It is a fundamental principle of an aristocracy that no individual
should attain undue prominence above others of his class, and perhaps
no governing body has devised so many safeguards against Caesarism,
and entrenched itself so firmly behind tradition, as the Roman senate
did. Every aspirant for an important magistracy must have reached
a specified age and must have held all the lower offices. These
provisions prevented a successful politician from being carried into
the consulship on a sudden wave of popular favor, and a consul’s term
of office was so short that he had little opportunity to make his
political position secure. Over against him stood the senate with its
_esprit de corps_, and its power to control appointments and to ratify
or reject treaties, which, as we noticed in the last chapter, enabled
it to determine in large measure his domestic and foreign policy. The
Roman Senate protected itself for many decades against the political
aspirations of successful generals by granting them or withholding
from them a sufficient army, by voting them generous or niggardly
appropriations, by requiring them to submit all their acts to it for
ratification, and by conceding to them or refusing them a triumph or a
“thanksgiving” on their return to Rome. Its power was only broken in
the last century of the Republic when certain democratic magistrates
made an appeal directly to the popular assembly. To this move on the
part of the Executive we have had an analogue on several occasions
when the Chief Executive of the United States or of a state has made
a popular appeal to the voters in his struggle with a legislative
body.[33]
4. THE RECALL
One of the political problems with which we have been much concerned
in late years has to do with the possibility of removing an elected
official from office. We proceed to the accomplishment of that purpose
in two ways, by the traditional method of impeachment or by the new
device of the recall. They differ in the fact that the former is a
judicial procedure, whereas a recall is brought about by the direct
action of the voters. The Romans were a practical people and did not
like to interfere with the orderly transaction of public business by
removing an executive from office. Consequently we have no record of
any attempt being made to remove a civil magistrate from office until
we come to the stormy period of the second century before our era. In
169 B.C. one of the censors of that year was impeached and tried before
the popular assembly, and in 133 B.C. the tribune Tiberius Gracchus
secured the recall of his colleague Octavius by a popular vote. Both
cases illustrate the application of the Roman doctrine of popular
sovereignty in its extreme form. Neither method of procedure, however,
found favor in later years. In fact the Romans did not have so much
need of either process as we have today, because the tribune could veto
an arbitrary or unscrupulous act of a magistrate.
5. PENSIONS, BONUSES, AND MILITARISM
One of the important political and economic questions which countries
have to settle in modern times at the close of a war is that of
reinstating soldiers in civil pursuits and of granting them some
material compensation for their services. After the Civil War in this
country the question was solved by throwing open lands in the Middle
West to settlement and by appropriating money liberally for pensions.
At the moment of writing the needs of the soldier returning to civil
life from the late war with the Central European powers have been
met in part by a system of insurance, by the payment of a small sum
on discharge, and by making provision for the disabled. It has been
further proposed to compensate men honorably discharged from service
by giving them either cash payments or homestead allotments. All of
these plans were tried by the Romans. Down to the close of the second
century before our era only the well-to-do were enrolled in the
legions. Marius for the first time opened the ranks to the proletariat.
When the term of service of his soldiers came to an end he had to
make suitable provision for them. He did so by founding a colony and
granting them allotments in it. This precedent was followed by Sulla,
Pompey, and Caesar, and between 59 and 31 B.C. twenty-five or thirty
colonies of veterans were thus established. Under the Empire a soldier
received also a fixed sum of money on his discharge. The benefit
societies which the Roman government encouraged among the soldiers
served somewhat the same purpose as our system of war-insurance. The
bonus system was adopted, in a formal way, for the first time by
Augustus in 7 B.C., instead of the customary assignments of land. At
that time he gave gratuities to his discharged soldiers amounting to
400,000,000 sesterces, as he tells us in his biography.[34] Although
this is perhaps the earliest instance of the systematic award of a
large cash payment, occasional grants of this sort occurred much
earlier, because the bonus had its beginning in the division of the
spoils of war among the soldiers, and was given at the time of the
triumph. When the practice of granting a bonus had once been formally
established, the occasions on which it was given were multiplied
for political reasons. To win popularity with the army, Tiberius,
on his accession, made a grant of money to every soldier, and his
example was followed by Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and most of their
successors. In the later empire, when the support of the army became
all-important to an emperor, bonuses increased in size; they were
given on many anniversaries, and imposed a very heavy burden on the
imperial treasury. In the fourth century the Emperor Julian, who was
far from warlike, on mounting the throne, gave to every Roman soldier
a bonus whose nominal value was equal to about thirty-two dollars.
Since there were probably 400,000 soldiers in the army, this action
cost the government $12,800,000 or nearly $50,000,000 if we roughly
estimate that gold and silver would purchase four times as much then
as they do now. The militaristic spirit of Rome has descended to us
and makes its influence felt today. The campaigns and the conquests of
great Roman commanders have been studied with minute care by generals
and statesmen in modern times. Elaborate studies, for instance, have
been made of Caesar’s campaigns by Napoleon III, by Col. Stoffel
of his staff, and in General von Göler’s great work dedicated to
Marshall von Moltke with the noteworthy phrase: “Feldherr und Sieger
auf gallischem Boden.” Elsewhere, in a paper on the trend of classical
history, I noted the fact that the study of Roman military history had
been engaging the attention of an unusually large number of scholars
in the years immediately preceding the war with the states of Central
Europe. It was also a significant thing that many of these writers in
their appraisal of the men and the events of ancient times tacitly held
to the principle that in the ultimate analysis the course of history
was determined by the use of naked force, and that the progress of the
world was furthered by the conquest of the small nation by the great
one.
6. CASES OF PATERNALISM
In one of the preceding chapters we have tried to show how the
Romans in the second century before our era attempted to check the
decline of morals and the growth of extravagance by giving the censor
extraordinary discretionary power over the daily life of the citizens.
It may be interesting in this connection to say a word of three or
four other cases of paternalism, in which the state interfered in
private life or business in the hope of correcting some widespread
evil or social disorder. All of these social evils which Rome tried
to remedy have their analogues in our own times. The most outstanding
of these problems was unemployment and lack of food in the large
cities. This was the problem which Gaius Gracchus tried to solve by
his corn law in 123 B.C. Our best estimates put the population of
Rome at 800,000 in the early Empire.[35] Perhaps it numbered a half
million in the time of the Gracchi. Italy, after supplying her own
needs, was unable to provide all these people with sufficient food, or
with food at prices within the reach of the poor. In times of great
scarcity previous governments had tried to meet the difficulty by
bringing grain to Rome from Sicily and Sardinia. The motives which
actuated them were not primarily humanitarian. But a hungry proletariat
would have threatened the existence of society and government. Gaius
Gracchus tried to do in a systematic way what some of his predecessors
had attempted in an irregular fashion. He organized the purchase and
transportation of grain from the provinces and provided for its sale
at about half the market price. He may have thought of this measure
as a temporary palliative to meet an emergency. He may have hoped
later to do away with unemployment, by developing the industries of
Rome and settling the needy in colonies. He may have expected to
stimulate agriculture in Italy and in that way to bring down the price
of food. But the immediate result was the recognition by the state of
its duty to provide food for the city, and to adjust the price of the
necessities of life to the purse of the consumer. Within seventy-five
years after the tribunate of Gracchus we hear of four or five new
corn laws, each one increasing the amount of grain supplied by the
government or lowering its price. The democratic leader, Clodius, in
58 B.C. even supplied grain free to the needy. Suetonius tells us
that Caesar introduced a partial reform by cutting down the number of
people who received cheap or free grain from 320,000 to 150,000. This
essay in the fixing of prices by the government which Gracchus made
in 123 B.C. was carried to its logical conclusion by Diocletian in
his famous edict in 301 A.D. In another place the present writer has
made a study of this decree, which was found in Asia Minor some two
centuries ago engraved on tablets.[36] It is sufficient to note here
that in this document the Emperor fixed the maximum prices which it was
lawful to charge for seven hundred or eight hundred different articles
comprising food, clothing, shoes, and labor of all kinds. The penalty
for selling an article at a higher price than that specified in the law
was death. The attempt to enforce the law led to riot and disorder and
its ultimate repeal.
It will be noticed that in his edict Diocletian tried to fix wages,
not minimum, but maximum wages. The later empire was much concerned
with the labor-question. It believed that the prosperity of the people
required a proper diversification of industry, that each community
should have a sufficient number of carpenters, weavers, and farmers,
for instance. This end could be attained most easily by making an
occupation hereditary in a family. When this point had been reached
the caste system was fixed on Roman society. This final result may
be seen in the _Theodosian Code_ of the fifth century, but we cannot
follow all the steps by which it was reached. Apparently the state
accomplished its purpose by means of the trade-guilds. Hundreds of
inscriptions testify to the existence of these organizations in various
parts of the Empire. Just as the central government made the _curia_,
or local senate, responsible for the taxes of the municipality which
it represented, so it held the guilds of carpenters or of weavers
responsible for the services which they were qualified to render to
the community. This obligation was first laid on the guilds of the
skippers and bakers. If they allowed their trades to languish, Rome,
Alexandria, and Constantinople would starve. Their occupations were the
“basic industries” of antiquity. The man who was a baker or a seaman
was therefore obliged to continue as a baker or seaman his life long,
and his children were obliged to follow his footsteps. Gradually other
trades were swept into the government’s net, until freedom in industry
and commerce had disappeared.
Even before the state had brought the laborer under its control, it
had acquired the ownership of a great part of the natural resources of
the Empire. The Emperor owned gold mines in Dalmatia and Dacia, silver
mines in Pannonia, iron mines in Noricum, tin mines in Britain, and
marble quarries, forests, clay-pits, and salt-works in other provinces.
Egypt was from the outset the personal domain of the Emperor, and by
confiscation or legacy he gradually acquired immense estates in most
of the richer provinces. Most of the mines and the imperial estates
were in charge of a procurator, and were let out at a fixed rental to
contractors. The work on the estates was done by tenants. Whether state
ownership promoted productivity or not we can not say with certainty,
but the complaints which we find in the _Theodosian Code_[37] of the
exorbitant prices charged for the products of the mines and quarries
would seem to show that they were inefficiently managed under the later
empire. The outcome, so far as the workers in the mines and the tenants
on the estates are concerned, is clear enough. Titles are found in the
_Theodosian Code_,[38] requiring those who live near the mines and
their children to work in the mines. The condition of the tenants on
imperial estates had fallen to a low point as early as the latter part
of the second century, as we can see from the pathetic petition which
the people on an imperial estate in Africa addressed to Commodus. In
time the tenants on these estates found it impossible to give up their
leases, or were forbidden to do so, and became serfs.
In this field of paternalism of which we have been speaking another
important issue of modern times has its counterpart in the history
of Roman politics. I mean the attitude of the central government
toward the municipalities within its territory. Within recent years
this question has taken an acute form in the states of New York,
Pennsylvania, and Illinois. To what extent may the legislature or the
governor interfere to correct local evils in the city of New York, in
Pittsburgh, or in Chicago? The Romans under the Republic were not much
concerned with the welfare of the cities under their control. With the
establishment of the Empire a change in their attitude is noticeable.
The improvement in the general administration of the provinces
naturally brought into relief certain evils in the local governments
of provincial cities, especially financial mismanagement. The letters
which Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, wrote to Trajan in the early
part of the second century are very illuminating in this respect.
He asks his imperial master what shall be done at Nicaea, where
10,000,000 sesterces have been spent on an unfinished theatre whose
walls have already begun to crack.[39] May he inspect the accounts of
the city of Apamea? Is it proper for him to check the extravagance
shown at civic festivals? Out of these comparatively small beginnings
there developed the imperial policy of supervising the finances of the
municipalities of the Empire, and curators were sent out to them, who
took entire charge of all the land and other property belonging to a
city, and were responsible not to the citizens of the town, but to the
governor of the province. The exercise by the curator of these large
powers encroached on the authority of the local officials, lessened
the feeling of civic responsibility among the people, and in the end
completely undermined local self-government. If we make a possible
exception of the censorship of morals in the second century before
our era, all the experiments in paternalism which the Romans made
failed:--the fixing of prices, the control of the labor market, state
ownership, and the supervision of local government.
7. GROWTH OF CITIES
The drifting of large numbers of people into the great cities was one
of the baffling problems of antiquity, as it is today. It meant the
withdrawal of farmers and farm-laborers needed on the land. It led to
unemployment in the cities. It brought so many people into the cities
that it was difficult to supply them with sufficient food. It made the
cities in times of economic distress or political excitement dangerous
centres of disorder. To discuss here all the reasons why Rome and
certain other cities grew to their unwieldy size would take us too far
afield. We may mention, however, one or two of the influences at work.
Many of the native farm laborers had been killed in the long wars. Many
of the farmers had suffered the same fate, and their farms had passed
into the hands of large landowners and were cultivated by slaves. The
remaining peasant proprietors could not compete with the ranch owners,
and the free laborers could not hold their own against the slaves.
People from both these classes went into the provinces or moved to
the city in the early period, while under the late republic and the
empire the size of the city was augmented by a great influx of slaves,
who found it a comparatively easy matter to purchase their freedom or
to obtain it in the wills of their masters. To feed these people and
keep them reasonably contented the government gave them food free or at
a low price and provided them with baths, theatres, and gladiatorial
contests. This attempt to relieve the situation only aggravated the
evil. The attractions which the government added to city life by its
action kept former residents in Rome and drew others to the city.
Closely related to this question of the alarming growth of the larger
cities was the displacement of the native stock in Rome and Italy by
people from abroad. We have already noticed that nearly ninety per
cent. of the permanent residents of Rome under the Empire were of
foreign extraction. Rome was therefore facing the same situation which
disturbs us. It is true that most of the foreigners living in Italy
were slaves or the descendants of slaves, as is the case with the
negroes in this country. It was an instance of forced rather than of
voluntary immigration, but the resultant change in the character of
the population is the same in both cases. Not only was the city of Rome
dominated by foreigners, but at Beneventum, and Milan, and throughout
the country districts of Italy the same condition prevailed. In still
another respect the change in the character of the population of Italy
reminds us of a corresponding change in our own population. Fifty years
ago most of our immigrants came from western Europe. That tide of
immigration has decreased and we regard with some alarm the arrival at
our ports now of large numbers of people from eastern and southeastern
Europe. They come from countries whose languages, and political and
social ideas are very different from ours. They do not readily accept
our traditions and institutions. This was exactly the situation in
Italy under the Empire. By very interesting studies which Professor
Frank[40] and others have made of the names found on tombstones and
in the records of trade-guilds it appears that “the whole of Italy
as well as the Romanized portions of Gaul and Spain were during the
Empire dominated in blood by the East.” The result was disastrous to
Roman traditions and to Roman political life. In Professor Frank’s
opinion, the fact that, even as early as the time of the Gracchi,
“reform through orderly compromise gave way to revolution through
bloodshed is largely due to the displacement of real Italic peoples by
men of Oriental, Punic and Iberian stock.” At all events the presence
of this large Oriental element in the population of the West helps us
to understand the comparative willingness with which Rome accepted the
principate in place of the republic. It helps us to understand the
development of autocracy, the gradual adoption of Oriental titles and
ceremonial at court, and the partial acceptance by the people of the
Oriental theory of the Emperor’s power.
IV. SOME FINAL REFLECTIONS
“The history of all institutions has a deep value and an abiding
interest to all those who have the courage to work upon it. It
presents in every branch a regularly developed series of causes and
consequences, and abounds in examples of that continuity of life, the
realization of which is necessary to give the reader a personal hold
on the past and a right judgment of the present. For the roots of the
present lie deep in the past; and nothing in the past is dead to the
man who would learn how the present comes to be what it is.” So Stubbs
wrote on finishing his history of the _English Constitution_ and on
sending it out to the public. What he has said when thinking of the
beginnings of constitutional government in England is true in a higher
degree of the relations of modern political institutions to those of
Rome. This is the case partly because we owe to Rome so much of our
political philosophy and so much of our political system. It is true
partly because our indebtedness to Rome in the field of politics has
not been appreciated, and consequently we have failed to understand
the origin and nature of many of our institutions. The failure to
recognize the great debt which we owe to her was a natural oversight.
The great gulf of the Middle Ages lies between Roman times and our
own day. Until the trend of political thought and the development of
society during that period came to be better understood, the close
relation which medieval political theory and practice bore to that of
the Romans and our dependence on the medieval were not seen. Until
very recently students of modern political institutions rarely carried
their investigations beyond the limits of their respective countries,
or at the most they did not go back beyond the Renaissance. But as the
Carlyles have said in their _History of Mediaeval Political Theory_:
“From the lawyers of the second century to the theorists of the French
Revolution, the history of political thought is continuous, changing
in form, modified in content, but still the same in its fundamental
conceptions.” Many writers on political science in ignorance or
in disregard of this continuity tell us, for instance, that the
representative principle was unknown in antiquity, or that the jury
system was of English or Scandinavian origin. But fortunately a
few scholars, like Bryce, who have an acquaintance with classical
institutions, are gradually correcting these errors and helping us
to see the way in which many of our modern political theories and
institutions have come to us from Rome.
Our political indebtedness to the Romans takes two different forms. We
have inherited many theories and institutions from them, and in the
second place we have before us for our guidance their experience in
dealing with difficult practical problems. As we have noticed in the
preceding chapters, they have taught us to study actual governmental
systems rather than to attempt the construction of Utopias. We owe
to them the fruitful suggestion that the state may be compared to an
organism. The conception of the brotherhood of man goes back to the
early Empire, and out of this conception international law, and its
counterpart, civil law, have developed. Roman writers recognized the
three forms of government, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and
pointed out the importance of dividing the functions of government
between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. From them
we have derived our accepted doctrine of popular sovereignty, and to
them the theory of the divine right of kings may be traced. The Romans
developed the distinction which is so vital in English common law
between statutes and customs, officially recognized, and showed the
great advantages inherent in a flexible constitution which is made up
of these two elements. They have handed down to us the representative
principle, the jury method of trial, civil law, a clear conception of
the rights of a citizen, a jealous regard for law and tradition, a
comprehensive system of political checks and balances, model systems
of local government and civil service, and methods of governing,
civilizing, and unifying alien peoples which have never been equalled.