Our Debt to Greece and Rome
EDITORS
GEORGE DEPUE HADZSITS, PH.D.
_University of Pennsylvania_
DAVID MOORE ROBINSON, PH.D., LL.D.
_The Johns Hopkins University_
[Illustration]
CONTRIBUTORS TO THE “OUR DEBT TO GREECE AND ROME FUND,” WHOSE
GENEROSITY HAS MADE POSSIBLE THE LIBRARY
Our Debt to Greece and Rome
_Philadelphia_
DR. ASTLEY P. C. ASHHURST
JOHN C. BELL
HENRY H. BONNELL
JASPER YEATES BRINTON
JOHN CADWALADER
MISS CLARA COMEGYS
MISS MARY E. CONVERSE
ARTHUR G. DICKSON
WILLIAM M. ELKINS
WILLIAM P. GEST
JOHN GRIBBEL
SAMUEL F. HOUSTON
JOHN STORY JENKS
ALBA B. JOHNSON
MISS NINA LEA
GEORGE MCFADDEN
MRS. JOHN MARKOE
JULES E. MASTBAUM
J. VAUGHAN MERRICK
EFFINGHAM B. MORRIS
WILLIAM R. MURPHY
JOHN S. NEWBOLD
S. DAVIS PAGE (_memorial_)
OWEN J. ROBERTS
JOSEPH G. ROSENGARTEN
JOHN B. STETSON, JR.
DR. J. WILLIAM WHITE (_memorial_)
The Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Liberal Studies.
_Boston_
ORIC BATES (_memorial_)
FREDERICK P. FISH
WILLIAM AMORY GARDNER
JOSEPH CLARK HOPPIN
_Chicago_
HERBERT W. WOLFF
_Cincinnati_
CHARLES PHELPS TAFT
_Detroit_
JOHN W. ANDERSON
DEXTER M. FERRY, JR.
_New York_
JOHN JAY CHAPMAN
WILLARD V. KING
THOMAS W. LAMONT
ELIHU ROOT
MORTIMER L. SCHIFF
WILLIAM SLOANE
And one contributor, who has asked to have his name withheld:
_Maecenas atavis edite regibus, O et praesidium et dulce decus meum._
_Washington_
The Greek Embassy at Washington, for the Greek Government.
ROMAN POLITICS
BY
FRANK FROST ABBOTT
_Kennedy Professor of Latin Language and Literature_
_Princeton University_
[Illustration]
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
BOSTON · MASSACHUSETTS
COPYRIGHT · 1923 · BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
Printed May, 1923
THE PLIMPTON PRESS · NORWOOD · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
CONTRIBUTORS TO THE FUND ii
I. THE ROMAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
1. Pre-Augustan 3
2. Post-Augustan 31
II. ROMAN POLITICS AND MODERN POLITICS
1. Rome and the Church of Rome 47
2. The Individual and the State 51
3. On Constitutions 67
4. The Legislative and Executive Branches of Government 74
i. Resemblances between Ancient and Modern 74
ii. Differences between Ancient and Modern 80
5. The Judiciary 95
6. Conception of Citizenship 103
i. In Times of Peace 103
ii. In Times of War 106
7. Taxation and Finance 108
8. Imperialism 115
III. SOME POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS COMMON TO THE
ROMANS AND TO MODERN PEOPLES 138
1. The Color and the Labor Questions 139
2. Voting and Elections 140
3. The Political Boss 144
4. The Recall 147
5. Pensions, Bonuses, and Militarism 149
6. Cases of Paternalism 152
7. Growth of Cities 160
IV. SOME FINAL REFLECTIONS 164
NOTES 171
BIBLIOGRAPHY 175
ROMAN POLITICS
I. THE ROMAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
1. PRE-AUGUSTAN
Roman political history has an unusual meaning and value for us,
because the Romans had to face so many of the problems which confront
us today, and their experience ran through such a wide range. Few
peoples can boast of an unbroken history of a thousand years, and
perhaps none has tried so many different forms of government. The
early monarchy gives way to an oligarchy, to be displaced in turn by
a democracy. The dual government of the prince and the senate which
follows develops into the empire, and the emperor in time becomes the
autocratic monarch. In this period of a thousand years from the seventh
century before our era to the fourth century after it, we may see in
the practical experiences of the Roman people the points of strength
and of weakness in an aristocracy, a plutocracy, a parliamentary
government, a democratic empire, and an autocracy. We may also trace in
the history of Rome the development of a city-state into a world-wide
empire. In its early days the territory of Rome covered scarcely a
hundred square miles. Then followed one after another the conquest of
Central Italy, of the whole peninsula, of the Western Mediterranean, of
the Greek Orient, and of Western Europe and the region of the Danube,
until Roman rule extended from the Sahara to the Rhine, from the
Tigris and the Euphrates to the Atlantic. This tremendous territorial
expansion, which brought within the limits of the State people of
diverse races, colors, and religions, called for a constant recasting
and readjustment of political forms and methods, and the solution of
countless new political problems. In almost all of our colonies or
dependencies today, in the Philippines, in Asia, and in Africa we
have to deal only with peoples less advanced in civilization than we
are, but the Romans had not only to civilize and govern the stubborn
tribes of Gaul and Spain, but also to make their authority respected
in the Greek East, among peoples who could boast of a civilization far
higher and older than their own. That a city-state with the old and
narrow local social and political traditions which Rome had could adapt
herself to the government of a world-empire composed of such diverse
elements as made up the Roman Empire is one of the marvels of history,
and a study of the methods which she followed can not fail to throw
light on political questions which we have to meet today. The range of
social and economic conditions through which Rome went is equally wide.
The Romans come on the stage of history as a primitive pastoral people
with strongholds on the hills. In course of time they build cities
all over the world whose beauty and magnificence have perhaps never
been equalled. Their government had to keep pace with these social and
economic changes, and consequently had to adapt itself to almost every
conceivable state of society.
In spite of all these facts one may be inclined to raise the question
whether our civilization can have much in common with one so far
removed from it in point of time, and whether the study of such an
ancient society will have more than an intellectual or historical
interest for us. This would be true perhaps if we were studying the
political system of almost any other people of antiquity. It is hard
for us to understand or sympathize with the social or political ideas
of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, or the Persians. Perhaps it is not
easy to find much even in the political experiences of the Greeks
which will be of practical service to us. But with the Romans it is
different. If an immigrant from ancient Rome of the first century
before our era should disembark in New York tomorrow, he would need
less training in understanding our political machinery than many of
our contemporary immigrants do, because the Anglo-Saxon and the Roman
show the same characteristics in their political life. Both peoples
are opportunists. Both peoples are inclined to meet a new situation by
making as little change as possible in the old machinery. Both have a
great deal of practical common sense, and no high regard for formal
logic or consistency. The Romans had the institution of slavery, and
we have developed a complex industrial system through the application
of steam and electricity, and steam and electricity have changed the
external aspects of our lives. But these differences have not affected
deeply the political thinking of the two peoples. We have little in
common with any other peoples of antiquity. We have still less with
those of the Middle Ages. The ideals of chivalry, of feudalism, of the
medieval church, and the submergence of the individual in society,
are altogether foreign to our way of thinking. Perhaps it is the
incomprehensible nature of these fifteen hundred years of medieval
civilization that separate our times from those of the Romans which has
prevented us from recognizing our political kinship to the Romans. From
this resemblance between Roman civilization and our own, and between
the Roman character and our own, it does not necessarily follow that
their system of government was closely akin to ours, or that we have
inherited many political institutions directly from them. It would,
however, naturally mean that many of their political problems would be
like ours, and that their method of approaching them would be similar
to ours. In some cases they solved these problems with more or less
success; in others, they failed. The legacy which they have handed down
to us, then, is the practical demonstration in their political life
of the merits of certain forms of government and of certain methods
of dealing with political and social questions, and the weakness of
others. The points of resemblance between the ancient and the modern,
and the large extent of our direct and indirect inheritance will be
defined later.
The natural political entity in antiquity was the city, with a
small outlying territory about it. This state of things the Romans
clearly recognized in fixing the status of conquered territory in
Italy and across the sea. Thus, after the conquest of Sicily, Rome
made her arrangements for ruling the island, not with a government
representing all Sicily, but with the sixty-eight individual cities
and towns of the island, and the citizens of Syracuse or of Agrigentum
derived such rights as they had, not from the fact that they were
Sicilians, but from their residence in the one or the other of these
two cities.[1] This political system, based on the independent life
of a small community, is familiar enough to us in the history of such
Italian cities as Venice, Florence, and Siena in the Middle Ages,
and preëminently in the story of Geneva under Calvin. In fact the
political institution of antiquity which has had the longest life and
which has enjoyed an unbroken history up to our own day is that of the
city-state. Hundreds of inscriptions from various parts of the world
show us the form of government which these municipalities had in Roman
times. The control of affairs rested in the hands of an executive, of
a small assembly of chosen men, and of the whole body of citizens. The
comparative strength of these three elements differed in different
cities, and varied from period to period in the history of each city.
This was the government which we find in the city of Rome in early
days. Continuity was given to it by the senate, or assembly of elders
of the resident clans, who, on the death of the king, appointed one of
their number to choose the king’s successor, whose assumption of office
was dependent on the approval of the senate and the people.
Through an aristocratic revolution the kingdom was overthrown, and
the king gave place to two annually elected magistrates, called later
consuls, who had the right of veto on each other’s actions. The consuls
were chosen from the ranks of the patricians, or ruling families, and
at the end of a year became patricians again. They must therefore have
been largely governed in their action by class prejudice. Consequently
the position of the classes which lacked political privileges
became intolerable. Another element in the situation aggravated the
difficulty. Being located in the centre of Italy and on a navigable
river, and being far enough from the mouth of the river to be safe
from pirates, Rome grew rapidly, and the coming of a large number of
immigrants to the city had a profound effect on its political history.
The newcomers did not enjoy the same civil and political rights as the
members of the original clans, and they were at an economic and social
disadvantage.
The constitutional history of Rome for several centuries centres about
the struggle of these people and of the other members of the lower
classes to remove the limitations which were put on their rights in
these four respects. The natural method of guarding the civil rights of
the commons against the arbitrary action of the patrician consul was
to limit his powers by law. But the Romans did not adopt this method.
They chose class representatives, called tribunes, who were authorized
to intervene in person when a plebeian was being treated unjustly
and prevent the chief magistrate from carrying out his purpose. It
is characteristic of the Roman, as we shall see in other cases, to
take this concrete, personal way of bringing about a constitutional
reform. The plebeians were at a disadvantage also, because they were
kept ignorant of legal procedure and could not maintain their rights
before a magistrate. The details of the law, or the accepted custom,
were known only to the patrician priests and were handed down by word
of mouth from one generation to another. About the middle of the fifth
century, after a long struggle, this law was codified and was engraved
on twelve bronze tablets, and the tablets were hung up in the Forum
where they might be read by any one. These Twelve Tables[2] were
regarded by the Romans as the basis of their civil liberty, and may
well be placed by the side of the Mosaic Code, the laws of Hammurabi,
the Gortynian Code, and Magna Charta. As we shall see later, they
contained no formulation of general rights, but stated clearly and
minutely the procedure to be followed in civil and criminal actions.
If we may accept tradition, both these battles with the patricians were
won by the very modern method of Direct Action.
This conquest of civil rights brought the plebeians a larger measure
of political rights than they had enjoyed before. It was necessary for
them now to organize a popular assembly of their own, in order to elect
the tribunes; the tribune became their political leader, and within the
next century, under his leadership, the plebeians forced the patricians
to admit them to the consulship, and in consequence to the other
important magistracies.
In early days the patricians had formed not only a close corporation
politically, but also a social caste. Sons of patricians who married
plebeian women lost the patriciate, and all the social, political,
and religious privileges which went with it. By the Canuleian law in
the fifth century the right to intermarry without loss of privileges
was guaranteed. Henceforth the state tended to become a unit, and not
two separate communities, and in the future when the interests of the
two classes were in conflict prominent patricians were often led by
kinship to support the plebeian cause at critical moments.
The fourth point about which the struggles in the early period centred
was the land question. It was the age-old battle between the great
landowner on the one hand and the peasant proprietor, the tenant,
and the free laborer on the other. As Rome came into possession of
new territory in central Italy by conquest or otherwise, the great
landed proprietors managed to get most of it from the state at a
nominal rental. The constant wars in which Rome was engaged during her
early history called both rich and poor to the front, but the rich
man’s slaves and dependents kept his land under cultivation, while
the peasant’s holdings, left without anyone to till them, steadily
deteriorated. The peasant found it hard, too, to compete with the great
landowner who farmed on a large scale and used slave labor, while the
free laborer was crushed in competition with the slave. A solution
of these difficulties was sought in the Licinian laws of the fourth
century and in later legislation. But this legislation did not reach
the root of the trouble, and the land question came up in one form or
the other for many generations to plague the Romans. The Licinian
laws, perhaps supplemented by later legislation, limited the number of
acres of state land to be occupied by an individual, stipulated that
interest already paid on debts should be deducted from the principal,
and fixed the proportional number of free laborers and slaves to be
employed on an estate. The first and second provisions were intended
to protect the peasant proprietor and to prevent the growth of large
estates at his expense. If these three measures could have accomplished
their purpose, that drift from the country to the city which ultimately
wrecked the Roman Empire, and which is one of the dangerous tendencies
today, might never have taken place.
The rapid growth of Rome and her conquest of adjacent territory not
only brought to the surface the economic questions which we have just
been discussing, but also necessitated an increase in the number of
magistrates to manage the larger population and to meet the more
complex conditions which had arisen. In the early Republican period the
only important officials with positive powers were the two consuls.
They presided over the meetings of the senate and of the assemblies
which were made up of the whole people, and they were the chief
executives and the judicial and financial officials of the community.
They supervised the conquered districts of Italy, represented the
city in its dealings with foreign states, and commanded the army.
These manifold duties, and in particular the absence of the consuls
from the city in carrying on war, made it necessary to relieve them
of some of their civil functions. The first step taken in this
direction was to increase the importance of a minor police official,
the aedile. To this official was assigned the duty of keeping order
in public places, of supervising commercial transactions, and later,
as a natural development of these two functions, of taking charge of
the public games and of providing a supply of grain for the city.
The financial duties of the consul were turned over to the censor.
First and foremost, of course, among these, were the collection of
taxes and the expenditure of public moneys. In order that he might
draw up a correct list of taxable property, the censor required every
citizen to appear before him every five years and make a statement
concerning his property, his business, and the main facts of his
life. Consequently the censors not only knew the financial status of
every Roman, but were also familiar with his occupation and his moral
standing in the community. Now the value of a citizen’s vote in the
principal popular assembly depended on the amount of property which he
held, and certain occupations were regarded as beneath the dignity of
a senator or likely to interfere with the disinterested performance
of his duty. In later times, too, inclusion in the new social order
of the knighthood depended on the possession of a certain amount of
property. It was natural therefore that the censors, having all the
necessary information before them, should assume responsibility for
assigning citizens to their proper places in the centuriate assembly,
and for revising every five years the lists of senators and knights.
This attempt to supervise the morals of the community is one of the
most interesting experiments in government which the Romans ever made.
It reached certain social evils, like extravagance and cowardice, of
which the courts could not readily take cognizance, and the penalties
imposed, of loss of voting importance in the assembly or of exclusion
from the list of senators or knights, were severe. It may well
indicate a gradual growth of wealth in the community and a threatened
disappearance of the simple life and the simple virtues of the olden
time. What the censors tried to do was to maintain the moral and social
standards of earlier days. While the censor’s office flourished,
deviations from those standards were not defined by law, but were
determined by officials, from whose decisions there was no appeal.
Perhaps no official in Roman history enjoyed such absolute power
within the limits fixed by the penalties which could be imposed.[3]
The institution played an important rôle for many decades, but towards
the close of the second century before our era, the population had
become so large that an examination of the business and the life of
every citizen became impossible. One of the objects which the Romans
had tried to accomplish by the establishment of the censorship, they
attempted later to attain by the passage of sumptuary laws.
The growth of Rome and the consequent increase of public business led
the Romans to take his judicial functions from the consul in 367,
just as they had previously relieved him of police duties and of
financial business. Henceforth a new magistrate, the praetor, took his
place in the courts. To no other institution in the Roman political
system does the modern world owe so much as it owes to the praetor’s
office. At first there was only one incumbent of the office, and since
his duties confined him to the city he was called the urban praetor.
A hundred years later when a second praetor was added, to deal with
cases in which one party or both parties to the case were foreigners,
the new official was styled the peregrine praetor and in his courts
the principles of the law of nations were developed. Sulla ultimately
raised the number of praetors to eight. With the institution of the
praetor’s office our modern court system of judge and jury was firmly
established, and a beginning was made in the development of Roman Law.
On taking office the praetor published an edict containing the maxims
of law and the forms of procedure which would govern him throughout his
year of office. This document followed the edict of his predecessor,
with such modifications and additions as his own judgment and the needs
of the times required. The law in this way became a living thing and
constantly adapted itself to the changing needs of society. The later
history of the edict and certain additions to the praetor’s duties we
shall have occasion to notice in another connection.
The increase which the tribune’s power underwent during this period
almost made his office a new one. With their characteristic hesitation
about introducing radical changes in the constitution, and with their
tendency to take concrete action, the Romans at the outset had required
the tribune to intervene in person when a citizen was being harshly
treated. But their common sense showed them in course of time that it
was far better to allow the tribune to record his opposition to a bill
when it was under consideration than to have him prevent the execution
of a law. This change placed a tremendous power in the hands of the
tribune in his struggle with the senate and the nobility.
In the early period the senate had been composed of the representatives
of the leading clans, but as public business became more complex,
in making out the list of senators the censors gave a preference to
ex-magistrates, who were already experienced in public affairs, and
in course of time this practice was crystallized into law. The men
who thus became senators by virtue of having held the praetorship, or
consulship, for instance, were elected to a magistracy, to be sure,
by the people, but the prestige of a candidate who could point to
magistrates among his ancestors was so great that a “new man” had
little or no chance of being elected against him. The results were
twofold. A new nobility was established composed of ex-magistrates
and their lineal descendants. In the second place the senate, being
henceforth made up of men who had had experience in administration at
home and abroad, easily gained supremacy both over the magistrates,
who held office for a year only, and over the popular assemblies,
which were unwieldy and ill-informed on important matters. For a
century and a half, down to the time of the Gracchi (i.e., the second
century B.C.), this nobility maintained itself, and Rome was ruled by
a parliament. This state of things is the more astonishing in view of
the fact that at the beginning of this period the democracy had won a
complete victory, and the action of the popular assembly was accepted
as final on all matters. The anomaly is easily explained by the fact
that the senate controlled the magistrates; they only could bring bills
before the assemblies, and they dared not submit measures of which the
senate disapproved.
The ascendency of the senate during this period was due in no small
measure to the necessity of dealing with important foreign affairs,
for which the people were not qualified. Between 287 and 133 came the
war with Pyrrhus and the acquisition of Southern Italy, the three
wars with Carthage and the conquest of the Western Mediterranean, the
wars with Macedonia and the subjugation of the Eastern Mediterranean.
By 133 Rome’s territory included practically all the lands bordering
on the Mediterranean. The government of this newly-acquired empire
was a peculiarly difficult problem for a city-state. It was somewhat
simplified however by the fact that in her ultimate arrangements Rome
had to deal with city-states like herself. In Italy, at the outset, she
gave conquered cities civil rights and the right of self-government.
The Social War in 91-89 B.C. forced her to grant them the political
rights of Roman citizens also. Henceforth Italy was a political unit,
but, inasmuch as ballots could be cast at Rome only, voters outside
the city were at a disadvantage. The Roman Republic never got far
enough away from the tradition of the city-state to recognize the fact
that citizens could cast their ballots elsewhere than at Rome or that
other communities could send their representatives to Rome.
To provide for a new province outside Italy, the senate sent a
commission of ten to co-operate with the Roman commander in drawing
up a charter. In this document the province was divided into judicial
circuits, and the status of each city was fixed either by separate
treaty with Rome or by legislative action. Provincial cities were
usually permitted to retain their senates, popular assemblies, local
magistrates and courts. A few of them were “free cities,” exempt from
taxation, but most of them were required to pay a fixed sum in taxes,
or to turn over to Rome a certain proportion of the annual return
from the land. The rate of taxation was not high, but farming out the
taxes to contractors, whose sole desire was to extort as much from the
provincials as possible, made taxation in the provinces oppressive.
Roman governors were often in league with the moneyed interests at
Rome, and were themselves anxious to line their pockets during their
year abroad. After a period of experimentation the Romans settled
down to the practice of sending out ex-consuls and ex-praetors as
provincial governors. These men had experience in public affairs, but
their term of office was so short that they acquired little knowledge
of local conditions and felt little sympathy with the provincials.
Public sentiment at Rome could effect no change, because, like most
democracies, the Roman democracy felt little interest in the welfare of
the provincials.[4]
The tribunates of the two Gracchi[5] at the end of the period which
we have been considering begin the century-long revolution which
ultimately overthrew the oligarchy and brought in the empire. The
attention of Tiberius Gracchus was called to the gradual disappearance
of the peasant proprietor from Italy, to the abnormal growth of the
city at the expense of the country, and to the crushing out of the
middle class. He and his brother set themselves to work to remedy this
situation by limiting the size of landed estates, by assigning state
lands to homesteaders, and by drafting off the city’s proletariat to
colonies in Italy and abroad. In these plans Tiberius met the violent
opposition of the senate, but carried his measures through in a popular
assembly in spite of the senate’s efforts. By this action, and by
securing “the recall” of a hostile tribune, he struck a fatal blow
at the prestige of the senate, which had controlled legislation for
a century and a half. Ten years later by securing the passage in the
popular assembly of one bill to supply grain to the poor of Rome at a
price lower than the market rate, of another imposing a penalty on a
magistrate who carried out the final decree of the senate suspending
certain constitutional guarantees, and of a third which dealt with the
taxes in Asia, Gaius, the brother of Tiberius, vindicated the claim of
the popular assembly to be the controlling factor in legislation on
domestic and foreign affairs. The political history of Rome for the
next century is a continuation of this life-and-death struggle between
the nobility and the democracy, with one and the other contestant
alternately in the ascendant. The development of the empire and the
need of a standing army to carry on wars abroad and maintain order, in
the end, gave a decisive turn to the struggle.
To maintain its integrity an oligarchy must keep its numbers small and
must prevent individuals from gaining too great eminence or popularity.
The traditional acceptance by the masses of certain families as the
only families qualified to furnish rulers for the state had kept the
nobility a close corporation. To accomplish the second object, that is,
to prevent an ambitious individual from rising too rapidly to power,
from holding his authority too long a time, and from securing too
strong and compact a following, the senate had hedged the magistracies
about with a number of legal safeguards. The strict laws enacted before
the time of the Gracchi against bribery and prescribing a secret
ballot were passed to protect the nobility, and not in the interests
of morality. Custom at first, and later, legislation, fixed minimum
age requirements for most of the offices, established a certain order
in which they must be held, and required an interval between the
incumbency of two successive magistracies. The reactionary recasting
of the constitution under Sulla illustrates well the aristocratic
policy in these matters. In it the important magistracies stand in
the order of quaestorship, aedileship, praetorship, and consulship,
and a two-year interval was necessary between each two. The minimum
age requirement for the consulship was forty-three years, and no one
might be reëlected to a magistracy until a period of ten years had
expired. This is essentially the system which had been gradually worked
out during the flourishing period of the oligarchy. It had also always
been a fundamental principle of the Republic that no magistrate should
hold office for more than a year, except the censor, whose term was
eighteen months. This provision of the constitution took from the
magistrate his power and desire to initiate political action. He had
been a senator for many years before becoming consul. In twelve months
he would be a senator again. He did not lose class-consciousness during
his short term of office. If he had wished to assert himself, it would
have been impossible. The senate was a body of trained administrators,
many of whom had a wider technical knowledge of the questions at issue
than he had himself. It was a body of men bound together by mutual
self-interest, which had a tradition of centuries behind it. The
danger point in the system for the oligarchy lay in the fact that an
army and unlimited authority had to be given to the governor of a
province. The senate tried to minimize this danger by keeping a tight
grip on the purse-strings when appropriating money and in voting
troops for the provinces, and by requiring governors to submit their
arrangements in the provinces to the senate for ratification, when
their terms had expired.
The decline of parliamentarism in the century which lies between the
Gracchi and Caesar may be traced in the loss of these safeguards, one
after another. Disorders at home, the pressure of wars abroad and the
dominance of the army led to their disregard. A case in point occurred
toward the close of the second century before our era. The senatorial
leaders had shown great incompetence and venality in their campaigns
against the Numidian king Jugurtha, and the popular party forced the
election to the consulship of Marius, a man of humble birth, and gave
him command of the forces in Africa. His brilliant success in this
war made the people turn to him in 104, when the Cimbri and Teutons
swept down into Italy and overwhelmed the aristocratic leaders. Once
more he succeeded, and was elected to the consulship year after year,
until, in the year 100, he held this office for the sixth time. The
popularity of Marius brought his son to the consulship before he had
reached his twentieth year. Twenty-five years later the senate itself
was forced to give up an important feature of its policy. Sertorius,
a brilliant democratic leader, had established himself in Spain; he
had formed an alliance with Mithridates, Rome’s deadly enemy in the
East, and threatened to return to Italy and restore the democracy to
power. To avert this danger the senate made Pompey proconsul, although
he had not yet held even the quaestorship, and sent him to Spain with
40,000 troops. A little later the Gabinian and Manilian laws, carried
through by the democracy against the vigorous opposition of the
oligarchy, entrusted him with extraordinary powers for a long term to
carry on the wars against the Cilician pirates and against Mithridates.
The dictatorship of Sulla in 82 B.C. and the sole consulship of
Pompey in 52, both of which resulted from disorder in Rome, violated
the principle of collegiality which was one of the most important
safeguards of the oligarchy. Within one hundred years, then, of the
time of the Gracchi all the bulwarks which the aristocracy had built
up to protect its position were broken down. “New men” were put in the
consulship. Popular favorites attained that office before reaching the
minimum age required of candidates, and men were freely reëlected to
it. The fixed “order of the offices” and the principle of collegiality
were violated.
In its struggle for power, the democracy met a reverse in the
suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy in 63 B.C., so that
when Pompey returned from his campaign against Mithridates in the
following year, the senate ventured to postpone the ratification of
his arrangements in Asia and the reward of his veterans. This forced
him to make common cause with the democratic leader Caesar, and with
Crassus, whose wealth and financial associates made him a man of great
influence. In 60 B.C. these three political leaders formed the compact,
known as the First Triumvirate, which directed the politics of Rome
through its control of the popular assembly for a number of years.[6]
Caesar was given the consulship, and later an important command in
Gaul. The death of Crassus in a campaign in Parthia left Caesar and
Pompey face-to-face. Pompey who had staid in Rome ultimately threw in
his lot with the senatorial party, and, when in 49 B.C. the senate
tried to make Caesar give up his Gallic province and the Civil War
broke out, Pompey was put in charge of the army operating against
Caesar. Caesar’s success in the war made him undisputed master of Rome,
and before his death he became dictator for life. The liberators, as
they called themselves, made a last stand for the old régime, but were
defeated at Philippi, and the victors, Octavius, Antony and Lepidus,
formed the Second Triumvirate, the members of which did not content
themselves with the unofficial position of political bosses, as Caesar,
Crassus, and Pompey had done, but secured a legal basis for their
autocratic power through legislation in the popular assembly. Again the
elimination of one member of the triumvirate, Lepidus, and the battle
of Actium in 31 B.C. left Octavius, or Augustus as we know him in later
life, in undisputed control of the state. The revolution was complete.
The old machinery of government had broken down under the strain put
upon it by the policy of imperialism. Parliamentarism and the narrow
policy of a city-state were ill adapted to the government of an empire.
The large armies and the long terms of office abroad which Marius and
Sulla, Pompey and Caesar had held, had put at their disposal greater
resources than the state could command, and the Roman citizens and
provincials who had been taught to obey them implicitly in the field
maintained their allegiance to their old commanders upon the return of
the latter to Italy.
2. POST-AUGUSTAN
The problem which confronted Augustus in revising the constitution
after the battle of Actium was not simple. He had to provide a just
and efficient government for an empire, which included southern and
central Europe, the Near East, and northern Africa, without breaking
away too violently from the traditions of the city-state. Rome must
continue to be the capital. Italy must hold her privileged position
above the provinces, and the old organs of government and the old
forms and titles must be kept. The political life of the Republic had
been embodied in two institutions, the senate and the tribunate.
One represented the aristocracy; the other, the aspirations of the
democracy. These two organs of government formed the core of the
system which Augustus finally adopted. In this arrangement therefore
he adhered closely to the tradition of the old city-state.[7] Other
considerations reinforced in his mind the argument from tradition.
The tribunician power, which he took for life, could be exercised in
almost every field of administrative activity. Furthermore, the office
was popular, because the tribune had from time immemorial been the
champion of the masses and had protected the individual against the
encroachments of the state. Probably Augustus also felt that the power
of the office, from its nature and history, was capable of indefinite
extension in all directions.
Outside of Rome and Italy the problem before him was the improvement of
conditions in the provinces.[8] To the provinces also he applied the
dual system of control. The supervision of Italy and the management of
the older provinces were entrusted to the senate. The border provinces,
where troops were stationed, he took into his own hands. He directed
the government of them by virtue of the proconsular _imperium_ which
he held permanently. In this case, as in that of the tribunician
power, he held firmly to an old practice, because proconsuls had
ruled the provinces for centuries, but he extended the scope of his
own _imperium_ to cover all the unsettled provinces. This arrangement
made him commander-in-chief of all the legions. He also held the power
permanently, and he was not required to lay down the _imperium_, as
republican proconsuls had done, on entering the city. The whole empire
was thus put under the dual control of Augustus and the senate. This is
the first instance in history of the establishment of a constitutional
monarchy.
The provinces profited greatly by the changes which Augustus made in
the method of governing them. The evils of the republican system come
out in Cicero’s orations against Verres, the governor of Sicily, and in
the letters which he wrote while he was himself governor of Cilicia.
Governors had been sent out to the provinces without paying much heed
to their competence. They received no salary, and their terms were
short. The governors whom Augustus sent out were chosen on the score
of honesty and fitness. Their terms were long enough to enable them
to become familiar with conditions in their provinces. They received
a generous fixed salary, and those who were capable and honest might
look forward to steady advancement. The older provinces were still
under the control of the senate, but the excellence of government in
the imperial provinces exercised a beneficial influence upon them also.
Italians and provincials welcomed the firm and stable government which
the principate of Augustus promised them in the same spirit in which
the French accepted Louis Napoleon.
The development of the city-state into a world-empire is well
illustrated by the decadence of the popular assembly which represented
the narrow, selfish interests of the city of Rome, and we are not
surprised to find the election of magistrates transferred from this
body to the senate under the successor of Augustus. As for the
magistracies they lost their independence in large measure. Augustus
introduced the practice of commending certain candidates for office,
and his approval assured them election. Consequently they became
subordinates in the new executive system, of which he was the head.
The functions of government were divided between the prince and the
senate, but the lion’s share fell to the prince. The senate could not
successfully assert, in dealing with him, the claims which it had made
good against an annually elected magistrate of much less prestige and
power. Another circumstance contributed greatly to lessen the influence
of the senate. During his declining years Augustus could not attend
all its meetings. Consequently he adopted the practice of sending it
his proposals in writing. They were always adopted without change, and
propositions of this sort, known as _orationes principis_, became in
the course of time part of the law of the land.
The powers which Augustus held were granted to him for life or for a
term of years. It was not easy to arrange for their transmission to a
successor, but he cleverly surmounted the difficulty by naming Tiberius
as heir to his private fortune and by having him invested with the
_imperium_ and with the tribunician power. The theory of the republican
magistracy was kept intact, inasmuch as the two powers just mentioned
were conferred on Tiberius by the senate in coöperation with the
people, but the action of the popular assembly was a pure matter of
form, and the senate could be counted on to approve the choice of the
prince. The precedent which Augustus set was followed by his immediate
successors.
He materially strengthened his position by clearly marking off certain
social classes from the rest of the population and by making their
privileges dependent on his favor. No one could become a senator
unless he had been elected to a magistracy, and success in an election
required the support of the prince. He gave dignity to the knighthood
and definiteness to its membership by making important appointments
from its ranks, and by revising the list of knights at regular
intervals. He even created an aristocracy among the freedmen in the
municipalities.
No survey of Roman politics would be complete without some account
of political life in these municipalities, for, as we have already
noticed, the city was the organic political unit in antiquity. Several
municipal charters,[9] most of which have been found within the last
fifty or seventy-five years, give us a clear idea of the municipal
system in the West and of the efforts which were made in the early
empire to improve it and make it uniform. In cities of the typical
form there were two local chief magistrates corresponding to the
early republican consuls, two minor magistrates who bore the title
of aediles, a senate or common council of one hundred members, and a
popular assembly. The system adopted was conservative, inasmuch as the
control of local affairs rested largely with the local senate, and
the magistrates were its ministers. Most cities were allowed to keep
a large measure of self-government under the early empire, and this
fact kept alive the sentiment of local pride and the local patriotism
of the citizens. So long as the cities were free to manage their own
affairs, the empire was prosperous. As the cities lost their sense
of responsibility, or as the central government encroached on their
rights, as it began to do in the second century of our era, the decline
of the empire set in. It was to this halcyon period of municipal
prosperity from the latter part of the first to the close of the second
century that Gibbon pays his famous tribute in the third chapter of his
history: “If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the
world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from
the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.” We need not stop
to consider in this connection whether the decline of this prosperity
caused the decay of self-government or was due to it. At all events the
two processes were contemporaneous.
To return from this brief account of city-life to the story of imperial
politics,--as we have noticed, under the system which Augustus set up,
there were two recognized sources of authority in the state, the prince
and the senate. We say “recognized sources of power,” because in the
background loomed up the sinister figure of the army, which was still
capable of determining the fortunes of the state, as it had done in the
times of Sulla and Marius, of Pompey and Caesar. Perhaps we may see
the first step toward the intrusion of the army into politics again
when Sejanus, the unscrupulous praetorian prefect of Tiberius, brought
all the cohorts of the praetorian guard together in Rome. The control
of these soldiers stationed in the capital put a powerful weapon in
the hands of Sejanus, but, before he could strike, his designs were
laid bare. The hereditary principle which Augustus had introduced,
by adopting Tiberius and by conferring imperial honors upon him, a
principle which was followed by his immediate successors, was for a
time a safeguard for the succession. But when the Julian line became
extinct on the murder of Nero, the field lay open to the imperial
aspirant who was backed by the strongest army. After a year of struggle
between four military leaders, Vespasian made good his claim to the
prize, and in the year 69 founded a new dynasty, the Flavian. The
precedent which Vespasian had set was not followed for a century, but
from the close of the second century to the accession of Diocletian in
284 the praetorian guard and the army constituted the power which made
and unmade the rulers of Rome. Within the period of seventy-three years
which preceded the reign of Diocletian there were in fact twenty-three
different emperors, almost all of whom owed their elevation to the
throne to the force of arms, and kept their places on the throne so
long as they could keep the favor of their armed supporters.