The condition of the Republic must have appeared thus to his

comprehensive grasp of thought:--The Roman dominion, stretched, like

some vast figure, across the world, clasps it in her sinewy arms; and

whilst her limbs are full of life and strength, the heart is wasting by

decay. Unless some heroic remedy be applied, the contagion will soon

spread from the centre to the extremities, and the mission of Rome will

remain unfinished!--Compare with the present the prosperous days of the

Republic. Recollect the time when envoys from foreign nations, doing

homage to the policy of the Senate, declared openly that they preferred

the protecting sovereignty of Rome to independence itself. Since that

period, what a change has taken place! All nations execrate the power of

Rome, and yet that power preserves them from still greater evils. Cicero

is right, “Let Asia think well of it: there is not one of the woes that

are bred of war and civil strife, that she would not experience did she

cease to live under our laws.”[1083] And this advice may be applied to

all the countries whither the legions have penetrated. If, then, fate

has willed that the nations are to be subject to the sway of a single

people, it is the duty of that people, as charged with the execution of

the eternal decrees, to be, towards the vanquished, as just and

equitable as the Divinity, since he is as inexorable as destiny. How are

we to fix a limit to the arbitrary conduct of proconsuls and proprætors,

which all the laws promulgated for so many years have been powerless to

check? How put a stop to the exactions committed at all points of the

empire, if a firmer and stronger direction do not emanate from the

central power?--The Republic pursues an irregular system of

encroachment, which will exhaust its resources; it is impossible for her

to fight against all nations at once, and at the same time to maintain

her allies in their allegiance, if, by unjust treatment, they are driven

to revolt. The enemies of the Republic must be diminished in number by

restoring their freedom to the cities which are worthy of it,[1084] and

acknowledging as friends of the Roman people those nations with whom

there is a chance of living in peace.[1085] Our most dangerous enemies

are the Gauls, and it is against this turbulent and warlike nation that

all the strength of the State ought to be directed.--In Italy, and under

this name Cisalpine Gaul must be included, how many citizens are

deprived of political rights! At Rome, how many of the proletaries are

living on the charity either of the rich or of the State! Why should we

not extend the Roman commune as far as the Alps, and why not augment the

race of labourers and soldiers by making them landowners? The Roman

people must be raised in its own eyes, and the Republic in the eyes of

the world!--Absolute liberty of speech and of vote was a great benefit,

when, modified by morality, and restrained by a powerful aristocracy, it

gave scope to individual faculties without damaging the general

well-being; but, ever since the morality of ancient days disappeared

with the aristocracy, we have seen the laws become weapons of war for

the use of parties, the elections a traffic, the forum a battle-field;

while liberty is nothing more than a never-ending cause of weakness and

decay.--Our institutions cause such uncertainty in our councils, and

such independence in our offices of State, that we search in vain for

that spirit of order and control which are indispensable elements in the

maintenance of so vast an empire. Without overthrowing institutions

which have given five centuries of glory to the Republic, it is

possible, by a close union of the most worthy citizens, to establish in

the State a moral authority, which governs the passions, tempers the

laws, gives a greater stability to power, directs the elections,

maintains the representatives of the Roman people in their duty, and

frees us from the two most serious dangers of the present: the

selfishness of the nobles and the turbulence of the mob. This is what

they may realise by their union; their disunion, on the contrary, will

only encourage the fatal conduct of these men who are endangering the

future equally, some by their opposition, the others by their headlong

violence.

These considerations must have been easily understood by Pompey and

Crassus, who had themselves been actors in such great events, witnesses

of so much blood shed in civil wars, of so many noble ideas, triumphing

at one moment and overthrown the next. They accepted Cæsar’s proposal,

and thus was concluded an alliance which is wrongly termed the First

Triumvirate.[1086] As for Cicero, Cæsar tried to persuade him to join

the compact which had just been formed, but he refused to become one of

what he termed a party of friends.[1087] Always uncertain in his

conduct, always divided between his admiration for those who held the

sovereign power, and his engagements with the oligarchy, and uneasy for

the future which his foresight could not penetrate, he set his mind to

work to prevent the success of every measure which he approved as soon

as it had succeeded. The alliance which these three persons ratified by

their oaths,[1088] remained long a secret; and it was only during

Cæsar’s consulship that it became matter of public notoriety from the

unanimity they displayed in all their political resolutions. Cæsar,

then, set energetically to work to unite in his own favour every chance

that could render his election certain.

[Sidenote: Cæsar’s Election.]

IV. Among the candidates was L. Lucceius. Cæsar was desirous of

attaching to his cause this person, who was distinguished alike by his

writings and his character,[1089] and who, possessed of vast wealth, had

promised to make abundant use of it for their common profit, in order to

command the majority of votes in the centuries. “The aristocratic

faction,” says Suetonius, “on learning this arrangement, was seized with

fear. They thought that there was nothing which Cæsar would not attempt

in the exercise of the sovereign magistracy, if he had a colleague who

agreed with him, and who would support all his designs.”[1090] The

nobles, unable to eject him, resolved to give him Bibulus for a

colleague, who had already been his colleague in the edileship and the

prætorship, and had constantly shown himself his opponent. They all made

a pecuniary contribution to influence the elections; Bibulus spent large

sums,[1091] and the incorruptible Cato himself, who had solemnly sworn

to impeach any one who should be guilty of bribery, contributed his

quota, owning that for the interest of the State his principles must for

once yield.[1092] Neither was Cicero more inflexible: some time before,

he expressed to Atticus the necessity of purchasing the concurrence of

the equestrian order.[1093] We can see how even the most honourable were

swept along, by the force of events, in the current of a corrupt

society.

By the force of public opinion, and by the support of the two men of

greatest influence, Cæsar was elected consul unanimously, and conducted,

according to custom, from the Campus Martius to his own house by an

enthusiastic crowd of his fellow-citizens, and a vast number of

senators.[1094]

If the party opposed to Cæsar had been unable to stand in the way of his

becoming consul, it did not despair of preventing his playing the

important part he had a right to expect as proconsul. To effect this,

the Senate determined to evade the law of Caius Gracchus, which, to

prevent the assignment of provinces from personal considerations,

provided that it should take place before the comitia were held. The

assembly, therefore, departing from the rule, assigned to Cæsar and his

colleague, by an act of flagrant ill-will, the supervision of the public

roads and forests; an office somewhat similar, it is true, to that of

governor of a province.[1095] This humiliating appointment, proof as it

was of a persevering hostility, wounded him deeply; but the duties of

his new office imposed silence upon his resentments. Cæsar the consul

would forget the wrongs done to Cæsar the man, and generously attempt a

policy of conciliation.

CHAPTER V.

CONSULSHIP OF CÆSAR AND BIBULUS.

(695.)

[Sidenote: Attempts at Conciliation.]

I. Cæsar has arrived at the first magistracy of the Republic. Consul

with Bibulus at the age of forty-one, he has not yet acquired the just

celebrity of Pompey, nor does he enjoy the treasures of Crassus, and yet

his influence is perhaps greater than that of those two personages.

Political influence, indeed, does not depend solely on military

successes or on the possession of immense riches; it is acquired

especially by a conduct always in accord with fixed convictions. Cæsar

alone represents a principle. From the age of eighteen, he has faced the

anger of Sylla and the hostility of the aristocracy, in order to plead

unceasingly the grievances of the oppressed and the rights of the

provinces.

So long as he is not in power, being exempt from responsibility, he

walks invariably in the way he has traced, listens to no compromise,

pursues unsparingly the adherents of the opposite party, and maintains

his opinions energetically, at the risk of wounding his adversaries;

but, once consul, he lays aside all resentment, and makes a loyal appeal

to all who will rally round him; he declares to the Senate that he will

not act without its concurrence, that he will propose nothing contrary

to its prerogatives.[1096] He offers his colleague Bibulus a generous

reconciliation, conjuring him, in the presence of the senators, to put a

term to differences of opinion, the effects of which, already so much to

be regretted during their common edileship and prætorship, would become

fatal in their new position.[1097] He makes advances to Cicero, and,

after sending Cornelius Balbus to him in his villa of Antium to assure

him that he is ready to follow his counsels and those of Pompey, offers

to take him as an associate in his labours.[1098]

Cæsar must have believed that these offers of co-operation would be

embraced. In face of the perils of a society deeply agitated, he

supposed that others had the same sentiments which animated himself.

Love of the public good, and the consciousness of having entirely

devoted himself to it, gave him that confidence without reserve in the

patriotism of others which admits neither mean rivalries nor the

calculations of selfishness: he was deceived. The Senate showed nothing

but prejudices, Bibulus, but rancours, Cicero, but a false pride.

It was essential for Cæsar to unite Pompey, who was wanting in firmness

of character, more closely with his destinies; he gave him in marriage

his daughter Julia, a young woman of twenty-three years of age, richly

endowed with graces and intelligence, who had already been affianced to

Servilius Cæpio. To compensate the latter, Pompey promised him his own

daughter, though she also was engaged to another, to Faustus, the son of

Sylla. Soon afterwards Cæsar espoused Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius

Piso.[1099] Cato protested energetically against these marriages, which

he qualified as disgraceful traffics with the common weal.[1100] The

nobles, and especially the two Curios, made themselves the echoes of

this reprobation. Their party, nevertheless, did not neglect to

strengthen themselves by such alliances. Doubtless, when Cato gave his

daughter to Bibulus, it was for a political motive; and when he ceded

his own wife to Hortensius,[1101] although the mother of three children,

to take her back again when enriched by the death of her last husband,

there was also an interest hardly honourable, which Cæsar subsequently

unveiled in a book entitled _Anti-Cato_.[1102]

The first care of the new consul was to establish the practice of

publishing daily the acts of the Senate and those of the people, in

order that public opinion might bear with all its weight upon the

resolutions of the conscript fathers, whose deliberations had previously

been often secret.[1103] The initiative taken by Cæsar from the

commencement of his consulship, in questioning the senators on the

projects of laws, is an evidence that he had the fasces before Bibulus.

We know, in fact, that the consuls enjoyed this honour alternately for a

month, and it was in the period when they were invested with the signs

distinctive of power that they were permitted to ask the advice of the

senators.[1104]

[Sidenote: Agrarian Laws.]

II. He proposed next, in the month of January, an agrarian law founded

upon wise principles, and which respected all legitimate rights. The

following were its principal provisions:--

Partition of all the free part of the _ager publicus_, except that of

Campania and that of Volaterræ; the first excepted originally on account

of its great fertility,[1105] and the second guaranteed to all those who

had got it into their possession.[1106]--In case of insufficiency of

territory, new acquisitions, by means either of money coming from

Pompey’s conquests, or from the overplus of the public

revenues.--Prohibition of all appropriation by force.--The nomination of

twenty commissioners to preside at the distribution of the lands, with

exclusion of the author of the proposal.--Estimate of private lands for

sale, made according to the declaration at the last census, and not

according to the valuation of the commissioners.--Obligation upon each

senator to swear obedience to the law, and to engage never to propose

anything contrary to it.

It was, as may be seen, the project of Rullus, relieved from the

inconveniences pointed out with so much eloquence by Cicero. In fact,

instead of ten commissioners, Cæsar proposed twenty, in order to

distribute among a greater number a power of which men feared the abuse.

He himself, to avoid all suspicion of personal interest, excluded

himself from the possibility of forming part of it. The commissioners

were not, as in the law of Rullus, authorised to act according to their

will, and tax the properties arbitrarily. Acquired rights were

respected; those territories only were distributed of which the State

had still the full disposal. The sums arising from Pompey’s conquests

were to be employed in favour of the old soldiers; and Cæsar said

himself that it was just to give the profit of that money to those who

had gained it at the peril of their lives.[1107] As to the obligation of

the oath imposed upon the senators, it was not an innovation, but an

established custom. In the present case, the law having been voted

before the elections, all the candidates, and especially the tribunes of

the following year, had to take the engagement to observe it.[1108]

“Nobody,” says Dio Cassius,[1109] “had reason for complaint on this

subject. The population of Rome, the excessive increase of which had

been the principal aliment of seditions, was called to labour and a

country life; the greater part of the countries of Italy, which had lost

their inhabitants, were re-peopled. This law insured means of existence

not only to those who had supported the fatigues of the war, but also to

all the other citizens, without causing expenditure to the State or

loss to the nobles; on the contrary, it gave to several honours and

power.”

Thus, while some historians accuse Cæsar of seeking in the populace of

Rome the point of support for his ambitious designs, he, on the

contrary, obtains a measure, the effect of which is to transport the

turbulent part of the inhabitants of the capital into the country.

Cæsar, then, read his project to the Senate; after which, calling the

senators by their names, one after the other, he asked the opinion of

each, declaring his readiness to modify the law, or withdraw it

altogether, if it were not agreeable to them. But, according to Dio

Cassius, “It was unassailable, and, if any disapproved of it, none dared

to oppose it; what afflicted its opponents most was, that it was drawn

up in such a manner as to leave no room for a complaint.”[1110] So the

opposition was limited to adjourning from time to time, under frivolous

pretexts. Cato, without making a direct opposition, alleged the

necessity of changing nothing in the constitution of the Republic, and

declared himself the adversary of all kind of innovation; but, when the

moment came for voting, he had recourse again to his old tactics, and

rendered all deliberation impossible by speaking the entire day, by

which he had already succeeded in depriving Cæsar of the triumph.[1111]

The latter lost patience, and sent the obstinate orator to prison; Cato

was followed by a great number of senators, and M. Petreius, one of

them, replied to the consul, who reproached him for withdrawing before

the meeting was closed: “I would rather be in prison with Cato than here

with thee.” Regretting, however, this first movement of anger, and

struck by the attitude of the assembly, Cæsar immediately restored Cato

to liberty; then he dismissed the Senate, addressing them in the

following words: “I had made you supreme judges and arbiters of this

law, in order that, if any one of its provisions displeased you, it

should not be referred to the people; but, since you have refused the

previous deliberation, the people alone shall decide it.”

His attempt at conciliation having failed with the Senate, he renewed it

towards his colleague, and, in the assembly of the tribes, adjured

Bibulus to support his proposal. On their side, the people joined their

entreaties with those of Cæsar; but Bibulus, inflexible, merely said:

“You will not prevail with me, though you were all of one voice; and, as

long as I shall be consul, I will suffer no innovation.”[1112]

Then Cæsar, judging other influences necessary, appealed to Pompey and

Crassus. Pompey seized happily this opportunity for speaking to the

people: he said that he not only approved the agrarian law, but that the

senators themselves had formerly admitted the principle, in decreeing,

on his return from Spain, a distribution of lands to his soldiers and to

those of Metellus; if this measure had been deferred, it was on account

of the penury of the treasury, which, thanks to him, had now ceased.

Then, replying to Cæsar, who asked him if he would support the law in

case it were opposed by violence, “If any one dared to draw his sword,”

he cried, “I would take even my buckler;” meaning by that, that he would

come into the public place armed as for the combat. This bold

declaration of Pompey, supported by Crassus and Cæpio,[1113] silenced

all opposition except that of Bibulus, who, with three tribunes his

partisans, called an assembly of the Senate in his own house, where it

was resolved that at all risk the law should be openly rejected.[1114]

The day of meeting of the comitia having been fixed, the populace

occupied the Forum during the night. Bibulus hurried with his friends to

the temple of Castor, where his colleague was addressing the multitude;

he tried in vain to obtain a hearing, was thrown down from the top of

the steps, and obliged to fly, after seeing his fasces broken to pieces

and two tribunes wounded. Cato, in his turn, tried to mount the rostra;

expelled by force, he returned, but, instead of treating of the

question, seeing that nobody listened to him, he attacked Cæsar with

bitterness, until he was dragged a second time from the tribune. Calm

being restored, the law was adopted. Next day Bibulus tried to propose

to the Senate its abrogation; but nobody supported him, such was the

effect of this burst of popular enthusiasm;[1115] from this moment he

took the part of shutting himself up at home during the residue of

Cæsar’s consulship. When the latter presented a new law on the days of

the comitia, he contented himself with protesting, and with sending by

his lictors to say that he was observing the sky, and that consequently

all deliberation was illegal.[1116] This was to proclaim loudly the

political aim of this formality.

Cæsar was far from yielding to this religious scruple, which, indeed,

had lost its authority. At this very time Lucullus wrote a bold poem

against the popular credulity, and for some time the observation of the

auspices had been regarded as a puerile superstition; two centuries and

a half before, a great captain had given a remarkable proof of this.

Hannibal, then a refugee at the court of King Prusias, engaged the

latter to accept his plans of campaign against the Romans; the king

refused, because the auspices had not been favourable. “What!” cried

Hannibal, “have you more confidence in a miserable calf’s liver than in

the experience of an old general like me?”[1117]

Be this as it may, the obligation not to hold the comitia while the

magistrate was observing the sky was a law; and to excuse himself for

not having observed it, as well as to prevent his acts from being

declared null, Cæsar, before quitting his office, brought the question

before the Senate, and thus obtained a legal ratification of his

conduct.

The law being adopted by the people, each senator was called to take his

oath to observe it. Several members, and, among others, Q. Metellus

Celer, M. Cato, and M. Favonius,[1118] had declared that they would

never submit to it; but when the day of taking the oath arrived, their

protests vanished before the fear of the punishment decreed against

those who abstained, and, except Laterensis, everybody, even Cato, took

the oath.[1119]

Irritated at the obstacles which he had encountered, and sure of the

approval of the people, Cæsar included, by a new law, in the

distribution of the public domain, the lands of Campania and of Stella,

omitted before out of deference to the Senate.[1120]

In carrying the law into effect, Pompey’s veterans received lands at

Casilinum, in Campania;[1121] at Minturnæ, Lanuvium, Volturnum, and

Aufidena, in Samnium; and at Bovianum; Clibæ, and Veii, in

Etruria;[1122] twenty thousand fathers of families having more than

three children were established in Campania, so that about a hundred

thousand persons became husbandmen, and re-peopled with free men a great

portion of the territory, while Rome was relieved from a populace which

was inconvenient and debased. Capua became a Roman colony, which was a

restoration of the democratic work of Marius, destroyed by Sylla.[1123]

It appears that the _ager_ of Leontinum, in Sicily, was also comprised

in the agrarian law.[1124] The nomination of the twenty commissioners,

chosen among the most commendable of the consulars, was next proceeded

with.[1125] Of the number were C. Cosconius and Atius Balbus, the

husband of Cæsar’s sister. Clodius could not obtain admission among

them,[1126] and Cicero, after the death of Cosconius, refused to take

his place.[1127] The latter, in his letters to Atticus, blames

especially the distribution of the territory of Capua, as depriving the

Republic of an important revenue; and inquires what will remain to the

State, unless it be the twentieth on the enfranchisement of slaves,

since the rights of toll had already been abandoned through the whole of

Italy; but it was objected with reason that, on the other hand, the

State was relieved from the enormous charges imposed by the necessity of

distributing wheat to all the poor of Rome.

Nevertheless, the allotment of the _ager Campanus_ and of the _ager_ of

Stella met with many delays; it was not yet terminated in 703, since at

that epoch Pompey was advised to hasten the distribution of the

last-mentioned lands, in order that Cæsar, on his return from Gaul,

might not have the merit of it.[1128]

[Sidenote: Cæsar’s various Laws.]

III. We have seen how, in previous years, Cato was instrumental in

refusing the request of those who farmed the taxes of Asia to have the

terms of their leases lowered. By this rigorous measure, the Senate had

estranged from itself the equestrian order, whose complaints had been

far from unreasonable. In fact, the price paid for the farming of the

revenues of Asia had been heavy during the war against Mithridates, as

may be learnt from the speech of Cicero against the Manilian Law; and

the remission of a portion of the money due to the State was a measure

not without some show of justice to excuse it. Cæsar, when he became

consul, influenced by a sense of justice no less than by policy, lost no

time in proposing a law to remit to the farmers of the revenue one-third

of the sums for which they were responsible.[1129] He first addressed

himself to the Senate; but that body having refused to deliberate on the

question, he found himself compelled to submit it to the people,[1130]

who adopted his opinion. This liberality, so far beyond what they had

hoped for, filled the farmers of the revenue with joy, and rendered them

devoted to the man who showed himself so generous: he advised them,

however, publicly, to be more careful in future, and not overbid in an

inconsiderate manner at the time of the sale of the taxes.[1131]

The agrarian law, and the law concerning the rents, having satisfied the

interests of the proletaries, the veterans, and the knights, it became

important to settle the just demands of Pompey. Therefore Cæsar obtained

from the people their approbation of all the acts of the conqueror of

Mithridates.[1132] Lucullus had been till then one of the most earnest

adversaries of this measure. He could not forget the glory of which

Pompey had frustrated him; but his dread of a prosecution for peculation

was so great, that he fell at Cæsar’s feet, and forswore all

opposition.[1133]

The activity of the consul did not confine itself to internal reforms;

it extended to questions which were raised abroad. The condition of

Egypt was precarious: King Ptolemy Auletes, natural son of Ptolemy

Lathyrus, was afraid lest, in virtue of a forged will of Ptolemy

Alexander, or Alexas, to whose fall he had contributed, his kingdom

might be incorporated with the Roman Empire.[1134] Auletes, perceiving

his authority shaken in Alexandria, had sought the support of Pompey

during the war in Judæa, and had sent him presents, and a large sum of

money, to engage him to maintain his cause before the Senate.[1135]

Pompey had offered himself as his advocate; and Cæsar, whether from

policy, or from a wish to please his son-in-law, caused Ptolemy Auletes

to be declared a friend and ally of Rome.[1136] At his demand, the same

favour was granted to Ariovistus, king of the Germans, who, after having

made war upon the Ædui, had withdrawn from their country at the

invitation of the Senate, and had expressed a desire to become an ally

of Rome. It was entirely the interest of the Republic to conciliate the

Germans, and send them to the other bank of the Rhine, whatever might be

the views of the consul regarding his future command in Gaul.[1137]

Next, he conferred some privileges on certain municipia and satisfied

many ambitions; “for,” says Suetonius, “he granted everything that was

asked of him: no man dared oppose him, and, if any one attempted, he

knew how to intimidate him.”[1138]

Among the cares of the consul was the nomination of tribunes devoted to

him, since it was they generally who proposed the laws for the people to

ratify.

Clodius, on account of his popularity, was one of the candidates who

could be most useful to him; but his rank of patrician obliged him to

pass by adoption into a plebeian family before he could be elected, and

that he could only do in virtue of a law. Cæsar hesitated in bringing it

forward; for if, on the one hand, he sought to conciliate Clodius

himself, on the other, he knew his designs of vengeance against Cicero,

and was unwilling to put into his hands an authority which he might

abuse. But when, towards the month of March, at the trial of C.

Antonius, charged with disgraceful conduct in Macedonia, Cicero, in

defending his former colleague, indulged in a violent attack upon those

in power, on that same day Clodius was received into the ranks of the

plebeians,[1139] and soon afterwards became, together with Vatinius,

tribune-elect.[1140] There was a third tribune, whose name is unknown,

but who was equally won over to the interests of the consul.[1141]

Thus Cæsar, as even Cicero admits, was alone more powerful already than

the Republic.[1142] Of some he was the hope; of others, the terror; of

all, master irrevocably. The inactivity of Bibulus had only served to

increase his power.[1143] Thus it was said in Rome, as a jest, that men

knew of no other consulship than that of Julius and Caius Cæsar, making

two persons out of a single name; and the following verses were handed

about:--

“Non Bibulo quidquam nuper sed Cæsare factum est:

Nam Bibulo fieri consule nil memini.”[1144]

And as popular favour, when it declares itself in favour of a man in a

conspicuous position, sees something marvellous in everything that

concerns his person, the populace drew a favourable augury from the

existence of an extraordinary horse born in his stables. Its hoofs were

forked, and shaped like fingers. Cæsar was the only man who could tame

this strange animal, the docility of which, it was said, foreboded to

him the empire of the world.[1145]

During his first consulship, Cæsar caused a number of laws to be passed,

the greater part of which have not descended to us. Some valuable

fragments, however, of the most important ones have been preserved, and

among others, the modifications in the sacerdotal privileges. The

tribune Labienus, as we have seen, in order to secure Cæsar’s election

to the office of pontiff, had granted the right of election to seventeen

tribes selected by lot. Although this law seemed to authorise absentees

to become candidates for the priesthood, the people and the priests

disputed the right of those who did not solicit the dignity in person.

Endless quarrels and disturbances were the result. To put an end to

these, Cæsar, while confirming the law of Labienus, announced that not

only those candidates who appeared in person, but those at a distance

also, who had any title whatever to that honour, might offer themselves

as candidates.[1146]

He turned his attention next to the provinces, whose condition had

always excited his sympathy. The law intended to reform the vices of the

administration (_De provinciis ordinandis_) is of uncertain date; it

bears the same title as that of Sylla, and resembles it considerably.

Its provisions guaranteed the inhabitants against the violence, the

arbitrary conduct, and the corruption of the proconsuls and proprætors,

and fixed the allotments to which these were entitled.[1147]

It released the free states, _liberæ civitates_, from dependence upon

governors, and authorised them to govern themselves by their own laws

and their own magistrates.[1148] Cicero himself considered this measure

as the guarantee of the liberty of the provinces;[1149] for, in his

speech against Piso, he reproaches him with having violated it by

including free nations in his government of Macedonia.[1150] Lastly, a

separate proviso regulated the responsibility and expenses of the

administration, by requiring that on going out of office the governors

should deliver, at the end of thirty days, an account explaining their

administration and their expenses, of which three copies were to be

deposited, one in the treasury (_ærarium_) at Rome, and the others in

the two principal towns of the province.[1151] The proprætors were to

remain one year, and the proconsuls two, at the head of their

governments.[1152]

The generals were in the habit of burdening the people they governed

with exorbitant exactions. They extorted from them crowns of gold

(_aurum coronarium_), of considerable value, under pretence of the

triumph, and obliged the countries through which they passed to bear the

expenses of themselves and their attendants. Cæsar remedied these

abuses, by forbidding the proconsuls to demand the crown before the

triumph had been decreed,[1153] and by subjecting to the most rigorous

restrictions the contributions in kind which were to be furnished.[1154]

We may judge how necessary these regulations were from the fact that

Cicero, whose government was justly considered an honest one, admits

that he drew large sums from his province of Cilicia eight years after

the passing of the law Julia.[1155]

The same law forbad all governors to leave their provinces, or to send

their troops out of them to interfere in the affairs of any neighbouring

State, without permission of the Senate and the people,[1156] or to

extort any money from the inhabitants of the provinces.[1157]

The law by similar provisions diminished the abuse of free legations

(_legationes liberæ_). This was the name given to the missions of

senators, who, travelling into the provinces on their own affairs,

obtained by an abuse the title of envoy of the Roman people, to which

they had no right, in order to be defrayed the expenses and costs of

travelling. These missions, which were for an indefinite time, were the

subject of incessant[1158] complaints. Cicero had limited them to a

year: Cæsar prescribed a still narrower limit, but its exact length is

unknown.[1159]

As a supplement to the preceding measures he brought in a law (_De

pecuniis repetundis_), the provisions of which have often been

confounded with those of the law _De provinciis ordinandis_. Cicero

boasts of its perfection[1160] and justice. It contained a great number

of sections. In a letter from Cœlius to Cicero, the 101st chapter of

the law is referred to. Its object was to meet all cases of peculation,

out of Italy as well as in Rome. Persons who had been wronged could

demand restitution before a legal tribunal of the sums unjustly

collected.[1161] Though the principal provisions of it were borrowed

from the law of Sylla on the same subject, the penalty was more severe

and the proceedings more expeditious. For instance, as the rich

contrived, by going into voluntary exile before the verdict, to elude

the punishment, it was provided that in that case their goods should be

confiscated, in part or wholly, according to the nature of the

crime.[1162] If the fortune of the defendant was not sufficient for the

repayment of the money claimed, all those who had profited by the

embezzlement were sought out and jointly condemned.[1163] Finally,

corruption was attacked in all its forms,[1164] and the law went so far

as to watch over the honesty of business transactions. One article

deserves special remark, that which forbad a public work to be accepted

as completed if it were not absolutely finished. Cæsar had doubtless in

mind the process which he had unsuccessfully instituted against Catulus

for his failure to complete the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

We may for the most part consider as Cæsar’s laws those which were

passed at his instigation, whether by the tribune P. Vatinius, or the

prætor Q. Fufius Calenus.[1165]

One of the laws of the former authorised the accuser in a suit, as well

as the accused, to challenge for once all the judges: down to this time

they had only been permitted to challenge a certain number.[1166] Its

object was to give to all the same guarantee which Sylla had reserved

exclusively to the senators, since for the knights and plebeians he

limited the challenge to three.[1167] Vatinius had also conferred on

five thousand colonists, established at Como (_Novum Comum_), the rights

of a Roman city. This measure[1168] flattered the pride of Pompey, whose

father, Pompeius Strabo, had rebuilt the town of Comum; and it offered

to other colonists the hope of obtaining the qualification of Roman

citizens, which Cæsar subsequently granted to them.[1169]

Another devoted partisan of the consul, the prætor Q. Fufius

Calenus,[1170] proposed a law which in judicial deliberations laid the

responsibility upon each of the three orders of which the tribunal was

composed: the senators, the knights, and the tribunes of the treasury.

Instead of pronouncing a collective judgment, they were called upon to

express their opinion separately. Dio Cassius explains the law in these

terms: “Seeing that in a process all the votes were mixed together, and

that each order took to itself the credit of the good decisions, and

threw the bad ones to the account of the others, Calenus had a law made

that the different orders should vote independently, in order to know

thus, not the opinion of individuals, since the vote was secret, but

that of each order.”[1171]

All the laws of Cæsar were styled “Julian laws;” they received the

sanction of the Senate, and were adopted without opposition,[1172] and

even Cato himself did not oppose them; but when he became prætor, and

found himself obliged to put them into execution, he was little-minded

enough to object to call them by their name.[1173]

We may be convinced by the above facts, that, during his first

consulship, Cæsar was animated by a single motive, the public interest.

His ruling thought was to remedy the evils which afflicted the country.

His acts, which several historians have impeached as subversive and

inspired by boundless ambition, we find, on an attentive examination, to

be the result of a wise policy, and the carrying out of a well-known

plan, proclaimed formerly by the Gracchi, and recently by Pompey

himself. Like the Gracchi, Cæsar desired a distribution of the public

domain, the reform of justice, the relief of the provinces, and the

extension of the rights of city; like them, he had protected the

knightly order, so that he might oppose it to the formidable resistance

of the Senate; but he, more fortunate, accomplished that which the

Gracchi had been unable to realise. Plutarch, in the life of

Crassus,[1174] pronounces a eulogium on the wisdom of his government,

although an intemperate judgment had led that writer, elsewhere, to

compare his conduct to that of a factious tribune.[1175]

Following the taste of the age, and especially as a means of popularity,

Cæsar gave splendid games, shows, and gladiatorial combats, borrowing

from Pompey and Atticus considerable sums to meet his love of display,

his profusion, and his largesses.[1176] Suetonius, ever ready to record,

without distinction, the reports, true and false, current at the time,

relates that Cæsar had taken from the treasury three thousand pounds of

gold, for which he substituted gilt metal; but his high character is

sufficient to refute this calumny. Cicero, who had not, at this time,

any reason to spare him, makes no mention of it in his letters, where

his ill-humour displays itself, nor in his speech against Vatinius, one

of Cæsar’s devoted friends. On the other hand, Pliny[1177] mentions a

similar fact which happened during Pompey’s consulate.

[Sidenote: Cæsar receives the Government of the Gauls.]

IV. Cæsar did not confine his ambition to discharging the functions of a

consul and legislator: he desired to obtain a command worthy of the

elevation of his genius, to extend the frontiers of the Republic, and to

preserve them from the invasion of their most powerful enemies. It will

be remembered that at the time of the election of the consuls, the

Senate had conferred upon them the superintendence of the woods and

public roads. He had, therefore, slender grounds to expect a return of

friendly feeling on the part of that assembly, and, if the distribution

of governments was vested in them, history offered examples of provinces

given by vote of the people. Numidia was assigned to Marius on the

proposal of the tribune L. Manlius; and L. Lucullus, having received

Cisalpine Gaul from the Senate, obtained Cilicia from the people.[1178]

It was thus that the command of Asia had been conferred upon Pompey.

Strong in these precedents, Vatinius proposed to the people to confer

upon Cæsar, for five years, the command of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria,

with three legions.[1179] Pompey supported this proposal with all his

influence. The friends of Crassus,[1180] Claudius[1181] and L. Piso,

gave their votes in favour of this law.

At first, it appeared strange that the proposal of the tribune only

included Cisalpine Gaul, without reference to the other side of the

Alps, which alone offered chances of acquiring glory. But, on

reflection, we discover how skilful and politic was this manner of

putting the question. To solicit at the same time the government of both

the Gauls might have seemed exorbitant, and likely to expose him to

failure. To demand the government of Gaul proper was dangerous, for if

he had obtained it without Cisalpine Gaul, which would have devolved

upon another proconsul, Cæsar would have found himself completely

separated from Italy, inasmuch as it would have been impossible for him

to repair thither during the winter, and so preserve continuous

relations with Rome. The proposal of Vatinius, on the contrary, having

for its object only Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria, they could scarcely

refuse a command limited to the ordinary bounds, and Cæsar acquired

thereby a solid basis for operations in the midst of devoted

populations, where his legions could be easily recruited. As to the

province beyond the Alps, it was probable that some fortuitous

circumstance, or new proposal, would place it under his orders. This

happened sooner than he expected, for the Senate, by a skilful, but at

this time unusual, determination, added to his command a third province,

Gallia Comata, or Transalpine, and a fourth legion. The Senate thus

obtained for itself the credit of an initiative, which the people would

have taken of itself had it not been anticipated.[1182]

Transported with joy at this news, Cæsar, according to Suetonius,

exclaimed in the full Senate, that now, having succeeded to the utmost

of his desire in spite of his enemies, he would march over their

heads.[1183] This story is not probable. He was too prudent to provoke

his enemies in their face at the moment he was going to a distance from

Rome. “Always master of himself,” says an old writer, “he never

needlessly ran against anybody.”[1184]

[Sidenote: Opposition of the Patricians.]

V. Whilst, contending with the most serious difficulties, Cæsar

endeavoured to establish the Republic on the securest foundations, the

aristocratic party consoled itself for its successive defeats by a petty

war of sarcasm and chicanery. At the theatre they applauded all the

injurious allusions of Pompey, and received Cæsar with coldness.[1185]

Bibulus, the son-in-law of Cato, published libels containing the

grossest attacks. He renewed the accusation of plotting against the

Republic, and of the pretended shameful relations with Nicomedes.[1186]

People rushed to read and copy these insulting placards. Cicero gladly

sent them to Atticus.[1187] The party, too, to which Bibulus belonged,

extolled him to the skies, and made him a great man.[1188] His

opposition, however, had only succeeded in postponing the consular

comitia until the month of October. This prorogation was made in the

hope of preventing the election of consuls friendly to the triumvirs.

Cæsar, on this occasion, attacked him in a violent speech, and Vatinius

proposed to arrest him. Pompey, on his part, moved by invectives to

which he was unaccustomed, complained to the people of the animosity of

which he was the object; but his speech does not appear to have been

attended with much success.

It is sad to see the accomplishment of great things often thwarted by

the little passions of short-sighted men, who only know the world in the

small circle to which their life is confined. By seconding Cæsar,

Bibulus might have obtained an honourable reputation. He preferred being

the hero of a coterie, and sought to obtain the interested applause of a

few selfish senators, rather than, with his colleague, to merit public

gratitude. Cicero, on his part, mistook for a true expression of opinion

the clamours of a desperate faction. He was, moreover, one of those who

find that all fares well while they are themselves in power, and that

everything is endangered when they are out. In his letters to Atticus he

speaks of the general hatred to these new kings, predicts their

approaching fall, and exclaims,[1189] “What murmurs! what irritation!

what hatred against our friend Pompey! His name of _great_ is growing

old like that of _rich_ Crassus.”[1190]

He explains, with a perfect naïveté, the consolation which his self-love

finds in the abasement of him who was formerly the object of his

admiration. “I was tormented with fear that the services which Pompey

rendered to our country should hereafter appear greater than mine. I

have quite recovered from it. He is so low, so very low, that Curius

himself appears to me a giant beside him.”[1191] And he adds, “Now there

is nothing more popular than to hate the popular men; they have no one

on their side. They know it, and it is this which makes me fear a resort

to violence. I cannot think without shuddering of the explosions which

are inevitable.”[1192] The hatred which he bore to Clodius and Valerius

misled his judgment.

Whilst Cæsar laboriously pursued the course of his destiny, the genius

of Cicero, instead of understanding the future and hastening progress by

his co-operation, resisted the general impulse, denied its evidence, and

could not perceive the greatness of the cause through the faults of

certain adherents to power.

Cæsar bore uneasily the attacks of Cicero; but, like all who are guided

by great political views, superior to resentment, he conciliated

everything which might exercise an ascendency over people’s minds; and

the eloquence of Cicero was a power. Dio Cassius thus explains the

conduct of Cæsar: “He did not wound Cicero either by his words or his

acts. He said that often many men designedly throw vain sarcasm against

those who are above them in order to drive them to dispute, in the hope

of appearing to have some resemblance to them, and be put in the same

rank if they succeed in being abused in return. Cæsar therefore judged

that he ought not to enter the lists with anybody. Such was his rule of

conduct towards those who insulted him, and, as he saw very well that

Cicero sought less to offend him than to provoke him to make some

injurious reply, from the desire which he had to be looked upon as his

equal, he took no notice of him, made no account of what he said, and

even allowed Cicero to insult him as he liked, and to praise himself

beyond measure. However, he was far from despising him, but, naturally

gentle, his anger was not easily aroused. He had much to punish, as must

be the case with one mixed up with great affairs, but he never yielded

to passion.”[1193]

An incident occurred which showed all the animosity of a certain party.

L. Vettius, an old spy of Cicero’s in the Catiline conspiracy, punished

for having falsely accused Cæsar, was arrested on suspicion of wishing

to attempt his life, as well as that of Pompey. A poniard was found upon

him; and, being interrogated before the Senate, he denounced, as the

instigators of his crime, the young Curio, Cæpio, Brutus, Lentulus,

Cato, Lucullus, Piso, son-in-law of Cicero, Cicero himself, M.

Laterensis, and others. He also named Bibulus, which removed all air of

probability from his accusations, Bibulus having already warned Pompey

to be on his guard.[1194] Historians, such as Dio Cassius, Appian, and

Plutarch, treat this plot seriously; the first maintains expressly that

Cicero and Lucullus had armed the hand of the assassin. Suetonius, on

the contrary, reproaches Cæsar with having suborned Vettius in order to

throw the blame upon his adversaries.

In face of these contradictory informations, it is best, as in the case

of an ordinary lawsuit, to estimate the worth of the charge according to

the previous character of the accused. Now, Cicero, notwithstanding his

instability, was too honest to have a hand in a plot for assassination,

and Cæsar had too elevated a character and too great a consciousness of

his power to lower himself so far as to seek, in a miserable intrigue,

the means of augmenting his influence. A _senatus-consultum_ caused

Vettius to be thrown into prison; but Cæsar, interested in, and resolved

on, the discovery of the truth, referred the matter to the people, and

forced Vettius to mount the tribune of the orators. He, with a

suspicious versatility, denounced those whom he had before acquitted,

and cleared those whom he had denounced, and among others, Brutus. With

regard to the latter, it was pretended that this change was due to

Cæsar’s connection with his mother. Vettius was remanded to prison, and

found dead next day. Cicero accused Vatinius of killing him;[1195] but,

according to others, the true authors of his death were those who had

urged him into this disgraceful intrigue, and were in fear of his

revelations.[1196]

The comparison of these various accounts leads us to conclude that this

obscure agent of dark intrigues had made himself the instigator of a

plot, in order to have the merit of revealing it, and to attract the

favour of Cæsar by pointing to his political adversaries as accomplices.

Nevertheless, the event turned to the profit of Cæsar, and the people

permitted him to take measures for his personal safety.[1197] It was

doubtless at this period that the ancient custom was re-established of

allowing a consul, during the month when he had not the fasces, the

right of being preceded by a beadle (_accensus_) and followed by

lictors.[1198]

Without changing the fundamental laws of the Republic, Cæsar had

obtained a great result: he had replaced anarchy by an energetic power,

ruling at the same time the Senate and the comitia; by the mutual

understanding between the three most important men, he had substituted

for personal rivalries a moral authority which enabled him to establish

laws conducive to the prosperity of the empire. But it was essential

that his departure should not entail the fall of the edifice so

laboriously raised. He was not ignorant of the number and power of his

enemies; he knew that if he abandoned to them the forum and the curia,

not only would they reverse his enactments, but they would even deprive

him of his command. If there was any doubt of the degree of hatred of

which he was the object, it would be sufficient to be reminded, that a

year afterwards Ariovistus confessed to him, in an interview on the

banks of the Rhine, that many of the important nobles of Rome had

designs against his life.[1199] Against such animosities he had the

task, no easy one, of directing the elections. The Roman constitution

caused new candidates to spring up every year for honours; and it was

indispensable to have partisans amongst the two consuls, the eight

prætors, and the ten tribunes named in the comitia. At all epochs, even

at the time when the aristocracy exercised the greatest influence, it

could not prevent its opponents from introducing themselves into the

public offices. Moreover, the three who had made common cause had reason

to fear the ambition and ingratitude of the men whom they had raised,

and who would soon seek to become their equals. There was still a last

danger, and perhaps the most serious: it was the impatience and want of

discipline of the democratic party, of which they were the chiefs.

In face of these dangers, the triumvirs agreed to cause L. Piso, the

father-in-law of Cæsar, and A. Gabinius, the devoted partisan of Pompey,

to be elected to the consulship the following year. They were, in fact,

designated consuls on the 18th of October, in spite of the efforts of

the nobles and the accusation of Cato against Gabinius.

At the end of the year 695, Cæsar and Bibulus ceased their functions.

The latter, in reporting his conduct according to custom, endeavoured to

paint in the blackest colours the state of the Republic; but Clodius

prevented him from speaking.[1200] As for Cæsar, his presentiment of the

attacks to which he was to be subjected was only too well founded; for

he had hardly quitted office, when the prætor L. Domitius Ahenobarbus,

and C. Memmius, friends of Cicero,[1201] proposed to the Senate to

prosecute him for the acts committed during his consulate, and

especially for not having paid attention to the omens. From this

proposal the Senate recoiled.[1202] Still, they brought Cæsar’s questor

to trial. He himself was cited by the tribune L. Antistius. But the

whole college refused to entertain the charge, in virtue of the law

Memmia, which forbad an accusation to be entertained against a citizen

while absent on the public service.[1203]

Cæsar found himself once more at the gates of Rome, invested with the

_imperium_, and, according to Cicero’s letters,[1204] at the head of

numerous troops, composed apparently of veteran volunteers.[1205] He

even remained there more than two months, in order to watch that his

departure should not become the signal for the overthrow of his work.

[Sidenote: Law of Clodius. Exile of Cicero.]

VI. During this time, Clodius, a restless and turbulent spirit,[1206]

proud of the support which he had lent the triumvirs, as well as of

that he had received from them, listened only to his passion, and caused

laws to be enacted, some of which, flattering the populace and even the

slaves, menaced the State with anarchy. In virtue of these laws, he

re-established political associations (_collegia_), clubs dangerous to

public tranquillity,[1207] which Sylla had dissolved, but which were

subsequently reorganised to be again suppressed in 690;[1208] he made

gratuitous distributions of wheat to the people; took from the censors

the right of excluding from the Senate anybody they wished, allowing

them only to reject those who were under condemnation;[1209] forbad the

magistrates taking omens, or observing the sky on the day of the

deliberation of the comitia;[1210] and, lastly, he inflicted severe

penalties on those who had condemned Roman citizens to death unheard.

This last enactment was evidently directed against Cicero, although his

name was not mentioned in it. In order to ensure its adoption, its

author desired the acquiescence of Cæsar, who was detained at the gates

of Rome by the military command, which forbad him to enter. Clodius then

convoked the people outside the walls, and when he asked the proconsul

his opinion, the latter replied that it was well known by his vote in

the affair of the accomplices of Catiline; that, nevertheless, he

disapproved of a law which pronounced penalties upon facts which

belonged to the past.[1211]

On this occasion the Senate went into mourning, in order to exhibit its

discontent to all eyes; but the consuls Gabinius and Piso obliged the

Senate to relinquish this ill-timed demonstration.

Cæsar, in order to defend Cicero from the danger which threatened him,

offered to take him with him to Gaul as his lieutenant.[1212] Cicero

rejected the offer, deceiving himself through his confidence in his own

influence,[1213] and reckoning, moreover, on the protection of Pompey.

It appears positive from this that Clodius exceeded Cæsar’s views, a new

proof that such instruments when employed are two-edged swords, which

even the most skilful hands find it difficult to direct. It is thus that

later, Vatinius, aspiring to become prætor, received from his old patron

this strong warning: “Vatinius has done nothing gratuitously during his

tribuneship; he who only looks for money ought to dispense with

honours.”[1214] In fact, Cæsar, whose efforts to re-establish the

popular institutions had never slackened, desired neither anarchy nor

democratic laws; and just as he had not approved of the proposal of

Manilius for the emancipation of the freedmen, so he opposed the

reorganisation of the corporations, the gratuitous distributions of

wheat, and the projects of vengeance entertained by Clodius, who,

however, continually boasted of his support.

Crassus, on his part, desiring to be useful to Cicero without

compromising himself,[1215] engaged his son to go to his aid. As for

Pompey, wavering between fear and friendship, he devised a pretext not

to receive Cicero when he came to seek his support. Deprived of this

last resource, the great orator abandoned his delusions, and after some

show of resistance voluntarily withdrew. Scarcely had he quitted Rome

when the law against him was passed without opposition, with the

concurrence of those whom Cicero had looked upon as his friends.[1216]

His goods were confiscated, his house razed, and he was exiled to a

distance of four hundred miles.

Cæsar had skilfully taken precautions that his influence should be felt

at Rome during his absence, as much as the instability of the magistracy

would permit. By the aid of his daughter Julia, whose charms and mental

accomplishments captivated her husband, Cæsar retained his influence

over Pompey. By his favours to the son of Crassus, a young man of great

merit, who was appointed his lieutenant, he assured himself of his

father. Cicero is removed, but soon Cæsar will consent to his return,

and will conciliate him again by taking into his favour his brother

Quintus. There remains the opposition of Cato. Clodius undertakes to

remove him under the pretence of an honourable mission: he is sent to

Cyprus to dethrone King Ptolemy, whose irregularities excited the hatred

of his subjects.[1217] Finally, all the men of importance who had any

chance of obtaining employment are gained to the cause of Cæsar; some

even engage themselves to him by writing.[1218] He can thus proceed to

his province; Destiny is about to open a new path; immortal glory awaits

him beyond the Alps, and this glory, reflected upon Rome, will change

the face of the world.

[Sidenote: The Explanation of Cæsar’s Conduct.]

VII. We have shown Cæsar obeying only his political convictions, whether

as the ardent promoter of all popular measures, or as the declared

partisan of Pompey; we have shown him aspiring with a noble ambition to

power and honours; but we are not ignorant that historians in general

give other motives for his conduct. They represent him, in 684, as

having already his plans defined, his schemes arranged, his instruments

all prepared. They attribute to him an absolute prescience of the

future, the faculty of directing men and things at his will, and of

rendering each one, unknowingly, the accomplice of his profound designs.

All his actions have a hidden motive, which the historian boasts of

having discovered. If Cæsar raises up again the standard of Marius,

makes himself the defender of the oppressed, and the persecutor of the

hired assassins of past tyranny, it is to acquire a concurrence

necessary to his ambition; if he contends with Cicero in favour of

legality in the trial of the accomplices of Catiline, or to maintain an

agrarian law of which he approves the political aim, or if, to repair a

great injustice of Sylla, he supports the restoration of the children of

the proscribed to their rights, it is for the purpose of compromising

the great orator with the popular party. If, on the contrary, he places

his influence at the service of Pompey; if, on the occasion of the war

against the pirates, he contributes to obtain for him an authority

considered exorbitant; if he seconds the plebiscitum which further

confers upon him the command of the army against Mithridates; if

subsequently he causes extraordinary honours to be awarded him, though

absent, it is still with the Machiavellian aim of making the greatness

of Pompey redound to his own profit. So that, if he defends liberty, it

is to ruin his adversaries; if he defends power, it is to accustom the

Romans to tyranny. Finally, if Cæsar seeks the consulate, like all the

members of the Roman nobility, it is, say they, because he already

foresees, beyond the fasces of the consul and the dust of battles, the

dictatorship and even the throne. Such an interpretation results from

the too common fault of not being able to appreciate facts in

themselves, but according to the complexion which subsequent events have

given them.

Strange inconsistency, to impute to great men at the same time mean

motives and superhuman forethought! No, it was not the miserable thought

of checking Cicero which guided Cæsar; he had not recourse to a tactic

more or less skilful: he obeyed a profound conviction, and what proves

it indisputably is, that, once elevated to power, his first acts are to

execute, as consul or dictator, what as a citizen he had supported:

witness the agrarian law and the restoration of the proscribed. No, if

he supports Pompey, it is not because he thinks that he can degrade him

after having once elevated him, but because this illustrious captain had

embraced the same cause as himself; for it would not have been given to

any one to read so far into the future as to predict the use which the

conqueror of Mithridates would make of his triumphs and veritable

popularity. In fact, when he disembarked in Italy, Rome was in anxiety:

will he disband his army?[1219] Such was from all quarters the cry of

alarm. If he returns as a master, no one is able to resist him. Contrary

to the general expectation, Pompey disbanded his troops. How then could

Cæsar foresee beforehand a moderation then so unusual?

Is it truer to say that Cæsar, having become proconsul, aspired to the

sovereign power? No; in departing for Gaul, he could no more have

thought of reigning over Rome, than could General Buonaparte, starting

for Italy in 1796, have dreamed of the Empire. Was it possible for

Cæsar to foresee that, during a sojourn of ten years in Gaul, he would

there link Fortune to him for ever, and that, at the end of this long

space of time, the public mind at Rome would still be favourable to his

projects? Could he foresee that the death of his daughter would break

the ties which attached him to Pompey? that Crassus, instead of

returning in triumph from the East, would be conquered and slain by the

Parthians? that the murder of Clodius would throw all Italy into

commotion? and, finally, that anarchy, which he had sought to stifle by

the triumvirate, would be the cause of his own elevation? Cæsar had

before his eyes great examples for his guidance; he marched in the track

of the Scipios and of Paulus Æmilius; the hatred of his enemies forced

him, like Sylla, to seize upon the dictatorship, but for a more noble

cause, and by a course of proceeding exempt from vengeance and cruelty.

Let us not continually seek little passions in great souls. The success

of superior men, and it is a consoling thought, is due rather to the

loftiness of their sentiments than to the speculations of selfishness

and cunning; this success depends much more on their skill in taking

advantage of circumstances, than on that presumption, blind enough to

believe itself capable of creating events, which are in the hands of God

alone. Certainly, Cæsar had faith in his destiny, and confidence in his

genius; but faith is an instinct, not a calculation, and genius foresees

the future without understanding its mysterious progress.

END OF VOL. I.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Montesquieu, _Grandeur et Décadence des Romains_, xviii.

[2] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 22.

[3] “Cæsar resolved to pass into Britain, the people of which had, in

nearly all wars, assisted the Gauls.” (Cæsar, _Gallic War_, IV. 20.)

[4] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 47.

[5] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 110, 326, edit. Schweighæuser.

[6] Cicero, _Epistolæ ad Atticum_, XIV. 10.

[7] In fact, how many disturbances, civil wars, and revolutions in

Europe since 1815! in France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Hungary,

Greece, and Germany!

[8] _Grandeur et Décadence des Romains._

[9] Titus Livius I. 44.--Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speaking of the

portion of the rampart between the Porta Æsquilina and the Porta

Collina, says, “Rome is fortified by a fosse thirty feet deep and a

hundred or more wide in the narrowest part. Above this fosse rises a

wall supported internally by a lofty and wide terrace, so that it cannot

be shaken by battering rams, or overthrown by undermining.” (_Antiq.

Roman._, IX. 68.)

[10] “Since that time (the time of Servius Tullius) Rome has been no

farther enlarged ... and if, in face of this spectacle, any one would

form a notion of the magnitude of Rome, he would certainly fall into

error, for he would not be able to distinguish where the town ends and

where it is limited, so close the suburbs come up to the town.... The

Aventine, till the reign of Claudius, remained outside the Pomœrium,

notwithstanding its numerous inhabitants.” (Aulus Gellius, XIII.

14.--Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 13.)

[11] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 49.

[12] “By this treaty, the Romans and their allies engage not to navigate

beyond the Bonum Promontorium (a cape situated to the north and opposite

Carthage, and now called by navigators the Cape of _Porto-Farino_)....

The Carthaginians undertake to respect the Ardeates, the Antiates, the

Laurentes, the Circeii, the Tarracinians, and indeed all the Latin

peoples subject to Rome.” (Polybius, III. 22.)

[13] “When Tarquinius Priscus regulated, with the foresight of a skilful

prince, the state of the citizens, he attached great importance to the

dress of children of condition; and he decreed that the sons of

patricians should wear the bulla with the robe hemmed with purple: but

even this privilege was restricted to the children of those fathers who

had exercised a curule dignity; the sons of other patricians had merely

the prætexta, and it was necessary that even their fathers should have

served the prescribed time in the cavalry.” (Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, I.

6.)

[14] “The plebeians were excluded from all offices, and put only to

agriculture, the breeding of cattle, and mercantile occupations.”

(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 9.)--“Numa encouraged the

agriculturists; they were excused from service in war, and discharged

from the care of municipal affairs.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II.

76.)

[15] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 9.--Plutarch, _Romulus_, 13.

[16] “Agrorum partes attribuerant tenuioribus.” (Festus, under the word

_Patres_, p. 246, edit. O. Müller.)

[17] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 24.

[18] These questions have been the object of learned researches; but,

after an attentive perusal of the works of Beaufort, Niebuhr, Gœttling,

Duruy, Marquardt, Mommsen, Lange, &c., the difference of opinions is

discouraging: we have adopted those which appeared most probable.

[19] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 40.--Titus Livius, II. 16.

[20] Titus Livius, II. 48.--Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 15.

[21] Titus Livius, II. 64.

[22] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 15.

[23] “They called a _decree of the people_ (_scitum populi_) the measure

which the order of patricians had voted, on the proposal of a patrician,

without the participation of the plebs.” (See Festus, under the words

_Scitum populi_, p. 330.)--Titus Livius, speaking of the tribunes, puts

the following words into the mouth of Appius Claudius: “Non enim

_populi_, sed _plebis_, eum magistratum esse.” (Titus Livius, II. 56.)

[24] “The plebs was composed of all the mass of the people which was

neither senator nor patrician.” (See Festus, under the words _Scitum

populi_.)

[25] “Populus autem non omnis hominum cœtus quoquo modo congregatus, sed

cœtus multitudinis juris consensu et utilitatis communione

sociatus.”--(Cicero, _De Republica_, I. 25.)

[26] “Populus curiatis eum (Numam) comitiis regem esse jusserat. Tullum

Hostilium populus regem, interrege rogante, comitiis curiatis creavit.

Servius, Tarquinio sepulto, populum de se ipse consuluit jussusque

regnare legem de imperio suo curiatam tulit.” (Cicero, _De Republica_,

II. 13-21.)

[27] “The predecessors of Servius Tullius brought all causes before

their tribunal, and pronounced judgment themselves in all disputes which

regarded the State or individuals. He separated these two things, and,

reserving to himself the cognizance of affairs which concerned the

State, abandoned to other judges the causes of individuals, with

injunctions, nevertheless, to regulate their judgments according to the

laws which he had passed.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 25.)

[28] “The consuls, like the ancient kings, have twelve lictors carrying

axes and twelve lictors carrying rods.” (Appian, _Syrian Wars_, 15.)

[29] “From that time Tarquinius Superbus carried, during the rest of his

life, a crown of gold, a toga of embroidered purple, and a sceptre of

ivory, and his throne was also of ivory; when he administered justice,

or walked abroad in the town, he was preceded by twelve lictors, who

carried axes surrounded with rods. (_Dionysius overlooks the twelve

other lictors who carried rods only._) After the kings had been expelled

from Rome, the annual consuls continued to use all these insignia,

except the crown and the robe with purple embroidery. These two only

were withdrawn, because they were odious and disagreeable to the people.

But even these were not entirely abolished, since they still used

ornaments of gold and dress of embroidered purple, when, after a

victory, the Senate decreed them the honours of the triumph.” (Dionysius

of Halicarnassus, III. 62.)

[30] “The soldiers of Romulus, to the number of three thousand, were

divided into three bodies, called ‘tribes.’” (Dio Cassius, _Fragm._,

XIV., edit. Gros.--Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 7.--Plutarch,

_Romulus_, 25.)--“The name of tribune of the soldiers is derived from

the circumstance that the three tribes of the Ramnes, the Luceres, and

the Tatiens each sent three to the army.” (Varro, _De Lingua Latina_, V.

§ 81, p. 32, edit. O. Müller.)

[31] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 35. Attempts have been made to

explain in different ways the origin of the word _curia_. Some have

derived it from the word _curare_, or from the name of the town of

_Cures_, or from κὑριος, “a lord:” it seems more natural to trace it to

_quiris_ (_curis_), which had the signification of a lance (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, II. 48.--Plutarch, _Romulus_, for thus we obtain a term

analogous with that of the Middle Ages, where _spear_ signified a

_man-at-arms_, accompanied by six or eight armed followers. And as the

principal aim of the formation of the curia was to furnish a certain

number of armed citizens, it is possible that they may have given to the

whole the name of a part. We read in Ovid, _Fasti_, II. lines 477-480:--

“Sive quod hasta curis priscis est dicta Sabinis,

Bellicus a telo venit in astra deus:

Sive suo regi nomen posuere Quirites,

Seu quis Romanis junxerat ille Cures.”

[32] Titus Livius, 1. 43.

[33] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 14, and IV. 20.

[34] “The appeal to the people existed even under the kings, as the

books of the pontiffs show.” (Cicero, _De Republica_, II. 31.)

[35] Plutarch, _Numa_, 17.--Pliny, _Natural History_, XXXIV. 1.

[36] “Servius Tullius conformed no longer as aforetime to the ancient

order of three tribes, distinguished by _origin_, but to the four new

tribes which he had established by _quarters_.” (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, IV. 14.)

[37] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 61.--Titus Livius, I. 35.

[38] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 22.

[39] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 19. “Servius Tullius, by these

means, threw back upon the richest all the costs and dangers of war.”

(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 20.)

[40] “If Numa was the legislator of the religious institutions,

posterity proclaims Servius as the founder of the order which

distinguishes in the Republic the difference of rank, dignity, and

fortune. It was he who established the _census_, the most salutary of

all institutions for a people destined to so much greatness. Fortunes,

and not individuals, were called upon to support the burdens of the

State. The _census_ established the classes, the centuries, and that

order which constitutes the ornament of Rome during peace and its

strength daring war.” (Titus Livius, I. 42.)

[41] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 16.

[42] “When Servius Tullius had completed the taking of the census, he

ordered all the citizens to assemble in arms in the greatest of the

fields situated near the town, and, having arranged the horsemen in

squadrons, the footmen in phalanx, and the light-armed men in respective

orders, he submitted them to a lustration, by the immolation of a bull,

a ram, and a he-goat. He ordered that the victims should be led thrice

round about the army, after which he sacrificed to Mars, to whom this

field was dedicated. From that epoch to the present time the Romans have

continued to have the same ceremony performed, by the most holy of

magistracies, at the completion of each census; it is what they call a

_lustrum_. The total number of all the Romans enumerated, according to

the writing of the tables of the census, gave 300 men less than 85,000.”

(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 22.)

[43] “This good order of government (under Servius Tullius) was

sustained among the Romans during several centuries, but in our days it

has been changed, and, by force of circumstances, has given place to a

more democratic system. It is not that the centuries have been

abolished, but the voters were no longer called together with the

ancient regularity, and their judgments have no longer the same equity,

as I have observed in my frequent attendance at the comitia.” (Dionysius

of Halicarnassus, IV. 21.)

[44] “The poorest citizens, in spite of their great number, were the

last to give their vote, and made but one century.” (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, IV. 21.)

[45] Titus Livius, I. 43.

[46] “From the age of seventeen years, they were called to be soldiers.

Youth began with that age, and continued to the age of forty-six. At

that date old age began.” (Aulus Gellius, X. 28.--Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, IV. 16.)

[47] Titus Livius speaks only of a hundred and ninety-two centuries;

Dionysius of Halicarnassus reckons a hundred and ninety-three. “In the

Roman plebs, the poorest citizens, those who reported to the census not

more than fifteen hundred _ases_, were called _proletarii_; those who

were not worth more than three hundred and seventy-five _ases_, and who

thus possessed hardly anything, were called _capite censi_. Now, the

fortune and patrimony of the citizen being for the State a sort of

guarantee, the pledge and foundation of his love for his country, the

men of the two last classes were only enrolled in case of extreme

danger. Yet the position of the _proletarii_ was a little more

honourable than that of the _capite censi_; in times of difficulty, when

there was want of young men, they were incorporated in the

hastily-formed militia, and equipped at the cost of the State; their

name contained no allusion to the mere poll-tax to which they were

subjected; less humiliating, it reminded one only of their destination

to give children to their country. The scantiness of their patrimony

preventing them from contributing to the aid of the State, they at least

contributed to the population of the city.” (Aulus Gellius, XVI. 10.)

[48] “Tarquinius Priscus afterwards gave to the knights the organisation

which they have preserved to the present time.” (Cicero, _De Republica_,

II. 20.)

[49] “It is said that the number of citizens inscribed under this title

was 80,000. Fabius Pictor, the most ancient of our historians, adds that

this number only includes the citizens in condition to bear arms.”

(Titus Livius, I. 44.)

[50] The different censuses of the people furnished by the ancient

historians have been explained in different manners. Did the numbers

given designate all the citizens, or only the heads of families, or

those who had attained the age of puberty? In my opinion, these numbers

in Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch, applied to all the

men in a condition to carry arms, that is, according to the organisation

of Servius Tullius, to those from seventeen to sixty years old. This

category formed, in fact, the true Roman citizens. Under seventeen, they

were too young to count in the State; above sixty, they were too old.

We know that the aged sexagenarians were called _depontani_, because

they were forbidden the bridges over which they must go to the place of

voting. (Festus, under the word _sexagenarius_, p. 834.--Cicero, _Pro S.

Roscio Amerino_, 35.)

80,000 men in condition to carry arms represent, according to the

statistics of the present time, fifty-five hundredths of the male part

of the population, say 145,000 men, and for the two sexes, supposing

them equal in number, 290,000 souls. In fact, in France, in a hundred

inhabitants, there are 35 who have not passed the age of seventeen, 55

aged from seventeen to sixty years, and 10 of more than sixty.

In support of the above calculation, Dionysius of Halicarnassus relates

that in the year 247 of Rome a subscription was made in honour of

Horatius Cocles: 300,000 persons, men and women, gave the value of what

each might expend in one day for his food. (V. 25.)

As to the number of slaves, we find in another passage of Dionysius of

Halicarnassus (IX. 25) that the women, children, slaves, merchants, and

artisans amounted to a number triple of that of the citizens.

If, then, the number of citizens in condition to carry arms was 80,000,

and the rest of the population equalled three times that number, we

should have for the total 4 x 80,000 = 320,000 souls. And, subtracting

from this number the 290,000 obtained above, there would remain 30,000

for the slaves and artisans.

Whatever proportion we admit between these two last classes, the result

will be that the slaves were at that period not numerous.

[51] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 9, 23.

[52] “Within the town, the buildings were not allowed to approach the

ramparts, which they now ordinarily touch, and outside a space extended

which it was forbidden to cultivate. To all this space, which it was not

permitted to inhabit or cultivate, the Romans gave the name of

_Pomœrium_. When, in consequence of the increase of the town, the

rampart was carried farther out, this consecrated zone on each side was

still preserved.” (Titus Livius, I. 44.)

[53] “Founded on the testimony of the sacred books which are preserved

with great care in the temples.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 62.)

[54] “These precious pledges, which they regard as so many images of the

gods.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 45.)

[55] “Hence is explained the origin of the name given to the Capitol: in

digging the foundation of the temple, they found a human head; and the

augurs declared that Rome would become the head of all Italy.”

(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 61.)

[56] “This recourse to the opinions of the priests and the observations

of religious worship made the people forget their habits of violence and

their taste for arms. Their minds, incessantly occupied with religious

ideas, acknowledged the intervention of Providence in human affairs, and

all hearts were penetrated with a piety so lively that good faith and

fidelity to an oath reigned in Rome more than fear of laws or

punishments.” (Titus Livius, I. 21.)

[57] Titus Livius, I. 45.

[58] “Assemblies of people, levies of troops--indeed, the most important

operations--were abandoned, if the birds did not approve them.” (Titus

Livius, I. 36.)

[59] “Numa established also the auspicious and inauspicious days, for

with the people an adjournment might sometimes be useful.” (Titus

Livius, I. 19.)

[60] “We have a town, founded on the faith of auspices and auguries; not

a spot within these walls which is not full of gods and their

worshippers; our solemn sacrifices have their days fixed as well as the

place where they are to be made.” (Titus Livius, V. 52, _Speech of

Camillus_, VI. &c.)

[61] Cicero, _De Republica_, II. 14.

[62] “All religious acts, public and private, were submitted to the

decision of the pontiff; thus the people knew to whom to address

themselves, and disorders were prevented which might have brought into

religion the neglect of the national rites or the introduction of

foreign ones. It was the same pontiff’s duty also to regulate what

concerned funerals, and the means of appeasing the Manes, and to

distinguish, among prodigies announced by thunder and other phenomena,

those which required an expiation.” (Titus Livius, I. 20.)

[63] “The grand pontiff exercises the functions of interpreter and

diviner, or rather of hierophant. He not only presides at the public

sacrifices, but he also inspects those which are made in private, and

takes care that the ordinances of religious worship are not

transgressed. Lastly, it is he who teaches what each individual ought to

do to honour the gods and to appease them.” (Plutarch, _Numa_, 12.)

[64] “Numa divided the year into twelve months, according to the moon’s

courses; he added January and February to the year.” (Titus Livius, I.

19.--Plutarch, _Numa_, 18.)

[65] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 73.

[66] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 64.

[67] Salian is derived from _salire_ (to leap, to dance). (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, II. 70.)--It was their duty, on certain occasions, to

execute sacred dances, and to chant hymns in honour of the god of war.

[68] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 72.--“The name of _feciales_ is

derived from the circumstance that they presided over the public faith

between peoples; for it was by their intervention that war when

undertaken assumed the character of a just war, and, that once

terminated, peace was guaranteed by a treaty. Before war was undertaken,

some of the _feciales_ were sent to make whatever demands had to be

made.” (Varro, _De Lingua Latina_, V. § 86.)--“If allies complained that

the Romans had done them wrong, and demanded reparation for it, it was

the business of the _feciales_ to examine if there were any violation of

treaty.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 72.)--Those _fecial_ priests

had been instituted by Numa, the mildest and most just of kings, to be

guardians of peace, and the judges and arbiters of the legitimate

motives for undertaking war. (Plutarch, _Camillus_, 20.)

[69] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 14.--Pliny, _Natural History_, XXI.

8.

[70] Numa raised a temple to Romulus, whom he deified under the name of

_Quirinus_. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 63)

[71] “Temple of Vesta, emblem of chastity; temple to Public Faith;

raised by Numa.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 65 and 75.)

[72] “The god Terminus; the festival in honour of Pales, the goddess of

shepherds; Saturn, the god of agriculture; the god of fallow-grounds,

pasture,” &c. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 74.)

[73] “After having done these things in peace and war, Servius Tullius

erected two temples to Fortune, who appeared to have been favourable to

him all his life, one in the oxen-market, the other on the banks of the

Tiber, and he gave her the surname of _Virilis_, which she has preserved

to the present day among the Romans.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV.

27.)

[74] “The Temple of Janus had been closed twice since the reign of Numa:

the first time by the consul Titus Manlius, at the end of the first

Punic war; the second, when the gods granted to our age to see, after

the battle of Actium, Cæsar Augustus Imperator give peace to the

universe.” (Titus Livius, I. 19.)--And Plutarch says, in his _Life of

Numa_, XX., “Nevertheless, this temple was closed after the victory of

Cæsar Augustus over Antony, and it had previously been closed under the

consulate of Marcus Atilius and of Titus Manlius, for a short time, it

is true; it was almost immediately opened again, for a new war broke

out. But, during the reign of Numa, it was not seen open a single day.”

[75] We employ intentionally the word _republic_, because all the

ancient authors give this name to the State, under the kings as well as

under the emperors. It is only by translating faithfully these

denominations that we can form an exact idea of ancient societies.

[76] “We acknowledge how many good and useful institutions the Republic

owed to each of our kings.” (Cicero, _De Republica_, II. 21.)

[77] “Among the Romans, the children possess nothing of their own during

their father’s life. He can dispose not only of all the goods, but even

of the lives of his children.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 79;

II. 25.)

[78] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II., 25, 26.--“From the beginning,”

says Mommsen, “the Roman family presented, in the moral order which

reigned among its members, and their mutual subordination, the

conditions of a superior civilisation.” (_Roman History_, 2nd edit., I.,

p. 54.)

[79] “Morals were so pure that, during two hundred and thirty years, no

husband was known to repudiate his wife, nor any woman to separate from

her husband.” (Plutarch, _Parallel of Theseus and Romulus_.)

[80] Cicero admires the profound wisdom of the first kings in admitting

the conquered enemies to the number of the citizens. “Their example,” he

says, “has become an authority, and our ancestors have never ceased

granting the rights of citizens to conquered enemies.” (_Oration for

Balbus_, xxxi.)

[81] ROMAN COLONIES (COLONIÆ CIVIUM CUM JURE SUFFRAGII ET

HONORUM).--First period: 1-244 (under the kings).

_Cænina_ (Sabine). Unknown.

_Antemnæ_ (Sabine). Unknown.

_Cameria_ (Sabine). Destroyed in 252. Unknown.

_Medullia_ (Sabine). _Sant’-Angelo_.--See Gell., _Topogr. of Rome_, 100.

_Crustumeria_ (Sabine). Unknown.

_Fidenæ_ (Sabine). Ruins near _Giubileo_ and _Serpentina_. Re-colonised in

326. Destroyed, according to an hypothesis of M. Madvig.

_Collatia._

_Ostia_ (the mouth of the Tiber). Ruins between _Torre Bovacciano_

and _Ostia_.

LATIN COLONIES (COLONIÆ LATINÆ).--First period: 1-244 (under the kings).

We cannot mention with certainty any Latin colony founded at this epoch,

from ancient authorities. The colonies of _Signia_ and _Circeii_ were

both re-colonized in the following period, and we shall place them

there.

[82] “Tarquin embellished also the great circus between the Aventine and

Palatine hills; he was the first who caused the _covered seats_ to be

made round this circus.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, III. 68.)

[83] Titus Livius, I. 44.--“Immediately the centurions, whose centuries

had taken flight, and the _antesignani_ who had lost their standard,

were condemned to death: some had their heads cut off; others were

beaten to death. As to the rest of the troops, the consul caused them to

be decimated; in every ten soldiers, he upon whom the lot fell was

conducted to the place of execution, and suffered for the others. It is

the usual punishment among the Romans for those who have quitted their

ranks or abandoned their standards.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX.

1.)

[84] “Romulus placed upon their hair a crown of laurels.” (Plutarch,

_Romulus_, XX.)

[85] “The Senate and the people decreed to King Tarquin the honours of

the triumph.” (_Combat of the Romans and Etruscans_, Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, III. 60.)--“An ovation differs from a triumph, first,

because he who receives the honours of it enters on foot at the head of

the army, and not mounted in a car; secondly, that he has neither the

crown of gold, nor the toga embroidered with gold and of different

colours, but he carries only a white _trabea_ bordered with purple, the

ordinary costume of the generals and consuls. Besides having only a

crown of laurel, he does not carry a sceptre. This is what the little

triumph has less than the great; in all other respects there is no

difference.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 47.)

[86] Romulus kills Acron, routs the enemies, and returns to _offer to

Jupiter Feretrius the opima spolia taken from that prince_.

“After Romulus, Cornelius Cossus was the first who consecrated to the

same gods similar spoils, having slain with his own hand, in a combat

where he commanded the cavalry, the general of the Fidenates.

“We must not separate the example of M. Marcellus from the two

preceding. He had the courage and intrepidity to attack on the banks of

the Pô, at the head of a handful of horsemen, the king of the Gauls,

though protected by a numerous army; he struck off his head, and

_carried off his armour_, of which he made an offering to Jupiter

Feretrius. (Year of Rome 531.)

“The same kind of bravery and combat signalised T. Manilius Torquatus,

Valerius Corvus, and Scipio Æmilianus. These warriors, challenged by the

chieftains of the enemies, made them bite the dust; but, as they had

fought under the auspices of a superior chief, they did not offer their

spoils to Jupiter.” (Year of Rome 392, 404, 602.) (Valerius Maximus,

III. 2, §§ 3, 4, 5, 6.)

[87] “Tarquin divided the seats (of the great circus) among the thirty

curiæ, assigning to each the place which belonged to him.” (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, III. 68.)--“It was then (after the war against the

Latins) that the site was chosen which is now called the great circus.

They marked out in it the particular places for the senators and for the

knights.” (Titus Livius, I. 35.)

[88] “The hundred senators were divided into ten decaries, and each

chose one of its members to exercise this authority. The power was

collective: one alone carried the insignia of it, and walked preceded by

the lictors. The duration of this power was for five days, and each

exercised it in turn ... The plebs was not long before it began to

murmur. Its servitude had only been aggravated; instead of one master,

it had a hundred. It appeared disposed to suffer only one king, and to

choose him itself.” (Titus Livius, I. 17.)

[89] “For the rest, this liberty consisted at first rather in the annual

election of the consuls than in the weakening of the royal power. The

first consuls assumed all its prerogatives and all its insignia; only it

was feared that, if both possessed the fasciæ, this solemnity might

inspire too much terror, and Brutus owed to the deference of his

colleague the circumstance of possessing them first.” (Titus Livius, II.

1.)

[90] “The death of Melius was justified,” said Quinctius, “to appease

the people, although he might be innocent of the crime of aspiring to

the kingly power.” (Titus Livius, IV. 15.)

[91] “From these inflexible hearts came a sentence of death, which was

odious to the judges themselves.” (Titus Livius, VI. 20.)

[92] _Discourse on Titus Livius_, I. 5.

[93] Proofs of the disagreement of the two consuls: “Cassius brought

secretly as many Latins and Hernici as he possibly could to have their

suffrages; there arrived in Rome such a great number, that in a short

time the town was full of strangers. Virginius, who was informed of it,

caused a herald to proclaim in all the public places that all those who

had no domicile in Rome should withdraw immediately; but Cassius gave

orders contrary to those of his colleague, forbidding any one who had

the right of Roman freedom to quit the town until the law was confirmed

and received.” (Year of Rome 268.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII.

72.)--“Quinctius, more indulgent than his colleague, willed the

concession to the people of all their just and reasonable demands;

Appius, on the contrary, was willing to die rather than to yield.” (Year

of Rome 283.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 48.)

[94] “The two consuls were of the most opposite tempers, and were always

in discord (_dissimiles discordesque_).” (Titus Livius, XXII.

41.)--“While they lost their time in quarrels rather than in

deliberations.” (Titus Livius, XXII. 45.)

[95] Titus Livius, XXI. 52.--Dio Cassius, _Fragments_, CCLXXI. edit.

Gros.

[96] Titus Livius, XXI. 52.

[97] “In the Roman army the two consuls enjoyed an equal power; but the

deference of Agrippa in concentrating the authority in the hands of his

colleague, established the unity so necessary for the success of great

enterprises.” (Titus Livius, III. 70.)--“The two consuls commanded often

both in the day of battle.” (Titus Livius, _Battle of Mount Vesuvius_,

VIII. 9; _Battle of Sentinum_, X. 27.)--“A fatal innovation; from that

time each had in view his personal interest, and not the general

interest, preferring to see the Republic experience a check than his

colleague covered with glory, and evils without number afflicted the

fatherland.” (Dio Cassius, _Fragments_, LI. edit. Gros.)

[98] “They called tribunes of the people those who, from tribunes of the

soldiers, which they were first, were charged with the defence of the

people during its retreat at Crustumerium.” (Varro, _De Lingua Latina_,

V. 81, edition of O. Müller.)

[99] “The discontented obtained from the patricians the confirmation of

their magistrates; afterwards they demanded of the Senate the permission

to elect annually two plebeians (_ediles_) to second the tribunes in all

things in which they might have need of aid, to judge the causes which

these might entrust into their hands, to have care of the sacred and

public edifices, and to ensure the supplying of the market with

provisions.” (Year of Rome 260.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 90.)

[100] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 89.

[101] The tribunes oppose the enrolment of troops. (Year of Rome 269.)

(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 81.)--“Licinius and Sextius

re-elected tribunes of the people, allowed no curule magistrate to be

elected; and, as the people continued to re-appoint the two tribunes,

who always threw out the elections of the military tribunes, the town

remained five years deprived of magistrates.” (Year of Rome 378.) (Titus

Livius, VI. 35.)--“Each time the consuls convoked the people to confer

the consulship on the candidates, the tribunes, in virtue of their

powers, prevented the holding of the assemblies. So also, when these

assembled the people to make the election, the consuls opposed it,

pretending that the right of convoking the people and collecting the

suffrages belonged to them alone.” (Year of Rome 271.) (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, VIII. 90.)--“Sometimes the tribunes prevented the

patricians from assembling for the election of the interrex, sometimes

they forbade the interrex himself making the senatus consultus for the

consular comitia.” (Year of Rome 333.) (Titus Livius, IV. 43.)

[102] Titus Livius, III. 30.

[103] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 31.

[104] “The most remarkable event of this year (the year of Rome 282), in

which military successes were so nearly balanced, and in which discord

broke out in the camp and in the town with so much fury, was the

establishment of the comitia by _tribes_, an innovation which gave to

the plebeians the honour of the victory, but little real advantage. In

fact, the exclusion of the patricians deprived the comitia of all their

pomp, without augmenting the power of the people or diminishing that of

the Senate.” (Titus Livius, II. 60.)

[105] Assembly of the people both of the town and country; the suffrages

were given in it, not by centuries, but by tribes:--“The day of the

third market, from an early hour in the morning, the public place was

occupied by so great a crowd of country people as had never been seen

before. The tribunes assembled the people by tribes, and, dividing the

Forum by ropes stretched across, formed as many distinct spaces as there

were tribes. Then, for the first time, the Roman people gave its

suffrages by tribes, in spite of the opposition of the patricians, who

tried to prevent it, and demanded that they should assemble by

centuries, according to the ancient custom.” (Year of Rome 263.)

(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VII. 59.)--“From that period (the year 283,

consulate of Appius) to our days, the comitia by tribes have elected the

tribunes and ediles, without auspices or observation of other auguries.

Thus ended the troubles which agitated Rome.” (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, IX. 49.)--“The Roman people, more irritated than ever,

demanded that for each tribe a third urn should be added for the town of

Rome, in order to put the suffrages in it.” (Year of Rome 308.)

(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 52.)

[106] “Duas civitates ex una factas: suos cuique parti magistratus, suas

leges esse.” (Titus Livius, II. 44.)--“In fact, we are, as you see

yourselves, divided into two towns, one of which is governed by poverty

and necessity, and the other by abundance of all things and by pride and

insolence.” (Year of Rome 260). (_Speech of Titus Larcius to the envoys

of the Volsci_, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 36,)

[107] The clients began to vote in the comitia by tribes after the law

Valeria Horatia; we see, by the account of Titus Livius (V. 30, 32),

that in the time of Camillus the clients and the patricians had already

entered the comitia by tribes.

[108] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 1.

[109] Titus Livius, III. 9.

[110] Lectorius, the most aged of the tribunes of the people, spoke of

laws which had not been long made. “By the first, which concerned the

translation of judgments, the Senate granted to the people the power of

judging any one of the patricians.” (Year of Rome 283.) (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, IX. 46.)

[111] “The laws voted by the people in the comitia by tribes were to be

obligatory on all Romans, and have the same force as those which were

made in the comitia by centuries. The pain of death and confiscation was

even pronounced against any one who should be convicted of having in

anything abrogated or violated this regulation. This new ordinance cut

short the old quarrels between the plebeians and the patricians, who

refused to obey the laws made by the people, under the pretext that what

was decided in the assemblies by tribes was not obligatory on all the

town, but only on the plebeians; and that, on the contrary, what was

decided in the comitia by centuries became law as well for themselves as

for the other citizens.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, XI. 45.)--“One point always contested between the two

orders was to know if the patricians were subjected to the _plebiscita_.

The first care of the consuls was to propose to the comitia assembled by

centuries a law to the effect that the decrees of the people assembled

by tribes should be laws of the State.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Titus

Livius, III. 55.)--“The patricians pretended that they alone had the

power of giving laws.” (Titus Livius, III. 31.)

[112] “The comitia by curiæ for everything which concerns military

affairs; the comitia by centuries for the election of your consuls and

of your military tribunes, &c.” (Titus Livius, V. 52.)

[113] Aulus Gellius, XV. 27.--Festus, under the words _Scitum populi_.

[114] Titus Livius, IV. 3.

[115] “The indignation of the people was extreme, on account of the

refusal to take the auspices, as if it had been an object for the

reprobation of the immortal gods.”--“The tribune demanded for what

reason a plebeian could not be consul, and was told in reply that the

plebeians had not the auspices, and that the decemvirs had interdicted

marriage between the two orders only to hinder the auspices from being

troubled by men of equivocal birth.” (Titus Livius, IV. 6.)--“Now in

what hands are the auspices according to the custom of our ancestors? In

the hands of the patricians, I think; for the auspices are never taken

for the nomination of a plebeian magistrate.”--“Is it not then the same

thing as to annihilate the auspices in this city, to take them, in

electing plebeian consuls, from the patricians, who alone can observe

them?” (Year of Rome 386.) (Titus Livius, VI. 41.)

To the consul, the prætor, and the censor was reserved the right of

taking the great auspices; to the less elevated magistracies that of

taking the lesser ones. The great auspices appear, in fact, to have been

those of which the exercise was of most importance to the rights of the

aristocracy. The ancients have not left us a precise definition of the

two classes of auspices; but it appears to result from what Cicero says

of them (_De Legibus_, II. 12), that by the great auspices were

understood those for which the intervention of the augurs was

indispensable; the little auspices, on the contrary, were those which

were taken without them. (See Aulus Gellius, XIII. 15.)

As to the auspices taken in the comitia where the consular tribunes were

elected, passages of Titus Livius (V. 14, 52; VI. 11) prove that they

were the same as for the election of the consuls, and consequently that

they were the great auspices; for we know from Cicero (_De Divinatione_,

I. 17; II. 35--compare Titus Livius, IV. 7) that it was the duty of the

magistrate who held the comitia to bring there an augur, of whom he

demanded what the presages announced. The privileges of the nobility

were maintained by causing the comitia for the election of the consular

tribunes to be held by an interrex chosen by the aristocracy.

[116] Titus Livius, VI. 5.

[117] Titus Livius, VII. 17.

[118] In 333, the number was increased to four. Two, overseers for the

guard of the treasury and the disposition of the public money, were

appointed by the consuls; the two others, charged with the

administration of the military chest, were appointed by the tribes.

[119] “_The master of the knights_ was so called because he exercised

the supreme power over the knights and the _accensi_, as the dictator

exercised it over the whole Roman people; whence the name of _master of

the people_, which was also given to him.” (Varro, _De Lingua Latina_,

V. 82, edit. Müller.)

[120] “The duumvirs charged with the sacred rites were replaced by the

decemvirs, half plebeians, half patricians.” (Titus Livius, VI. 37.)

[121] Titus Livius, VII. 5.

[122] “Appius convokes an assembly, accuses Valerius and Horatius of the

crime of perduellio, calculating entirely on the tribunian power with

which he was invested.” (Year of Rome 305.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus,

XI. 39.)

[123] “In the interim, there was at Rome a conspiracy of several slaves,

who formed together the design of seizing the forts and setting fire to

the different quarters of the town.” (Year of Rome 253.) (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, V. 51.)--“From the summit of the Capitol, Herdonius

called the slaves to liberty. He had taken up the cause of misfortune;

he had just restored to their country those whom injustice had banished,

and delivered the slaves from a heavy yoke; it is to the Roman people

that he wishes to give the honour of this enterprise.” (Year of Rome

294.) (Titus Livius, III. 15.)--“The slaves who had entered into the

conspiracy were, at different points, to set fire to the town, and,

while the people were occupied in carrying assistance to the houses

which were in flames, to seize by force of arms the citadel and the

Capitol. Jupiter baffled these criminal designs. On the denunciation of

two slaves, the guilty were arrested and punished.” (Year of Rome 336.)

(Titus Livius, IV. 45.)

[124] “Finally, under the consulship of M. Minucius and A. Sempronius,

wheat arrived in abundance from Sicily, and the Senate deliberated on

the price at which it must be delivered to the citizens.” (Year of Rome

263.) (Titus Livius, II. 34.)--“As the want of cultivators gave rise to

the fear of a famine, people were sent to search for wheat in Etruria,

in the Pomptinum, at Cumæ, and even as far as Sicily.” (Year of Rome

321.) (Titus Livius, IV. 25.)

[125] “When Romulus had distributed all the people in tribes and curiæ,

he also divided the lands into thirty equal portions, of which he gave

one to each curia, reserving, nevertheless, what was necessary for the

temples and the sacrifices, _and a certain portion for the domain of the

Republic_.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 7.)

[126] “Numa distributed to the poorest of the plebeians the lands which

Romulus had conquered and a small portion of the lands of the public

domain.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 62.)--“ Similar measures are

attributed to Tullius Hostilius and Ancus Martius.” (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, III. 1, 48.)--“As soon as he was mounted on the throne,

Servius Tullius distributed the lands of the public domain to the

_thetes_ (mercenaries) of the Romans.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV.

13.)

[127] Romulus, according to Dionysus of Halicarnassus, sent two colonies

to Cænina and Antemnæ, having taken from those two towns the third of

their lands. (II. 35.)--In the year 252, the Sabines lost ten thousand

acres (_jugera_) of arable land. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 49.)--A

treaty concluded with the Hernici, in 268, deprived them of two-thirds

of their territory. (Titus Livius, II. 41.)--“In 413, the Privernates

lost two-thirds of their territory; in 416, the Tiburtines and

Prenestines lost a part of their territory.” (Titus Livius, VIII. I,

14.)--“In 563, P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica took from the Boians nearly

half their territory.” (Titus Livius, XXXVI. 39.)

[128] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. vii.--This citation, though belonging to

a posterior date, applies nevertheless to the epoch of which we are

speaking.

[129] “Servius published an edict to oblige all who had appropriated,

under the title of usufructuaries or proprietors, the lands of the

public domain, to restore them within a certain time, and, by the same

edict, the citizens who possessed no heritage were ordered to bring him

their names.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 10.)

[130] “We need not be astonished if the poor prefer the lands of the

domain to be distributed (to all the citizens) than to suffer that a

small number of the most shameless should remain sole possessors. But if

they see that they are taken from those who gather their revenues, and

that the public is restored to the possession of its domain, they will

cease to be jealous of us, and the desire to see them distributed to

each citizen would diminish, when it shall be demonstrated to them that

these lands will be of greater utility when possessed in common by the

Republic.” (Year of Rome 268.) (_Speech of Appius_, Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, VIII. 73.)

[131] Agannius Urbicus, _De Controversiiss agrorum_, in the _Gromatici

veteres_, ed. Lachmann, vol. I, p. 82.

[132] Titus Livius, II. 48.

[133] “Lucius Æmilius said that it was just that the common goods should

be shared among all the citizens, rather than leave the enjoyment of

them to a small number of individuals; that in regard to those who had

seized upon the public lands, they ought to be sufficiently satisfied

that they had been left to enjoy them during so long a time without

being disturbed in their possession, and that if afterwards they were

deprived of them, it ill became them to be obstinate in retaining them.

He added that, besides the public law acknowledged by general opinion,

and according to which the public goods are common to all the citizens,

just as the goods of individuals belong to those who have acquired them

legitimately, the Senate was obliged, by a special reason, to distribute

the lands to the people, since it had passed an ordinance for that

purpose already seventeen years ago.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX.

51.)

[134] Titus Livius, III. 31.--Dionysius of Halicarnassus, X. 33 _et

seq._

[135] “The plebeians complain loudly that their conquests have been

taken from them; that it is disgraceful that, having conquered so many

lands from the enemy, not the least portion of it remains to them; that

the _ager publicus_ is possessed by rich and influential men who take

the revenue unjustly, without other title than their power and

unexampled acts of violence. They demand finally that, sharing with the

patricians all the dangers, they may also have their share in the

advantages and profit derived from them.” (Year of Rome 298.) (Dionysius

of Halicarnassus, X. 36.)

[136] “The moment would have been well chosen, after having taken

vengeance on the seditious, to propose, in order to soothe people’s

minds, the partition of the territory of the Bolani; they would thus

have weakened the desire for an agrarian law which would expel the

patricians from the public estates they had unjustly usurped. For it was

an indignity which cut the people to the heart, this rage of the

nobility to retain the public lands they occupied by force, and, above

all, their refusal to distribute to the people even the vacant lands

recently taken from the enemy, which, indeed, would soon become, like

the rest, the prey of some of the nobles,” (Year of Rome 341.) (Titus

Livius, IV. 51.)

[137] Titus Livius, V. 30.

[138] Titus Livius, VI. 21.--It appears that the Pontine Marshes were

then very fertile, since Pliny relates, after Licinius Mucianus, that

they included upwards of twenty-four flourishing towns. (_Natural

History_, III. v. 56, edit. Sillig.)

[139] Titus Livius, VI. 35-42.--Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 8.

[140] See the remarkable work of M. A. Mace, _Sur les Lois Agraires_,

Paris, 1846.

[141] ROMAN COLONIES.--Second period: 244-416

_Lavici_ (Labicum) (336). Latium. (_Via Lavicana_.) _La Colonna._

_Vitellia_ (359). The Volscians. (_Via Prænestina_.) Uncertain.

_Civitella_ or _Valmontone_.

_Satricum_ (370). The Volscians. Banks of the Astura. _Casale di Conca_,

between _Anzo_ and _Velletri_.

LATIN COLONIES.--Second period: 244-416.

_Antium_ (287). Volscians. _Torre d’Anzio_ or _Porto d’Anzio_.

_Suessa Pometia_ (287). Near the Pontine Marshes. Disappeared at

an early period.

_Cora_. Volscians (287). _Cori_.

_Signia_ (259). Volscians. _Segni_.

_Velitræ_ (260). Volscians. _Velletri_.

_Norba_ (262). Volscians. Near the modern village of _Norma_.

_Ardea_ (312). Rutuli. _Ardea_.

_Circeii_ (361). Aurunces. _Monte Circello_: _San Felice_

or _Porto di Paolo_.

_Satricum_ (369). Volscians. _Casale di Conca_.

_Sutrium_ (371). Etruria. (_Via Cassia_.) _Sutri_.

_Setia_ (372) Volscians. _Sezze_.

_Nepete_ (381). Etruria. _Nepi_.

[142] It is thus that we see, in 416, each poor citizen receiving two

_jugera_, taken from the land of the Latins and their allies. In 479,

after the departure of Pyrrhus, the Senate caused lands to be

distributed to those who had fought against the King of Epirus. In 531,

the Flaminian law, which Polybius accuses wrongly of having introduced

corruption into Rome, distributed by head the Roman territory situated

between Rimini and the Picenum; in 554, after the capture of Carthage,

the Senate made a distribution of land to the soldiers of Scipio. For

each year of service in Spain or Africa, each soldier received two

_jugera_, and the distribution was made by decemvirs. (Titus Livius,

XXXI. 49.)

[143] “Marcus Valerius demonstrated to them that prudence did not permit

them to refuse a thing of small importance to citizens who, under the

government of the kings, had distinguished themselves in so many battles

for the defence of the Republic.” (Year of Rome 256.) (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, V. 65.)--“On one hand, the plebeians pretended not to be

in a condition to pay their debts; they complained that, during so many

years of war, their lands had produced nothing, that their cattle had

perished, that their slaves had escaped or had been carried away in the

different incursions of the enemies, and that all they possessed at Rome

was expended for the cost of the war. On the other hand, the creditors

said that the losses were common to everybody; that they had suffered no

less than their debtors; that they could not consent to lose what they

had lent in time of peace to some indigent citizens in addition to what

the enemies had taken from them in time of war.” (Year of Rome 258.)

(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 22.)

[144] Those who pleaded the causes of individuals were nearly all

senators, and exacted for this service very heavy sums under the title

of fees. (Titus Livius, XXXIV. 4.)

[145] “The days following, Servius Tullius caused a report to be drawn

up of the insolvent debtors, of their creditors, and of the respective

amount of their debts. When this was prepared, he caused counters to be

established in the Forum, and, in public view, repaid the lenders

whatever was due to them.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 10.)

[146] “Servilius caused a herald to proclaim that all persons were

forbidden to seize, sell, or retain in pledge the goods of Romans who

served against the Volsci, or to take away their children, or any one of

their family, for any contract whatever.”--“An old man complains that

his creditor has reduced him to slavery: he declares loudly that he was

born free, that he had served in all the campaigns as long as his age

permitted, that he was in twenty-eight battles, where he had several

times gained the prize of valour; but that, since the times had become

bad, and the Republic was reduced to the last extremity, he had been

constrained to borrow money to pay the taxes. After that, he added,

having no longer wherewith to pay my debts, my merciless creditor has

reduced me to slavery with my two children, and, because I expostulated

slightly when he ordered me to do things which were too difficult,

caused me to be disgracefully beaten with several blows.” (Year of Rome

259.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 29.)--“The creditors contributed

to the insurrection of the populace, they cast aside all moderation, but

threw their debtors into prison, and treated them like the slaves whom

they would have bought for money.” (Year of Rome 254.) (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, V. 53.)

[147] “The poor, especially those who were not in condition to pay their

debts, who formed the greatest number, refused to take arms, and would

hold no communication with the patricians, until the Senate should pass

a law for the abolition of debts.” (Year of Rome 256.) (Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, V. 63.)

[148] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, V. 64.

[149] Appius Claudius Sabinus expressed an opinion quite contrary to

that of Marcus Valerius: he said that “there could be no doubt that the

rich, who were not less citizens than the poor, and who held the first

rank in the Republic, occupied the public offices, and had served in all

the wars, would take it very ill if they discharged their debtors from

the obligation of paying what was due.” (Year of Rome 256.) (Dionysius

of Halicarnassus, V. 66.)

[150] It results from the testimony of Polybius, Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, Livy, Florus, and Eutropius, that at the moment of the

fall of Tarquinius Superbus, the domination of Rome extended over all

Latium, over the greater part of the country of the Sabines, and even as

far as Ocriculum (_Otricoli_) in Umbria; that Etruria, the country of

the Hernici, and the territory of Cære (_Cervetri_), were united with

the Romans by alliances which placed them, with regard to these, in a

state of subjection.

The establishment of the consular government was, for the peoples

subject to Rome, the signal of revolt. In 253, all the peoples of Latium

were leagued against Rome; with the victory of Lake Regillus, in 258,

that is, fourteen years after the overthrow of the Tarquins, the

submission of Latium began, and it was finished by the treaty concluded

by Spurius Cassius with the Latins in the year of Rome 268. The Sabines

were only finally reduced by the consul Horatius in 305. Fidenæ, which

had acknowledged the supremacy of Tarquin, was taken in the year 319,

then taken again, after an insurrection, in 328. Anxur (_Terracina_) was

only finally subjected after the defeat of the Volsci; and Veii and

Falerium only fell under the power of the Romans in the year 358 and

359. Circci, where a Latin colony had been established in the times of

the kings, only received a new one in the year 360. Cære was reunited to

the Roman territory in the year 364, and it was only at the time of the

Gallic invasion that Antium and Ecetra were finally annexed to the Roman

territory. In 408, the capture of Satricum, at the entrance of the

country of the Volscians, prevented that people from supporting an

insurrection which had already begun among the Latins. In 411, the whole

plain of Latium was occupied by Roman citizens or allies, but in the

mountains there remained Volscian and Latin cities which were

independent and secretly enemies. Nevertheless it may be said that,

towards that period, the Republic had re-conquered the territory which

it possessed under the kings, although Rome had again, in 416, to

suppress a last insurrection of the Latins.

[151] Mommsen, _Roman History_, I., p. 241, 2nd edit.

[152] In fourteen years, from 399 to 412, the patricians allowed only

six plebeians to arrive at the consulship.

[153] Titus Livius, X. 23.

[154] Titus Livius, X. 9.

[155] “Who does not see clearly that the vice of the dictator

(Marcellus) in the eyes of the augurs was that he was a plebeian?”

(Titus Livius, VIII. 23.--Cicero, _De Divinatione_, II. 35, 37; _De

Legibus_, II. 13.)

[156] The consuls and prætors could only assemble the comitia, command

the armies, or give final judgment in civil affairs, after having been

invested with the _imperium_ and with the right of taking the auspices

(_jus auspiciorum_) by a curiate law.

[157] _Second Oration on the Agrarian Law_, 9.

[158] Titus Livius, IV. 3.

[159] If a citizen refused to give his name for the recruitment, his

goods were confiscated; if he did not pay his creditors, he was sold for

a slave. Women were forbidden the use of wine. (Polybius, VI. 2.)--The

number of guests who could be admitted to feasts was limited. (Athenæus,

VI. p. 274.)--The magistrates also, on entering on office, could not

accept invitations to dinner, except from certain persons who were

named. (Aulus Gellius, II. 24.--Macrobius, II. 13.)--“Marriage with a

plebeian or a stranger was surrounded with restrictive measures; it was

forbidden with a slave or with a freedman. Celibacy, at a certain age,

was punished with a fine.” (Valerius Maximus, II. ix. 1.)--There were

regulations also for mourning and funerals. (Cicero, _De Legibus_, II.

24.)

[160] Aulus Gellius, IV. 12.

[161] Plutarch, _Cato the Censor_, 23.