ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULAR REPUBLIC.
(From 244 to 416.)
[Sidenote: Advantage of the Republic.]
1. The kings are expelled from Rome. They disappear because their
mission is accomplished. There exists, one would say, in moral as well
as physical order, a supreme law which assigns to institutions, as to
certain beings, a fated limit, marked by the term of their utility.
Until this providential term has arrived, no opposition prevails;
conspiracies, revolts, everything fails against the irresistible force
which maintains what people seek to overthrow; but if, on the contrary,
a state of things immovable in appearance ceases to be useful to the
progress of humanity, then neither the empire of traditions, nor
courage, nor the memory of a glorious past, can retard by a day the fall
which has been decided by destiny.
Civilisation appears to have been transported from Greece into Italy to
create there an immense focus from which it might spread itself over the
whole world. From that moment the genius of force and imagination must
necessarily preside over the first times of Rome. This is what happened
under the kings, and, so long as their task was not accomplished, it
triumphed over all obstacles. In vain the senators attempted to obtain
a share in the power by each exercising it for five days;[88] in vain
men’s passions rebelled against the authority of a single chief: all was
useless, and even the murder of the kings only added strength to
royalty. But the moment once arrived when kings cease to be
indispensable, the simplest accident hurls them down. A man outrages a
woman, the throne gives way, and, in falling, it divides itself into
two: the consuls succeed to all the prerogatives of the kings.[89]
Nothing is changed in the Republic, except that instead of one chief,
elective for life, there will be henceforward two chiefs, elected for a
year. This transformation is evidently the work of the aristocracy; the
senators will possess the government, and, by these annual elections,
each hopes to take in his turn his share in the sovereign power. Such is
the narrow calculation of man and his mean motive of action. Let us see
what superior impulse he obeyed without knowing it.
That corner of land, situated on the bank of the Tiber, and predestined
to hold the empire of the world, enclosed within itself, as we see,
fruitful germs which demanded a rapid expansion. This could only be
effected by the absolute independence of the most enlightened class,
seizing for its own profit all the prerogatives of royalty. The
aristocratic government has this advantage over monarchy, that it is
more immutable in its duration, more constant in its designs, more
faithful to traditions, and that it can dare everything, because where a
great number share the responsibility, no one is individually
responsible. Rome, with its narrow limits, had no longer need of the
concentration of authority in a single hand, but it was in need of a new
order of things, which should give to the great free access to the
supreme power, and should second, by the allurement of honours, the
development of the faculties of each. The grand object was to create a
race of men of choice, who, succeeding each other with the same
principles and the same virtues, should perpetuate, from generation to
generation, the system most calculated to assure the greatness of their
country. The fall of the kingly power was thus an event favourable to
the development of Rome.
The patricians monopolised during a long time the civil, military, and
religious employments, and, these employments being for the most part
annual, there was in the Senate hardly a member who had not filled them;
so that this assembly was composed of men formed to the combats of the
Forum as well as to those of the field of battle, schooled in the
difficulties of the administration, and indeed worthy, by an experience
laboriously acquired, to preside over the destinies of the Republic.
They were not classed, as men are in our modern society, in envious and
rival specialities; the warrior was not seen there despising the
civilian, the lawyer or orator standing apart from the man of action, or
the priest isolating himself from all the others. In order to raise
himself to State dignities, and merit the suffrages of his
fellow-citizens, the patrician was constrained, from his youngest age,
to undergo the most varied trials. He was required to possess dexterity
of body, eloquence, aptness for military exercises, the knowledge of
civil and religious laws, the talent of commanding an army or directing
a fleet, of administrating the town or commanding a province; and the
obligation of these different apprenticeships not only gave a full
flight to all capacities, but it united, in the eyes of the people, upon
the magistrate invested with different dignities, the consideration
attached to each of them. During a long time, he who was honoured with
the confidence of his fellow-citizens, besides nobility of birth,
enjoyed the triple prestige given by the function of judge, priest, and
warrior.
An independence almost absolute in the exercise of command contributed
further to the development of the faculties. At the present day, our
constitutional habits have raised distrust towards power into a
principle; at Rome, trust was the principle. In our modern societies,
the depositary of any authority whatever is always under the restraint
of powerful bonds; he obeys a precise law, a minutely detailed rule, a
superior. The Roman, on the contrary, abandoned to his own sole
responsibility, felt himself free from all shackles; he commanded as
master within the sphere of his attributes. The counterpoise of this
independence was the short duration of his office, and the right, given
to every man, of accusing each magistrate at the end of it.
The preponderance of the high class, then, rested upon a legitimate
superiority, and this class, besides, knew how to work to its advantage
the popular passions. They desired liberty only for themselves, but they
knew how to make the image glitter in the eyes of the multitude, and the
name of the people was always associated with the decrees of the Senate.
Proud of having contributed to the overthrow of the power of one
individual, they took care to cherish among the masses the imaginary
fear of the return of kingly power. In their hands the _hate of tyrants_
will become a weapon to be dreaded by all who shall seek to raise
themselves above their fellows, either by threatening their privileges,
or by acquiring too much popularity by their acts of benevolence. Thus,
under the pretext, renewed incessantly, of aspiring to kingly power,
fell the consul Spurius Cassius, in 269, because he had presented the
first agrarian law; Spurius Melius, in 315, because he excited the
jealousy of the patricians by distributing wheat to the people during a
famine;[90] in 369, Manlius, the saviour of Rome, because he had
expended his fortune in relieving insolvent debtors.[91] Thus will fall
victims to the same accusation the reformer Tiberius Sempronius
Gracchus, and lastly, at a later period, the great Cæsar himself.
But if the pretended fear of the return of the ancient _régime_ was a
powerful means of government in the hands of the patricians, the real
fear of seeing their privileges attacked by the plebeians restrained
them within the bounds of moderation and justice.
In fact, if the numerous class, excluded from all office, had not
interfered by their clamours to set limits to the privileges of the
nobility, and thus compelled it to render itself worthy of power by its
virtues, and re-invigorated it, in some sort, by the infusion of new
blood, corruption and arbitrary spirit would, some ages earlier, have
dragged it to its ruin. A caste which is not renewed by foreign elements
is condemned to disappear; and absolute power, whether it belongs to one
man or to a class of individuals, finishes always by being equally
dangerous to him who exercises it. This concurrence of the plebeians
excited in the Republic a fortunate emulation which produced great men,
for, as Machiavelli says:[92] “The fear of losing gives birth in men’s
hearts to the same passions as the desire of acquiring.” Although the
aristocracy had long defended with obstinacy its privileges, it made
opportunely useful concessions. Skilful in repairing incessantly its
defeats, it took again, under another form, what it had been constrained
to abandon, losing often some of its attributes, but preserving its
prestige always untouched.
Thus, the characteristic fact of the Roman institutions was to form men
apt for all functions. As long as on a narrow theatre the ruling class
had the wisdom to limit its ambition to promoting the veritable
interests of their country, as the seduction of riches and unbounded
power did not come to exalt it beyond measure, the aristocratic system
maintained itself with all its advantages, and overruled the instability
of institutions. It alone, indeed, was capable of supporting long,
without succumbing, a _régime_ in which the direction of the State and
the command of the armies passed annually into different hands, and
depended upon elections the element of which is ever fickle. Besides,
the laws gave rise to antagonisms more calculated to cause anarchy than
to consolidate true liberty. Let us examine, in these last relations,
the constitution of the Republic.
[Sidenote: Institutions of the Republic.]
II. The two consuls were originally generals, judges, and
administrators; equal in powers, they were often in disagreement, either
in the Forum,[93] or on the field of battle.[94] Their dissensions were
repeated many times until the consulate of Cæsar and Bibulus; and they
were liable to become the more dangerous as the decision of one consul
was annulled by the opposition of his colleague. On the other hand, the
short duration of their magistracy constrained them either to hurry a
battle in order to rob their successor of the glory,[95] or to interrupt
a campaign in order to proceed to Rome to hold the comitia. The defeats
of the Trebia and Cannæ, with that of Servilius Cæpio by the Cimbri,[96]
were fatal examples of the want of unity in the direction of war.
In order to lessen the evil effects of a simultaneous exercise of their
prerogatives, the consuls agreed to take in campaign the command
alternately day by day, and at Rome each to have the fasces during a
month; but this innovation had also vexatious consequences.[97] It was
even thought necessary, nine years after the fall of the kings, to have
recourse to the dictatorship; and this absolute authority, limited to
six months, that is, to the longest duration of a campaign, only
remedied temporarily, and under extraordinary circumstances, the want of
power concentrated in a single individual.
This dualism and instability of the supreme authority were not,
therefore, an element of strength; the unity and fixity of direction
necessary among a people always at war had disappeared; but the evil
would have been more serious if the conformity of interests and views of
individuals belonging to the same caste had not been there to lessen it.
The man was worth more than the institutions which had formed him.
The creation of tribunes of the people, whose part became subsequently
so important, was, in 260, a new cause of discord; the plebeians, who
composed the greater part of the army, claimed to have their military
chiefs for magistrates;[98] the authority of the tribunes was at first
limited: we may convince ourselves of this by the following terms of the
law which established the office:[99]--
“Nobody shall constrain a tribune of the people, like a man of the
commonalty, to do anything against his will; it shall not be permitted
either to strike him, or to cause him to be maltreated by another, or to
slay him or cause him to be slain.”[100]
We may judge by this the degree of inferiority to which the plebeians
were reduced. The veto of the tribunes could nevertheless put a stop to
the proposal of a law, prevent the decisions of the consuls and Senate,
arrest the levies of troops, prorogue the convocation of the comitia,
and hinder the election of magistrates.[101] From the year 297, their
number was raised to ten, that is, two for each of the five classes
specially subject to the recruitment;[102] but the plebeians profited
little by this measure; the more the number of tribunes was augmented,
the easier it became for the aristocracy to find among them an
instrument for its designs. Gradually their influence increased; in 298,
they laid claim to the right of convoking the Senate, and yet it was
still a long time before they formed part of that body.[103]
As to the comitia, the people had there only a feeble influence. In the
assemblies by centuries, the vote of the first classes, composed of the
richest citizens, as we have seen, prevailed over all the others; in
the comitia by curiæ, the patricians were absolute masters; and when,
towards the end of the third century, the plebeians obtained the comitia
by tribes,[104] this concession did not add sensibly to their
prerogatives. It was confined to the power of assembling in the public
places where, divided according to tribes, they placed their votes in
urns for the election of their tribunes and ediles, previously elected
by the centuries;[105] their decisions concerned themselves only, and
entailed no obligations on the patricians; so that the same town then
offered the spectacle of two cities each having its own magistrates and
laws.[106] At first the patricians would not form part of the assembly
by tribes, but they soon saw the advantage of it, and, towards 305,
entered it with their clients.[107]
[Sidenote: Transformation of the Aristocracy.]
III. This political organisation, the reflex of a society composed of so
many different elements, could hardly have constituted a durable order
of things, if the ascendency of a privileged class had not controlled
the causes of dissensions. This ascendency itself would soon have
diminished if concessions, forced or voluntary, had not gradually
lowered the barriers between the two orders.
In fact, the arbitrary conduct of the consuls, who were, perhaps,
originally nominated by the Senate alone,[108] excited sharp
recriminations: “the consular authority,” cried the plebeians, “was, in
reality, almost as heavy as that of the kings. Instead of one master
they had two, invested with absolute and unlimited power, without rule
or bridle, who turned against the people all the threats of the laws,
and all their punishments.”[109] Although after the year 283 the
patricians and plebeians were subjected to the same judges,[110] the
want of fixed laws left the goods and lives of the citizens delivered
to the will either of the consuls or of the tribunes. It became,
therefore, indispensable to establish the legislation on a solid basis,
and in 303 ten magistrates called _decemvirs_ were chosen, invested with
the double power, consular and tribunitian, which gave them the right of
convoking equally the assemblies by centuries and by tribes. They were
charged with the compilation of a code of laws afterwards known as the
_Laws of the Twelve Tables_, which, engraved on brass, became the
foundation of the Roman public law. Yet they persisted in making illegal
the union contracted between persons of the two orders, and left the
debtor at the mercy of the creditor, contrary to the decision of Servius
Tullius.
The decemvirs abused their power, and, on their fall, the claims of the
plebeians increased; the tribuneship, abolished during three years, was
re-established; it was decided that an appeal to the people from the
decision of any magistrate should be permitted, and that the laws made
in the assemblies by tribes, as well as in the assemblies by centuries,
should be obligatory on all.[111] There were thus, then, three sorts of
comitia; the comitia by curiæ, which, conferring the _imperium_ on the
magistrates elected by the centuries, sanctioned in some sort the
election of the consuls;[112] the comitia by centuries, over which the
consuls presided; and the comitia by tribes, over which the tribunes
presided; the first named the consuls, the second the plebeian
magistrates, and both, composed of nearly the same citizens, had equally
the power of approving or rejecting the laws; but in the former, the
richest men and the nobility had all the influence, because they formed
the majority of the centuries and voted first; while in the latter, on
the contrary, the voters were confounded with that of the tribe to which
they belonged. “If,” says an ancient author, “the suffrages are taken by
_gentes_ (_ex generibus hominum_), the comitia are by _curiæ_; if
according to age and census, they are by _centuries_; finally, if the
vote be given according to territorial circumscription (_regionibus_),
they are by _tribes_.”[113] In spite of these concessions, antagonism in
matters of law reigned always between the powers, the assemblies, and
the different classes of society.
The plebeians laid claim to all the offices of state, and especially to
the consulship, refusing to enrol themselves until their demands had
been satisfied; and they went so far in their claims that they insisted
upon the plebeian origin of the kings. “Shall we, then,” cried the
tribune Canuleius, addressing himself to the people, “have consuls who
resemble the decemvirs, the vilest of mortals, all patricians, rather
than the best of our kings, all new men!” that is, men without
ancestors.[114]
The Senate resisted, because it had no intention of conferring upon
plebeians the right which formed an attribute of the consuls, for the
convocation of the comitia, of taking the great auspices, a privilege
altogether of a religious character, the exclusive apanage of the
nobility.[115]
In order to obviate this difficulty, the Senate, after suppressing the
legal obstacles in the way of marriages between the two orders, agreed
in 309 to the creation of six military tribunes invested with the
consular power; but, which was an essential point, it was the interrex
who convoked the comitia and took the auspices.[116] During
seventy-seven years the military tribunes were elected alternately with
the consuls, and the consulship was only re-established permanently in
387, when it was opened to the plebeians. This was the result of one of
the laws of Licinius Stolo. This tribune succeeded in obtaining the
adoption of several measures which appeared to open a new era which
would put an end to disputes. Still the patricians held with such
tenacity to the privilege of alone taking the auspices, that in 398, in
the absence of the patrician consul, an interrex was appointed charged
with presiding over the comitia, in order not to leave this care to the
dictator, and the other consul, who were both plebeians.[117]
But in permitting the popular class to arrive at the consulship, care
had been taken to withdraw from that dignity a great part of its
attributes, in order to confer them upon patrician magistrates. Thus
they had successively taken away from the consuls, by the creation of
two questors, in 307, the administration of the military chest;[118] by
the creation of the censors, in 311, the right of drawing up the list of
the census, the assessment of the revenue of the State, and of watching
over public morals; by the creation of the prætors, in 387, the
sovereign jurisdiction in civil affairs, under the pretext that the
nobility alone possessed the knowledge of the law of the Quirites; and
lastly, by the creation of the curule ediles, the presidency of the
games, the superintendence of buildings, the police and the provisioning
of the town, the maintenance of the public roads, and the inspection of
the markets.
The intention of the aristocracy had been to limit the compulsory
concessions; but after the adoption of the Licinian laws, it was no
longer possible to prevent the principle of the admission of plebeians
to all the magistracies. In 386 they had arrived at the important charge
of master of the knights (_magister equitum_) who was in a manner the
lieutenant of the dictator (_magister populi_);[119] in 387 access to
the religious functions had been laid open to them;[120] in 345 they
obtained the questorship; in 398, the dictatorship itself; in 403, the
censorship; and lastly, in 417, the prætorship.
In 391, the people arrogated the right of appointing a part of the
legionary tribunes, previously chosen by the consuls.[121]
In 415, the law of Q. Publilius Philo took from the Senate the power of
refusing the _auctoritas_ to the laws voted by the comitia, and obliged
it to declare in advance if the proposed law were in conformity with
public and religious law. Further, the obligation imposed by this law of
having always one censor taken from among the plebeians, opened the
doors of the Senate to the richest of them, since it was the business of
the censor to fix the rank of the citizens, and pronounce on the
admission or exclusion of the senators. The Publilian law thus tended to
raise the aristocracy of the two orders to the same rank, and to create
the nobility (_nobilitas_), composed of all the families rendered
illustrious by the offices they had filled.
[Sidenote: Elements of Dissolution.]
IV. At the beginning of the fifth century of Rome, the bringing nearer
together of the two orders had given a greater consistence to society;
but, just as we have seen under the kingly rule, the principles begin to
show themselves which were one day to make the greatness of Rome, so now
we see the first appearance of dangers which will be renewed
unceasingly. Electoral corruption, the law of perduellio, slavery, the
increase of the poor class, the agrarian laws, and the question of
debts, will come, under different circumstances, to threaten the
existence of the Republic. Let us summarily state that these questions,
so grave in the sequel, were raised at an early date.
ELECTORAL CORRUPTION.--Fraud found its way into the elections as soon as
the number of electors increased and rendered it necessary to collect
more suffrages to obtain public charges; as early as 396, indeed, a law
on solicitation, proposed by the tribune of the people, C. Pœtelius,
bears witness to the existence of electoral corruption.
LAW OF HIGH-TREASON.--As early as 305 and 369, the application of the
law of perduellio, or design against the Republic, furnished to
arbitrary power an arm of which, at a later period, under the emperors,
so deplorable a use was made under the name of the law of
high-treason.[122]
SLAVERY.--Slavery presented serious dangers for society, for, on the one
hand, it tended, by the lower price of manual labour, to substitute
itself for the labour of free men; while, on the other, discontented
with their lot, the slaves were always ready to shake off the yoke and
become the auxiliaries of all who were ambitious. In 253, 294, and 336,
partial insurrections announced the condition already to be feared of a
class disinherited of all the advantages, though intimately bound up
with all the wants, of ordinary life.[123] The number of slaves
increased rapidly. They replaced the free men torn by the continual
wars from the cultivation of the land. At a later period, when these
latter returned to their homes, the Senate was obliged to support them
by sending as far as Sicily to seek wheat to deliver to them either
gratis or at a reduced price.[124]
AGRARIAN LAWS.--As to the Agrarian laws and the question of debts, they
soon became an incessant cause of agitation.
The kings, with the conquered lands, had formed a domain of the State
(_ager publicus_), one of its principal resources,[125] and generously
distributed part of it to the poor citizens.[126] Generally, they took
from the conquered peoples two-thirds of their land.[127] Of these
two-thirds, “the cultivated part,” says Appian, “was always adjudged to
the new colonists, either as a gratuitous grant, or by sale, or by lease
paying rent. As to the uncultivated part, which, as a consequence of
war, was almost always the most considerable, it was not the custom to
distribute it, but the enjoyment of it was left to any one willing to
clear and cultivate it, with a reservation to the State of the tenth
part of the harvest and a fifth part of the fruits. A similar tax was
levied upon those who bred cattle, large or small (in order to prevent
the pasture land from increasing in extent to the detriment of the
arable land). This was done in view of the increase of the Italic
population, which was judged at Rome the most laborious, and to have
allies of their own race. But the measure produced a result contrary to
that which was expected from it. The rich appropriated to themselves the
greatest part of the undistributed lands, and reckoning that the long
duration of their occupation would permit nobody to expel them, they
bought when they found a seller, or took by force from their
neighbouring lesser proprietors their modest heritages, and thus formed
vast domains, instead of the mere fields which they had themselves
cultivated before.”[128]
The kings had always sought to put a curb on these usurpations,[129] and
perhaps it was a similar attempt which cost Servius Tullius his life.
But after the fall of the kingly power, the patricians, having become
more powerful, determined to preserve the lands which they had unjustly
seized.[130]
And it must be acknowledged, as they supported the greatest share of the
burthen of war and taxation, they had a better claim than the others to
the conquered lands; they thought, moreover, that the colonies were
sufficient to support an agricultural population, and they acted rather
as State farmers than as proprietors of the soil. According to the
public law, indeed, the _ager publicus_ was inalienable, and we read in
an ancient author:--“Lawyers deny that the soil which has once begun to
belong to the Roman people, can ever, by usage or possession, become
the property of anybody else in the world.”[131]
In spite of this principle, it would have been wisdom to give, to the
poor citizens who had fought, a part of the spoils of the vanquished;
for the demands were incessant, and after 268, renewed almost yearly by
the tribunes or by the consuls themselves. In 275, a patrician, Fabius
Cæso, taking the initiative in a partition of lands recently conquered,
exclaimed: “Is it not just that the territories taken from the enemy
should become the property of those who have paid for it with their
sweat and with their blood?”[132] The Senate was as inflexible for this
proposition as for those which were brought forward by Q. Considius and
T. Genucius in 278, by Cn. Genucius in 280, and by the tribunes of the
people, with the support of the consuls Valerius and Æmilius, in
284.[133]
Yet, after fifty years of struggles since the expulsion of the Tarquins,
the tribune Icilius, in 298, obtained the partition of the lands of
Mount Aventine, by indemnifying those who had usurped a certain portion
of them.[134] The application of the law Icilia to other parts of the
_ager publicus_[135] was vainly solicited in 298 and the following
years; but in 330, a new tax was imposed upon the possessors of the
lands for the pay of the troops. The perseverance of the tribunes was
unwearied, and, during the thirty-six years following, six different
propositions were unsuccessful, even that relating to the territory of
the Bolani, newly taken from the enemy.[136] In 361 only, a senatus
consultus granted to each father of a family and to each free man seven
acres of the territory which had just been conquered from the Veii.[137]
In 371, after a resistance of five years, the Senate, in order to secure
the concurrence of the people in the war against the Volsci, agreed to
the partition of the territory of the Pomptinum (the Pontine Marshes),
taken from that people by Camillus, and already given up to the
encroachments of the aristocracy.[138] But these partial concessions
were not enough to satisfy the plebeians or to repair past injustices;
in the Licinian law the claims of the people, which had been resisted
during a hundred and thirty-six years, triumphed;[139] it did not
entirely deprive the nobles of the enjoyment of the lands unjustly
usurped, but it limited the possession of them to five hundred _jugera_.
When this repartition was made, the land which remained was to be
distributed among the poor. The proprietors were obliged to maintain on
their lands a certain number of free men, in order to augment the class
from which the legions were recruited; lastly, the number of cattle on
each domain was fixed, in order to restrain the culture of the meadows,
in general the most lucrative, and augment that of the arable lands,
which relieved Italy from the necessity of having recourse to foreign
corn.
This law of Licinius Stolo secured happy results; it restrained the
encroachments of the rich and great, but only proceeded with moderation
in its retrospective effects; it put a stop to the alarming extension of
the private domains at the expense of the public domain, to the
absorption of the good of the many by the few, to the depopulation of
Italy, and consequently to the diminution of the strength of the
armies.[140]
The numerous condemnations for trespasses against the law Licinia prove
that it was carried into execution, and for the space of two hundred
years it contributed, with the establishment of new colonies,[141] to
maintain this class of agriculturists--the principal sinews of the
State. We see indeed that, from this moment, the Senate itself took the
initiative of new distributions of land to the people.[142]
DEBTS.--The question of debts and the diminution of the rate of interest
had long been the subject of strong prejudices and of passionate
debates.
As the citizens made war at their own expense, the less rich, while they
were under arms, could not take care of their fields or farms, but
borrowed money to provide for their wants and for those of their
families. The debt had, in this case, a noble origin, the service of
their country.[143] Public opinion must, therefore, be favourable to the
debtors and hostile to those who, speculating on the pecuniary
difficulties of the defenders of the State, extorted heavy interest for
the money they lent. The patricians also took advantage of their
position and their knowledge of legal forms to exact heavy sums from the
plebeians whose causes they defended.[144]
The kings, listening to the demands of the citizens who were overwhelmed
with debts, often showed their readiness to help them;[145] but, after
their expulsion, the rich classes, more independent, became more
untractable, and men, ruined on account of their military service, were
sold publicly, as slaves,[146] by their creditors. Thus, when war was
imminent, the poor often refused to serve,[147] crying out, “What use
will it be to us to conquer the enemies without, if our creditors put us
in bonds for the debts we have contracted? What advantage shall we have
in strengthening the empire of Rome, if we cannot preserve our personal
liberty?”[148] Yet the patricians, who contributed more than the others
to the costs of the war, demanded of their debtors, not without reason,
the payment of the money they had advanced; and hence arose perpetual
dissensions.[149]
In 305, the laws of the Twelve Tables decided that the rate of interest
should be reduced to ten per cent. a year; but a law of Licinius Stolo
alone resolved, in an equitable manner, this grave question. It enacted
that the interests previously paid should be deducted from the
principal, and that the principal should be repaid by equal portions
during an interval of three years. This measure was advantageous to all,
for, in the state of insolvency in which the debtors were involved, the
creditors could not obtain the interest of their money, and even risked
the loss of the principal; the new law guaranteed the debts; the debtors
in their turn, having become landed proprietors, found the means of
freeing themselves by means of the lands they had received and the delay
which had been given them. The agreement established in 387 was of
slight duration, and in the midst of disagreements more or less violent,
things were carried so far, in 412, that the entire abolition of debts
and the prohibition to exact any interest were decreed mere
revolutionary and transitory measures.
[Sidenote: Résumé.]
V. This rapid sketch of the evils already perceptible which tormented
Roman society leads us to this reflection: it is the lot of all
governments, whatever be their form, to contain within themselves germs
of life, which make their strength, and germs of dissolution, which must
some day lead to their ruin; and accordingly, as the Republic was in
progress or in decline, the first or the second became developed and
dominant in turn; that is, so long as the aristocracy preserved its
virtues and its patriotism, the elements of prosperity predominated; but
no sooner did it begin to degenerate, than the causes of disturbance
gained the upper hand, and shook the edifice which had been erected so
laboriously.
If the fall of the kingly power, in giving more vitality and
independence to the aristocracy, rendered the constitution of the State
more solid and durable, the democracy had at first no reason for
congratulation. Two hundred years passed away before the plebeians could
obtain, not equality of political rights, but even a share in the _ager
publicus_ and an act of lenity in favour of debtors, overwhelmed with
liabilities through incessant wars. About the same length of time was
required by the Republic to re-conquer the supremacy over the
neighbouring peoples which she had exercised under the last kings,[150]
so many years a country requires to recover from the shocks and
enfeebling influence of even the most legitimate revolutions.
Yet Roman society had been vigorously enough constituted to resist at
the same time external attacks and internal troubles. Neither the
invasions of Porsenna, nor those of the Gauls, nor the conspiracies of
the neighbouring peoples, were able to compromise its existence. Already
eminent men, such as Valerius Publicola, A. Postumius, Coriolanus,
Spurius Cassius, Cincinnatus, and Camillus, had distinguished themselves
as legislators and warriors, and Rome could put on foot ten legions, or
forty-five thousand men. At home, important advantages had been
obtained, and notable concessions had been made to effect a
reconciliation between the two orders; written laws had been adopted,
and the attributes of the different magistracies had been better
defined, but the constitution of society remained the same. The facility
granted to the plebeians of arriving at all the State employments only
increased the strength of the aristocracy, which recovered its vigour of
youth without modifying itself, diminished the number of its
adversaries, and increased that of its adherents. The rich and important
plebeian families soon began to mingle with the ancient patrician
families, to share their ideas, their interests, and even their
prejudices; and a learned German historian remarks with justice that
after the abolition of the kingly power there was, perhaps, a greater
number of plebeians in the Senate, but that personal merit, without
birth and fortune, experienced greater difficulty than ever in reaching
preferment.[151]
It is not indeed sufficient, for the application of the state of
society, to study thoroughly its laws, but we must also take into
consideration the influence exercised by the manners of the people. The
laws proclaimed equality and liberty, but the manners left the honours
and preponderance to the upper class. The admission to place was no
longer forbidden to the plebeians, but the election almost always kept
them from it. During fifty-nine years, two hundred and sixty-four
military tribunes replaced the consuls, and of this number only eighteen
were plebeians; although these latter might be candidates for the
consulship, the choice fell generally upon patricians.[152] Marriage
between the two orders had been long placed on a footing of equality,
and yet, in 456, the prejudices of caste were far from being destroyed,
as we learn from the history of the patrician Virginia, married to the
plebeian Volumnius, whom the matrons drove away from the temple of
_Pudicitia patricia_.[153]
The laws protected liberty, but they were rarely executed, as is shown
by the continual renewal of the same regulations. Thus it had been
decided in 305 that the plebiscita should have the force of law, yet in
spite of that it was found necessary to re-enact the same regulation by
the laws Hortensia, in 466, and Mænia, in 468. This last sanctioned also
anew the law Publilia of 415. It was the same with the law of Valerius
Publicola (of the year 246), which authorised an appeal to the people
from the judgments of the magistrates. It appears to have been restored
to vigour by Valerius and Horatius in 305, and again by Valerius Corvus
in 454. And, on this occasion, the great Roman historian exclaims, “I
can only explain this frequent renewal of the same law by supposing that
the power of some of the great ones always succeeded in triumphing over
the liberty of the people.”[154] The right of admission to the Senate
was acknowledged in principle, yet no one could enter it without having
obtained a decree of the censor, or exercised a curule
magistracy--favours almost always reserved to the aristocracy. The law
which required a plebeian among the censors remained almost always in
abeyance, and, to become censor, it was generally necessary to have been
consul.
All offices ought to be annual, and yet the tribunes, as well as the
consuls, obtained their re-election several times at short intervals--as
in the instance of Licinius Stolo, re-elected tribune during nine
consecutive years; of Sulpicius Peticus, five times consul (from 390 to
403); of Popilius Lænas and Marcius Rutilus, both four times, the first
from 395 to 406, the second from 397 to 412. The law of 412 came in vain
to require an interval of ten years before becoming again a candidate
for the same magistracy. Several personages were none the less
re-elected before the time required, such as Valerius Corvus, six times
consul (from 406 to 455), and consecutively during the last three years;
and Papirius Cursor, five times (from 421 to 441).
The lives of the citizens were protected by the laws, but public opinion
remained powerless at the assassination of those who had incurred the
hatred of the Senate; and, in spite of the law of the consul Valerius
Publicola, the violent death of the tribune Genucius, or of the rich
plebeian Spurius Melius, was a subject of applause.
The comitia were free, but the Senate had at its disposal either the
veto of the tribunes or the religious scruples of the people. A consul
could prevent the meeting of these assemblies, or cut short all their
deliberations, either by declaring that he was observing the sky, or
that a clap of thunder or some other celestial manifestation had
occurred;[155] and it depended upon the declaration of the augurs to
annul the elections. Moreover, the people in reality were satisfied with
naming the persons on whom they wished to confer the magisterial
offices, for, to enter upon their functions, the consuls and the
prætors had to submit their powers to the sanction of the curiæ (_lex
curiata de imperio_).[156] It was thus in the power of the nobility to
reverse the elections which displeased them, a fact which Cicero
explains in the following terms, while presenting this measure in a
light favourable to the people: “Your ancestors required the suffrages
twice for all magistracies, for, when a curiate law was proposed in
favour of the patrician magistrates, they voted in reality a second time
for the same persons, so that the people, if they repented of their
choice, had the power of abandoning it.”[157]
The dictatorship was also a lever left in the hands of the nobility to
overthrow oppositions and influence the comitia. The dictator was never
elected, but appointed by a consul.[158] In the space of only twenty-six
years, from 390 to 416, there were eighteen dictators.
The Senate remained, therefore, all powerful in spite of the victory of
the plebeians, for, independently of the means placed at its disposal,
it was in its power to elude the plebiscita, the execution of which was
entrusted to it. If the influence of a predominant class sobered the use
of political liberty, the laws presented a still greater curb on
individual liberty. Thus, not only all the members of the family were
subjected to the absolute authority of the head, but each citizen was
obliged further to obey a multitude of rigorous obligations.[159] The
censor watched over the purity of marriages, the education of children,
the treatment of slaves and clients, and the cultivation of the
lands.[160] “The Romans did not believe,” says Plutarch, “that each
individual ought to be allowed the liberty to marry, to have children,
to choose his walk in life, to give festivities, or even to follow his
desires and tastes, without undergoing a previous inspection and
judgment.”[161]
The condition of Rome then bore a great resemblance to that of England
before its electoral reform. For several centuries, the English
Constitution was vaunted as the palladium of liberty, although then, as
at Rome, birth and fortune were the unique source of honours and power.
In both countries the aristocracy, master of the elections by
solicitation, money, or _rotten boroughs_, caused, as the patricians at
Rome, the members of the nobility to be elected to parliament, and no
one was citizen in either of the two countries without the possession of
wealth. Nevertheless, if the people, in England, had no part in the
direction of affairs, they boasted justly, before 1789, a liberty which
shone brightly in the middle of the silentious atmosphere of the
Continental states. The disinterested observer does not examine if the
scene where grave political questions are discussed is more or less
vast, or if the actors are more or less numerous: he is only struck by
the grandeur of the spectacle. Thus, far be from us the intention of
blaming the nobility, any more in Rome than in England, for having
preserved its preponderance by all the means which laws and habits
placed at its disposal. The power was destined to remain with the
patricians as long as they showed themselves worthy of it; and, it
cannot but be acknowledged, without their perseverance in the same
policy, without that elevation of views, without that severe and
inflexible virtue, the distinguishing character of the aristocracy, the
work of Roman civilisation would not have been accomplished.
At the beginning of the fifth century, the Republic, consolidated, is
going to gather the fruit of the many efforts it has sustained. More
united henceforward, in the interior, the Romans will turn all their
energy towards the conquest of Italy, but it will require nearly a
century to realise it. Always stimulated by their institutions, always
restrained by an intelligent aristocracy, they will furnish the
astonishing example of a people preserving, in the name of liberty and
in the midst of agitation, the immobility of a system which will render
them masters of the world.