without admitting the right of appeal to the people could be

a second time elected to office. The inviolability of the people’s

tribunes was again declared, and safeguarded anew by a special enactment

of the citizens under the sanction of the gods; and, representatives of

the entire people as they were henceforth, their official organisation

underwent important changes.

[Illustration: ROMAN ARMS AND STANDARD]

This was the beginning of the period during which patricians were driven

by various causes to seek the protection of the tribunes, and the senate

frequently availed itself of their support to break the opposition of

the consuls. Their share in the transactions of the senate was now

formally recognised; but they could still impose only money penalties on

patrician opponents summoned before the tribal assembly, and when they

contemplated bringing a capital charge they were obliged to apply first

to the patrician magistrate, who would himself lay the charge before

the centuriata. With the increase in importance of their position the

tribunes received the right to take auspices. The election of quæstors,

who as yet acted only in matters of finance, was also given over, in 447,

to the tribunes under supervision by the consuls.

The great advance made by the plebs during the crisis the state had

passed through was best evidenced by the altered position of the tribal

assembly which, in obedience to the Valerio-Horatian law that declared

the decisions of the plebs as uttered in the tribal assembly to be

binding on the entire people, was given equal rights with the centuriata

and elevated beside it to the importance of a second national assembly.

Widely different interpretations have been given of the actual functions

and position of the tribal assembly up to the time of the Tarentine War;

but the views which seem most acceptable state that in order to become

laws the decisions of the tributa in general matters, as well as those

of the centuriata, needed the sanction of the senate, merely as a form,

perhaps, and without any special proviso attached. The position of the

senate appears to have remained unchanged in so far as that the tribunes

were obliged to take counsel with that body and obtain its consent or

authority before undertaking the passage of any measures that might

require in their carrying out the full executive machinery of the state.

This was the more necessary in that the senate, under the republic, had

gradually assumed entire control of the state’s finances; and neither the

consuls nor the dictator himself, with all his unlimited power, could

touch any of the public funds without the senate’s express consent.

The tribal assembly, unhampered as it was by the complicated business

routine that marked the proceedings of the centuriate assembly, offered

the best field for the further development of the Roman state. Here

the popular assemblies under the tribunes took a leading part in

legislation, and the plebeians carried into the camp of the old citizens

an active political war that was as ever directed towards levelling the

distinctions that still separated them from the aristocratic classes, and

gaining for themselves the rights and privileges that should be theirs

under an impartial state rule.

Thus we see that from the close of the great crisis the plebs continued

to gain ground slowly but surely. Aside from the rustic population, that

lived widely scattered in villages or on country estates and were seldom

brought into the current of political agitation unless great interests

were at stake; there was still another class of plebeians who took

no part in the general strife but bent their energies solely towards

securing and making permanent their newly won advantage, and establishing

peaceful relations with the aristocratic families. These designs were

greatly aided by the fact that the leadership in all the upward movements

of the plebs fell naturally into the hands of the richest and most able,

politically, among them. It was only at a later period, when the issue at

stake was the winning of a great political and agricultural victory for

the benefit of the entire community, that the lesser and poorer peasant

landholders, whose interests were more deeply involved than those of any

other class, rose in union and brought to bear on the higher rank that

mighty, irresistible pressure which is in their power to exert. Under

these conditions the political conflict took on the character of a “class

war,” with all the statesmanship, shrewdness, and craft, usual to such

contests.

THE CANULEIAN LAW

[Sidenote: [445-421 B.C.]]

The first successful assault made since the great crisis on the position

of the aristocracy in the state was that of the tribune Caius Canuleius,

who in 445 B.C. caused the passage of a rogation which raised the

prohibition against marriages between patricians and plebeians, and

declared the full legality of such contracts. The chief object of this

reform was to assure the rank and position of the patrician father to

the children of plebeian women, the old law having declared all children

of mixed marriages to belong to the order of plebs. This victory was

particularly important from a political point of view, since it paved

the way for the final coalescence of the two parties of the state.

Encouraged by their success the tribunes prepared to push a new measure

which, brought forward simultaneously with the rogation of Canuleius, had

for design to facilitate the appointment of plebeians to the consulate,

by leaving it open to the citizens to select for the office either

plebeians or patricians. After a prolonged contest the old citizens

yielded in so far as to effect a compromise agreeing to admit to consular

power such plebeians as had distinguished themselves in a military

career. The centuriate assembly appointed in place of consuls and to

the same term of office military tribunes, invested with full consular

authority, and to this position, which was decidedly inferior to that of

consul in dignity and rank, plebeians were now eligible. For long this

victory was one in theory only to the plebeians, the question constantly

arising whether at the next election consuls or consular tribunes were

to be appointed. Finally, in 444, the old-citizen party forced the newly

elected military tribunes, among whom were doubtless two plebeians, to

resign after only a few months, by pretexting errors made in taking the

auspices at their election; and for the remainder of that year and the

whole of the year following patrician consuls were appointed. As a result

of such chicanery the consulship was filled by none but patricians up to

the year 401 B.C.

Simultaneously with the establishment of consular tribunes the patricians

introduced a new system of tactics to defend their political position,

being led thereto partly by the constantly increasing mass of public

affairs that passed under their hands. They withdrew one after the other

from the consulship several important functions which they placed in the

hands of officials newly created for that purpose, and thus secured to

themselves the conduct of some of the weightiest of the state’s affairs.

As the plebeian consular tribunes were persistently denied all share

in the administration of justice, two new patrician officers of state

were appointed called censors, to whom was entrusted the estimate and

establishment every five years of the budget, the framing of the list of

citizens, the assessment for taxation, the holding of the census, and

the right of filling vacancies in the senate and of striking undesirable

names off the lists of senators, knights, and citizens.

The office of censor as originally instituted was to last for the period

of a lustrum, or five years; but in 434 the term was limited to one year

and a half. Usually filled by former consuls or military tribunes, the

position of censor gradually rose in dignity and power until it came to

be the highest office in the Roman state. The later censors also had the

right of punishing such citizens as had been guilty of dishonourable or

immoral conduct, without laying themselves directly open to the action

of the law, by means of a so-called censorial “note.” All senators who

had fallen under their censure must resign their seat, all knights must

forego performing their duties on horseback, and all citizens must

withdraw from the associations of their tribe and submit to an increased

tax.

Meanwhile the slow but steady onward march of the plebeians was not to

be withstood. In the year 421 a proposal was made and adopted declaring

them eligible to the quæstorship, and in 409 three out of four positions

of quæstor were awarded to plebeian candidates. From the fact that after

400 one or more plebeians were regularly appointed to the military

tribunate[29] it would appear that the road to political equality between

the two great Roman orders at last lay open. And indeed the nation would

have progressed to full and peaceful development both at home and abroad

had not the orderly course of events been suddenly and disastrously

broken in upon by a terrible storm of war.

EXTERNAL WARS

[Sidenote: [483-449 B.C.]]

Since the conclusion of the alliance with the Latins and the Hernicans

scarcely a year had passed that was not marked by conflicts between the

Romans, aided by their new allies, and one or another of their foes in

central Italy--the attitude of the Romans during these hostilities, as

late as the middle of the fifth century, being for the most part one of

defence. At the time of the institution of the people’s tribunate Rome’s

most dangerous enemy were the Etruscans of Veii, a people with whom she

had waged, since 483, a bitter and disastrous frontier war. After a

defeat suffered by the Veientines in 475, a truce to last four hundred

months was concluded, which was not broken until 437.

During this time the feuds with other adversaries raged all the fiercer,

that with the Sabines, which had commenced in 505, lasting until the

great victory won by the consul, M. Horatius, in 449. Since then Rome’s

peace had not been menaced from that quarter, all the vigorous young men

of true Sabine blood having, as it appears, deserted their native cantons

to follow the fortunes of their Sabellian kindred in the conquest of

southern Italy. Hence the more prolonged and obstinately fought were the

heavy wars carried on by the Romans against the brave Æquians, and those

ancient foes of Latium, the mighty, warlike Volscians.[b]

While Rome in her early wars was for the most part triumphing over her

enemies, and laying the foundations of her future power and glory, the

daring enterprise of a handful of adventurers achieved what even the

Gauls failed to accomplish, and struck a blow at her very heart. A band

of slaves and exiles, amounting to about 4000, or not much more, and led

by Herdonius, a Sabine, having descended the Tiber in boats in the dead

of night, landed near the Capitoline Hill, apparently just beyond the

wall which ran from the hill to the river, and where, as we have seen,

its bank was unprotected. Hence Herdonius led his men towards the Forum

and up the ascent of the Capitoline, without meeting with any resistance

till he arrived at the Porta Pandana, and here only from the guard; for

we have already mentioned that this gate was always left open. The guard

being forced, the invaders proceeded up the hill, took possession of the

Capitol and Arx, and invoked the slaves of Rome to strike for freedom.

The origin of this daring attempt is involved in mystery. It may possibly

have been organised by Cæso Quinctius, son of Cincinnatus, who was an

exile; but that he took a personal share and perished in the enterprise,

as Niebuhr, and after him Dr. Arnold, have assumed, there is not a

tittle of evidence to show. It was not possible that the attempt should

be permanently successful, yet, from the dissensions then prevailing at

Rome, it caused great embarrassment and was only put down with the aid

of the Tusculans. The Capitol was retaken by storm; Herdonius and many

of his band were slain in the affray; the rest were captured and put to

death.[g]

In these wars all the efforts of the Volscians were directed towards

acquiring the territory to the north, and that on the seacoast and on the

river Trerus, while the Æquians strove to extend their dominions westward

and southwestward as far as the Latin-Roman domains.

[Sidenote: [487-425 B.C.]]

The Romans, on their side, sought to check the growth of the Volscians

by spreading out parallel with them; and they immediately planted

settlements or rather military posts all through the mountain regions

between the Trerus and the Pomptine marsh, to separate the eastern

tribes of the Volscians from those of the western. At times very serious

in character, this war was carried on for a long period without any

advantage to the Latins or the Romans, until at last, after 487, the

struggle was brought almost to the very doors of Rome.[30] Step by step

the Æquians pushed on until they gained possession of the Latin marshes

as far as Mount Algidus, on the eastern wall of the Alban hills; and it

was this chain of mountains that the latter made the starting-point of

all their marauding expeditions into the Roman territory. It was 459

before a change came that was favourable to the Romans. In this year the

western branch of the Volscians which for seventy years had not taken up

arms against Rome, concluded a formal peace with the Romans, doubtless

sacrificing thereto their capital, Antium, which had so frequently been

the object of dispute. Relieved on that side, the Romans could now direct

all their power against the Æquians and the eastern Volscians and in 431

there came a decidedly favourable turn in their affairs.

Probably the Volscians had been considerably weakened by incursions from

the constantly expanding Sabellian tribes in their rear, and the Romans

now took the offensive against them with growing success until piece

by piece they regained all the territory that had formerly been taken

from the Latins. The Æquians were driven back to their highlands, and

the country of the eastern Volscians, turned into a seat of war, was

traversed in 408 by the Romans who plundered on all sides. So weakened

were Rome’s adversaries in 404 that they looked on passively at the siege

and capture of Veii. In 400 Tarracina was taken, and in 393 Circeii was

freshly colonised, so that even in the later period when it had attained

its greatest size all of Latium was either subject or allied to Rome.

Moreover as a result of these struggles, and during their course, the

compact between the Romans and their Latin allies grew into a sort of

hegemony, the Romans claiming the sole right to decide in all matters

relating to wars and contracts, while the Latin prætors ceased to

alternate with the Roman generals as commanders-in-chief of the army, and

the positions of staff officers in the allied troops, at first open only

to men appointed by the Romans, soon came to be filled almost exclusively

by the Romans themselves.

The close of the fifth century was also marked by new conflicts between

the Roman-Latin nations and the Veientines. The peace with this people

which had lasted so many years came to an end in 438, when the Roman

city Fidenæ, on the Tiber, fell into the possession of Veii. In 437 a

war broke out that was interrupted in 434 by the conclusion of an eight

years’ truce, then resumed until the total overthrow of Fidenæ in 425,

after which it terminated in a second truce of twenty years. During all

this period of truce the political situation of the Rasena, the race

that had for long been powerful in Italy, was so adverse that the Romans

were led to entertain the project of entirely destroying Veii and then

proceeding northward from the Tiber on a grand conquering expedition

against Etruria. The power of the Rasena had attained its height in the

beginning of the fifth century when, firmly established on their three

mainland districts, in alliance with the Carthaginians they made Greeks

and Italians feel their supremacy on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Etruria had

also owned for many decades--as Carthage had, since 500, owned the island

of Sardinia--the coast lands of Corsica; but these possessions were

seriously threatened by the rise in power of the Hellenes.

[Sidenote: [425-395 B.C.]]

Since the crushing defeat suffered by the Etruscans in 474 at the hands

of Hiero I of Syracuse and the Greeks of Cyme, in a sea battle near

that town, Syracuse, Tarentum, and Massilia had further impaired their

predominance on the Italian seas. The Campanian province of Etruria

and northern Italy were also about that time menaced simultaneously by

different but equally powerful enemies. The danger on the Campanian side

was from the Sabellian populations. At the time of Tarquinius’ departure

the Samnites had probably been long in possession of the mountainous

regions extending between the lowlands of the Apulian and Campanian

coasts, and since the middle of the fifth century had sent out successive

conquering expeditions which, penetrating further and further southward

and seaward, threatened equal danger to the Italians and the Etruscans.

Simultaneously with the uprising of the Lucanian Sabellians in Magna

Græcia, in the third decade before the close of the fifth century,

Campanian Sabellians invaded the beautiful regions on the Gulf of Naples.

In 420 the Greeks lost Cyme--henceforth Italian Cumæ--but continued to

have dominion in and around Naples for several centuries, and in 424,

when Etruscan Capua fell, the Rasena were driven forever from that part

of Italy.

More disastrous still to the Rasena of northern Italy were the conquests

of the Celts, a people destined to play the gloomy rôle of destroyer, who

had lately made violent irruption among the Italian races.

Their irresistible onward sweep against the Etruscans seems to have

taken place in the early part of the fifth century, some time after the

first migratory tribes had wandered out of Gaul. During the last three

decades of the century the Celtic swarms also crossed the Padus and

extended their conquests into the lowlands as far as the Adriatic Sea.

So engrossed were the Etruscans of the regions between the Arno and the

Tiber in their efforts to repel these invading hordes, that they had

neither time nor thought to give to Veii which had been harassed by the

Romans since 405. This war, during the course of which Veii was first

blockaded in 404, then regularly invested in 403, marks a threefold

epoch in the history of Rome. With it the Romans took the first step in

the perilous path of foreign conquest, and departed from their old-time

custom of short summer campaigns, the troops remaining the whole winter

through in the lines and camps with which Veii was surrounded. This

innovation was made possible by a resolution adopted by the senate that

foot soldiers should be paid wages by the state; and a great amelioration

was brought in the condition of the peasants and their grown sons, who

were obliged to leave their farms in charge of their wives and servants

while serving in the army, though they were under the same necessity of

raising tribute as before. The perseverance of the Romans, coupled with

the ability of their first true military leader, M. Furius Camillus,

at last gained for them a victory over the stubbornly defended town.

The list of Rome’s great generals opens with the name of the conqueror

of Veii. A man possessing in the highest degree all the qualities of a

commander, he first came into prominence in 401; and it was as dictator,

in 396, that he took Veii by storm and completely destroyed it as a

political commonwealth, thereby achieving the greatest victory, from a

political, military, and territorial point of view, that had fallen to

the Roman arms since the expulsion of the Tarquinians.

[Sidenote: [395-391 B.C.]]

The warlike spirit of the Romans and their thirst for conquest were

raised to a high pitch by this success. Soon their might extended

unbroken from the limits of the Ciminian forest, then an impenetrable

wilderness, which they conquered between 395 and 391, to the southern

frontiers of Latium. But their difficult apprenticeship was not yet at

an end, for just then the Celts subjected them to a test which their

political and military ability could not withstand; and both in its inner

and outer development the Roman state received a check from which it

could not readily recover.[b]

LEGENDS OF THE VOLSCIAN AND ÆQUIAN WARS

There are some famous legends connected with these threefold wars, which

cannot be omitted by any writer of Roman history. These are the legends

of Coriolanus, of Cincinnatus, and of the Fabian gens. The exact time

to which they refer is uncertain; nor is it material to determine. They

fall, however, within the period now under consideration.

CORIOLANUS AND THE VOLSCIANS

Caius Marcius was a youth of high patrician family, descended from

the Sabine king, Ancus Marcius; and he was brought up by his mother

Volumnia,[31] a true Roman matron, noble and generous, proud and stern,

implacable towards enemies, unforgiving towards the faults of friends.

Caius grew up with all the faults and virtues of his mother, and was soon

found among the chief opponents of the plebeians. He won a civic crown of

oak for saving a fellow-citizen at the battle of Lake Regillus, when he

was seventeen years of age. But he gained his chief fame in the Volscian

Wars. For the Romans, being at war with this people, attacked Corioli, a

Latin city which then had fallen into the hands of the Volscians. But the

assailants were driven back by the garrison; when Caius Marcius rallied

the fugitives, turned upon his pursuers, and, driving them back in turn,

entered the gates along with them; and the city fell into the hands of

the Romans. For this brave conduct he was named after the city which he

had taken, Caius Marcius Coriolanus.

Now it happened, after this, that the Roman people being much distressed

by having their lands ravaged in war, and tillage being neglected, a

great dearth ensued. Then Gelo, the Greek king of Syracuse, sent them

ships laden with corn, to relieve the distress. It was debated in the

senate how this corn should be distributed. Some were for giving it

away to the poorer sort; some were for selling it at a low price; but

Coriolanus, who was greatly enraged at the concessions that had been made

to the plebeians, and hated to see them protected by their new officers,

the tribunes, spoke vehemently against these proposals, and said: “Why do

they ask us for corn? They have got their tribunes. Let them go back to

the Sacred Hill, and leave us to rule alone. Or let them give up their

tribunes and then they shall have the corn.” This insolent language

wrought up the plebeians to a height of fury against Caius Marcius, and

they would have torn him in pieces; but their tribunes persuaded them

to keep their hands off; and then cited him before the assembly to give

account of his conduct. The main body of the patricians were not inclined

to assist Coriolanus; so, after some violent struggles, he declined to

stand his trial, but left Rome, shaking the dust from his feet against

his thankless countrymen (for so he deemed them), and vowing that they

should bitterly repent of having driven Caius Marcius Coriolanus into

exile.

[Illustration: BANISHMENT OF CORIOLANUS]

He went straight to Antium, another Latin city which had become the

capital of the Volscians, and going to the house of Attius Tullius, one

of the chief men of the nation, he seated himself near the hearth by

the household gods, a place which among the Italian nations was held

sacred. When Tullius entered, the Roman rose and greeted his former

enemy: “My name,” he said, “is Caius Marcius; my surname, Coriolanus--the

only reward now remaining for all my services. I am an exile from Rome,

my country; I seek refuge in the house of my enemy. If ye will use my

services, I will serve you well; if you would rather take vengeance on

me, strike, I am ready.”

Tullius at once accepted the offer of the “banished lord”; and determined

to break the treaty which there then was between his people and the

Romans. But the Volscians were afraid to go to war. So Tullius had

recourse to fraud. It happened that one Titus Atinius, a plebeian of

Rome, was warned in a dream to go to the consuls, and order them to

celebrate the great games over again, because they had not been rightly

performed the first time. But he was afraid and would not go. Then his

son fell sick and died; and again he dreamed the same dream; but still he

would not go. Then he was himself stricken with palsy; and so he delayed

no longer, but made his friends carry him on a litter to the consuls.

And they believed his words, and the great games were begun again with

increased pomp; and many of the Volscians, being at peace with Rome, came

to see them. Upon this Tullius went secretly to the consuls, and told

them that his countrymen were thronging to Rome, and he feared they had

mischief in their thoughts. Then the consuls laid this secret information

before the senate; and the senate decreed that all Volscians should

depart from Rome before sunset. This decree seemed to the Volscians to be

a wanton insult, and they went home in a rage. Tullius met them on their

way home at the fountain of Ferentina, where the Latins had been wont

to hold their councils of old; and he spoke to them and increased their

anger, and persuaded them to break off their treaty with the Romans. So

the Volscians made war against Rome, and chose Attius Tullius and Caius

Marcius the Roman to be their commanders.

The army advanced against Rome, ravaging and laying waste all the lands

of the plebeians, but letting those of the patricians remain untouched.

This increased the jealousy between the orders, and the consuls found it

impossible to raise an army to go out against the enemy. Coriolanus took

one Latin town after another, and even the Volscians deserted their own

general to serve under his banners. He now advanced and encamped at the

Cluilian Fossa, within five miles of the city.

[Illustration: CORIOLANUS RECEIVED BY THE VOLSCIANS

(From a picture by Mirys)]

Nothing was now to be seen within the walls but consternation and

despair. The temples of the gods were filled with suppliants; the

plebeians themselves pressed the senate to make peace with the terrible

Coriolanus. Meantime the enemy advanced to the very gates of the city,

and at length the senate agreed to send five men, chiefs among the

patricians, to turn away the anger of their countryman. He received them

with the utmost sternness; said that he was now general of the Volscians,

and must do what was best for his new friends; that if they wished for

peace they must restore all the lands and places that had been taken from

the Volscians, and must admit these people to an equal league, and put

them on an equal footing with the Latins. The deputies could not accept

these terms, so they returned to Rome. The senate sent them back, to ask

for milder terms; but the haughty exile would not suffer them to enter

his camp.

Then went forth another deputation, graver and more solemn than the

former--the pontiffs, flamens, and augurs, all attired in their priestly

robes, who besought him, by all that he held sacred, by the respect he

owed to his country’s gods, to give them assurance of peace and safety.

He treated them with grave respect, but sent them away without relaxing

any of his demands.

It seemed as if the glory of Rome were departing, as if the crown were

about to be transferred to the cities of the Volscians. But not so was it

destined to be. It chanced that as all the women were weeping and praying

in the temples, the thought arose among them that they might effect what

patricians and priests had alike failed to do. It was Valeria, the sister

of the great Valerius Publicola, who first started the thought, and she

prevailed on Volumnia, the stern mother of the exile, to accompany the

mournful train. With them also went Virgilia, his wife, leading her two

boys by the hand, and a crowd of other women. Coriolanus beheld them

from afar, as he was sitting on a raised seat among the Volscian chiefs,

and resolved to send back them also with a denial. But when they came

near, and he saw his mother at the head of the sad procession, he sprang

from his seat, and was about to kiss her. But she drew back with all the

loftiness of a Roman matron, and said: “Art thou Caius Marcius, and am I

thy mother? or art thou the general of the Volscian foe, and I a prisoner

in his camp? Before thou kissest me, answer me that question.” Caius

stood silent, and his mother went on: “Shall it be said that it is to me,

to me alone, that Rome owes her conqueror and oppressor? Had I never been

a mother, my country had still been free. But I am too old to feel this

misery long. Look to thy wife and little ones; thou art enslaving thy

country, and with it thou enslavest them.” The fierce Roman’s heart sank

before the indignant words of her whom he had feared and respected from

his childhood; and when his wife and children hanging about him added

their soft prayers to the lofty supplications of his mother, he turned

to her with bitterness of soul, and said: “O my mother, thou hast saved

Rome, but lost thy son!”

So he drew off his army, and the women went back to Rome and were hailed

as the saviours of their country. And the senate ordered a temple to

be built and dedicated to “Woman’s Fortune” (_Fortuna Muliebris_); and

Valeria was the first priestess of the temple.

But Coriolanus returned to dwell among the Volscians; and Tullius, who

had before become jealous of his superiority, excited the people against

him, saying that he had purposely spared their great enemy the city of

Rome, even when it was within their grasp. So he lost favour, and was

slain in a tumult;[32] and the words he had spoken to his mother were

truly fulfilled.[c]

_Critical Examination of the Story of Coriolanus_

“If we examine the particulars of the foregoing narrative,” says

Wilhelm Ihne, “we find that no single feature of it can be considered

historical, and that it consists altogether of baseless fictions of a

later period, which betray a great want of skill in the invention of a

probable narrative, and even ignorance of the institutions and manners

of the Roman people. The conquest of Corioli is evidently invented to

account for the name Coriolanus. For the whole of the alleged history

of the campaign in which Corioli is reported to have been conquered, the

annalists, as Livy himself admits, had no positive testimony. And so

thoughtless and ignorant were the Roman annalists, that they mentioned as

the benefactor of the distressed Romans the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse.

This chronological error was discovered by the learned archæologist

Dionysius, who was too well acquainted with the history of his

disreputable namesake of Syracuse to suppose that he could have sent corn

to Rome about half a century before he was born. He therefore substitutes

Gelo as the Greek tyrant who is said to have sent the corn. It is evident

that the removal of a gross blunder does not amount to positive evidence,

and the learning and ingenuity of Dionysius are therefore thrown away.

“The accusation and sentence of Coriolanus by the plebs, almost

immediately after the first election of tribunes, was impossible.

According to Livy, the Volscians conquered, in the course of one summer,

twelve--and, according to Dionysius, fourteen--Latin towns, overran the

whole of Latium, and penetrated into the immediate neighbourhood of Rome.

When we consider what a small measure of success usually followed a

campaign, how difficult, even in the time of their undisputed supremacy,

the Romans found it to reduce a single town, it may well be looked upon

as a miracle that the Volscians took seven towns, as Dionysius says, in

thirty days. But what is still more wonderful than the rapid conquest of

so many Latin towns by the Volscians, is the ready restoration of them to

the Latins.

“As a punishment for this treachery, which the Volscians, as it appears,

were obliged to submit to, they were reported to have cruelly murdered

Coriolanus at the end of the campaign. Yet another, and probably older,

form of the legend says nothing of this revenge, but allows him to attain

a great age among the Volscians, and to lament his banishment from his

fatherland. The simple-minded old annalist saw nothing unnatural in the

fact that a Roman exile should restore to the Romans towns conquered by

the military strength of the Volscians.

“The germ from which the whole legend sprang is the story of the filial

love of Coriolanus, and of the great authority exercised in olden times

by Roman matrons over their sons and husbands. Now it is not beyond

the range of possibility that, at one time or other, a Roman party

leader, expelled in one of the numerous civil broils, may have joined

the national enemies, and may have been induced by the tears of his

mother and wife to desist from hostilities against his native city; but

the story of Coriolanus, as given by Livy and Dionysius, relates things

utterly impossible in Rome. The Roman senate could at no time have

dreamed of sending an embassy of priests to ask for peace from a public

enemy; still less can we reconcile a deputation of matrons with what we

know of Roman manners and law, granting even that such a deputation was

self-appointed, and not formally commissioned by the senate to act for

the Roman people.”[d]

CINCINNATUS AND THE ÆQUIANS

In the course of these wars, Minucius, one of the consuls, suffered

himself to be cut off from Rome in a narrow valley of Mount Algidus, and

it seemed as if hope of delivery there was none. However, five horsemen

found means to escape and report at Rome the perilous condition of the

consul and his army. Then the other consul consulted the senate, and it

was agreed that the only man who could deliver the army was L. Quinctius

Cincinnatus. Therefore this man was named dictator, and deputies were

sent to acquaint him with his high dignity.

Now this Lucius Quinctius was called Cincinnatus, because he wore his

hair in long curling locks (_cincinni_); and, though he was a patrician,

he lived on his own small farm, like any plebeian yeoman. This farm was

beyond the Tiber, and here he lived contentedly with his wife Racilia.

Two years before he had been consul, and had been brought into great

distress by the conduct of his son Cæso, a wild and insolent young man,

who despised the plebeians and hated their tribunes, like Coriolanus.

Like Coriolanus, he was impeached by the tribunes, but on very different

grounds. One Volscius Fictor alleged that he and his brother, an old and

sickly man, had been attacked by Cæso and a party of young patricians by

night in the Subura; his brother had died of the treatment then received.

The indignation of the people rose high; and Cæso, again like Coriolanus,

was forced to go into exile. After this the young patricians became more

insolent than ever, but they courted the poorest of the people, hoping

to engage them on their side against the more respectable plebeians.

Next year all Rome was alarmed by finding that the Capitol had been

seized by an enemy during the night. This enemy was Appius Herdonius,

a Sabine, and with him was associated a band of desperate men, exiles

and runaway slaves. The first demand he made was that all Roman exiles

should be restored. The consul, P. Valerius, collected a force, and took

the Capitol. But he was himself killed in the assault, and L. Quinctius

Cincinnatus, father of the banished Cæso, was chosen to succeed him. When

he heard the news of his elevation, he turned to his wife and said, “I

fear, Racilia, our little field must remain this year unsown.” Then he

assumed the robe of state, and went to Rome. Now it was believed that

Cæso had been concerned in the desperate enterprise that had just been

defeated. What had become of him was unknown, but that he was already

dead is pretty certain; and his father was very bitter against the

tribunes and their party, to whom he attributed his son’s disgrace and

death. P. Valerius, the consul, had persuaded the plebeians to join in

the assault of the Capitol, by promising to gain them further privileges:

this promise Cincinnatus refused to keep, and used all his power to

frustrate the attempts of the tribunes to gain its fulfilment. At the end

of his year of office, however, when the patricians wished to continue

him in the consulship, he positively declined the offer, and returned to

his rustic life as if he had never left it.

It was two years after these events that the deputies of the senate,

who came to invest him with the ensigns of dictatorial power, found him

working on his little farm. He was clad in his tunic only; and as the

deputies advanced, they bade him put on his toga, that he might receive

the commands of the senate in seemly guise. So he wiped off the dust and

sweat, the signs of labour, and bade his wife fetch his toga, and asked

anxiously whether all was right or not. Then the deputies told him how

the army was beset by the Æquian foe, and how the senate looked to him

as the saviour of the state. A boat was provided to carry him over the

Tiber; and when he reached the other bank he was greeted by the senate,

who followed him to the city, while he himself walked in state, with his

four-and-twenty lictors. Cincinnatus then chose L. Tarquitius as his

master of the horse. This man was a patrician, but, like the dictator

himself, was poor--so poor that he could not afford to keep a horse, but

was obliged to serve among the foot-soldiers.

That same day the dictator and his master of the horse came down into the

Forum, ordered all shops to be shut, and all business to be suspended.

All men of the military age were to meet them in the Field of Mars before

sunset, each man with five days’ provisions and twelve stakes; the older

men were to get the provisions ready, while the soldiers were preparing

the stakes. Thus all was got ready in time; the dictator led them forth,

and they marched so rapidly that by midnight they had reached Mount

Algidus, where the army of the consul was hemmed in.

Then the dictator, when he had discovered the place of the enemy’s army,

ordered his men to put all their baggage down in one place, and then to

surround the enemy’s camp. They obeyed, and each one raising a shout,

began digging the trench and fixing his stakes, so as to form a palisade

round the enemy. The consul’s army, which was hemmed in, heard the shout

of their brethren, and flew to arms; and so hotly did they fight all

night, that the Æquians had no time to attend to the new foe, and next

morning they found themselves hemmed in on all sides by the trench and

palisade, so that they were now between two Roman armies. They were thus

forced to surrender. The dictator required them to give up their chiefs,

and made their whole army pass under the yoke, which was formed by two

spears fixed upright in the ground, and a third bound across them at the

top.

Cincinnatus returned to Rome amid the shouts and exultation of his

soldiers; they gave him a golden crown, in token that he had saved the

lives of many citizens; and the senate decreed that he should enter the

city in triumph.

So Cincinnatus accomplished the purpose for which he had been made

dictator in twenty-four hours. One evening he marched forth to deliver

the consul, and the next evening he returned victorious. But he would not

lay down his high office till he had avenged his son Cæso. Accordingly he

summoned Volscius Fictor, the accuser, and had him tried for perjury. The

man was condemned and banished; and then Cincinnatus once more returned

to his wife and farm.[c]

_Critical Examination of the Story of Cincinnatus_

“That this story belongs less to the region of history than to that of

fancy,” says Ihne, “is evident from the physical impossibilities it

contains. The distance between Rome and the hill Algidus is more than

twenty miles. This distance the Roman army under Cincinnatus is said to

have accomplished between nightfall and midnight, though the soldiers

were burthened with three or four times the usual number of stakes for

intrenchments. Then, after such a march, the men were set to work to make

a circumvallation round the whole Æquian army, which itself enclosed

the army of Minucius, and must, therefore, have occupied a considerable

extent of ground. The work of circumvallation was accomplished in the

same night, uninterrupted by the Æquians, though the Romans at the

very commencement had raised a shout to announce their arrival to the

blockaded army of Minucius. With these details the story is, of course,

mere nonsense. But if, following the example of Dionysius, we strip off

from the popular legend all that is fanciful, exaggerated, or impossible,

and place the heroic deed of Cincinnatus on such a footing that it

assumes an air of probability, we shall gain nothing, because by such

a rationalising process we shall not be able to convert a legend into

genuine history.”

“We arrive at the same conclusion by observing the fact that the story of

Cincinnatus, in its general and characteristic features, is related no

less than five times.”[d]

[Illustration: DEFEAT OF THE FABII]

THE FABIAN GENS AND THE VEIENTINES

It has already been related that, after the final expulsion of the

Tarquins, the patricians withdrew from the plebeians those rights which

they had originally obtained from King Servius, and which had been

renewed and confirmed to them during the time that the Tarquins were

endeavouring to return. And for a number of years it appears that the

Fabii engrossed a great share of this power to themselves. For we find

in the lists of consuls that for seven years running (from 485 to 479

B.C.), one of the two consuls was always a Fabius. Now these Fabii were

the chief opponents of the Agrarian law; and Cæso Fabius, who was three

times consul in the said seven years, was the person who procured the

condemnation of Sp. Cassius, the great friend of the plebeians. This

Cæso, in his second consulship, found himself as unpopular as Appius

Claudius. His soldiers refused to fight against the enemy. But in his

third consulship, which fell in the last of the seven years, he showed

an altered spirit, he and all his house. For the Fabii saw the injustice

they had been guilty of towards the plebeians, and the injury they had

been doing to the state; and Cæso himself came forward, and proposed that

the Agrarian law of Sp. Cassius should be carried into full effect. But

the patricians rejected the proposal with scorn; and so the whole Fabian

gens determined to leave Rome altogether. They thought they could serve

their country better by warring against the Veientines than by remaining

at home. So they assembled together on the Quirinal Hill, in all 306 men,

besides their clients and followers, and they passed under the Capitol,

and went out of the city by the right-hand arch of the Carmental gate.

They then crossed the Tiber, and marked out a place on the little river

Cremera, which flows into the Tiber below Veii. Here they fortified a

camp, and sallied forth to ravage the lands of the Veientines and drive

their cattle.

So they stood between Rome and Veii for more than a year’s time, and the

Romans had peace on that side, whereas the Veientines suffered greatly.

But there was a certain day, the Ides of February, which was always held

sacred by the Fabii, when they offered solemn sacrifices on the Quirinal

Hill, to the gods of their gens. On this day, Cæso their chief led

them forth for Rome; and the Veientines, hearing of it, laid an ambush

for them, and they were all cut off. And the plebeians greatly mourned

the loss of their patrician friends, and Menenius, the consul, who was

encamped near at hand, but did not assist them, was accused by the

tribunes of treacherously betraying them, as has been above recorded.

But one young Fabius, who was then a boy, was left behind at Rome when

the rest of his gens went forth to settle on the Cremera. And he (so it

was said) was the father of the Fabii who were afterwards so famous in

the history of Rome. After this, it is said, the men of Veii asked and

obtained a peace of forty years.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[19] [It must be remembered, however, that formerly Rome had been a

member of the Latin league; while the treaty of 493 was ratified by Rome

on the one side and the Latin league on the other.]

[20] [In the time of the Punic Wars, however, we find the tribunes

sometimes undertaking long journeys on public commissions.]

[21] [This idealised view is not held by all scholars.]

[22] [More probably, according to Herzog,[m] his bill never became a law;

and, as no record was made of unpassed bills, we do not know the precise

nature of his proposal. Possibly it aimed to give the peasants a better

title to the lands they held.]

[23] [According to some authorities, he was hurled from the Tarpeian

Rock; other ancient writers assert that his father put him to death.]

[24] [The comitia centuriata was now the great legislative body. At this

early period the tribunes could influence legislation by moral suasion

or by obstructing the levy of troops, disturbing public business, and

threats of violence. The tribal assembly had as yet no legislative power.

Cf. Herzog.[m]]

[25] [As long as the function of the tribunes was limited to the

protection of the weak and to the obstruction of public business, an

increase in number added strength; but when they acquired a right to

initiate legislation, their great number weakened them, as the text makes

clear.]

[26] [Recent researches convince Fiske[n] that Appius Claudius was

a liberal, far-sighted statesman, neither brutal nor unnecessarily

despotic; but it is hardly probable that anything can now dispel the

traditional view. Unfavourable contemporary judgments are seldom reversed

by posterity.]

[27] [Livy[h] makes Virginius say: “In this manner, my child, the only

one in my power, do I secure your liberty.” Livy continues as follows:

“Then looking back on Appius, ‘With this blood, Appius,’ said he, ‘I

devote thee and thine head to perdition.’ Appius, alarmed by the cry

raised at such a horrid deed, ordered Virginius to be seized. But he,

clearing a passage with the weapon wherever he went, and protected also

by a great number of young men who escorted him, made his way to the

gate. Icilius and Numitorius raised up the lifeless body and exposed it

to the view of the people, deploring the villainy of Appius, the fatal

beauty of the maiden, and the necessity which had urged the father to the

act. The matrons who followed joined their exclamations: ‘Are these the

consequences of rearing children? Are these the rewards of chastity?’

with other mournful reflections, such as are suggested by grief to women,

and which, from the greater sensibility of their tender minds, are

always the most affecting. The discourse of the men, and particularly

of Icilius, turned entirely on their being deprived of the protection

of tribunes, and consequently of appeals to the people, and on the

indignities thrown upon all.”]

[28] [The Twelve Tables were considered as the foundation of all law, and

Cicero always mentions them with the utmost reverence. But only fragments

remain, and those who have bestowed the greatest labour in examining

these can give but an imperfect account of their original form and

contents. A few provisions only can be noticed here.

(1) The patricians and their clients should be included in the plebeian

tribes. And when we speak of clients, we must now comprehend also the

freedmen (_libertini_), who were a large and increasing class. Further,

the three old patrician tribes now, or before this, became obsolete;

and henceforth a patrician was known not as a Ramnian, a Titian, or a

Lucerian, but as a burgess of the Pollian, Papirian, or some other local

tribe.

(2) The law of debt was left in its former state of severity. But the

condition of borrowing money was made easier; for it was made illegal to

exact higher interest than 10 per cent. For this is the meaning of _fœnus

unciarium_. _Uncia_ (derived from _unus_) is one of the twelve units into

which the as was divided, each being one-twelfth part of the whole. Now

⅟₁₂ of the capital is 8⅓ per cent.; but as the old Roman year was only

ten months, we must add two months’ interest at the same rate; and this

amounts to 10 per cent. for the year of twelve months.

(3) No private law or privilegium--that is a law to impose any penalty

or disability on a single citizen, similar in character to our bills of

attainder--was to be made.

(4) There was to be an appeal to the people from the sentence of every

magistrate; and no citizen was to be tried for his life except before the

centuriate assembly.

(5) The old law or custom prohibiting all intermarriage (_connubium_)

between the two orders was now formally confirmed, and thus a positive

bar was put to any equalisation of the two orders. No such consummation

could be looked for, when the code of national law proclaimed them to be

of different races, unfit to mingle one with the other.

(6) To this may be added the celebrated law by which any one who wrote

lampoons or libels on his neighbours was liable to be deprived of civil

rights (_diminutio capitis_). By this law the poet Nævius was punished

when he assailed the great family of the Metelli.[c]]

[29] [As a matter of fact, plebeians were represented in the office for

but two or three years; it then fell exclusively into the hands of the

patricians. Cf. Herzog.[m]]

[30] [“After these events,” says Eutropius,[f] “a census was held in the

city, in which the number of the citizens was found to be 119,319.”]

[31] [That is, according to Plutarch.[i] Other authorities give Veturia

as the name of his mother and Volumnia as that of his wife.]

[32] [Eutropius[f] writes him this dismal epitaph: “He was the next after

Tarquin that acted as general against his country.”]

[Illustration: THE BODY OF VIRGINIA CARRIED THROUGH THE STREETS OF ROME]

[Illustration]