Art
Artistic Endowment of the Italians
Poetry is impassioned language, and its modulation is melody. While
in this sense no people is without poetry and music, some nations
have received a pre-eminent endowment of poetic gifts. The Italian
nation, however, was not and is not one of these. The Italian is
deficient in the passion of the heart, in the longing to idealize
what is human and to confer humanity on what is lifeless, which
form the very essence of poetic art. His acuteness of perception
and his graceful versatility enabled him to excel in irony and in
the vein of tale-telling which we find in Horace and Boccaccio,
in the humorous pleasantries of love and song which are presented
in Catullus and in the good popular songs of Naples, above all in
the lower comedy and in farce. Italian soil gave birth in ancient
times to burlesque tragedy, and in modern times to mock-heroic
poetry. In rhetoric and histrionic art especially no other nation
equalled or equals the Italians. But in the more perfect kinds of
art they have hardly advanced beyond dexterity of execution, and
no epoch of their literature has produced a true epos or a genuine
drama. The very highest literary works that have been successfully
produced in Italy, divine poems like Dante's Commedia, and historical
treatises such as those of Sallust and Macchiavelli, of Tacitus and
Colletta, are pervaded by a passion more rhetorical than spontaneous.
Even in music, both in ancient and modern times, really creative
talent has been far less conspicuous than the accomplishment which
speedily assumes the character of virtuosoship, and enthrones in
the room of genuine and genial art a hollow and heart-withering
idol. The field of the inward in art--so far as we may in the case
of art distinguish an inward and an outward at all--is not that
which has fallen to the Italian as his special province; the power
of beauty, to have its full effect upon him, must be placed not
ideally before his mind, but sensuously before his eyes. Accordingly
he is thoroughly at home in architecture, painting, and sculpture;
in these he was during the epoch of ancient culture the best disciple
of the Hellenes, and in modern times he has become the master of
all nations.
Dance, Music, and Song in Latium
From the defectiveness of our traditional information it is
not possible to trace the development of artistic ideas among the
several groups of nations in Italy; and in particular we are no
longer in a position to speak of the poetry of Italy; we can only
speak of that of Latium. Latin poetry, like that of every other
nation, began in the lyrical form, or, to speak more correctly,
sprang out of those primitive festal rejoicings, in which dance,
music, and song were still inseparably blended. It is remarkable,
however, that in the most ancient religious usages dancing, and
next to dancing instrumental music, were far more prominent than
song. In the great procession, with which the Roman festival of
victory was opened, the chief place, next to the images of the gods
and the champions, was assigned to the dancers grave and merry.
The grave dancers were arranged in three groups of men, youths,
and boys, all clad in red tunics with copper belts, with swords
and short lances, the men being moreover furnished with helmets,
and generally in full armed attire. The merry dancers were divided
into two companies--"the sheep" in sheep-skins with a party-coloured
over-garment, and "the goats" naked down to the waist, with a buck's
skin thrown over them. In like manner the "leapers" (-salii-)
were perhaps the most ancient and sacred of all the priesthoods,(1)
and dancers (-ludii-, -ludiones-) were indispensable in all public
processions, and particularly at funeral solemnities; so that
dancing became even in ancient times a common trade. But, wherever
the dancers made their appearance, there appeared also the musicians
or--which was in the earliest times the same thing--the pipers.
They too were never wanting at a sacrifice, at a marriage, or at
a funeral; and by the side of the primitive public priesthood of
the "leapers" there was ranged, of equal antiquity although of far
inferior rank, the guild of the "pipers" (-collegium tibicinum-(2)),
whose true character as strolling musicians is evinced by their
ancient privilege--maintained even in spite of the strictness
of Roman police--of wandering through the streets at their annual
festival, wearing masks and full of sweet wine. While dancing thus
presents itself as an honourable function and music as one subordinate
but still necessary, so that public corporations were instituted
for both of them, poetry appears more as a matter incidental and,
in some measure, indifferent, whether it may have come into existence
on its own account or to serve as an accompaniment to the movements
of the dancers.
Religious Chants
The earliest chant, in the view of the Romans, was that which the
leaves sang to themselves in the green solitude of the forest. The
whispers and pipings of the "favourable spirit" (-faunus-, from
-favere-) in the grove were reproduced for men, by those who had
the gift of listening to him, in rhythmically measured language
(-casmen-, afterwards -carmen-, from -canere-). Of a kindred nature
to these soothsaying songs of inspired men and women (-vates-) were
the incantations properly so called, the formulae for conjuring
away diseases and other troubles, and the evil spells by which they
prevented rain and called down lightning or even enticed the seed
from one field to another; only in these instances, probably from
the outset, formulae of mere sounds appear side by side with formulae
of words.(3) More firmly rooted in tradition and equally ancient
were the religious litanies which were sung and danced by the Salii
and other priesthoods; the only one of which that has come down to
us, a dance-chant of the Arval Brethren in honour of Mars probably
composed to be sung in alternate parts, deserves a place here.
-Enos, Lases, iuvate!
Ne velue rue, Marmar, sins incurrere in pleores!
Satur fu, fere Mars! limen sali! sta! berber!
Semunis alternei advocapit conctos!
Enos, Marmar, iuvato!
Triumpe!-
Which may be thus interpreted:
To the gods:
-Nos, Lares, iuvate!
Ne veluem (= malam luem) ruem (= ruinam), Mamers,
sinas incurrere in plures!
Satur esto, fere Mars!
To the individual brethren:
In limen insili! sta! verbera (limen?)!
To all the brethren:
Semones alterni advocate cunctos!
To the god:
Nos, Mamers, iuvato!
To the individual brethren:
Tripudia!-(4)
The Latin of this chant and of kindred fragments of the Salian
songs, which were regarded even by the philologues of the Augustan
age as the oldest documents of their mother-tongue, is related
to the Latin of the Twelve Tables somewhat as the language of the
Nibelungen is related to the language of Luther; and we may perhaps
compare these venerable litanies, as respects both language and
contents, with the Indian Vedas.
Panegyrics and Lampoons
Lyrical panegyrics and lampoons belonged to a later epoch. We might
infer from the national character of the Italians that satirical
songs must have abounded in Latium in ancient times, even if their
prevalence had not been attested by the very ancient measures of
police directed against them. But the panegyrical chants became
of more importance. When a burgess was borne to burial, the bier
was followed by a female relative or friend, who, accompanied by a
piper, sang his dirge (-nenia-). In like manner at banquets boys,
who according to the fashion of those days attended their fathers
even at feasts out of their own houses, sang by turns songs in
praise of their ancestors, sometimes to the pipe, sometimes simply
reciting them without accompaniment (-assa voce canere-). The custom
of men singing in succession at banquets was presumably borrowed
from the Greeks, and that not till a later age. We know no further
particulars of these ancestral lays; but it is self-evident that
they must have attempted description and narration and thus have
developed, along with and out of the lyrical element, the features
of epic poetry.
The Masked Farce
Other elements of poetry were called into action in the primitive
popular carnival, the comic dance or -satura-,(5) which beyond
doubt reached back to a period anterior to the separation of the
stocks. On such occasions song would never be wanting; and the
circumstances under which such pastimes were exhibited, chiefly
at public festivals and marriages, as well as the mainly practical
shape which they certainly assumed, naturally suggested that several
dancers, or sets of dancers, should take up reciprocal parts;
so that the singing thus came to be associated with a species of
acting, which of course was chiefly of a comical and often of a
licentious character. In this way there arose not merely alternative
chants, such as afterwards went by the name of Fescennine songs, but
also the elements of a popular comedy--which were in this instance
planted in a soil admirably adapted for their growth, as an acute
sense of the outward and the comic, and a delight in gesticulation
and masquerade have ever been leading traits of Italian character.
No remains have been preserved of these -incunabula- of the Roman
epos and drama. That the ancestral lays were traditional is
self-evident, and is abundantly demonstrated by the fact that they
were regularly recited by children; but even in the time of Cato
the Elder they had completely passed into oblivion. The comedies
again, if it be allowable so to name them, were at this period and
long afterwards altogether improvised. Consequently nothing of
this popular poetry and popular melody could be handed down but
the measure, the accompaniment of music and choral dancing, and
perhaps the masks.
Metre
Whether what we call metre existed in the earlier times is doubtful;
the litany of the Arval Brethren scarcely accommodates itself to
an outwardly fixed metrical system, and presents to us rather the
appearance of an animated recitation. On the other hand we find in
subsequent times a very ancient rhythm, the so-called Saturnian(6)
or Faunian metre, which is foreign to the Greeks, and may be
conjectured to have arisen contemporaneously with the oldest Latin
popular poetry. The following poem, belonging, it is true, to a
far later age, may give an idea of it:--
Quod re sua difeidens--aspere afleicta
Parens timens heic vovit--voto hoc soluto
___
Decuma facta poloucta--leibereis lubentis
____ _____
Donu danunt__hercolei--maxsume--mereto
_____
Semol te orant se voti--crebro con__demnes.
__--'__--'__--'__^/ __--'__--'__--'_^
That which, misfortune dreading--sharply to afflict him, An anxious
parent vowed here,--when his wish was granted, A sacred tenth for
banquet--gladly give his children to Hercules a tribute--most of
all deserving; And now they thee beseech, that--often thou wouldst
hear them.
Panegyrics as well as comic songs appear to have been uniformly
sung in Saturnian metre, of course to the pipe, and presumably in
such a way that the -caesura- in particular in each line was strongly
marked; and in alternate singing the second singer probably took
up the verse at this point. The Saturnian measure is, like every
other occurring in Roman and Greek antiquity, based on quantity;
but of all the antique metres perhaps it is the least thoroughly
elaborated, for besides many other liberties it allows itself the
greatest license in omitting the short syllables, and it is at the
same time the most imperfect in construction, for these iambic and
trochaic half-lines opposed to each other were but little fitted
to develop a rhythmical structure adequate for the purposes of the
higher poetry.
Melody
The fundamental elements of the national music and choral dancing
in Latium, which must likewise have been established during this
period, are buried for us in oblivion; except that the Latin pipe
is reported to have been a short and slender instrument, provided
with only four holes, and originally, as the name shows, made out
of the light thighbone of some animal.
Masks
Lastly, the masks used in after times for the standing characters
of the Latin popular comedy or the Atellana, as it was called:
Maccus the harlequin, Bucco the glutton, Pappus the good papa, and
the wise Dossennus--masks which have been cleverly and strikingly
compared to the two servants, the -pantalon- and the -dottore-, in
the Italian comedy of Pulcinello--already belonged to the earliest
Latin popular art. That they did so cannot of course be strictly
proved; but as the use of masks for the face in Latium in the case
of the national drama was of immemorial antiquity, while the Greek
drama in Rome did not adopt them for a century after its first
establishment, as, moreover, those Atellane masks were of decidedly
Italian origin, and as, in fine, the origination as well as
the execution of improvised pieces cannot well be conceived apart
from fixed masks assigning once for all to the player his proper
position throughout the piece, we must associate fixed masks with
the rudiments of the Roman drama, or rather regard them as constituting
those rudiments themselves.
Earliest Hellenic Influences
If our information respecting the earliest indigenous culture and
art of Latium is so scanty, it may easily be conceived that our
knowledge will be still scantier regarding the earliest impulses
imparted in this respect to the Romans from without. In a certain
sense we may include under this head their becoming acquainted with
foreign languages, particularly the Greek. To this latter language, of
course, the Latins generally were strangers, as was shown by their
enactment in respect to the Sibylline oracles;(7) but an acquaintance
with it must have been not at all uncommon in the case of merchants.
The same may be affirmed of the knowledge of reading and writing,
closely connected as it was with the knowledge of Greek.(8) The
culture of the ancient world, however, was not based either
on the knowledge of foreign languages or on elementary technical
accomplishments. An influence more important than any thus imparted
was exercised over the development of Latium by the elements of the
fine arts, which were already in very early times received from the
Hellenes. For it was the Hellenes alone, and not the Phoenicians
or the Etruscans, that in this respect exercised an influence on
the Italians. We nowhere find among the latter any stimulus of
the fine arts which can be referred to Carthage or Caere, and the
Phoenician and Etruscan forms of civilization may be in general
perhaps classed with those that are hybrid, and for that reason
not further productive.(9) But the influence of Greece did not
fail to bear fruit. The Greek seven-stringed lyre, the "strings"
(-fides-, from --sphidei--, gut; also -barbitus-, --barbitos--),
was not like the pipe indigenous in Latium, and was always regarded
there as an instrument of foreign origin; but the early period at
which it gained a footing is demonstrated partly by the barbarous
mutilation of its Greek name, partly by its being employed even in
ritual.(10) That some of the legendary stores of the Greeks during
this period found their way into Latium, is shown by the ready
reception of Greek works of sculpture with their representations
based so thoroughly upon the poetical treasures of the nation; and
the old Latin barbarous conversions of Persephone into Prosepna,
Bellerophontes into Melerpanta, Kyklops into Cocles, Laomedon into
Alumentus, Ganymedes into Catamitus, Neilos into Melus, Semele into
Stimula, enable us to perceive at how remote a period such stories
had been heard and repeated by the Latins. Lastly and especially,
the Roman chief festival or festival of the city (-ludi maximi-,
-Romani-) must in all probability have owed, if not its origin,
at any rate its later arrangements to Greek influence. It was an
extraordinary thanksgiving festival celebrated in honour of the
Capitoline Jupiter and the gods dwelling along with him, ordinarily
in pursuance of a vow made by the general before battle, and
therefore usually observed on the return home of the burgess-force
in autumn. A festal procession proceeded toward the Circus staked
off between the Palatine and Aventine, and furnished with an arena
and places for spectators; in front the whole boys of Rome, arranged
according to the divisions of the burgess-force, on horseback and
on foot; then the champions and the groups of dancers which we have
described above, each with their own music; thereafter the servants
of the gods with vessels of frankincense and other sacred utensils;
lastly the biers with the images of the gods themselves. The
spectacle itself was the counterpart of war as it was waged in
primitive times, a contest on chariots, on horseback, and on foot.
First there ran the war-chariots, each of which carried in Homeric
fashion a charioteer and a combatant; then the combatants who had
leaped off; then the horsemen, each of whom appeared after the Roman
style of fighting with a horse which he rode and another led by the
hand (-desultor-); lastly, the champions on foot, naked to the girdle
round their loins, measured their powers in racing, wrestling, and
boxing. In each species of contest there was but one competition,
and that between not more than two competitors. A chaplet rewarded
the victor, and the honour in which the simple branch which formed
the wreath was held is shown by the law permitting it to be laid
on the bier of the victor when he died. The festival thus lasted
only one day, and the competitions probably still left sufficient
time on that day for the carnival proper, at which the groups of
dancers may have displayed their art and above all exhibited their
farces; and doubtless other representations also, such as competitions
in juvenile horsemanship, found a place.(11) The honours won in
real war also played their part in this festival; the brave warrior
exhibited on this day the equipments of the antagonist whom he had
slain, and was decorated with a chaplet by the grateful community
just as was the victor in the competition.
Such was the nature of the Roman festival of victory or city-festival;
and the other public festivities of Rome may be conceived to
have been of a similar character, although less ample in point of
resources. At the celebration of a public funeral dancers regularly
bore a part, and along with them, if there was to be any further
exhibition, horse-racers; in that case the burgesses were specially
invited beforehand to the funeral by the public crier.
But this city-festival, so intimately bound up with the manners
and exercises of the Romans, coincides in all essentials with the
Hellenic national festivals: more especially in the fundamental
idea of combining a religious solemnity and a competition in warlike
sports; in the selection of the several exercises, which at the
Olympic festival, according to Pindar's testimony, consisted from
the first in running, wrestling, boxing, chariot-racing, and throwing
the spear and stone; in the nature of the prize of victory, which
in Rome as well as in the Greek national festivals was a chaplet,
and in the one case as well as in the other was assigned not to the
charioteer, but to the owner of the team; and lastly in introducing
the feats and rewards of general patriotism in connection with
the general national festival. This agreement cannot have been
accidental, but must have been either a remnant of the primitive
connection between the peoples, or a result of the earliest
international intercourse; and the probabilities preponderate in
favour of the latter hypothesis. The city-festival, in the form
in which we are acquainted with it, was not one of the oldest
institutions of Rome, for the Circus itself was only laid out in the
later regal period;(12) and just as the reform of the constitution
then took place under Greek influence,(13) the city-festival may
have been at the same time so far transformed as to combine Greek
races with, and eventually to a certain extent to substitute them
for, an older mode of amusement--the "leap" (-triumpus-,(14)), and
possibly swinging, which was a primitive Italian custom and long
continued in use at the festival on the Alban mount. Moreover,
while there is some trace of the use of the war-chariot in actual
warfare in Hellas, no such trace exists in Latium. Lastly, the
Greek term --stadion-- (Doric --spadion--) was at a very early period
transferred to the Latin language, retaining its signification,
as -spatium-; and there exists even an express statement that the
Romans derived their horse and chariot races from the people of
Thurii, although, it is true, another account derives them from
Etruria. It thus appears that, in addition to the impulses imparted
by the Hellenes in music and poetry, the Romans were indebted to
them for the fruitful idea of gymnastic competitions.
Character of Poetry and of Education in Latium
Thus there not only existed in Latium the same fundamental elements
out of which Hellenic culture and art grew, but Hellenic culture
and art themselves exercised a powerful influence over Latium in
very early times. Not only did the Latins possess the elements
of gymnastic training, in so far as the Roman boy learned like
every farmer's son to manage horses and waggon and to handle the
hunting-spear, and as in Rome every burgess was at the same time
a soldier; but the art of dancing was from the first an object
of public care, and a powerful impulse was further given to such
culture at an early period by the introduction of the Hellenic
games. The lyrical poetry and tragedy of Hellas grew out of songs
similar to the festal lays of Rome; the ancestral lay contained the
germs of epos, the masked farce the germs of comedy; and in this
field also Grecian influences were not wanting.
In such circumstances it is the more remarkable that these germs
either did not spring up at all, or were soon arrested in their
growth. The bodily training of the Latin youth continued to be
solid and substantial, but far removed from the idea of artistic
culture for the body, such as was the aim of Hellenic gymnastics.
The public games of the Hellenes when introduced into Italy, changed
not so much their formal rules as their essential character. While
they were intended to be competitions of burgesses and beyond doubt
were so at first in Rome, they became contests of professional
riders and professional boxers, and, while the proof of free and
Hellenic descent formed the first condition for participating in
the Greek festal games, those of Rome soon passed into the hands
of freedmen and foreigners and even of persons not free at all.
Consequently the circle of fellow-competitors became converted into
a public of spectators, and the chaplet of the victorious champion,
which has been with justice called the badge of Hellas, was afterwards
hardly ever mentioned in Latium.
A similar fate befel poetry and her sisters. The Greeks and Germans
alone possess a fountain of song that wells up spontaneously; from
the golden vase of the Muses only a few drops have fallen on the
green soil of Italy. There was no formation of legend in the strict
sense there. The Italian gods were abstractions and remained such;
they never became elevated into or, as some may prefer to say,
obscured under, a true personal shape. In like manner men, even the
greatest and noblest, remained in the view of the Italian without
exception mortal, and were not, as in the longing recollection
and affectionately cherished tradition of Greece, elevated in the
conception of the multitude into god-like heroes. But above all
no development of national poetry took place in Latium. It is
the deepest and noblest effect of the fine arts and above all of
poetry, that they break down the barriers of civil communities and
create out of tribes a nation and out of the nations a world. As
in the present day by means of our cosmopolitan literature the
distinctions of civilized nations are done away, so Greek poetic
art transformed the narrow and egoistic sense of tribal relationship
into the consciousness of Hellenic nationality, and this again
into the consciousness of a common humanity. But in Latium nothing
similar occurred. There might be poets in Alba and in Rome, but there
arose no Latin epos, nor even--what were still more conceivable--a
catechism for the Latin farmer of a kind similar to the "Works and
Days" of Hesiod. The Latin federal festival might well have become
a national festival of the fine arts, like the Olympian and Isthmian
games of the Greeks. A cycle of legends might well have gathered
around the fall of Alba, such as was woven around the conquest of
Ilion, and every community and every noble clan of Latium might
have discovered in it, or imported into it, the story of its own
origin. But neither of these results took place, and Italy remained
without national poetry or art.
The inference which of necessity follows from these facts, that the
development of the fine arts in Latium was rather a shrivelling up
than an expanding into bloom, is confirmed in a manner even now not
to be mistaken by tradition. The beginnings of poetry everywhere,
perhaps, belong rather to women than to men; the spell of incantation
and the chant for the dead pertain pre-eminently to the former,
and not without reason the spirits of song, the Casmenae or Camenae
and the Carmentis of Latium, like the Muses of Hellas, were conceived
as feminine. But the time came in Hellas, when the poet relieved
the songstress and Apollo took his place at the head of the Muses.
In Latium there was no national god of song, and the older Latin
language had no designation for the poet.(15) The power of song
emerging there was out of all proportion weaker, and was rapidly
arrested in its growth. The exercise of the fine arts was there
early restricted, partly to women and children, partly to incorporated
or unincorporated tradesmen. We have already mentioned that funeral
chants were sung by women and banquet-lays by boys; the religious
litanies also were chiefly executed by children. The musicians formed
an incorporated, the dancers and the wailing women (-praeficae-)
unincorporated, trades. While dancing, music, and singing remained
constantly in Greece--as they were originally also in Latium--reputable
employments redounding to the honour of the burgess and of the
community to which he belonged, in Latium the better portion of the
burgesses drew more and more aloof from these vain arts, and that
the more decidedly, in proportion as art came to be more publicly
exhibited and more thoroughly penetrated by the quickening impulses
derived from other lands. The use of the native pipe was sanctioned,
but the lyre remained despised; and while the national amusement of
masks was allowed, the foreign amusements of the -palaestra- were
not only regarded with indifference, but esteemed disgraceful. While
the fine arts in Greece became more and more the common property of
the Hellenes individually and collectively and thereby became the
means of developing a universal culture, they gradually disappeared
in Latium from the thoughts and feelings of the people; and, as
they degenerated into utterly insignificant handicrafts, the idea
of a general national culture to be communicated to youth never
suggested itself at all. The education of youth remained entirely
confined within the limits of the narrowest domesticity. The boy
never left his father's side, and accompanied him not only to the
field with the plough and the sickle, but also to the house of
a friend or to the council-hall, when his father was invited as a
guest or summoned to the senate. This domestic education was well
adapted to preserve man wholly for the household and wholly for
the state. The permanent intercommunion of life between father
and son, and the mutual reverence felt by adolescence for ripened
manhood and by the mature man for the innocence of youth, lay at the
root of the steadfastness of the domestic and political traditions,
of the closeness of the family bond, and in general of the grave
earnestness (-gravitas-) and character of moral worth in Roman life.
This mode of educating youth was in truth one of those institutions
of homely and almost unconscious wisdom, which are as simple as
they are profound. But amidst the admiration which it awakens we
may not overlook the fact that it could only be carried out, and
was only carried out, by the sacrifice of true individual culture
and by a complete renunciation of the equally charming and perilous
gifts of the Muses.
Dance, Music, and Song among the Sabellians and Etruscans
Regarding the development of the fine arts among the Etruscans
and Sabellians our knowledge is little better than none.(16) We
can only notice the fact that in Etruria the dancers (-histri-,
-histriones-) and the pipe-players (-subulones-) early made a trade
of their art, probably earlier even than in Rome, and exhibited
themselves in public not only at home, but also in Rome for small
remuneration and less honour. It is a circumstance more remarkable
that at the Etruscan national festival, in the exhibition of which
the whole twelve cities were represented by a federal priest, games
were given like those of the Roman city-festival; we are, however,
no longer in a position to answer the question which it suggests,
how far the Etruscans were more successful than the Latins in
attaining a national form of fine art beyond that of the individual
communities. On the other hand a foundation probably was laid in
Etruria, even in early times, for that insipid accumulation of learned
lumber, particularly of a theological and astrological nature, by
virtue of which afterwards, when amidst the general decay antiquarian
dilettantism began to flourish, the Tuscans divided with the Jews,
Chaldeans, and Egyptians the honour of being admired as primitive
sources of divine wisdom. We know still less, if possible, of
Sabellian art; but that of course by no means warrants the inference
that it was inferior to that of the neighbouring stocks. On the
contrary, it may be conjectured from what we otherwise know of
the character of the three chief races of Italy, that in artistic
gifts the Samnites approached nearest to the Hellenes and the
Etruscans were farthest removed from them; and a sort of confirmation
of this hypothesis is furnished by the fact, that the most gifted
and most original of the Roman poets, such as Naevius, Ennius,
Lucilius, and Horace, belonged to the Samnite lands, whereas
Etruria has almost no representatives in Roman literature except
the Arretine Maecenas, the most insufferable of all heart-withered
and affected(17) court-poets, and the Volaterran Persius, the true
ideal of a conceited and languid, poetry-smitten, youth.
Earliest Italian Architecture
The elements of architecture were, as has been already indicated,
a primitive common possession of the stocks. The dwelling-house
constitutes the first attempt of structural art; and it was the
same among Greeks and Italians. Built of wood, and covered with a
pointed roof of straw or shingles it formed a square dwelling-chamber,
which let out the smoke and let in the light by an opening in the
roof corresponding with a hole for carrying off the rain in the
ground (-cavum aedium-). Under this "black roof" (-atrium-) the
meals were prepared and consumed; there the household gods were
worshipped, and the marriage bed and the bier were set out; there
the husband received his guests, and the wife sat spinning amid the
circle of her maidens. The house had no porch, unless we take as
such the uncovered space between the house door and the street,
which obtained its name -vestibulum-, i. e. dressing-place, from
the circumstance that the Romans were in the habit of going about
within doors in their tunics, and only wrapped the toga around
them when they went abroad. There was, moreover, no division of
apartments except that sleeping and store closets might be provided
around the dwelling-room; and still less were there stairs, or
stories placed one above another.
Earliest Hellenic Influence
Whether, or to what extent, a national Italian architecture arose
o ut of these beginnings can scarcely be determined, for in this
field Greek influence, even in the earliest times, had a very
powerful effect and almost wholly overgrew such national attempts
as possibly had preceded it. The very oldest Italian architecture
with which we are acquainted is not much less under the influence
of that of Greece than the architecture of the Augustan age. The
primitive tombs of Caere and Alsium, and probably the oldest one
also of those recently discovered at Praeneste, have been, exactly
like the --thesauroi--of Orchomenos and Mycenae, roofed over with
courses of stone placed one above another, gradually overlapping,
and closed by a large stone cover. A very ancient building at
the city wall of Tusculum was roofed in the same way, and so was
originally the well-house (-tullianum-) at the foot of the Capitol,
till the top was pulled down to make room for another building.
The gates constructed on the same system are entirely similar in
Arpinum and in Mycenae. The tunnel which drains the Alban lake(18)
presents the greatest resemblance to that of lake Copais. What are
called Cyclopean ring-walls frequently occur in Italy, especially
in Etruria, Umbria, Latium, and Sabina, and decidedly belong in
point of design to the most ancient buildings of Italy, although
the greater portion of those now extant were probably not executed
till a much later age, several of them certainly not till the
seventh century of the city. They are, just like those of Greece,
sometimes quite roughly formed of large unwrought blocks of rock
with smaller stones inserted between them, sometimes disposed
in square horizontal courses,(19) sometimes composed of polygonal
dressed blocks fitting into each other. The selection of one or
other of these systems was doubtless ordinarily determined by the
material, and accordingly the polygonal masonry does not occur in
Rome, where in the most ancient times tufo alone was employed for
building. The resemblance in the case of the two former and simpler
styles may perhaps be traceable to the similarity of the materials
employed and of the object in view in building; but it can hardly
be deemed accidental that the artistic polygonal wall-masonry, and
the gate with the path leading up to it universally bending to the
left and so exposing the unshielded right side of the assailant to
the defenders, belong to the Italian fortresses as well as to the
Greek. The facts are significant that in that portion of Italy
which was not reduced to subjection by the Hellenes but yet was
in lively intercourse with them, the true polygonal masonry was at
home, and it is found in Etruria only at Pyrgi and at the towns,
not very far distant from it, of Cosa and Saturnia; as the design
of the walls of Pyrgi, especially when we take into account the
significant name ("towers"), may just as certainly be ascribed to
the Greeks as that of the walls of Tiryns, in them most probably
there still stands before our eyes one of the models from which
the Italians learned how to build their walls. The temple in fine,
which in the period of the empire was called the Tuscanic and was
regarded as a kind of style co-ordinate with the various Greek
temple-structures, not only generally resembled the Greek temple
in being an enclosed space (-cello-) usually quadrangular, over
which walls and columns raised aloft a sloping roof, but was also
in details, especially in the column itself and its architectural
features, thoroughly dependent on the Greek system. It is in accordance
with all these facts probable, as it is credible of itself, that
Italian architecture previous to its contact with the Hellenes was
confined to wooden huts, abattis, and mounds of earth and stones,
and that construction in stone was only adopted in consequence of
the example and the better tools of the Greeks. It is scarcely
to be doubted that the Italians first learned from them the use of
iron, and derived from them the preparation of mortar (-cal[e]x-,
-calecare-, from --chaliz--), the machine (-machina-, --meichanei--),
the measuring-rod (-groma-, a corruption from --gnomon--, --gnoma--),
and the artificial latticework (-clathri-, --kleithron--). Accordingly
we can scarcely speak of an architecture peculiarly Italian. Yet
in the woodwork of the Italian dwelling-house--alongside of
alterations produced by Greek influence--various peculiarities may
have been retained or even for the first time developed, and these
again may have exercised a reflex influence on the building of
the Italian temples. The architectural development of the house
proceeded in Italy from the Etruscans. The Latin and even the
Sabellian still adhered to the hereditary wooden hut and to the
good old custom of assigning to the god or spirit not a consecrated
dwelling, but only a consecrated space, while the Etruscan had
already begun artistically to transform his dwelling-house, and to
erect after the model of the dwelling-house of man a temple also
for the god and a sepulchral chamber for the spirit. That the
advance to such luxurious structures in Latium first took place
under Etruscan influence, is proved by the designation of the
oldest style of temple architecture and of the oldest style of house
architecture respectively as Tuscanic.(20) As concerns the character
of this transference, the Grecian temple probably imitated the
general outlines of the tent or dwelling-house; but it was essentially
built of hewn stone and covered with tiles, and the nature of the
stone and the baked clay suggested to the Greek the laws of necessity
and beauty. The Etruscan on the other hand remained a stranger to
the strict Greek distinction between the dwelling of man necessarily
erected of wood and the dwelling of the gods necessarily formed
of stone. The peculiar characteristics of the Tuscan temple--the
outline approaching nearer to a square, the higher gable, the
greater breadth of the intervals between the columns, above all,
the increased inclination of the roof and the singular projection
of the roof-corbels beyond the supporting columns--all arose out
of the greater approximation of the temple to the dwelling-house,
and out of the peculiarities of wooden architecture.
Plastic Art in Italy
The plastic and delineative arts are more recent than architecture;
the house must be built before any attempt is made to decorate
gable and walls. It is not probable that these arts really gained
a place in Italy during the regal period of Rome; it was only
in Etruria, where commerce and piracy early gave rise to a great
concentration of riches, that art or handicraft--if the term be
preferred--obtained a footing in the earliest times. Greek art,
when it acted on Etruria, was still, as its copy shows, at a very
primitive stage, and the Etruscans may have learned from the Greeks
the art of working in clay and metal at a period not much later than
that at which they borrowed from them the alphabet. The silver
coins of Populonia, almost the only works that can be with any
precision assigned to this period, give no very high idea of Etruscan
artistic skill as it then stood; yet the best of the Etruscan works
in bronze, to which the later critics of art assigned so high a
place, may have belonged to this primitive age; and the Etruscan
terra-cottas also cannot have been altogether despicable, for the
oldest works in baked clay placed in the Roman temples--the statue
of the Capitoline Jupiter, and the four-horse chariot on the roof
of his temple--were executed in Veii, and the large ornaments of a
similar kind placed on the roofs of temples passed generally among
the later Romans under the name of "Tuscanic works."
On the other hand, among the Italians--not among the Sabellian
stocks merely, but even among the Latins--native sculpture and
design were at this period only coming into existence. The most
considerable works of art appear to have been executed abroad.
We have just mentioned the statues of clay alleged to have been
executed in Veii; and very recent excavations have shown that works
in bronze made in Etruria, and furnished with Etruscan inscriptions,
circulated in Praeneste at least, if not generally throughout
Latium. The statue of Diana in the Romano-Latin federal temple on
the Aventine, which was considered the oldest statue of a divinity
in Rome,(21) exactly resembled the Massiliot statue of the Ephesian
Artemis, and was perhaps manufactured in Velia or Massilia. The
guilds, which from ancient times existed in Rome, of potters,
coppersmiths, and goldsmiths,(22) are almost the only proofs of
the existence of native sculpture and design there; respecting the
position of their art it is no longer possible to gain any clear
idea.
Artistic Relations and Endowments of the Etruscans and Italians
If we endeavour to obtain historical results from the archives of
the tradition and practice of primitive art, it is in the first place
manifest that Italian art, like the Italian measures and Italian
writing, developed itself not under Phoenician, but exclusively
under Hellenic influence. There is not a single one of the aspects
of Italian art which has not found its definite model in the art
of ancient Greece; and, so far, the legend is fully warranted which
traces the manufacture of painted clay figures, beyond doubt the
most ancient form of art in Italy, to the three Greek artists,
the "moulder," "fitter," and "draughtsman," Eucheir, Diopos, and
Eugrammos, although it is more than doubtful whether this art came
directly from Corinth or came directly to Tarquinii. There is
as little trace of any immediate imitation of oriental models as
there is of an independently-developed form of art. The Etruscan
lapidaries adhered to the form of the beetle or -scarabaeus-, which
was originally Egyptian; but --scarabaei-- were also used as models
for carving in Greece in very early times (e. g. such a beetle-stone,
with a very ancient Greek inscription, has been found in Aegina),
and therefore they may very well have come to the Etruscans through
the Greeks. The Italians may have bought from the Phoenician; they
learned only from the Greek.
To the further question, from what Greek stock the Etruscans in
the first instance received their art-models, a categorical answer
cannot be given; yet relations of a remarkable kind subsist between
the Etruscan and the oldest Attic art. The three forms of art, which
were practised in Etruria at least in after times very extensively,
but in Greece only to an extent very limited, tomb-painting,
mirror-designing, and graving on stone, have been hitherto met with
on Grecian soil only in Athens and Aegina. The Tuscan temple does
not correspond exactly either to the Doric or to the Ionic; but in
the more important points of distinction, in the course of columns
carried round the -cella-, as well as in the placing of a separate
pedestal under each particular column, the Etruscan style follows
the more recent Ionic; and it is this same Iono-Attic style of
building still pervaded by a Doric element, which in its general
design stands nearest of all the Greek styles to the Tuscan. In
the case of Latium there is an almost total absence of any certain
traces of intercourse bearing on the history of art. If it was--as
is indeed almost self-evident--the general relations of traffic
and intercourse that determined also the introduction of models
in art, it may be assumed with certainty that the Campanian and
Sicilian Hellenes were the instructors of Latium in art, as in
the alphabet; and the analogy between the Aventine Diana and the
Ephesian Artemis is at least not inconsistent with such an hypothesis.
Of course the older Etruscan art also served as a model for Latium.
As to the Sabellian tribes, if Greek architectural and plastic art
reached them at all, it must, like the Greek alphabet, have come
to them only through the medium of the more western Italian stocks.
If, in conclusion, we are to form a judgment respecting the artistic
endowments of the different Italian nations, we already at this
stage perceive--what becomes indeed far more obvious in the later
stages of the history of art--that while the Etruscans attained to
the practice of art at an earlier period and produced more massive
and rich workmanship, their works are inferior to those of the
Latins and Sabellians in appropriateness and utility no less than
in spirit and beauty. This certainly is apparent, in the case of
our present epoch, only in architecture. The polygonal wall-masonry,
as appropriate to its object as it was beautiful, was frequent in
Latium and in the inland country behind it; while in Etruria it was
rare, and not even the walls of Caere are constructed of polygonal
blocks. Even in the religious prominence--remarkable also as
respects the history of art--assigned to the arch(23) and to the
bridge(24) in Latium, we may be allowed to perceive, as it were,
an anticipation of the future aqueducts and consular highways of
Rome. On the other hand, the Etruscans repeated, and at the same
time corrupted, the ornamental architecture of the Greeks: for
while they transferred the laws established for building in stone
to architecture in wood, they displayed no thorough skill of
adaptation, and by the lowness of their roof and the wide intervals
between their columns gave to their temples, to use the language
of an ancient architect, a "heavy, mean, straggling, and clumsy
appearance." The Latins found in the rich stores of Greek art
but very little that was congenial to their thoroughly realistic
tastes; but what they did adopt they appropriated truly and
heartily as their own, and in the development of the polygonal
wall-architecture perhaps excelled their instructors. Etruscan art
is a remarkable evidence of accomplishments mechanically acquired
and mechanically retained, but it is, as little as the Chinese, an
evidence even of genial receptivity. As scholars have long since
desisted from the attempt to derive Greek art from that of the
Etruscans, so they must, with whatever reluctance, make up their
minds to transfer the Etruscans from the first to the lowest place
in the history of Italian art.
Notes for Book I Chapter XV
1. I. XII. Priests
2. I. XIII. Handicrafts
3. Thus Cato the Elder (de R. R. 160) gives as potent against sprains
the formula: -hauat hauat hauat ista pista sista damia bodannaustra-,
which was presumably quite as obscure to its inventor as it is to
us. Of course, along with these there were also formulae of words;
e. g. it was a remedy for gout, to think, while fasting, on some
other person, and thrice nine times to utter the words, touching
the earth at the same time and spitting:--"I think of thee, mend
my feet. Let the earth receive the ill, let health with me dwell"
(-terra pestem teneto, salus hie maneto-. Varro de R. R. i. 2,
27).
4. Each of the first five lines was repeated thrice, and the call
at the close five times. Various points in the interpretation are
uncertain, particularly as respects the third line. --The three
inscriptions of the clay vase from the Quirinal (p. 277, note)
run thus: -iove sat deiuosqoi med mitat nei ted endo gosmis uirgo
sied--asted noisi ope toilesiai pakariuois--duenos med faked
(=bonus me fecit) enmanom einom dze noine (probably=die noni) med
malo statod.-Only individual words admit of being understood with
certainty; it is especially noteworthy that forms, which we have
hitherto known only as Umbrian and Oscan, like the adjective -pacer-
and the particle -einom with the value of -et, here probably meet
us withal as old-Latin.
5. I. II. Art
6. The name probably denotes nothing but "the chant-measure,"
inasmuch as the -satura- was originally the chant sung at the
carnival (II. Art). The god of sowing, -Saeturnus- or -Saiturnus-,
afterwards -Saturnus-, received his name from the same root; his
feast, the Saturnalia, was certainly a sort of carnival, and it is
possible that the farces were originally exhibited chiefly at this
feast. But there are no proofs of a relation between the Satura
and the Saturnalia, and it may be presumed that the immediate
association of the -versus saturnius- with the god Saturn, and the
lengthening of the first syllable in connection with that view,
belong only to later times.
7. I. XII. Foreign Worships
8. I. XIV. Introduction of Hellenic Alphabets into Italy
9. The statement that "formerly the Roman boys were trained in
Etruscan culture, as they were in later times in Greek" (Liv. ix.
36), is quite irreconcilable with the original character of the
Roman training of youth, and it is not easy to see what the Roman
boys could have learned in Etruria. Even the most zealous modern
partizans of Tages-worship will not maintain that the study of the
Etruscan language played such a part in Rome then as the learning
of French does now with us; that a non-Etruscan should understand
anything of the art of the Etruscan -haruspices- was considered,
even by those who availed themselves of that art, to be a disgrace
or rather an impossibility (Muller, Etr. ii. 4). Perhaps the
statement was concocted by the Etruscizing antiquaries of the last
age of the republic out of stories of the older annals, aiming
at a causal explanation of facts, such as that which makes Mucius
Scaevola learn Etruscan when a child for the sake of his conversation
with Porsena (Dionysius, v. 28; Plutarch, Poplicola, 17; comp.
Dionysius, iii. 70). But there was at any rate an epoch when the
dominion of Rome over Italy demanded a certain knowledge of the
language of the country on the part of Romans of rank.
10. The employment of the lyre in ritual is attested by Cicero
de Orat. iii. 51, 197; Tusc. iv. 2, 4; Dionysius, vii. 72; Appian,
Pun. 66; and the inscription in Orelli, 2448, comp. 1803. It
was likewise used at the -neniae- (Varro ap. Nonium, v. -nenia-
and -praeficae-). But playing on the lyre remained none the less
unbecoming (Scipio ap. Macrob. Sat. ii. 10, et al.). The prohibition
of music in 639 exempted only the "Latin player on the pipe along
with the singer," not the player on the lyre, and the guests at meals
sang only to the pipe (Cato in Cic. Tusc. i. 2, 3; iv. 2, 3; Varro
ap. Nonium, v. -assa voce-; Horace, Carm. iv. 15, 30). Quintilian,
who asserts the reverse (Inst. i. 10, 20), has inaccurately
transferred to private banquets what Cicero (de Orat. iii. 51)
states in reference to the feasts of the gods.
11. The city festival can have only lasted at first for a single
day, for in the sixth century it still consisted of four days of
scenic and one day of Circensian sports (Ritschl, Parerga, i. 313)
and it is well known that the scenic amusements were only a subsequent
addition. That in each kind of contest there was originally
only one competition, follows from Livy, xliv. 9; the running
of five-and-twenty pairs of chariots in succession on one day was
a subsequent innovation (Varro ap. Serv. Georg. iii. 18). That
only two chariots--and likewise beyond doubt only two horsemen
and two wrestlers--strove for the prize, may be inferred from the
circumstance, that at all periods in the Roman chariot-races only
as many chariots competed as there were so-called factions; and of
these there were originally only two, the white and the red. The
horsemanship-competition of patrician youths which belonged to
the Circensian games, the so-called Troia, was, as is well known,
revived by Caesar; beyond doubt it was connected with the cavalcade
of the boy-militia, which Dionysius mentions (vii. 72).
12. I. VII. Servian Wall
13. I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform
14. I. II. Religion
15. -Vates- probably denoted in the first instance the "leader of
the singing" (for so the -vates- of the Salii must be understood)
and thereafter in its older usage approximated to the Greek
--propheiteis--; it was a word be longing to religious ritual,
and even when subsequently used of the poet, always retained the
accessory idea of a divinely-inspired singer--the priest of the
Muses.
16. We shall show in due time that the Atellanae and Fescenninae
belonged not to Campanian and Etruscan, but to Latin art.
17. Literally "word-crisping," in allusion to the -calamistri
Maecenatis-.
18. I. III. Alba
19. Of this character were the Servian walls. They consisted
partly of a strengthening of the hill-slopes by facing them with
lining-walls as much as 4 metres thick, partly--in the intervals,
above all on the Viminal and Quirinal, where from the Esquiline
to the Colline gate there was an absence of natural defence--of an
earthen mound, which was finished off on the outside by a similar
lining-wall. On these lining-walls rested the breastwork. A trench,
according to trustworthy statements of the ancients 30 feet deep
and 100 feet broad, stretched along in front of the wall, for
which the earth was taken from this same trench.--The breastwork
has nowhere been preserved; of the lining-walls extensive remains
have recently been brought to light. The blocks of tufo composing
them are hewn in longish rectangles, on an average of 60 centimetres
(= 2 Roman feet) in height and breadth, while the length varies
from 70 centimetres to 3 metres, and they are, without application
of mortar, laid together in several rows, alternately with the long
and with the narrow side outermost.
The portion of the Servian wall near the Viminal gate, discovered in
the year 1862 at the Villa Negroni, rests on a foundation of huge
blocks of tufo of 3 to 4 metres in height and breadth, on which was
then raised the outer wall from blocks of the same material and of
the same size as those elsewhere employed in the wall. The earthen
rampart piled up behind appears to have had on the upper surface
a breadth extending about 13 metres or fully 40 Roman feet, and
the whole wall-defence, including the outer wall of freestone, to
have had a breadth of as much as 15 metres or 50 Roman feet. The
portions formed of peperino blocks, which are bound with iron
clamps, have only been added in connection with subsequent labours
of repair.--Essentially similar to the Servian walls are those
discovered in the Vigna Nussiner, on the slope of the Palatine
towards the side of the Capitol, and at other points of the Palatine,
which have been declared by Jordan (Topographic, ii. 173), probably
with reason, to be remnants of the citadel-wall of the Palatine
Rome,
20. -Ratio Tuscanica,: cavum aedium Tuscanicum.-
21. When Varro (ap. Augustin. De Civ. Dei, iv. 31; comp. Plutarch
Num. 8) affirms that the Romans for more than one hundred and
seventy years worshipped the gods without images, he is evidently
thinking of this primitive piece of carving, which, according to
the conventional chronology, was dedicated between 176 and 219, and,
beyond doubt, was the first statue of the gods, the consecration
of which was mentioned in the authorities which Varro had before
him. Comp, above, XIV. Development of Alphabets in Italy.
22. I. XIII. Handicrafts
23. I. XII. Nature of the Roman Gods
24. I. XII. Pontifices
End of Book I
* * * * *
THE HISTORY OF ROME: BOOK II
From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of Italy
Preparer's Note
This work contains many literal citations of and references to
foreign words, sounds, and alphabetic symbols drawn from many
languages, including Gothic and Phoenician, but chiefly Latin and
Greek. This English Gutenberg edition, constrained to the characters
of 7-bit ASCII code, adopts the following orthographic conventions:
1) Except for Greek, all literally cited non-English words that do
not refer to texts cited as academic references, words that in the
source manuscript appear italicized, are rendered with a single
preceding, and a single following dash; thus, -xxxx-.
2) Greek words, first transliterated into Roman alphabetic
equivalents, are rendered with a preceding and a following double-
dash; thus, --xxxx--. Note that in some cases the root word itself
is a compound form such as xxx-xxxx, and is rendered as --xxx-xxx--
3) Simple unideographic references to vocalic sounds, single
letters, or alphabeic dipthongs; and prefixes, suffixes, and syllabic
references are represented by a single preceding dash; thus, -x,
or -xxx.
4) Ideographic references, referring to signs of representation rather
than to content, are represented as -"id:xxxx"-. "id:" stands for
"ideograph", and indicates that the reader should form a picture based
on the following "xxxx"; which may be a single symbol, a word, or an
attempt at a picture composed of ASCII characters. For example,
--"id:GAMMA gamma"-- indicates an uppercase Greek gamma-form followed
by the form in lowercase. Some such exotic parsing as this is
necessary to explain alphabetic development because a single symbol
may have been used for a number of sounds in a number of languages,
or even for a number of sounds in the same language at different
times. Thus, -"id:GAMMA gamma" might very well refer to a Phoenician
construct that in appearance resembles the form that eventually
stabilized as an uppercase Greek "gamma" juxtaposed to one of
lowercase. Also, a construct such as --"id:E" indicates a symbol
that with ASCII resembles most closely a Roman uppercase "E", but,
in fact, is actually drawn more crudely.
5) Dr. Mommsen has given his dates in terms of Roman usage, A.U.C.;
that is, from the founding of Rome, conventionally taken to be
753 B. C. The preparer of this document, has appended to the end
of this combined text (Books I-V) a table of conversion between the
two systems.
CONTENTS
BOOK II: From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union
of Italy
CHAPTER
I. Change of the Constitution--Limitation of the Power of the
Magistrate
II. The Tribunate of the Plebs and the Decemvirate
III. The Equalization of the Orders, and the New Aristocracy
IV. Fall of the Etruscan Power--the Celts
V. Subjugation of the Latins and Campanians by Rome
VI. Struggle of the Italians against Rome
VII. Struggle Between Pyrrhus and Rome, and Union of Italy
VIII. Law--Religion--Military System--Economic Condition--Nationality
IX. Art and Science
BOOK SECOND
From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of Italy
--dei ouk ekpleittein ton suggraphea terateuomenon dia teis iotopias
tous entugchanontas.--
Polybius.
CHAPTER I
Change of the Constitution--
Limitation of the Power of the Magistrate
Political and Social Distinctions in Rome
The strict conception of the unity and omnipotence of the state in
all matters pertaining to it, which was the central principle of the
Italian constitutions, placed in the hands of the single president
nominated for life a formidable power, which was felt doubtless by the
enemies of the land, but was not less heavily felt by its citizens.
Abuse and oppression could not fail to ensue, and, as a necessary
consequence, efforts were made to lessen that power. It was,
however, the grand distinction of the endeavours after reform and
the revolutions in Rome, that there was no attempt either to impose
limitations on the community as such or even to deprive it of
corresponding organs of expression--that there never was any
endeavour to assert the so-called natural rights of the individual in
contradistinction to the community--that, on the contrary, the attack
was wholly directed against the form in which the community was
represented. From the times of the Tarquins down to those of
the Gracchi the cry of the party of progress in Rome was not for
limitation of the power of the state, but for limitation of the power
of the magistrates: nor amidst that cry was the truth ever forgotten,
that the people ought not to govern, but to be governed.
This struggle was carried on within the burgess-body. Side by
side with it another movement developed itself--the cry of the
non-burgesses for equality of political privileges. Under this head
are included the agitations of the plebeians, the Latins, the Italians,
and the freedmen, all of whom--whether they may have borne the name
of burgesses, as did the plebeians and the freedmen, or not, as was
the case with the Latins and Italians--were destitute of, and desired,
political equality.
A third distinction was one of a still more general nature; the
distinction between the wealthy and the poor, especially such as had
been dispossessed or were endangered in possession. The legal and
political relations of Rome led to the rise of a numerous class of
farmers--partly small proprietors who were dependent on the mercy of
the capitalist, partly small temporary lessees who were dependent on
the mercy of the landlord--and in many instances deprived individuals
as well as whole communities of the lands which they held, without
affecting their personal freedom. By these means the agricultural
proletariate became at an early period so powerful as to have a
material influence on the destinies of the community. The urban
proletariate did not acquire political importance till a much later
epoch.
On these distinctions hinged the internal history of Rome, and, as
may be presumed, not less the history--totally lost to us--of the
other Italian communities. The political movement within the
fully-privileged burgess-body, the warfare between the excluded and
excluding classes, and the social conflicts between the possessors
and the non-possessors of land--variously as they crossed and
interlaced, and singular as were the alliances they often produced
--were nevertheless essentially and fundamentally distinct.
Abolition of the Life-Presidency of the Community
As the Servian reform, which placed the --metoikos-- on a footing of
equality in a military point of view with the burgess, appears to have
originated from considerations of an administrative nature rather than
from any political party-tendency, we may assume that the first of the
movements which led to internal crises and changes of the constitution
was that which sought to limit the magistracy. The earliest
achievement of this, the most ancient opposition in Rome, consisted
in the abolition of the life-tenure of the presidency of the
community; in other words, in the abolition of the monarchy. How
necessarily this was the result of the natural development of things,
is most strikingly demonstrated by the fact, that the same change of
constitution took place in an analogous manner through the whole
circuit of the Italo-Grecian world. Not only in Rome, but likewise
among the other Latins as well as among the Sabellians, Etruscans,
and Apulians--and generally, in all the Italian communities, just as
in those of Greece--we find the rulers for life of an earlier epoch
superseded in after times by annual magistrates. In the case of the
Lucanian canton there is evidence that it had a democratic government
in time of peace, and it was only in the event of war that the
magistrates appointed a king, that is, an official similar to the
Roman dictator. The Sabellian civic communities, such as those of
Capua and Pompeii, in like manner were in later times governed by
a "community-manager" (-medix tuticus-) changed from year to year,
and we may assume that similar institutions existed among the other
national and civic communities of Italy. In this light the reasons
which led to the substitution of consuls for kings in Rome need no
explanation. The organism of the ancient Greek and Italian polity
developed of itself by a sort of natural necessity the limitation of
the life-presidency to a shortened, and for the most part an annual,
term. Simple, however, as was the cause of this change, it might be
brought about in various ways; a resolution might be adopted on the
death of one life-ruler not to elect another--a course which the
Roman senate is said to have attempted after the death of Romulus;
or the ruler might voluntarily abdicate, as is alleged to have been
the intention of king Servius Tullius; or the people might rise in
rebellion against a tyrannical ruler, and expel him.
Expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome
It was in this latter way that the monarchy was terminated in Rome.
For however much the history of the expulsion of the last Tarquinius,
"the proud," may have been interwoven with anecdotes and spun out into
a romance, it is not in its leading outlines to be called in question.
Tradition credibly enough indicates as the causes of the revolt, that
the king neglected to consult the senate and to complete its numbers;
that he pronounced sentences of capital punishment and confiscation
without advising with his counsellors; that he accumulated immense
stores of grain in his granaries, and exacted from the burgesses
military labour and task-work beyond what was due. The exasperation
of the people is attested by the formal vow which they made man by
man for themselves and for their posterity that thenceforth they would
never tolerate a king; by the blind hatred with which the name of king
was ever afterwards regarded in Rome; and above all by the enactment
that the "king for offering sacrifice" (-rex sacrorum- or
-sacrificulus-) --whom they considered it their duty to create that the
gods might not miss their accustomed mediator--should be disqualified
from holding any further office, so that this man became the foremost
indeed, but also the most powerless in the Roman commonwealth. Along
with the last king all the members of his clan were banished--a proof
how close at that time gentile ties still were. The Tarquinii
thereupon transferred themselves to Caere, perhaps their ancient
home,(1) where their family tomb has recently been discovered.
In the room of the one president holding office for life two
annual rulers were now placed at the head of the Roman community.
This is all that can be looked upon as historically certain in
reference to this important event.(2) It is conceivable that in
a great community with extensive dominion like the Roman the royal
power, particularly if it had been in the same family for several
generations, would be more capable of resistance, and the struggle
would thus be keener, than in the smaller states; but there is no
certain indication of any interference by foreign states in the
struggle. The great war with Etruria--which possibly, moreover,
has been placed so close upon the expulsion of the Tarquins only in
consequence of chronological confusion in the Roman annals--cannot
be regarded as an intervention of Etruria in favour of a countryman
who had been injured in Rome, for the very sufficient reason that the
Etruscans notwithstanding their complete victory neither restored the
Roman monarchy, nor even brought back the Tarquinian family.
Powers of the Consuls
If we are left in ignorance of the historical connections of this
important event, we are fortunately in possession of clearer light as
to the nature of the change which was made in the constitution. The
royal power was by no means abolished, as is shown by the very fact
that, when a vacancy occurred afterwards as before, an "interim king"
(-interrex-) was nominated. The one life-king was simply replaced
by two year-kings, who called themselves generals (-praetores-),
or judges (-iudices-), or merely colleagues (consules).(3)
The principles of collegiate tenure and of annual duration are those
which distinguish the republic from the monarchy, and they first meet
us here.
Collegiate Arrangement
The collegiate principle, from which the third and subsequently most
current name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in their case an
altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was not entrusted to the
two magistrates conjointly, but each consul possessed and exercised it
for himself as fully and wholly as it had been possessed and exercised
by the king. This was carried so far that, instead of one of the two
colleagues undertaking perhaps the administration of justice, and
the other the command of the army, they both administered justice
simultaneously in the city just as they both set out together to
the army; in case of collision the matter was decided by a rotation
measured by months or days. A certain partition of functions withal,
at least in the supreme military command, might doubtless take place
from the outset--the one consul for example taking the field against
the Aequi, and the other against the Volsci--but it had in no wise
binding force, and each of the colleagues was legally at liberty to
interfere at any time in the province of the other. When, therefore,
supreme power confronted supreme power and the one colleague forbade
what the other enjoined, the consular commands neutralized each other.
This peculiarly Latin, if not peculiarly Roman, institution of
co-ordinate supreme authorities--which in the Roman commonwealth on
the whole approved itself as practicable, but to which it will be
difficult to find a parallel in any other considerable state
--manifestly sprang out of the endeavour to retain the regal power
in legally undiminished fulness. They were thus led not to break
up the royal office into parts or to transfer it from an individual
to a college, but simply to double it and thereby, if necessary,
to neutralize it through its own action.
Term of Office
As regards the termination of their tenure of office, the earlier
-interregnum- of five days furnished a legal precedent. The ordinary
presidents of the community were bound not to remain in office
longer than a year reckoned from the day of their entering on their
functions;(4) and they ceased -de jure- to be magistrates upon the
expiry of the year, just as the interrex on the expiry of the five
days. Through this set termination of the supreme office the
practical irresponsibility of the king was lost in the case of the
consul. It is true that the king was always in the Roman commonwealth
subject, and not superior, to the law; but, as according to the Roman
view the supreme judge could not be prosecuted at his own bar, the
king might doubtless have committed a crime, but there was for him no
tribunal and no punishment. The consul, again, if he had committed
murder or treason, was protected by his office, but only so long as
it lasted; on his retirement he was liable to the ordinary penal
jurisdiction like any other burgess.
To these leading changes, affecting the principles of the
constitution, other restrictions were added of a subordinate and more
external character, some of which nevertheless produced a deep effect
The privilege of the king to have his fields tilled by task-work
of the burgesses, and the special relation of clientship in which
the --metoeci-- as a body must have stood to the king, ceased of
themselves with the life tenure of the office.
Right of Appeal
Hitherto in criminal processes as well as in fines and corporal
punishments it had been the province of the king not only to
investigate and decide the cause, but also to decide whether the
person found guilty should or should not be allowed to appeal for
pardon. The Valerian law now (in 245) enacted that the consul must
allow the appeal of the condemned, where sentence of capital or
corporal punishment had been pronounced otherwise than by martial
law--a regulation which by a later law (of uncertain date, but passed
before 303) was extended to heavy fines. In token of this right of
appeal, when the consul appeared in the capacity of judge and not
of general, the consular lictors laid aside the axes which they had
previously carried by virtue of the penal jurisdiction belonging to
their master. The law however threatened the magistrate, who did
not allow due course to the -provocatio-, with no other penalty than
infamy--which, as matters then stood, was essentially nothing but a
moral stain, and at the utmost only had the effect of disqualifying
the infamous person from giving testimony. Here too the course
followed was based on the same view, that it was in law impossible
to diminish the old regal powers, and that the checks imposed upon the
holder of the supreme authority in consequence of the revolution had,
strictly viewed, only a practical and moral value. When therefore the
consul acted within the old regal jurisdiction, he might in so acting
perpetrate an injustice, but he committed no crime and consequently
was not amenable for what he did to the penal judge.
A limitation similar in its tendency took place in the civil
jurisdiction; for probably there was taken from the consuls at
the very outset the right of deciding at their discretion a legal
dispute between private persons.
Restrictions on the Delegation of Powers
The remodelling of the criminal as of civil procedure stood in
connection with a general arrangement respecting the transference
of magisterial power to deputies or successors. While the king had
been absolutely at liberty to nominate deputies but had never been
compelled to do so, the consuls exercised the right of delegating
power in an essentially different way. No doubt the rule that, if
the supreme magistrate left the city, he had to appoint a warden there
for the administration of justice,(5) remained in force also for the
consuls, and the collegiate arrangement was not even extended to such
delegation; on the contrary this appointment was laid on the consul
who was the last to leave the city. But the right of delegation
for the time when the consuls remained in the city was probably
restricted, upon the very introduction of this office, by providing
that delegation should be prescribed to the consul for definite
cases, but should be prohibited for all cases in which it was not so
prescribed. According to this principle, as we have said, the whole
judicial system was organized. The consul could certainly exercise
criminal jurisdiction also as to a capital process in the way of
submitting his sentence to the community and having it thereupon
confirmed or rejected; but he never, so far as we see, exercised
this right, perhaps was soon not allowed to exercise it, and possibly
pronounced a criminal judgment only in the case of appeal to the
community being for any reason excluded. Direct conflict between
the supreme magistrate of the community and the community itself was
avoided, and the criminal procedure was organized really in such a
way, that the supreme magistracy remained only in theory competent,
but always acted through deputies who were necessary though appointed
by himself. These were the two--not standing--pronouncers-of-judgment
for revolt and high treason (-duoviri perduellionis-) and the two
standing trackers of murder, the -quaestores parricidii-. Something
similar may perhaps have occurred in the regal period, where the
king had himself represented in such processes;(6) but the standing
character of the latter institution, and the collegiate principle
carried out in both, belong at any rate to the republic. The latter
arrangement became of great importance also, in so far that thereby
for the first time alongside of the two standing supreme magistrates
were placed two assistants, whom each supreme magistrate nominated at
his entrance on office, and who in due course also went out with him
on his leaving it--whose position thus, like the supreme magistracy
itself, was organized according to the principles of a standing
office, of a collegiate form, and of an annual tenure. This was not
indeed as yet the inferior magistracy itself, at least not in the
sense which the republic associated with the magisterial position,
inasmuch as the commissioners did not emanate from the choice of
the community; but it doubtless became the starting-point for the
institution of subordinate magistrates, which was afterwards developed
in so manifold ways.
In a similar way the decision in civil procedure was withdrawn from
the supreme magistracy, inasmuch as the right of the king to transfer
an individual process for decision to a deputy was converted into the
duty of the consul, after settling the legitimate title of the party
and the object of the suit, to refer the disposal of it to a private
man to be selected by him and furnished by him with instructions.
In like manner there was left to the consuls the important
administration of the state-treasure and of the state-archives;
nevertheless probably at once, or at least very early, there were
associated with them standing assistants in that duty, namely, those
quaestors who, doubtless, had in exercising this function absolutely
to obey them, but without whose previous knowledge and co-operation
the consuls could not act.
Where on the other hand such directions were not in existence, the
president of the community in the capital had personally to intervene;
as indeed, for example, at the introductory steps of a process he
could not under any circumstances let himself be represented by
deputy.
This double restriction of the consular right of delegation subsisted
for the government of the city, and primarily for the administration
of justice and of the state-chest. As commander-in-chief, on the
other hand, the consul retained the right of handing over all or any
of the duties devolving on him. This diversity in the treatment of
civil and military delegation explains why in the government of the
Roman community proper no delegated magisterial authority (-pro
magistrate-) was possible, nor were purely urban magistrates ever
represented by non-magistrates; and why, on the other hand, military
deputies (-pro consuls-, -pro praetore-, -pro quaestore-) were
excluded from all action within the community proper.
Nominating a Successor
The right of nominating a successor had not been possessed by the
king, but only by the interrex.(7) The consul was in this respect
placed on a like footing with the latter; nevertheless, in the event
of his not having exercised the power, the interrex stepped in as
before, and the necessary continuity of the office subsisted still
undiminished under the republican government. The right of
nomination, however, was materially restricted in favour of the
burgesses, as the consul was bound to procure the assent of the
burgesses for the successors designated by him, and, in the sequel,
to nominate only those whom the community designated to him. Through
this binding right of proposal the nomination of the ordinary supreme
magistrates doubtless in a certain sense passed substantially into the
hands of the community; practically, however, there still existed a
very considerable distinction between that right of proposal and the
right of formal nomination. The consul conducting the election was by
no means a mere returning officer; he could still, e. g. by virtue of
his old royal prerogative reject particular candidates and disregard
the votes tendered for them; at first he might even limit the choice
to a list of candidates proposed by himself; and--what was of
still more consequence--when the collegiate consulship was to be
supplemented by the dictator, of whom we shall speak immediately,
in so supplementing it the community was not consulted, but on the
contrary the consul in that case appointed his colleague with the
same freedom, wherewith the interrex had once appointed the king.
Change in the Nomination of Priests
The nomination of the priests, which had been a prerogative of the
kings,(8) was not transferred to the consuls; but the colleges of
priests filled up the vacancies in their own ranks, while the Vestals
and single priests were nominated by the pontifical college, on which
devolved also the exercise of the paternal jurisdiction, so to speak,
of the community over the priestesses of Vesta. With a view to the
performance of these acts, which could only be properly performed by
a single individual, the college probably about this period first
nominated a president, the -Pontifex maximus-. This separation of the
supreme authority in things sacred from the civil power--while the
already-mentioned "king for sacrifice" had neither the civil nor the
sacred powers of the king, but simply the title, conferred upon him
--and the semi-magisterial position of the new high priest, so decidedly
contrasting with the character which otherwise marked the priesthood
in Rome, form one of the most significant and important peculiarities
of this state-revolution, the aim of which was to impose limits on the
powers of the magistrates mainly in the interest of the aristocracy.
We have already mentioned that the outward state of the consul was
far inferior to that of the regal office hedged round as it was
with reverence and terror, that the regal name and the priestly
consecration were withheld from him, and that the axe was taken away
from his attendants. We have to add that, instead of the purple
robe which the king had worn, the consul was distinguished from the
ordinary burgess simply by the purple border of his toga, and that,
while the king perhaps regularly appeared in public in his chariot,
the consul was bound to accommodate himself to the general rule and
like every other burgess to go within the city on foot.
The Dictator
These limitations, however, of the plenary power and of the insignia
of the magistracy applied in the main only to the ordinary presidency
of the community. In extraordinary cases, alongside of, and in a
certain sense instead of, the two presidents chosen by the community
there emerged a single one, the master of the army (-magister populi-)
usually designated as the -dictator-. In the choice of dictator the
community exercised no influence at all, but it proceeded solely
from the free resolve of one of the consuls for the time being, whose
action neither his colleague nor any other authority could hinder.
There was no appeal from his sentence any more than from that of the
king, unless he chose to allow it. As soon as he was nominated, all
the other magistrates were by right subject to his authority. On the
other hand the duration of the dictator's office was limited in two
ways: first, as the official colleague of those consuls, one of whom
had nominated him, he might not remain in office beyond their legal
term; and secondly, a period of six months was fixed as the absolute
maximum for the duration of his office. It was a further arrangement
peculiar to the dictatorship, that the "master of the army" was bound
to nominate for himself immediately a "master of horse" (-magister
equitum-), who acted along with him as a dependent assistant somewhat
as did the quaestor along with the consul, and with him retired from
office--an arrangement undoubtedly connected with the fact that
the dictator, presumably as being the leader of the infantry, was
constitutionally prohibited from mounting on horseback. In the light
of these regulations the dictatorship is doubtless to be conceived as
an institution which arose at the same time with the consulship, and
which was designed, especially in the event of war, to obviate for a
time the disadvantages of divided power and to revive temporarily the
regal authority; for in war more particularly the equality of rights
in the consuls could not but appear fraught with danger; and not only
positive testimonies, but above all the oldest names given to the
magistrate himself and his assistant, as well as the limitation of the
office to the duration of a summer campaign, and the exclusion of the
-provocatio- attest the pre-eminently military design of the original
dictatorship.
On the whole, therefore, the consuls continued to be, as the kings had
been, the supreme administrators, judges, and generals; and even in a
religious point of view it was not the -rex sacrorum- (who was only
nominated that the name might be preserved), but the consul, who
offered prayers and sacrifices for the community, and in its name
ascertained the will of the gods with the aid of those skilled in
sacred lore. Against cases of emergency, moreover, a power was
retained of reviving at any moment, without previous consultation of
the community, the full and unlimited regal authority, so as to set
aside the limitations imposed by the collegiate arrangement and by
the special curtailments of jurisdiction. In this way the problem of
legally retaining and practically restricting the regal authority was
solved in genuine Roman fashion with equal acuteness and simplicity
by the nameless statesmen who worked out this revolution.
Centuries and Curies
The community thus acquired by the change of constitution rights
of the greatest importance: the right of annually designating its
presidents, and that of deciding in the last instance regarding the
life or death of the burgess. But the body which acquired these
rights could not possibly be the community as it had been hitherto
constituted--the patriciate which had practically become an order of
nobility. The strength of the nation lay in the "multitude" (-plebs-)
which already comprehended in large numbers people of note and of
wealth. The exclusion of this multitude from the public assembly,
although it bore part of the public burdens, might be tolerated as
long as that public assembly itself had no very material share in
the working of the state machine, and as long as the royal power by
the very fact of its high and free position remained almost equally
formidable to the burgesses and to the --metoeci-- and thereby
maintained equality of legal redress in the nation. But when the
community itself was called regularly to elect and to decide, and the
president was practically reduced from its master to its commissioner
for a set term, this relation could no longer be maintained as it
stood; least of all when the state had to be remodelled on the morrow
of a revolution, which could only have been carried out by the
co-operation of the patricians and the --metoeci--. An extension of
that community was inevitable; and it was accomplished in the most
comprehensive manner, inasmuch as the collective plebeiate, that is,
all the non-burgesses who were neither slaves nor citizens of
extraneous communities living at Rome under the -ius hospitii-,
were admitted into the burgess-body. The curiate assembly of the
old burgesses, which hitherto had been legally and practically the
first authority in the state, was almost totally deprived of its
constitutional prerogatives. It was to retain its previous powers
only in acts purely formal or in those which affected clan-relations
--such as the vow of allegiance to be taken to the consul or to
the dictator when they entered on office just as previously to the
king,(9) and the legal dispensations requisite for an -arrogatio- or
a testament--but it was not in future to perform any act of a properly
political character. Soon even the plebeians were admitted to the
right of voting also in the curies, and by that step the old
burgess-body lost the right of meeting and of resolving at all.
The curial organization was virtually rooted out, in so far as it
was based on the clan-organization and this latter was to be found
in its purity exclusively among the old burgesses. When the plebeians
were admitted into the curies, they were certainly also allowed to
constitute themselves -de jure- as--what in the earlier period they
could only have been -de facto-(10)--families and clans; but it is
distinctly recorded by tradition and in itself also very conceivable,
that only a portion of the plebeians proceeded so far as to constitute
-gentes-, and thus the new curiate assembly, in opposition to its original
character, included numerous members who belonged to no clan.
All the political prerogatives of the public assembly--as well the
decision on appeals in criminal causes, which indeed were essentially
political processes, as the nomination of magistrates and the adoption
or rejection of laws--were transferred to, or were now acquired by,
the assembled levy of those bound to military service; so that the
centuries now received the rights, as they had previously borne the
burdens, of citizens. In this way the small initial movements made by
the Servian constitution--such as, in particular, the handing over to
the army the right of assenting to the declaration of an aggressive
war(11)--attained such a development that the curies were completely
and for ever cast into the shade by the assembly of the centuries, and
people became accustomed to regard the latter as the sovereign people.
In this assembly debate took place merely when the presiding
magistrate chose himself to speak or bade others do so; of course
in cases of appeal both parties had to be heard. A simple majority
of the centuries was decisive.
As in the curiate assembly those who were entitled to vote at all were
on a footing of entire equality, and therefore after the admission
of all the plebeians into the curies the result would have been a
complete democracy, it may be easily conceived that the decision of
political questions continued to be withheld from the curies; the
centuriate assembly placed the preponderating influence, not in the
hands of the nobles certainly, but in those of the possessors of
property, and the important privilege of priority in voting, which
often practically decided the election, placed it in the hands of
the -equites- or, in other words, of the rich.
Senate
The senate was not affected by the reform of the constitution in the
same way as the community. The previously existing college of elders
not only continued exclusively patrician, but retained also its
essential prerogatives--the right of appointing the interrex, and of
confirming or rejecting the resolutions adopted by the community as
constitutional or unconstitutional. In fact these prerogatives were
enhanced by the reform of the constitution, because the appointment
of the magistrates also, which fell to be made by election of the
community, was thenceforth subject to the confirmation or rejection
of the patrician senate. In cases of appeal alone its confirmation,
so far as we know, was never deemed requisite, because in these the
matter at stake was the pardon of the guilty and, when this was
granted by the sovereign assembly of the people, any cancelling
of such an act was wholly out of the question.
But, although by the abolition of the monarchy the constitutional
rights of the patrician senate were increased rather than diminished,
there yet took place--and that, according to tradition, immediately on
the abolition of the monarchy--so far as regards other affairs which
fell to be discussed in the senate and admitted of a freer treatment,
an enlargement of that body, which brought into it plebeians also, and
which in its consequences led to a complete remodelling of the whole.
From the earliest times the senate had acted also, although not solely
or especially, as a state-council; and, while probably even in the
time of the kings it was not regarded as unconstitutional for non-
senators in this case to take part in the assembly,(12) it was now
arranged that for such discussions there should be associated with
the patrician senate (-patres-) a number of non-patricians "added to
the roll" (-conscripti-). This did not at all put them on a footing
of equality; the plebeians in the senate did not become senators, but
remained members of the equestrian order, were not designated -patres-
but were even now -conscripti-, and had no right to the badge of
senatorial dignity, the red shoe.(13) Moreover, they not only
remained absolutely excluded from the exercise of the magisterial
prerogatives belonging to the senate (-auctoritas-), but were obliged,
even where the question had reference merely to an advice (-consilium-),
to rest content with the privilege of being present in silence
while the question was put to the patricians in turn, and of only
indicating their opinion by adding to the numbers when the division
was taken--voting with the feet (-pedibus in sententiam ire-,
-pedarii-) as the proud nobility expressed it. Nevertheless,
the plebeians found their way through the new constitution not
merely to the Forum, but also to the senate-house, and the first
and most difficult step towards equality of rights was taken in
this quarter also.
Otherwise there was no material change in the arrangements affecting
the senate. Among the patrician members a distinction of rank soon
came to be recognized, especially in putting the vote: those who were
proximately designated for the supreme magistracy, or who had already
administered it, were entered on the list and were called upon to vote
before the rest; and the position of the first of them, the foreman of
the senate (-princeps senatus-) soon became a highly coveted place of
honour. The consul in office, on the other hand, no more ranked as a
member of senate than did the king, and therefore in taking the votes
did not include his own. The selection of the members--both of the
narrower patrician senate and of those merely added to the roll--fell
to be made by the consuls just as formerly by the kings; but the
nature of the case implied that, while the king had still perhaps some
measure of regard to the representation of the several clans in the
senate, this consideration was of no account so far as concerned
the plebeians, among whom the clan-organization was but imperfectly
developed, and consequently the relation of the senate to that
organization in general fell more and more into abeyance. We have no
information that the electing consuls were restricted from admitting
more than a definite number of plebeians to the senate; nor was there
need for such a regulation, because the consuls themselves belonged to
the nobility. On the other hand probably from the outset the consul
was in virtue of his very position practically far less free, and
far more bound by the opinions of his order and by custom, in the
appointment of senators than the king. The rule in particular, that
the holding of the consulship should necessarily be followed by
admission to the senate for life, if, as was probably the case at
this time, the consul was not yet a member of it at the time of
his election, must have in all probability very early acquired
consuetudinary force. In like manner it seems to have become early
the custom not to fill up the senators' places immediately on their
falling vacant, but to revise and complete the roll of the senate on
occasion of the census, consequently, as a rule, every fourth year;
which also involved a not unimportant restriction on the authority
entrusted with the selection. The whole number of the senators
remained as before, and in this the -conscripti- were also included;
from which fact we are probably entitled to infer the numerical
falling off of the patriciate.(14)
Conservative Character of the Revolution
We thus see that in the Roman commonwealth, even on the conversion of
the monarchy into a republic, the old was as far as possible retained.
So far as a revolution in a state can be conservative at all, this one
was so; not one of the constituent elements of the commonwealth was
really overthrown by it. This circumstance indicates the character
of the whole movement. The expulsion of the Tarquins was not, as the
pitiful and deeply falsified accounts of it represent, the work of a
people carried away by sympathy and enthusiasm for liberty, but the
work of two great political parties already engaged in conflict, and
clearly aware that their conflict would steadily continue--the old
burgesses and the --metoeci-- --who, like the English Whigs and
Tories in 1688, were for a moment united by the common danger which
threatened to convert the commonwealth into the arbitrary government
of a despot, and differed again as soon as the danger was over.
The old burgesses could not get rid of the monarchy without the
cooperation of the new burgesses; but the new burgesses were far from
being sufficiently strong to wrest the power out of the hands of the
former at one blow. Compromises of this sort are necessarily limited
to the smallest measure of mutual concessions obtained by tedious
bargaining; and they leave the future to decide which of the
constituent elements shall eventually preponderate, and whether they
will work harmoniously together or counteract one another. To look
therefore merely to the direct innovations, possibly to the mere
change in the duration of the supreme magistracy, is altogether to
mistake the broad import of the first Roman revolution: its indirect
effects were by far the most important, and vaster doubtless than
even its authors anticipated.
The New Community
This, in short, was the time when the Roman burgess-body in the
later sense of the term originated. The plebeians had hitherto been
--metoeci-- who were subjected to their share of taxes and burdens,
but who were nevertheless in the eye of the law really nothing but
tolerated aliens, between whose position and that of foreigners proper
it may have seemed hardly necessary to draw a definite line of
distinction. They were now enrolled in the lists as burgesses liable
to military service, and, although they were still far from being on
a footing of legal equality--although the old burgesses still remained
exclusively entitled to perform the acts of authority constitutionally
pertaining to the council of elders, and exclusively eligible to the
civil magistracies and priesthoods, nay even by preference entitled to
participate in the usufructs of burgesses, such as the joint use of
the public pasture--yet the first and most difficult step towards
complete equalization was gained from the time when the plebeians no
longer served merely in the common levy, but also voted in the common
assembly and in the common council when its opinion was asked, and the
head and back of the poorest --metoikos-- were as well protected by
the right of appeal as those of the noblest of the old burgesses.
One consequence of this amalgamation of the patricians and plebeians
in a new corporation of Roman burgesses was the conversion of the
old burgesses into a clan-nobility, which was incapable of receiving
additions or even of filling up its own ranks, since the nobles no
longer possessed the right of passing decrees in common assembly
and the adoption of new families into the nobility by decree of the
community appeared still less admissible. Under the kings the ranks
of the Roman nobility had not been thus closed, and the admission of
new clans was no very rare occurrence: now this genuine characteristic
of patricianism made its appearance as the sure herald of the speedy
loss of its political privileges and of its exclusive estimation
in the community. The exclusion of the plebeians from all public
magistracies and public priesthoods--while they were admissible to
the position of officers and senators--and the maintenance, with
perverse obstinacy, of the legal impossibility of marriage between old
burgesses and plebeians, further impressed on the patriciate from the
outset the stamp of an exclusive and wrongly privileged aristocracy.
A second consequence of the new union of the burgesses must have been
a more definite regulation of the right of settlement, with reference
both to the Latin confederates and to other states. It became
necessary--not so much on account of the right of suffrage in the
centuries (which indeed belonged only to the freeholder) as on
account of the right of appeal, which was intended to be conceded
to the plebeian, but not to the foreigner dwelling for a time or
even permanently in Rome--to express more precisely the conditions
of the acquisition of plebeian rights, and to mark off the enlarged
burgess-body in its turn from those who were now the non-burgesses.
To thisepoch therefore we may trace back--in the views and feelings
of the people--both the invidiousness of the distinction between
patricians and plebeians, and the strict and haughty line of demarcation
between -cives Romani- and aliens. But the former civic distinction was
in its nature transient, while the latter political one was permanent;
and the sense of political unity and rising greatness, which was thus
implanted in the heart of the nation, was expansive enough first
to undermine and then to carry away with its mighty current those
paltry distinctions.
Law and Edict
It was at this period, moreover, that law and edict were separated.
The distinction indeed had its foundation in the essential character
of the Roman state; for even the regal power in Rome was subordinate,
not superior, to the law of the land. But the profound and practical
veneration, which the Romans, like every other people of political
capacity, cherished for the principle of authority, gave birth to the
remarkable rule of Roman constitutional and private law, that every
command of the magistrate not based upon a law was at least valid
during his tenure of office, although it expired with that tenure.
It is evident that in this view, so long as the presidents were
nominated for life, the distinction between law and edict must have
practically been almost lost sight of, and the legislative activity
of the public assembly could acquire no development. On the other
hand it obtained a wide field of action after the presidents were
changed annually; and the fact was now by no means void of practical
importance, that, if the consul in deciding a process committed a
legal informality, his successor could institute a fresh trial of
the cause.
Civil and Military Authority
It was at this period, finally, that the provinces of civil and
military authority were separated. In the former the law ruled,
in the latter the axe: the former was governed by the constitutional
checks of the right of appeal and of regulated delegation; in the
latter the general held an absolute sway like the king.(15) It was
an established principle, that the general and the army as such should
not under ordinary circumstances enter the city proper. That organic
and permanently operative enactments could only be made under the
authority of the civil power, was implied in the spirit, if not in the
letter, of the constitution. Instances indeed occasionally occurred
where the general, disregarding this principle, convoked his forces
in the camp as a burgess assembly, nor was a decree passed under
such circumstances legally void; but custom disapproved of such
a proceeding, and it soon fell into disuse as though it had been
forbidden. The distinction between Quirites and soldiers became
more and more deeply rooted in the minds of the burgesses.
Government of the Patriciate
Time however was required for the development of these consequences
of the new republicanism; vividly as posterity felt its effects,
the revolution probably appeared to the contemporary world at first
in a different light. The non-burgesses indeed gained by it
burgess-rights, and the new burgess-body acquired in the -comitia
centuriata- comprehensive prerogatives; but the right of rejection on
the part of the patrician senate, which in firm and serried ranks
confronted the -comitia- as if it were an Upper House, legally hampered
their freedom of movement precisely in the most important matters, and
although not in a position to thwart the serious will of the collective
body, could yet practically delay and cripple it. If the nobility in
giving up their claim to be the sole embodiment of the community did not
seem to have lost much, they had in other respects decidedly gained.
The king, it is true, was a patrician as well as the consul, and the
right of nominating the members of the senate belonged to the latter as
to the former; but while his exceptional position raised the former no
less above the patricians than above the plebeians, and while cases
might easily occur in which he would be obliged to lean upon the
support of the multitude even against the nobility, the consul--ruling
for a brief term, but before and after that term simply one of the
nobility, and obeying to-morrow the noble fellow-burgess whom he had
commanded to-day--by no means occupied a position aloof from his
order, and the spirit of the noble in him must have been far more
powerful than that of the magistrate. Indeed, if at any time by
way of exception a patrician disinclined to the rule of the nobility
was called to the government, his official authority was paralyzed
partly by the priestly colleges, which were pervaded by an intense
aristocratic spirit, partly by his colleague, and was easily suspended
by the dictatorship; and, what was of still more moment, he wanted
the first element of political power, time. The president of a
commonwealth, whatever plenary authority may be conceded to him,
will never gain possession of political power, if he does not continue
for some considerable time at the head of affairs; for a necessary
condition of every dominion is duration. Consequently the senate
appointed for life inevitably acquired--and that by virtue chiefly
of its title to advise the magistrate in all points, so that we speak
not of the narrower patrician, but of the enlarged patricio-plebeian,
senate--so great an influence as contrasted with the annual rulers,
that their legal relations became precisely inverted; the senate
substantially assumed to itself the powers of government, and
the former ruler sank into a president acting as its chairman and
executing its decrees. In the case of every proposal to be submitted
to the community for acceptance or rejection the practice of
previously consulting the whole senate and obtaining its approval,
while not constitutionally necessary, was consecrated by use and wont;
and it was not lightly or willingly departed from. The same course
was followed in the case of important state-treaties, of the
management and distribution of the public lands, and generally of
every act the effects of which extended beyond the official year;
and nothing was left to the consul but the transaction of current
business, the initial steps in civil processes, and the command in
war. Especially important in its consequences was the change in
virtue of which neither the consul, nor even the otherwise absolute
dictator, was permitted to touch the public treasure except with the
consent and by the will of the senate. The senate made it obligatory
on the consuls to commit the administration of the public chest, which
the king had managed or might at any rate have managed himself, to two
standing subordinate magistrates, who were nominated no doubt by the
consuls and had to obey them, but were, as may easily be conceived,
much more dependent than the consuls themselves on the senate.(16)
It thus drew into its own hands the management of finance; and this
right of sanctioning the expenditure of money on the part of the
Roman senate may be placed on a parallel in its effects with the
right of sanctioning taxation in the constitutional monarchies
of the present day.
The consequences followed as a matter of course. The first and
most essential condition of all aristocratic government is, that
the plenary power of the state be vested not in an individual but
in a corporation. Now a preponderantly aristocratic corporation,
the senate, had appropriated to itself the government, and at the
same time the executive power not only remained in the hands of the
nobility, but was also entirely subject to the governing corporation.
It is true that a considerable number of men not belonging to the
nobility sat in the senate; but as they were incapable of holding
magistracies or even of taking part in the debates, and thus were
excluded from all practical share in the government, they necessarily
played a subordinate part in the senate, and were moreover kept in
pecuniary dependence on the corporation through the economically
important privilege of using the public pasture. The gradually
recognized right of the patrician consuls to revise and modify the
senatorial list at least every fourth year, ineffective as presumably
it was over against the nobility, might very well be employed in their
interest, and an obnoxious plebeian might by means of it be kept out
of the senate or even be removed from its ranks.
The Plebeian Opposition
It is therefore quite true that the immediate effect of the revolution
was to establish the aristocratic government. It is not, however, the
whole truth. While the majority of contemporaries probably thought
that the revolution had brought upon the plebeians only a more rigid
despotism, we who come afterwards discern in that very revolution the
germs of young liberty. What the patricians gained was gained at the
expense not of the community, but of the magistrate's power. It is
true that the community gained only a few narrowly restricted rights,
which were far less practical and palpable than the acquisitions
of the nobility, and which not one in a thousand probably had the
wisdom to value; but they formed a pledge and earnest of the future.
Hitherto the --metoeci-- had been politically nothing, the old
burgesses had been everything; now that the former were embraced
in the community, the old burgesses were overcome; for, however much
might still be wanting to full civil equality, it is the first breach,
not the occupation of the last post, that decides the fall of the
fortress. With justice therefore the Roman community dated its
political existence from the beginning of the consulate.