“For Niebuhr’s account of the legend of Numa, see _Hist._, vol. i. pp.
237–240. Afterwards he says—‘Hence it seems quite evident that the
pontiffs themselves distinguished the first two kings from the rest,
as belonging to another order of things, and that they separated the
accounts of them from those which were to pass for history.... Romulus
was the god, the son of a god; Numa a man, but connected with superior
beings. If the tradition about them, however, is in all its parts a
_poetical fiction_, the fixing the pretended term of their reigns can
only be explained by ascribing it rather to mere caprice or to
numerical speculations.’—‘With Tullius Hostilius we reach the
beginning of a new secle, and of a narrative resting on historical
ground of a kind _totally different_ from the story of the preceding
period.’ Niebuhr considers the mythico-historical age of Roman History
to begin with the reign of Tullius Hostilius, and the age of Romulus
and Numa to be purely fabulous. Moreover, he commences the second
volume of his History with the following sentence—‘It was one of the
most important objects of the first volume to prove that the story of
Rome under the kings was altogether _without historical foundation_.’
He lays it down likewise that the names of the kings, their number,
and the duration and dates of their reigns, are fictitious; yet he
cites the proceedings at the election of Numa, and of the subsequent
kings, as historical proof of the constitutional practice of that
period.”—Vol. i. p. 123.
Niebuhr does not hold that there was no regal period, however fictitious
the history of the kings may be. It was to throw light on that regal
period in which the myth of Numa is supposed _to have originated_ that
the passage must have been cited, not certainly on the times of Numa.
Whatever, therefore, may be the infinitesimal value of the passage cited
which relates to the constitutional proceedings upon the election of
Numa, there was no logical inconsistency on the part of Niebuhr in
making a reference to it. If the myth of Numa really originated in a
regal period, what the pontiff declared about it might indirectly convey
some information as to the constitution of that regal period.
Dr Liddell may well speak of the “altered aspect which Roman history has
assumed.” We begin our annals with an account of the “religious myth,”
of which, however, the specimens are very few. Romulus is _Strength_ and
Numa is _Law_; they are godlike persons, or in communication with gods;
they together found the city of Rome. Strength and Law assuredly founded
the city: it is good philosophy, whatever history it makes; and the
pontiffs were fully justified in placing these kings where they did—the
first, and presiding, and eternal kings of every commonwealth. From the
religious myth we proceed to the “heroic legend.” In this species of
fable the veritable man and his real action is extolled—is
exaggerated—is multiplied. The hero himself is multiplied, or he is
transplanted from one region to another. The story is expanded and
enriched by each successive narrative, until a literary age makes its
appearance. It then assumes a fixed form, from which any wide deviation
is no longer permissible.
In all such heroic legends, when they have been fairly born on the soil
on which we find them, and have not been transplanted from a foreign
country, there is always some element of historic truth. For what we
call invention must start from, or be supplied with, given facts. There
is a vague but very prevalent error on the nature and power of _poetical
invention_. It is spoken of as something that will account at once for
the marvellous narrative. This is supposed to spring forth complete from
some poet’s brain. Poetical invention can only take place where there is
already some amount and variety of known incidents or traditional
stories; these the poet strings together in new combinations. The first
writers in metre (as we may see in the earliest ballads of Spain and of
other countries) content themselves with a bald narrative of some fact
or tradition. Their successors add to this narrative—add a sentiment or
a detail; and when the number of such narratives has increased, poetical
invention, in its highest form, becomes possible. It has been lately a
favourite hypothesis that the earliest literature of Rome consisted of a
number of poems or ballads, which supplied the first historians with
their materials. It appears to us highly probable that separate legends
were shaped into something like completeness of form before any
continuous history of the city of Rome was written; but whether such
legends were written first in prose or verse is matter of very little
moment, and of very great uncertainty.
After expressing the belief that there is a substratum of truth in these
heroic legends, it is not very satisfactory to be compelled to add that
we cannot distinguish it from the superstructure of fiction.
Unfortunately, it is not the marvellous and supernatural—which, indeed,
are but sparingly introduced—which have alone contributed to deprive
these legends of their credibility: they have been convicted, in some
cases, of historic falsehood. A species of pious fraud has been
committed to conceal the defeats of the Romans. Family pride has, in
other instances, led to the undue exaltation of individual heroes. We
must chiefly honour these legends, after all, as manifestations of the
mind and spirit of the Romans, rather than as positive materials of
history.
We always revert to this consolation—every literature must be the
history of the _thoughts_, if not of the _deeds_ of a people; and all
our various records are chiefly valuable as they enable us to write the
history of the human mind. How pre-eminently this is the case wherever
the subject of religion is introduced! Omens, auguries, oracles—what
matters whether in this or that case they were really seen or uttered?
the great fact is, that they were currently believed in, and acted on.
The _belief_ here is all that we can possibly be concerned with. Whether
Æneas really did see that white sow, with her litter of thirty pigs,
which he took for so good an omen of prosperity (it was no bad sign of
fertility), may be questioned; but even the invention of such an
incident proves that men, and wise men, were supposed to be under the
influence of such omens. That an eagle pounced down, and took from the
head of Tarquin his cap, and, after wheeling in the air, _put it on
again_, is what we do not believe; eagles, neither at Rome or elsewhere,
have this habit of restitution. But the frequency of legends of this
kind points to a time when men were in the constant expectation of
finding their own future destiny prefigured to them in the actions of
birds and beasts, or the operations of inanimate nature. What was the
precise _degree_ of influence which superstitions of this nature
exercised on the course of human conduct, must still be problematical.
Did any pious general, at the head of the legions at Rome, really
determine whether he should give battle or not by the appetite with
which the sacred chickens took their food? Did men ever colonise, or
build a city, according to the flight of vultures or the perching of an
eagle?
But superstition itself, and that in some of its most terrible forms, is
animated and dignified by the spirit of Roman patriotism. Read this old
story of the self-devotion of Decius, as Dr Liddell tells it to us. It
will be an excellent example in which to take our stand, if we would
estimate at their full value these old heroic legends. One of those
decisive battles is to be fought which is to determine the supremacy of
Rome in Italy.
“The Latin army marched hastily southward to protect their Oscan
allies, and it was in the plains of Campania that the fate of Rome and
Latium was to be decided. (The two consuls, Manlius and Decius,
commanded in the Roman camp.)
“When the two armies met under Mount Vesuvius, they lay opposed to one
another, neither party choosing to begin the fray. It was almost like
a civil war: Romans and Latins spoke the same language; their armies
had long fought side by side under common generals; their arms,
discipline, and tactics were the same.
“While the armies were thus lying over against each other, the Latin
horsemen, conscious of superiority, used every endeavour to provoke
the Romans to single combats. The latter, however, were checked by the
orders of their generals, till young Manlius, son of the consul, stung
to the quick by the taunts of Geminus Metius, a Latin champion,
accepted his challenge. The young Roman conquered, and returned to the
camp to lay the spoils of the enemy at his father’s feet. But the
spirit of Brutus was not dead; and the stern consul, unmindful of his
own feelings and the pleading voices of the whole army, condemned his
son to death for disobedience to orders. Discipline was thus
maintained, but at a sore expense, and the men’s hearts were heavy at
this unnatural act.
“In the night before the day on which the consuls resolved to fight,
each of them was visited by an ominous dream, by which it was revealed
that whichever army first lost its general should prevail; and they
agreed that he whose division first gave ground should devote himself
to the gods of the lower world.
“In the morning, when the auspices were taken, the liver of the victim
offered on the part of Decius was defective, while that of Manlius was
perfect. And the event confirmed the omen; for Manlius, who commanded
on the right, held his ground, while the legions of Decius on the left
gave way.
“Then Decius, mindful of his vow, sent for Valerius, the chief
pontiff, to direct him how duly to devote himself. He put on his toga,
the robe of peace, after the Gabine fashion, bringing the end or
lappet under the right arm, and throwing it over his head; and then,
standing on a javelin, he pronounced the solemn form of words
prescribed, by which he devoted the army of the enemy along with
himself to the gods of death and to the grave. Then, still shrouded in
his toga, he leaped upon his horse, and dashing into the enemy’s
ranks, was slain.
“Both armies were well aware of the meaning of the act. It depressed
the spirits of the Latins as much as it raised those of the Romans.
The skill of Manlius finished the work of superstitious awe.... The
enemy fled in irretrievable confusion.”
One consul sacrifices his son to the cause of military discipline; the
other consul sacrifices himself to the gods, to obtain the destruction
of the enemy. We believe in a Decius, in some Decius, at some time, in
some battle. Many of the details brought here together were probably
added by different narrators. But it may be laid down, we think, as a
sound canon of criticism, _that no act of moral greatness was ever
invented till the like of it had been really performed_. Imagination of
what the human heart is capable of cannot precede the genuine feelings,
the genuine heroism of man. The several acts of Manlius and of Decius
are Roman deeds, whether they occurred precisely here or not. Then note
the traces we have in this legend of the rite of human sacrifice, and
the terrible boon extorted by it. Indeed, the whole passage is fertile
of suggestions which we will not weaken by attempting to enumerate.
Rome had scarcely obtained the ascendancy over her neighbours when her
own destruction was threatened by the Gauls. Yet ultimately this
invasion of the Celt, by weakening her enemies more than herself, was
not unpropitious to the final predominance of Rome. “The Gauls,” writes
Dr Liddell, “burst upon Latium and the adjoining lands with the
suddenness of a thunderstorm; and as the storm, with all its fury and
destructiveness, yet clears the loaded air, and restores a balance
between the disturbed powers of nature, so it was with this Gallic
hurricane. It swept over the face of Italy, crushing and destroying. The
Etruscans were weakened by it; and if Rome herself was laid prostrate
for a season, the Latins also suffered greatly, the Volscians were
humbled, and the Æquians so shattered that they never recovered from the
blow.”
It was a disastrous day for Rome. A large portion of her army, under her
great general Camillus, was absent from the city. What forces she could
muster were routed and dispersed. There were not enough men to defend
the city; it was given up to the Gauls. The Capitol alone held out.
Finally, the Romans were fain to ransom themselves, and to obtain peace,
by the payment of one thousand pounds in weight of gold. The popular and
legendary history tells us, that whilst this gold was being weighed
out—and just as the insolent Gaul had thrown his sword into the scale,
bidding them weigh that too, with his “Woe to the conquered!”—the great
Camillus returned with his army, marched into the forum, ordered the
gold to be returned, declared that it was with _iron_ he meant to redeem
the city, and forthwith drove out the Gauls, so completely destroying
their host that not a man was left to carry home the news of their
calamity.
“So ran the legend,” continues Dr Liddell, “embellished by the touch
of Livy’s graceful pen. But, unfortunately for Roman pride, here also,
as in the tale of Porsenna, traces of true history are preserved,
which show how little the Roman annalists regarded truth. Strabo and
Diodorus mention stories to the effect that the Gauls carried off the
gold without let or hindrance from Camillus, but that they were
attacked in Etruria, some said by the Romans themselves, others said
by the friendly people of Cæré, and obliged to relinquish their
precious booty. But Polybius has left clearer and more positive
statements. That grave historian tells us, as if he knew no other
story, that the departure of the Gauls was caused by the intelligence
that the Venetians, an Illyrian tribe, had invaded their settlements
in northern Italy; that, on receiving this intelligence, they proposed
to make a treaty; that the treaty was made; that they actually
received the gold, and marched off unmolested to their homes.”
Where did Polybius get _his_ story? The legend may be false, but where
were the materials from which Polybius could have obtained a more
historical account? But before again alluding to this subject, we cannot
but pause to take notice that here also is a striking example of the
value of the legend as a history of the mind and thoughts of a people,
even where it fails us as a history of events. Consider what must have
been the religious faith, what the ardent patriotism, that gave birth to
this magnificent fable (if fable it is) of the conduct of the Senate,
when the army of Rome had been utterly vanquished, and the Gaul, in
insolent confidence of victory, was rejoicing and revelling at the
gates. Here it is, in the version of Dr Liddell:—
“Meantime the Senate at Rome did what was possible to retrieve their
fallen fortunes. With all the men of military age they withdrew into
the Capitol, for they had not numbers enough to man the walls of the
city. These were mainly Patricians. Many of the Plebeians had fallen
in the battle; many had escaped to Veii. The old men of this order,
with the women, fled for safety to the same city. The priests and
vestal virgins, carrying with them the sacred images and utensils,
found refuge at the friendly Etruscan city of Cæré. _But the old
Senators, who had been Consuls or Censors, and had won triumphs, and
grown grey in their country’s service, feeling themselves to be now no
longer a succour but a burthen, determined to sacrifice themselves for
her; and M. Fabius, the Pontifex, recited the form of words by which
they solemnly devoted themselves to the gods below, praying that on
their heads only might fall the vengeance and the destruction._ Then
as the Gauls approached, they ordered their ivory chairs to be set in
the Comitium, before the temples of the gods, and there they took
their seats, each man clad in his robes of state, to await the coming
of the avenger.
“At length the Gallic host approached the city, and came to the
Colline gate. It stood wide open before their astonished gaze, and
they advanced slowly, not without suspicion, through deserted streets,
unresisted and unchecked. When they reached the Forum, there, within
its sacred precincts, they beheld those venerable men sitting like so
many gods descended from heaven to protect their own. They gazed with
silent awe; till at length a Gaul, hardier than his brethren, ventured
to stroke the long beard of M. Papirius. The old hero raised his ivory
staff and smote the offender, whereupon the barbarian in wrath slew
him; and this first sword-stroke gave the signal for a general
slaughter. Then the Romans in the Capitol believed that the gods had
accepted the offering which those old men had made, and that the rest
would be saved.”
Grander fable never was invented—never grew up out of grander feelings
or wilder convictions. How little do we seem to know of the ancient
religion of Rome! We listen too exclusively to the poets of the Augustan
age. Elegant fictions and placid deities, from whom little was to be
hoped or feared, did not constitute the religion of early times. There
were terrible gods in those days—without whom, indeed, no religion has
existed which has really influenced the conduct of mankind.
The next great event in the history of Rome which arrests our attention
is the war with Pyrrhus. Here the Romans come in contact with a literary
people. The attention of the Greeks is drawn towards them. Greek
historians collect what accounts they can of these new barbarians, who
are pronounced to be “not barbarians at least in war.” The first Roman
historians wrote in the Greek language. We enter, it is said, into the
historic period.
This is a fit place to quote some judicious remarks which Dr Liddell
makes on the sources of early Roman history:—
“When the Gaul departed and left Rome in ashes, it was not only the
buildings of the city that perished. We are expressly told that all
the public records shared in the general destruction—the Fasti, or
list of yearly magistrates with their triumphs, the Annales
Pontificum, and the Linen Rolls (_libri lintei_), which were annual
registers or chronicles of events kept by the pontiffs and augurs.
“This took place, we know, about the year 390 B.C.
“Now the first Roman annalists, Fabius Pictor, Cincius Alimentus, Cato
the Censor, with the poets Nævius and Ennius, flourished about a
century and a half after this date. Whence, then, it is natural to
ask, did these writers and their successors find materials for the
history of Rome before the burning of the city? What is the authority
for the events and actions which are stated to have taken place before
the year 390 B.C.?
“The answer to these questions may partly be found in our fifth
chapter. The early history of Rome was preserved in old heroic lays or
legends, which lived in the memories of men, and were transmitted by
word of mouth from one generation to another. The early history of all
nations is, as we have said, the same; and even if we had the Fasti
and the Annals complete, we should still have to refer to those
legendary tales for the substance and colour of the early history. The
Fasti, indeed, if they were so utterly destroyed as Livy states, must
have been preserved in memory with tolerable accuracy, for we have
several lists of the early magistrates which only differ by a few
omissions and transpositions. The Annals and Linen Rolls, if we had
copies of them, would present little else than dry bones without
flesh—mere names with a few naked incidents attached, much of the same
character as the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. For narrative we should
still have been dependent upon the legends. We might know the exact
time at which Coriolanus appeared at the head of the Volscian host,
but the story would remain untouched....
“The false statements of the Patrician period are quite different in
kind from the greater part of the legendary fictions of Greece or
Regal Rome. There we discern no dishonesty of purpose, no intentional
fraud; here, much of the baser coin is current. In the legends of
Porsenna and Camillus the dishonour of Rome and the triumphs of the
invaders are studiously kept out of sight, and glorious deeds are
attributed to heroes who are proved to have no claim to such honour.”
If the legends of the Regal period are mythical, and if those of the
Patrician period were falsified by bards and minstrels, who made it
their vocation to flatter the family pride of the nobles, it is plain
there is little of historic narrative relating to these early times
which can be depended on. There is no essential difference in the
account which Dr Liddell and Sir G. C. Lewis give of the materials of
the early history of Rome; but the first of these writers has a far
greater faith in that species of constructive or conjectural history, in
which Niebuhr was so great an artist, than the second can at all admit.
Sir G. C. Lewis contends with great force and clearness that historical
evidence does not differ in kind from judicial evidence. They are both
founded “on the testimony of credible witnesses.” Unless you can trace
your narrative to some contemporary writer who had a fair opportunity of
knowing the facts to which he testifies, you have nothing worthy of the
name of history. Nor can any ingenuity of reasoning avail if the
materials on which you reason are constantly open to suspicion. In the
time of the second Punic war there commences a series of Roman
historians or annalists who recorded the events of their own age; their
works are lost to us, but they furnished subsequent writers, whose
histories remain, with _their_ materials. If now, for the years
preceding this epoch, you have nothing but a series of meagre official
annals, kept by the chief pontiff, some ancient treaties, and a few laws
which you can bring into court as historical evidence—if you have
nothing but these “dry bones,” there is no help for it; you must be
contented with the skeleton. By no means can you, in any legitimate
manner, cover these bones. You have no narrative, both lifelike and
trustworthy, that extends beyond the age of Pyrrhus. Here the Greek
historian steps in. Moreover, the war with Pyrrhus was “not so long
prior to the time of Fabius and Cincius (the earliest Roman annalists)
as to render it improbable that they and other subsequent writers may
have collected some trustworthy notices of it from native tradition and
documents.” The speech, too, of Appius the Blind, delivered in the
Senate on the occasion of the embassy of Cineas, the minister of
Pyrrhus, was extant in the time of Cicero. But beyond this period of the
war of Pyrrhus, historic narrative based on acceptable evidence there is
none.
Sir G. C. Lewis states the matter, at the opening of his third chapter,
in the following lucid manner:—
“In the previous chapter we have followed the stream of Roman
contemporary history up to the war of Pyrrhus, but found that at that
point the contemporary writers deserted us. There is no trace of any
historical account of Roman affairs by a contemporary writer, native
or foreign, before that time; nor can it be shown that any Roman
literary work, either in verse or prose, was then in existence. But
although there was no contemporary history, and no native literature
at Rome before the war with Pyrrhus, yet we have a history of Rome for
472 years before that period, handed down to us by ancient classical
writers as a credible narrative of events.”
But we must not be seduced further into following the discussions of Sir
G. C. Lewis “on the credibility of the early Roman history.” We must not
forget that it is Dr Liddell’s History we have at present before us. The
wars of Pyrrhus are related by him in a very distinct and spirited
manner, and the chivalrous character of the Greek prince—the
_Cœur-de-Lion_ of his age—stands out before us in very clear relief. The
wars, too, of a greater than Pyrrhus—of the Carthaginian general,
Hannibal—are told with more perspicuity than will be found, we think, in
the pages of any of his predecessors. But for very manifest reasons we
must pass over voluminous details of this description.
No portion of the work will be read with more interest and profit than
those chapters which give an account of the civil constitution of Rome,
such as it existed in the palmy days of the republic. We confess
ourselves to be utterly incredulous of the ability of any writer to
describe to us what the constitution of Rome was under her kings, or
during the earlier periods of the commonwealth. So much the more
pleasure do we derive from a view of that constitution when the clouds
seem to break away, and it stands revealed to us in the light of
history. When he has driven Hannibal out of Italy, conquered Sicily, and
imposed those terms on Carthage which ended the second Punic war, Dr
Liddell takes the occasion to review the constitution of Rome such as it
displayed itself when the republic was in its full vigour. It was during
the time of the Punic wars, he tells us, that this most remarkable and
most complex system of government under which men ever lived, attained
to some completeness of form. Our own British constitution is often
cited as a marvel of complexity; incongruous powers and institutions
come into collision at this and that point, till a harmonious action is
at length produced; and the prerogative of the Crown is seen to be
opposed by the privilege of Parliament, in such a manner as rather to
represent a contest between rival institutions, than an understood
co-operation of great functionaries of state. But the British
constitution is a simple and consistent scheme when compared with the
constitution of the Roman republic; with its wild right of the Tribune,
which at once seems subversive of all law; with its annual elections,
and that even of the general at the head of its armies, which seems at
once subversive of all military discipline, and an insuperable obstacle
to all military success; with its coequal legislative assemblies, which
seems to strike at once at the unity of the laws, and to be a provision
for the dissolution of the society.
That which explains the mystery, that which accounts for the long
duration and signal success of so complicated a system, is to be found
in the predominating power of the Senate. And if again we are asked how
it happened that the Senate endured so long, and was not sooner
dissolved or reduced to subjection by some military chief, we can only
refer to the jealousy which the great men of Rome, patrician or
plebeian, entertained of each other. Many a patrician would have been
king, none would have endured to have a king over him. This
determination to bow to no superior, except the law, except the State,
is the feeling of every aristocracy which grows up within a city. It is
otherwise with a territorial aristocracy. Here some form of our feudal
system invariably presents itself; the common safety requires it. But in
a municipal aristocracy, like that of Rome or Venice, the prevailing
spirit, the _conservative feeling_, is precisely this determination,
that no one member of the body shall obtain predominance over the rest.
Looking at the history of Rome and the magnitude of her conquests, we
feel that it was inevitable that the Senate should succumb at length to
some victorious Cæsar, and we feel that it was equally inevitable that
it should deliver its last protest in the daggers of a Brutus and a
Cassius.
An extract from this portion of Dr Liddell’s work cannot fail to be
acceptable to our readers. What precisely was the august Senate of Rome
many of us may not distinctly remember, if indeed we have ever been so
distinctly told as we are in the pages of this writer. We have no space
to enter on the description of the two legislative assemblies, the
“Tribe Assembly,” and the “Centuriate Assembly,” as they are here
called, nor of the extraordinary power of the Tribune; we must limit our
quotation to that part which rather bears on the ordinary and executive
government of Rome.
“To obtain each of these high offices (as those of Quæstor, Ædile,
Prætor, Consul, Censor), the Roman was obliged to seek the suffrages
of his fellow-citizens. They were all open to the ambition of every
one whose name had been entered by the Censors in the Register of
Citizens, provided he had reached the required age. No office, except
the Censorship, was held for a longer period than twelve months. No
officer received any pay or salary for his services. To defray
expenses, certain allowances were made from the treasury by order of
the Senate. To discharge routine duties and to conduct their
correspondence, each magistrate had a certain number of clerks
(Scribæ), who formed what we should call the civil service, and who
had before this assumed an important position in the State.
“But though the highest offices seemed thus absolutely open to every
candidate, they were not so in practice. About the time of the first
Punic war an alteration was made, which in effect confined the Curule
officers to the wealthy families. The Ædiles were charged with the
management of the public games, and for celebrating them with due
splendour a liberal allowance had been made from the treasury. At the
time just mentioned, this allowance was withdrawn. Yet the Curule
Ædiles were still expected to maintain the honour of Rome by costly
spectacles at the Great Roman Games, the Megalesian Festival, and
others of less consequence. A great change was wrought by this law,
which, under a popular aspect, limited the choice of the people to
those who could buy their favour. None could become Ædile who had not
the command of money, or at least of credit.
“That which strikes the mind as most remarkable in the executive
government of Rome, is the short period for which each magistrate held
his office, and the seeming danger of leaving appointments so
important to the suffrages of the people at large; and this is still
more striking when we remember that the same system was extended to
the army itself, as well as to its generals. The Romans had no
standing army. Every Roman citizen between the complete ages of
seventeen and forty-five, and possessing property worth at least 4000
lb. of copper, was placed on the military roll. From this roll four
legions, two for each Consul, were enlisted every year; and in cases
of necessity additional legions were raised. But at the close of the
year’s campaign these legionary soldiers had a right to return home
and be relieved by others. Nor were there any fixed officers. Each
legion had six tribunes and sixty centurions; but these were
appointed, like the consuls and soldiers, fresh every year. The
majority of the tribunes were now elected by the people at the Comitia
of the tribes, and the remainder were nominated by the consuls of the
year; the only limitation to such choice being, that those elected or
nominated should have served in the legions at least five campaigns.
The Centurions were then nominated by the Tribunes, subject to the
approval of the Consuls. No doubt the Tribunes or Consuls, for their
own sake, would nominate effective men; and therefore we should
conclude, what we find to be the fact, that the Roman armies depended
much on their Centurions, and on those Tribunes who were nominated by
the Consuls.”
Everything hitherto seems to be in a state of perpetual change and
disorganisation. If a consul were pursuing his operations ever so
successfully, he was liable to be superseded at the close of the year by
his successor in the consulship; and this successor brought with him new
soldiers and new officers. This inconvenience was so great that the
constitutional usages were necessarily broken through: the same men were
re-elected to the consulship notwithstanding the law that no one should
hold the office a second time except after the lapse of a certain
interval. Impolitic laws, and these frequently suspended, present us
with a poor guarantee for the permanence of the republic.
“But though the chief officers, both in state and army, were
continually changing at the popular will, there was a mighty power
behind them, on which they were all dependent, which did not change.
This was the SENATE.
“The importance of this body can hardly be overstated. All the acts of
the Roman Republic ran in the name of the Senate and People, as if the
Senate were half the State, though its number seems still to have been
limited to three hundred members.
“The Senate of Rome was perhaps the most remarkable assembly that the
world has ever seen. Its members held their seats for life. Once
senators, always senators, unless they were degraded for some
dishonourable cause. But the Senatorical peerage was not hereditary;
no father could transmit the honour to his son. Each man must win it
for himself.
“The manner in which seats in the Senate were obtained is tolerably
well ascertained. Many persons will be surprised to learn that the
members of this august body, all, or nearly all, owed their places to
the votes of the people. In theory, indeed, the Censors still
possessed the power really exercised by the kings and early Consuls,
of choosing the Senators at their own will and pleasure. But official
powers, however arbitrary, are always limited in practice—and the
Censors followed rules established by ancient precedent. A notable
example of the rule by which the list of the Senate was made occurs at
a period when, if ever, there was wide room for the exercise of
discretion. After the fatal days of Trasimene and Cannæ, it was found
that, to complete the just number of Senators, no less than one
hundred and seventy were wanting. Two years were yet to pass before
new Censors would be in office; and to provide an extraordinary remedy
for an extraordinary case, M. Fabius Buteo, an old Senator of high
character, was named Dictator, for the sole purpose of recruiting the
vacant ranks of his order. He thus discharged his duty: after reciting
the names of all surviving Senators, he chose as new members, first,
those who had held Curule offices since the last censorship, according
to the order of their election; then those who had served as Ædiles,
Tribunes, or Quæstors; then of those who had not held office, such as
had decorated their houses with spoils taken from the enemy, or with
crowns bestowed for saving the lives of fellow-citizens!
“The first qualification for a seat in the Senate then was that of
office. It is probable that to the qualification of office there was
added a second, property; a third limitation, that of age, followed
from the rule that the Senate was recruited from the lists of official
persons. No one could be a Senator till he was about thirty years of
age.
“The power of the Senate was equal to its dignity. It absorbed into
its ranks a large proportion of the practical ability of the
community. It was a standing council, where all official functions
were annual. And thus, it is but natural that it should engross the
chief business of the State.”
This body of ex-consuls, ex-prætors, and the like (we need hardly say
that the distinction between Patrician and Plebeian had been early
erased) might well justify the figure of speech which the minister of
Pyrrhus used when he called the Roman Senate an assembly of kings. “Many
of its members had exercised sovereign power; many were preparing to
exercise it.”
The Senate had the absolute control of foreign affairs, except that, in
declaring war and concluding treaties of peace, the people were
consulted. The conduct of the war, and all diplomatic negotiations, were
in their hands. The Consul was the servant of the Senate; the sacred
pontiffs took their orders from the Senate. And, what was of no less
importance, “all the financial arrangements of the State were left to
their discretion.” In times of difficulty, as is well known, they had
the power of suspending all rules of law by the appointment of a
dictator.
“They prolonged the command of a general or suspended him at pleasure.
They estimated the sums necessary for the military chest; nor could a
sesterce be paid to the general without their order. If a Consul
proved refractory, they could transfer his power for a time to a
dictator. All disputes in Italy or beyond seas were referred to their
sovereign arbitrement.... They might also resolve themselves into a
High Court of Justice for the trial of extraordinary offences.”
Nor was this great Executive Council without participation in, or
control over, the function of the legislative assemblies; for, as a
general rule, no law could be proposed which had not already received
the sanction of the Senate. This body may be well described as having
been for many years “the main-spring of the Roman constitution.”
Next to the wars with Hannibal follow those with Philip, and Antiochus,
and Perseus, all of which Dr Liddell relates with singular perspicuity.
It is sad to notice how soon after the report of victories and extended
empire is heard the complaint of corrupted manners, of a Senate greedy
of gold, of a people following the war for plunder, making of arms a
trade and profession. It was at the end of the second Punic war that we
were called upon to take a survey of republican institutions, and
republican simplicity of manners—of a people rude and warlike indeed,
but agricultural, domestic, where divorce was unknown, faithful and
pious,—and the third and last Punic war does not break out before we
hear of the city being startled and alarmed at the report of wives
poisoning their husbands, and at the discovery of secret associations of
men and women where some new and licentious worship of Bacchus was
introduced. The disease first manifests itself in the rude efforts to
check it, and one of the earliest symptoms of corruption is the
appearance on the stage of Cato the Censor.
Of Cato the Censor Dr Liddell gives us the outlines of a very vigorous
portrait. “More familiar to us,” he says, “than almost any of the great
men of Rome, we see him, with his keen grey eyes and red hair, his harsh
features and spare athletic frame, strong by natural constitution and
hardened by exercise, clad even at Rome in the coarsest rustic garb,
attacking with plain but nervous eloquence the luxury and corruption of
the nobles.” This type of a whole class of men, more honest than
enlightened, stands out to us in still more distinct relief from his
opposition to his great contemporary Scipio, the proud and the
reflective, whom he chose to fasten upon as his antagonist. Cato had
rushed to the conclusion that the wickedness of Rome was traceable to
the arts and philosophy of Greece. He ought to have directed his
scrutiny to the cupidity and ambition of Rome. It was wealth and power,
not art and philosophy, that were corrupting his fellow-citizens. He
should have done his utmost to check their spirit of pillage and of
conquest. Instead of which, he joins in the war-cry of the people, and
directs his hostility against Scipio, the introducer of Greek
literature. Another motive also is assigned for this hostility, which is
of a still more commonplace character: there were political parties in
Rome as elsewhere, and Cato had attached himself to the party of Fabius,
which was opposed to the Scipios.
Born at the provincial town of Tusculum, and inheriting some patrimony,
lands and slaves, in the Sabine territory, near the spot once occupied
by the great Curius Dentatus, the future Censor of Rome had early
adopted a quite rustic mode of life. The young Cato, we are told, looked
with reverence on the hearth at which Curius had been roasting his
radishes when he rejected the Samnite gold, and resolved to make a model
of that rude and simple patriot. He used to work with his slaves,
wearing the same coarse dress, and partaking of the same fare. But
conscious, nevertheless, of superior powers, and fond, we may be sure,
of seeing justice done amongst his neighbours, he would resort
occasionally to the nearer courts of law, to plead the cause of some
client. His shrewd sayings and caustic eloquence attracted the attention
especially of one Valerius Flaccus, “a young nobleman of the
neighbourhood, himself a determined friend of the ancient Roman
manners.” Flaccus persuaded him to leave his farm, and enter public life
at Rome. There he rose, step by step, through the several offices of
state, till he reached the highest honour, that of the Censorship.
“Cato was now in full possession of the immense arbitrary powers
wielded by the Censor, and determined not to act, as most Censors had
acted, merely as the minister of the Senate, but to put down luxury
with a strong hand. He had thundered against the repeal of the Oppian
law,[2] during his consulship, but in vain,—the ladies were too strong
for him. But now it was his turn. Hitherto no property had been
included in the Censor’s register, except land and houses. Cato
ordered all valuable slaves to be rated at three times the amount of
other property, and laid a heavy tax on the dress and equipages of the
women, if they exceeded a certain sum. He struck seven Senators off
the list, some for paltry causes. Manilius was degraded for kissing
his wife in public; another for an unseasonable jest; but all honest
men must have applauded when L. Flaminius was at length punished for
his atrocious barbarity.[3] It savoured of personal bitterness when,
at the grand review of the knights, he deprived L. Scipio Asiaticus of
his horse.
“In the management of public works Cato showed judgment equal to his
vigour. He provided for the repair of the aqueducts and reservoirs,
and took great pains to amend the drainage of the city. He encouraged
a fair and open competition for the contracts of tax-collection, and
so much offended the powerful companies of Publicani, that, after he
had laid down his office, he was prosecuted, and compelled to pay a
fine of 12,000 ases.”
That fine of 12,000 ases we are disposed to reckon amongst his highest
titles to honour. Restricted in his notions, the Censor still claims our
esteem for the genuine sturdy independence which accompanies him
throughout his life, and in the presence alike of the Senate and the
people. He is no craven demagogue. “You are like a parcel of sheep,” he
tells the people on one occasion, “which follow their leader, they care
not whither.” He interferes to prevent a gratuitous distribution of
corn, which he foresaw would encourage the growth of a lazy mob in the
metropolis; and on this occasion he begins his oration thus, “It is a
hard thing, Romans, to speak to the belly, for it has no ears.” He was a
hard-headed, self-sufficient man, not too humane, since he could
recommend, in his book on agriculture, the selling off of old slaves as
a useless lumber, and by no means disposed to act with clemency or
justice towards foreign nations. In his old age, when he numbered
eighty-four years, he led the party which clamoured for the destruction
of Carthage. The old Sabine farmer appeared in the Senate, and unfolding
his gown, produced some giant figs, which he held up and said, “These
figs grow but three days’ sail from Rome.” He then repeated the
oft-reiterated and fatal sentence, “Carthage must be destroyed!—_delenda
est Carthago!_”
The morality between nation and nation always has been, and still is,
execrable. Indeed, there can be no international morality until men have
learned that the interest of one people is bound up with the interest of
others; till, just as individuals learn that their welfare is
inseparable from the welfare of some community of individuals, so
nations shall learn that their own wellbeing and prosperity is
inseparable from the wellbeing of some community of nations. The early
policy of Rome in the treatment of the Italian cities which were
compelled to acknowledge her supremacy, has often been praised; it could
not have been very censurable, since at the period of Hannibal’s
greatest success there were so few defections. Probably the value of
some large Italian confederacy had begun to be generally appreciated;
and as there was little to pillage from each other, there was the less
room for injustice. When the government extended beyond Italy, over rich
and conquered provinces, the historian has no longer any commendation to
bestow.
“It was a general rule that all Italian land was tax-free, and that
all provincial land, except such as was specified in treaties or
decrees of the Senate, was subject to tax. This rule was so absolute
that the exemption of land from taxation was known by the technical
name of _Jus Italicum_, or the Right of Italy.
“This last distinction implies that the imperial revenues were raised
chiefly from the provinces. In the course of little more than thirty
years from the close of the Hannibalic war, this was the case, not
chiefly, but absolutely. The world was taxed for the benefit of Rome
and her citizens....
“It was as if England were to defray the expenses of her own
administration from the proceeds of a tax levied on her Indian empire.
The evil was aggravated by the way in which the taxes were collected.
This was done by contract. From time to time the taxes of each
province were put up to public auction by the Prætor or Proconsul; and
the company of contractors which outbade the rest received the
contract and farmed the taxes of the province. The members of these
companies were called _Publicani_. It is manifest that this system
offered a premium on extortion.
“The Proconsuls and Prætors exercised an authority virtually despotic.
They were Senators, and responsible to the Senate alone. It may too
surely be anticipated what degree of severity a corporation like the
Senate would exercise towards its own members in times when
communication with the provinces was uncertain and difficult, when no
one cared for the fate of foreigners, when there was no press to give
tongue to public opinion, and indeed no force of public opinion at
all. Very soon the Senatorial Proconsuls found it their interest to
support the tax-gatherers in their extortions, on condition of sharing
in the plunder. The provincial government of the republic became in
practice an organised system of oppression, calculated to enrich
fortunate Senators, and to provide them with the means of buying the
suffrages of the people, or of discharging the debts incurred in
buying them. The name of Proconsul became identified with tyranny and
greed.”
We would gladly accompany Dr Liddell farther down the stream of history,
but the stream widens as we proceed. The events increase in magnitude,
and the territory over which they extend expands before us; we have not
“ample room or verge enough” for such themes as the names of Sylla,
Pompey, Cæsar, suggest.
One subject we cannot help glancing at. The battles and conquests of
Rome led to the making of innumerable slaves; and nowhere is more
plainly illustrated the great truth, that injustice works evil—that
wrong, or the recklessness of other men’s wellbeing, will bring with it
a penalty of some kind, on some head,—for her slave-system was the curse
of Rome, and the chief cause of her ruin and downfall.
Unfortunately for any distinctness of view on this subject, the same
name slavery is applied to very different institutions, to very
different relations between man and man, to very different rights and
conduct of him who calls himself master or owner. All systems of
slave-labour are no more alike than all systems of monarchy. In some
cases the institution we call slavery is the only possible system that
could have been adopted. But amongst the Romans slavery exhibited itself
in its harshest features; here, it in part superseded and thrust aside
the labour of the free peasant: in Italy it drove the native
agriculturist from the soil, and converted cornfields which had been
cultivated by hardy yeomen, into wild pastures, where the cattle were
watched by slaves. In the city, it retarded or prevented the growth of a
free industrious middle class; even what we call liberal professions
suffered a certain social degradation from being thrown into the hands
of slaves or freedmen. The Romans were always a harsh people, and a
system which put unlimited power of life and limb into their hands, and
supplied the circus with gladiatorial combats, was not likely to improve
their humanity.
They were always a harsh and severe people; it is suspected that some
unrecorded conquest and subjugation was the origin of the distinction
between patrician and client, and that the history of the city ought
really to commence with the invasion and domination of a conquering
_caste_ or race. Be that as it may, one of the first laws we hear of is
of so severe and cruel a character—a law of debtor and creditor of so
atrocious a description—that it is almost as incredible as any of the
wildest legends of that early time. We can scarcely believe that a
people who had advanced to the making any laws at all, could have made
one in which it was provided that “the creditor might arrest the person
of his debtor, load him with chains, and feed him on bread and water for
thirty days, and then, if the money still remained unpaid, he might put
him to death, or sell him as a slave to the highest bidder; or, if there
were several creditors, they might hew his body in pieces and divide
it”—with a saving clause that, “if a man cut more or less than his due,
he should incur no penalty.”—Vol. i. p. 100. Possibly this last
provision was a mere threat, and to be sold as a beast of burden was the
heaviest penalty that a patrician creditor ever inflicted on his debtor.
It is plain, however, that when a multitude of slaves fell into the
hands of the Romans, they fell into the hands of men who were not
disposed to use their power leniently. They were men of blunt
sensibilities. One who visited a Roman senator in the time of the
Scipios might have had his ears assailed by the sharp cry of pain from a
beaten slave, and certainly the first object that would have greeted his
vision would have been a slave chained like a dog to the door—the
“hall-porter” of those days. In subsequent times the more refined Roman
could not have endured such sounds and sights in his own presence or
neighbourhood; but what went on in the “ergastula” upon his estate, he
probably never cared to inquire.
Our readers will perhaps prefer here a brief extract from Dr Liddell to
any general statements of our own. He says:—
“A few examples will show the prodigious number of slaves that must
have been thrown into the market in the career of conquest on which
the republic entered after the Hannibalic war. To punish the Bruttians
for the fidelity with which they adhered to the cause of the great
Carthaginian, the whole nation were made slaves; no less than 150,000
Epirotes were sold by Æmilius Paulus; 50,000 were sent home by Scipio
from Carthage. These numbers are accidentally preserved; and if,
according to this scale, we calculate the hosts of unhappy men sold in
slavery during the Syrian, Macedonian, Illyrian, Grecian, and Spanish
wars, we shall be prepared to hear that slaves fit only for unskilled
labour were plentiful and cheap.
“It is evident that hosts of slaves lately free men, and many of them
soldiers, must become dangerous to the owners. Nor was their treatment
such as to conciliate. They were turned out upon the hills, made
responsible for the safety of the cattle put under their charge, and
compelled to provide themselves with the common necessaries of life. A
body of these wretched men asked their master for clothing: ‘What!’ he
asked, ‘are there no travellers with clothes on?’ The atrocious hint
was soon taken: the shepherd-slaves of lower Italy became banditti,
and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous
adventure. From assailing travellers the marauders began to plunder
the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged to
desert the country, and flock into the towns. When they were not
employed upon the hills, they were shut up in large prison-like
buildings (_ergastula_), where they talked over their wrongs, and
formed schemes of vengeance.”
No wonder we hear of Sicilian slave-wars. Nor can we wonder, after this,
at the statement sometimes made, that Roman civilisation never extended
beyond the cities—that the _country_ of such provinces of Gaul and Spain
was still barbarian—that there was no civilisation or humanity _here_
for Goth or German to destroy. We cannot wonder, at all events, that
there was no patriotism to withstand their invasion. Their invasion was
a restoration of the _country_, if it was a temporary destruction of the
_town_. And even in the large towns, while the system of slavery
endured, the industrial arts, and even studious and liberal professions,
never received their due honour and due encouragement. Wealth and
military and civil appointments were the only valid or generally
recognised claims to social distinction.
We must take our leave of Dr Liddell’s book, again commending it to the
student. In a passage we quoted from the preface, the author says that
if less of positive history is laid before the reader than in some older
books, “he will, at all events, find less that he will have to unlearn.”
We venture to think that there is still a good deal set down here as
history which the student will have to unlearn. But we make no objection
to the work on this account; for every student must be solicitous to
know what is the last hypothesis of eminently learned men. There has
been an overflow, in our own times, of conjectural history. As it
chiefly concerned the dry details of civil government, and the
development of constitutional laws, the free employment of a conjectural
method was disguised: this flood, we may venture confidently to say, is
now receding.
Additions of this kind, made by one able man, will be destroyed by
another; but it does not follow on this account that there has not been
a real progress made in the study of Roman history. This progress
chiefly consists in the discrimination made in the comparative value of
the materials which have come down to us. “In the first two centuries
after the invention of printing,” says Sir G. C. Lewis, “the entire
history of Rome was in general treated as entitled to implicit belief;
all ancient authors were put upon the same footing, and regarded as
equally credible; all parts of an author’s work were, moreover, supposed
to rest upon the same basis. Not only was Livy’s authority as high as
that of Thucydides or Tacitus, but his account of the kings was
considered as credible as that of the wars with Hannibal, Philip,
Antiochus, or Perseus; and again, the lives of Romulus, Numa, or
Coriolanus by Plutarch, were deemed as veracious as those of Fabius
Maximus, Sylla, or Cicero. Machiavel, in his _Discourses on the First
Decade of Livy_, takes this view of the early history. The seven kings
of Rome are to him not less real than the twelve Cæsars; and the
examples which he derives from the early period of the Republic are not
less certain and authentic than if they had been selected from the civil
wars of Marius and Sylla, or of Cæsar and Pompey.” An instance so
striking as this of Machiavel ought to give us a double lesson, one of
modesty and one of confidence;—of modesty, because we too may be
involved in some general and prevailing error; of confidence, because
where the reason of the case is clear, no name or authority, however
great, ought to influence our convictions.