FROM THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS TO THE DECEMVIRATE. B.C. 498-451.
The history of Rome for the next 150 years consists internally of the
struggles between the Patricians and Plebeians, and externally of the
wars with the Etruscans, Volscians, Æquians, and other tribes in the
immediate neighborhood of Rome.
The internal history of Rome during this period is one of great
interest. The Patricians and Plebeians formed two distinct orders in the
state. After the banishment of the kings the Patricians retained
exclusive possession of political power. The Plebeians, it is true,
could vote in the Comitia Centuriata, but, as they were mostly poor,
they were outvoted by the Patricians and their clients. The Consuls and
other magistrates were taken entirely from the Patricians, who also
possessed the exclusive knowledge and administration of the law. In one
word, the Patricians were a ruling and the Plebeians a subject class.
But this was not all. The Patricians formed not only a separate
_class_, but a separate _caste_, not marrying with the Plebeians, and
worshiping the gods with different religious rites. If a Patrician man
married a Plebeian wife, or a Patrician woman a Plebeian husband, the
state refused to recognize the marriage, and the offspring was treated
as illegitimate.
The Plebeians had to complain not only of political, but also of private
wrongs. The law of debtor and creditor was very severe at Rome. If the
borrower did not pay the money by the time agreed upon, his person was
seized by the creditor, and he was obliged to work as a slave.[14] Nay,
in certain cases he might even be put to death by the creditor; and if
there were more than one, his body might be cut in pieces and divided
among them. The whole weight of this oppressive law fell upon the
Plebeians; and what rendered the case still harder was, that they were
frequently compelled, through no fault of their own, to become
borrowers. They were small landholders, living by cultivating the soil
with their own hands; but as they had to serve in the army without pay,
they had no means of engaging laborers in their absence. Hence, on their
return home, they were left without the means of subsistence or of
purchasing seed for the next crop, and borrowing was their only
resource.
Another circumstance still farther aggravated the hardships of the
Plebeians. The state possessed a large quantity of land called _Ager
Publicus_, or the "Public Land." This land originally belonged to the
kings, being set apart for their support; and it was constantly
increased by conquest, as it was the practice on the subjugation of a
people to deprive them of a certain portion of their land. This public
land was let by the state subject to a rent; but as the Patricians
possessed the political power, they divided the public land among
themselves, and paid for it only a nominal rent. Thus the Plebeians, by
whose blood and unpaid toil much of this land had been won, were
excluded from all participation in it.
It was not to be expected that the Plebeians would submit to such
grievous injustice. The contest was twofold. It was a struggle of a
subject against a ruling class, and of rich against poor. The Plebeians
strove to obtain an equal share not only in the political power, but
also in the public land.
The cruelty of the Patrician creditors was the most pressing evil, and
led to the first reform. In B.C. 494 the Plebeians, after a campaign
against the Volscians, instead of returning to Rome, retired to the
Sacred Mount, a hill about two miles from the city, near the junction
of the Arno and the Tiber. Here they determined to settle and found a
new town, leaving Rome to the Patricians and their clients. This event
is known as the _Secession to the Sacred Mount_. The Patricians,
alarmed, sent several of their number to persuade the Plebeians to
return. Among the deputies was the aged Menenius Agrippa, who had great
influence with the Plebeians. He related to them the celebrated fable of
the Belly and the Members.
"Once upon a time," he said, "the Members refused to work any longer for
the Belly, which led a lazy life, and grew fat upon their toils. But
receiving no longer any nourishment from the Belly, they soon began to
pine away, and found that it was to the Belly they owed their life and
strength."
The fable was understood, and the Plebeians agreed to treat with the
Patricians. It was decided that existing debts should be canceled, and
that all debtors in bondage should be restored to freedom. It was
necessary, however, to provide security for the future, and the
Plebeians therefore insisted that two of their own number should be
elected annually, to whom the Plebeians might appeal for assistance
against the decisions of the Patrician magistrates. These officers were
called _Tribunes of the Plebs_. Their persons were declared sacred and
inviolate; they were never to quit the city during their year of office;
and their houses were to remain open day and night, that all who were in
need of help might apply to them. Their number was soon afterward
increased to five, and at a later time to ten. They gradually gained
more and more power, and obtained the right of putting a veto[15] upon
any public business.[16] At the Sacred Mount the Plebeians also obtained
the privilege of having two Ædiles of their order appointed. These
officers had at a later time the care of the public buildings and roads,
and the superintendence of the police of the city.
Emboldened by this success, the Plebeians now demanded a share in the
public land. And in this they found an unexpected supporter among the
Patricians themselves. Sp. Cassius, one of the most distinguished men in
the state, who had formed the league between the Romans, Latins, and
Hernicans, brought forward in his third consulship a law, by which a
portion of the public land was to be divided among the Plebeians (B.C.
486). This was the first Agrarian Law mentioned in Roman history. It
must be recollected that all the Agrarian laws dealt only with the
public land, and never touched the property of private persons.
Notwithstanding the violent opposition of the Patricians, the law was
passed; but it was never carried into execution, and the Patricians soon
revenged themselves upon its author. In the following year he was
accused of aiming at the kingly power, and condemned to death. He was
scourged and beheaded, and his house razed to the ground.
We now turn to the external history of Rome. Under the kings Rome had
risen to a superiority over her neighbors, and had extended her dominion
over the southern part of Etruria and the greater part of Latium. The
early history of the republic presents a very different spectacle. For
the next 100 years she is engaged in a difficult and often dubious
struggle with the Etruscans on the one hand, and the Volscians and
Æquians on the other. It would be unprofitable to relate the details of
these petty campaigns; but there are three celebrated legends connected
with them which must not be passed over.
1. CORIOLANUS AND THE VOLSCIANS, B.C. 488.--C. Marcius, surnamed
Coriolanus, from his valor at the capture of the Latin town of Corioli,
was a brave but haughty Patrician youth. He was hated by the Plebeians,
who refused him the consulship. This inflamed him with anger; and
accordingly, when the city was suffering from famine, and a present of
corn came from Sicily, Coriolanus advised the Senate not to distribute
it among the Plebeians unless they gave up their Tribunes. Such
insolence enraged the Plebeians, who would have torn him to pieces on
the spot had not the tribunes summoned him before the Comitia of the
Tribes. Coriolanus himself breathed nothing but defiance; and his
kinsmen and friends interceded for him in vain. He was condemned to
exile. He now turned his steps to Antium, the capital of the Volscians,
and offered to lead them against Rome. Attius Tullius, king of the
Volscians, persuaded his countrymen to appoint Coriolanus their general.
Nothing could check his victorious progress; town after town fell before
him; and he advanced within five miles of the city, ravaging the lands
of the Plebeians, but sparing those of the Patricians. The city was
filled with despair. The ten first men in the Senate were sent in hopes
of moving his compassion. But they were received with the utmost
sternness, and told that the city must submit to his absolute will. Next
day the pontiffs, augurs, flamens, and all the priests, came in their
robes of office, and in vain prayed him to spare the city. All seemed
lost; but Rome was saved by her women. Next morning the noblest matrons,
headed by Veturia, the aged mother of Corolanus, and by his wife
Volumnia, holding her little children by the hand, came to his tent.
Their lamentations turned him from his purpose. "Mother," he said,
bursting into tears, "thou hast saved Rome, but lost thy son!" He then
led the Volscians home, but they put him to death because he had spared
Rome. Others relate that he lived among the Volscians to a great age,
and was often heard to say that "none but an old man can feel how
wretched it is to live in a foreign land."
[Illustration: The Environs of Rome.]
2. THE FABIA GENS AND THE VEIENTINES, B.C. 477.--The Fabii were one of
the most powerful of the Patrician houses. For seven successive years
one of the Consuls was always a Fabius. The Fabii had been among the
leading opponents of the Agrarian Law; and Kæso Fabius had taken an
active part in obtaining the condemnation of Sp. Cassius. But shortly
afterward we find this same Kæso the advocate of the popular rights, and
proposing that the Agrarian Law of Cassius should be carried into
effect. He was supported in his new views by his powerful house, though
the reasons for their change of opinion we do not know. But the Fabii
made no impression upon the great body of the Patricians, and only
earned for themselves the hearty hatred of their order. Finding that
they could no longer live in peace at Rome, they determined to leave the
city, and found a separate settlement, where they might still be useful
to their native land. One of the most formidable enemies of the republic
was the Etruscan city of Veii, situated about twelve miles from Rome.
Accordingly, the Fabian house, consisting of 306 males of full age,
accompanied by their wives and children, clients and dependents, marched
out of Rome by the right-hand arch of the Carmental Gate, and proceeded
straight to the Cremera, a river which flows into the Tiber below Veii.
On the Cremera they established a fortified camp, and, sallying thence,
they laid waste the Veientine territory. For two years they sustained
the whole weight of the Veientine war; and all the attempts of the
Veientines to dislodge them proved in vain. But at length they were
enticed into an ambuscade, and were all slain. The settlement was
destroyed, and no one of the house survived except a boy who had been
left behind at Rome, and who became the ancestor of the Fabii, afterward
so celebrated in Roman history. The Fabii were sacrificed to the hatred
of the Patricians; for the consul T. Menenius was encamped a short way
off at the time, and he did nothing to save them.
3. CINCINNATUS AND THE ÆQUIANS, B.C. 458.--The Æquians in their numerous
attacks upon the Roman territory generally occupied Mount Algidus, which
formed a part of the group of the Alban Hills in Latium. It was
accordingly upon this mount that the battles between the Romans and
Æquians most frequently took place. In the year 458 B.C. the Roman
consul L. Minucius was defeated on the Algidus, and surrounded in his
camp. Five horsemen, who made their escape before the Romans were
completely encompassed, brought the tidings to Rome. The Senate
forthwith appointed L. Cincinnatus dictator.
L. Cincinnatus was one of the heroes of old Roman story. When the
deputies of the Senate came to him to announce his elevation to the
dictatorship they found him driving a plow, and clad only in his tunic
or shirt. They bade him clothe himself, that he might hear the commands
of the Senate. He put on his toga, which his wife Racilia brought him.
The deputies then told him of the peril of the Roman army, and that he
had been made Dictator. The next morning, before daybreak, he appeared
in the forum, and ordered all the men of military age to meet him in the
evening in the Field of Mars, with food for five days, and each with
twelve stakes. His orders were obeyed; and with such speed did he march,
that by midnight he reached Mount Algidus. Placing his men around the
Æquian camp, he told them to raise the war-cry, and at the same time to
begin digging a trench and raising a mound, on the top of which the
stakes were to be driven in. The other Roman army, which was shut in,
hearing the war-cry, burst forth from their camp, and fought with the
Æquians all night. The Dictator's troops thus worked without
interruption, and completed the intrenchment by the morning. The Æquians
found themselves hemmed in between the two armies, and were forced to
surrender. The Dictator made them pass under the yoke, which was formed
by two spears fixed upright in the ground, while a third was fastened
across them. Cincinnatus entered Rome in triumph only twenty-four hours
after he had quitted it, having thus saved a whole Roman army from
destruction.
In reading the wars of the early Republic, it is important to recollect
the League formed by Spurius Cassius, the author of the Agrarian Law
between the Romans, Latins, and Hernicans. This League, to which
allusion has been already made, was of the most intimate kind, and the
armies of the three states fought by each other's sides. It was by means
of this League that the Æquians and Volscians were kept in check, for
they were two of the most warlike nations in Italy, and would have been
more than a match for the unsupported arms of Rome.
[Footnote 14: Debtors thus given over to their creditors were called
_Addicti_.]
[Footnote 15: This was called the right of _intercession_, from
_intercedo_, "to come between."]
[Footnote 16: The Tribunes were originally elected at the Comitia of the
Centuries, where the influence of the Patricians was predominant; but by
the Publilian Law, proposed by the tribune Publilius Volero, and passed
B.C. 471, the election was transferred to the Comitia of the Tribes, by
which means the Plebeians obtained the uncontrolled election of their
own officers.]
[Illustration: Tarpeian Rock.]