to Livy and Strabo, not only the Rhætians, but also the other Alpine
tribes, the Camunians, the Lepontians on the Lake of Como, were of
Etruscan race. That they were forced by the Gallic conquest to retire
from the plain into the Alps, has never been said by any of the
ancients; and it is absurd to think that a people which fled before the
Gauls from the Patavinian plain, should have been able to subdue the
mountaineers of the Alps, or have been allowed to have any footing
there, unless those regions had already before been occupied by others
of the same tribe. We have the tradition, probably from Cato, that
the Etruscans had taken three hundred Umbrian towns;--these must be
considered as belonging to the interior of Tuscany;--and a long time
afterwards, a district in Tuscany is called Umbria, and a river,
Umbro. The Etruscans are therefore one of those northern nations which
were driven to the south by the pressure of some of those national
migrations which are quite as historically certain as the later ones,
although we do not find any record of them,--national migrations like
that which had driven the Illyrians forward, so that the Illyrian
Enchelians, about the fortieth Olympiad, burst into Greece, and sacked
Delphi, as Herodotus tells us. Such a national migration drove the
Etruscans from the north. They once inhabited Switzerland and the
Tyrol; nay, it surely happened to the Etruscans in those countries,
as it did also to the Celts in Spain, that some tribes kept their
ground longer than the other. The heathen wall on the Ottilienberg in
Alsace, which Schweighäuser has described as one of the most remarkable
and unaccountable of monuments, is evidently an Etruscan work: it
has exactly the character of Etruscan fortification, as we see it
at Volterra, Cortona, and Fiesole. Some would have this called the
Gallic style of building; yet quite groundlessly, as we may see both
from Cæsar’s description, and also from other remains and structures
in Gaul. There are two essentially distinct kinds of fortifications
in central Italy. The one are the so-called Cyclopian Walls, built
in polygons, which alternate with intentional irregularity along the
slope of a hill, in such a manner that it has become quite scarped,
but at the summit it is without walls. The ascent is by a ledge on
the slope of the hill, _Clivus_, which one may ride up on horseback;
at the bottom of it, and at the top there are gates. In this manner
the Roman and Latin hills were fortified. The other are the Etruscan
fortifications, which are erected on the crown of a hill of difficult
access, the wall being not of polygons, but of parallelopipeds of
colossal dimensions, very rarely of hewn stone, which follow the ridge
of the hill in all its bendings. Thus it is near Volterra, and such
is the one in Alsace just spoken of. Now, I do not assign the origin
of this wall to such very ancient times, but to a kindred tribe with
the Etruscans, which had long maintained its ground there against the
Celts; and yet I would not quote its existence as an irrefragable proof
that there had been such a tribe. The Etruscans settled first in twelve
towns in Lombardy; about as far as to the present Austrian frontier,
on the side of Piedmont (Pavia was not Etruscan); in the south, from
Parma to Bologna; in the north, from the Po to Verona; then they spread
farther, and founded or enlarged in the country south of the Apennines
twelve towns besides, from which they commanded the country. Now it is
the common belief that the Etruscans were quite an ancient people in
Italy; I was myself for a long time of that opinion. But very old in
Tuscany they are not; and in that part of southern Tuscany which now
belongs to the States of the Church, they have spread only very late.
Herodotus relates that about the year of the city 220, the unfortunate
Phocæans had been beaten in a sea-fight by the Agyllæans who dwelt
in Corsica, and the Carthaginians, and that those who had been taken
prisoners were stoned to death; that the vengeance of heaven for this
crime had been made manifest; that the Agyllæans had applied to Delphi,
and that Apollo had imposed upon them Greek sacrifices and the worship
of Greek heroes. Now Agylla, according to the unanimous account of
all writers, bore this name as long as it was Pelasgian: thenceforth
it was called Cære by the Etruscans. Mezentius, the tyrant of Cære
in the legend which Virgil with his great learning embodies in his
poem, may with much probability be taken to be the Etruscan conqueror
of Cære. He also appears afterwards as the conqueror of Latium, who
claims for himself the tithe of the wine, and even the whole produce
of the vintage. The extensions of the Etruscan sway belong to the age
of the last kings of Rome: they are connected with the expedition of
the Etruscans against Cuma, and in the country of the Volscians. About
the time from Olympiad 60 to 70, they spread in those parts; in the
year of the city 283, they found Capua, according to Cato’s account,
which has certainly great authenticity. The shortness of the period
allowed for the growth and decay of the people, the objection started
by Velleius, cannot make this improbable: Capua, for instance, had
already been built two hundred and fifty years before it became a large
town: New York is a case yet more in point. The time, therefore, when
Hiero of Syracuse defeated the Etruscans near Cuma, was that in which
these people flourished. In the beginning of the fourth century of
the city, they declined, while the Romans rose; and in the middle of
the century, the Gauls wrested from them the northern part of their
territory,--their possessions in the neighbourhood of the Po.
After men had come to the conviction that the Alban origin of Rome was
untenable, Rome was believed to be an Etruscan colony. I myself put
forth this supposition, and made it the groundwork of the first edition
of my History, because I held the Alban Latin descent to be false. This
Etruscan origin seemed to me to be confirmed by several circumstances,
especially by the statement of a certain Volnius in Varro, that the
names of the oldest Roman tribes were Tuscan; and, moreover, by the
remark that the secret theology of the Romans was derived from Etruria,
and that the sons of the ten first in the Roman senate learned the
ordinances of religion there, insomuch that the worship of Jupiter,
of Juno, and of Minerva on the Capitol, was in all likelihood after
the Etruscan ritual. Yet by unprejudiced researches I have convinced
myself that this is not the case; that the two original elements of the
Roman state are the Latins and Sabines, though I would not altogether
dispute the existence of an Etruscan one afterwards added to it; that
as Rome is much older than the spread of the Etruscans in those parts,
the statement of Volnius is either groundless, or the names of the
tribes were later than the tribes themselves; yet that the strong
influence of the Etruscans at the time which is designated as the
reign of Tarquinius Priscus, and of Servius Tullius, is sufficient to
account for all the Etruscan institutions in Rome. Moreover no ancient
author ever speaks of an Etruscan colony at Rome. The question then is
only this, Whether the Etruscans spread so early, that in the times of
Tarquinius Priscus they were already in possession of Tarquinii and
the neighbouring places? or whether they began only about the sixtieth
Olympiad, and later, to appear on the Tiber and beyond it?
Before we now proceed to set forth the changes which manifested
themselves in those times, a picture must be drawn of the oldest
constitution of Rome previous to them, after we have first told the
history of the Etruscans, as far as we have any knowledge of it.
What we know of the history of Cuma is very obscure: the foundation of
no Greek town in those parts is dated so early. This would not have
been the case if Cuma had not so soon ceased to be a Greek town, and
had come into the power of the Oscans before the time when the people
in those districts began to write Greek. All towns in fact have surely
had eras dating from their foundation; and by this means it became
possible to get definite chronological dates, which were afterwards
reduced to Olympiads. For it was only at a very late period that the
Greeks reckoned by Olympiads. The first who does so is Timæus (Ol. 120
to 130): Theophrastus does not yet use this computation. But when a
town like Cuma happened to have been lost to the Greeks, there was
then no trace of this era, and consequently nothing on which one could
lay hold but the genealogies of its Ctistæ (Founders). If therefore it
was stated, that this man or that man had founded a city, people made
out his descent as far back as Troy and the heroic age. Thence it comes
that Cuma was looked upon as so wonderfully old, as two hundred years
older than the neighbouring Greek towns; for the real era of this city
was lost at an early period, and it was surely not older than the other
Greek towns. What was known of Cuma probably existed in Neapolitan
Chronicles, which Dionysius also made use of. His description of the
war of the Etruscans against Cuma is indeed mythical: the Volturnus
flows back to its source, &c. yet this is only a matter of secondary
consideration. Herodotus is also mythical; for instance, at the
destruction of the Carthaginian army against Gelon,--yet for all that
the war which he relates is not to be doubted of. The people of Cuma
were then at the height of their prosperity, and possessed Campania. If
therefore the Etruscans besieged Cuma about the sixty-fourth Olympiad,
this shows clearly that they were at that time conquerors, which is
in perfect agreement with Cato’s account, that Capua had stood only
two hundred and sixty years since its foundation; that is to say, it
was an Etruscan colony. Thus therefore, with regard to the passage of
the Etruscans over the Tiber, we have the date 250 to 280 according to
our usual chronology from the building of Rome; and as late as 220 to
230, Herodotus represents Agylla as a town which consults the oracle
at Delphi. That this had been done by Etruscans, who thought so much
of their own religion, is inconceivable; and the more so, as there
existed a deep-rooted hatred between the Etruscans and the Greeks,
owing to which it was that the Romans received the command to sacrifice
a Gaul and a Gallic woman, and also a Greek and a Greek woman,[64]
from the _Libri Fatales_, which were of Etruscan origin; and not from
the Sybilline books, as Plutarch would have us believe. This national
hatred already displays itself every where: in Pindar, in the Bacchian
fable, it is transferred to the Tyrrhenians, but it is to be understood
of the Etruscans. The Etruscans therefore also reach the Tiber at
a much later time than is generally supposed; they spread forth by
degrees, attain to their meridian height, maintain themselves in it
for two generations, and then fall into rapidly increasing decline. Of
the earlier Etruscan history, we positively know nothing. We find in
Tuscany twelve cities altogether independent of each other, but yet
sometimes joined together in a common undertaking. It was customary
that a king reigned in each of these towns; still no trace is found
in any Italian people of an hereditary rule, as among the Greeks.
Moreover these cities are not united in any artificial confederation:
a league is formed of itself from their assembling at times at the
temple of Voltumna for the purpose of common deliberation; and besides
this they had a common priest for the whole nation. It seems, however,
true, for, as the Etruscan language was unintelligible to the Romans,
we must be very cautious in using their traditions,--that in common
enterprises one of the kings was chosen, whose supremacy the other
towns acknowledged, and whom they invested with the royal insignia. Yet
it would seem that this pre-eminence was not always the result of an
election, but that a city often usurped the leadership; as in the war
of Porsena, Clusium is the chief town of the Etruscans. The accounts
which we have represent Rome as being in the same relation to those
towns: the twelve cities are stated to have sent to Tarquinius Priscus
the ivory throne and the insignia; according to others, to Servius
Tullius. Neither of the two accounts is historical; but this is a sign,
that Rome under the last kings was the capital of a mighty empire, much
greater than during the first 160 years of the republic, of which
also we still have proofs in Rome itself. With regard to Etruria in
particular, Rome seems to have been acknowledged as a chief town; yet
this is only something transient, which perhaps under the kings already
was changed several times.
The Etruscans have all the distinguishing features of an immigrating
people, probably not much more numerous than the Germans who settled
in Italy at the beginning of the middle ages. The towns bear rule, and
in them the clans govern; their territories are large, but have no
importance. This oligarchical form of government was the very thing
which made Etruria powerless against Rome, as it was dangerous to put
arms into the hands of the common people.
Dionysius, who gives the expressions of his authorities with great
care, says that the magnates of the Etruscans had assembled with their
clients for war. Among the Romans it is only the last resource to
call upon the clients, when the plebeians refused to take the field.
Other nations also allude to the fact that Etruria was peopled by
vassals under a territorial aristocracy. When on the advance of the
Gauls the dwellers on the left bank of the Tiber separated from Rome,
Rome drew to herself those on the right bank, Cære got isopolity;
four new tribes were formed from those who in the war had separated
from Veii and Falerii, evidently not _transfugæ_, as Livy says, but
whole populations which joined Rome to escape from oppression. This
plainly appears from analogy; for from the Volscians two tribes only
are formed, and as many from the Sabines. Moreover, the history of the
insurrection of Vulsinii exhibits the condition of a vanquished people,
as I have shown in the first volume of my Roman history. The Vulsinians
formed from their serfs a _plebes_ in order to repel the Romans; the
_plebes_ afterwards subjects its former rulers, and the latter choose
rather to throw themselves into the arms of the Romans, and to allow
their town to be destroyed by them. There is every where such an
oligarchy; hence it is that we find so very few towns in Etruria. The
whole country from the Apennines to Rome had only twelve. For this
reason power was only in its rudest state of development: there was no
lasting vitality in it, no elements of national existence, as among the
Romans, or the Samnites who evidently did not oppress the old Oscan
people, but combined into one whole with them, and even adopted their
language; whilst on the contrary, the Lucinians, who had emigrated
from among the Sabines, stood in quite a different position to the old
Œnotrians, or else the numbers of their citizens must have been stated
quite differently by Polybius. Here an opposite policy bears opposite
fruits. The insurrection of the Bruttians is nothing else but that the
Œnotrians, who were already serfs under the Greeks, broke their chains
when they became subject to new masters who treated them still more
harshly. The Etruscans, in spite of their wealth and their greatness,
could not withstand the Romans; their towns did not form a closely
connected state as did those [of] the Latins, nor even as the Achæans.
Most of the towns laid down their arms in the fifth century, after one
or two battles. The only town which defended itself for thirty years,
was that very Vulsinii where the serfs were changed into a _plebes_.
The Samnites resisted for seventy years; the Lucanians for a very short
time only.
The Etruscans have met with great favour with the moderns; the ancients
thought very lightly of them. Among the Greeks, very unfavourable
accounts were in circulation concerning their unbounded luxury. In
some measure justice is done to them in respect to the fine arts.
The technical perfection and quaint effect of their works had great
attraction; the _Signa Tuscana_ were about as much prized at Rome, as
old German pictures are now a-days in Germany.
The Etruscans enjoyed particular consideration as a people of priests,
who were devoted to soothsaying in all its forms, especially from
meteorological or astronomical phenomena, and from the entrails of
victims: the augural divinations, on the other hand, are an inheritance
of the Sabellian races. Yet we must after all acknowledge this to have
been a system of gross fraud. I will not deny that the observations
on lightning led the Etruscans to interesting discoveries. They were
already aware of the lightnings flashing forth from the earth, which
are now generally acknowledged by natural philosophers, but were denied
only thirty years ago. That they knew of lightning conductors, as one
might suppose from Jupiter Elicius, is now much less probable to me
than it was formerly. It would never have been so entirely lost. And,
besides, it is not stated that the lightnings were attracted, but
called forth.
In history, the Etruscans show themselves in any thing but a favourable
light. Unwarlike, inclined to withdraw from impending danger at the
price of humiliation; just as in modern times so many states have done
between 1796 and 1813. The descriptions of their great luxury may have
been exaggerated; yet they had some foundation. For nearly two hundred
years, the Etruscans lived in the most profound peace under the Roman
dominion, free from every service in war; except in extraordinary
emergencies, as in the war of Hannibal. To this period, then, the
immense wealth and luxury which Polybius described are to be referred.
The Etruscans had also annals, of which the emperor Claudius made use.
Some few portions of them may have likewise come to Verrius Flaccus
and to Varro. Cæles Vibenna is especially celebrated. He offers, in
fact, the only historical point which we know from the history of the
Etruscans. Cæles Vibenna is said by some to have come to Rome, and
to have settled on the Cælius. According to others, and indeed to
those who follow the Etruscan traditions, he died in Etruria, and his
general, Mastarna, led the remainder of his army to Rome, where he is
said to have given the _Mons Cælius_ the name of his old general. In
the narratives we always find him as a condottiere, as the independent
leader of a free corps, in no sort of subjection to any of the towns;
like the Catalan hosts in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and
the East Indians in the eighteenth. We do not know any thing more about
him; yet the emperor Claudius asserts, from the Etruscan books, that
his faithful general, Mastarna, when he had come to Rome and settled
on the Cælius, had been received into the Roman state under the name
of Servius Tullius. This is possible; whilst, on the other hand, the
tradition of the Romans concerning Servius Tullius falls entirely
within the sphere of the miraculous. It is said that in the ashes of
the altar a vision of the God of fire had appeared to Tanaquil; that
she had ordered her maid to lock herself up there, dressed as a bride;
that the maid had gotten with child, and had borne Servius Tullius;
and that therefore, in token of the latter’s descent from the god of
fire, his head had during his childhood been surrounded, when he was
asleep, by a halo of fire, and also at the conflagration of a temple,
his wooden image in it had remained untouched. With a great deal of
circumspection those who refine on history, have attempted to introduce
this legend also into authentic history. Many of them find his descent
from a bondmaid to be unseemly; and so they make him out to be the son
of a man of rank at Corniculum, who had died, and had left her with
child, whereupon she had been brought to the royal palace. According
to others, his mother was indeed a bondmaid, but his father was the
king. The halo of fire also is interpreted as symbolical of his early
developed mind: _non latuit scintilla ingenii in puero_, says Cicero.
Yet the old poets meant it seriously. We have the choice either of
leaving the descent of Tullius in obscurity, or of believing that the
Etruscan histories are true. I am so decidedly of opinion, that the
Etruscan literature is older than that of the Romans, that I do not
hesitate to give their legends the preference; and still more so,
because Tarquinius Priscus has been made to be an Etruscan; since the
existence of an Etruscan element was perceived, which, on account of
the name, was referred to Tarquinius. Servius Tullius was represented
as belonging to another race, chiefly because Rome did not wish to own
herself indebted to an Etruscan for the important changes which are
ascribed to that king. As he could not, however, be positively assigned
to any distinct clan, recourse was had to the mythus; and he was made
to be the son of a god like Romulus, just as Numa also was said to be
the husband of a goddess. In the case of the son of a god, it is of no
consequence who is his mother.[65] Yet we cannot draw from this any
farther conclusions; nor can we make any use in history of the notice
that he was an Etruscan, and that he led the remainder of the army of
Cæles Vibenna up to Rome. Livy speaks of a Veientian war; but he only
gives a few outlines, from which it is evident that he knew this was
nothing but the fraudulent work of the Fasti.
In the legend we find Servius Tullius as a Latin, who ascends the
throne, yet not even by regular election. To him all the political
law is traced back, as all the spiritual was to Numa; a proof that to
Livy himself they were no historical persons. The _gens Tullia_, to
which Servius may have belonged, perhaps by adoption, is expressly
mentioned as an Alban clan settled on the Cælius, consequently
belonging to the Luceres; and thus a king of the third tribe,--or as
that and the commonalty are very nearly related, for it is derived
from Corniculum,--a king from the commonalty ascends the throne. He is
installed in his rule without election; yet he is then acknowledged by
the Curies. Now Servius appears important from three different points
of view:--as the enlarger of the city, inasmuch as he gave to Rome its
legal circuit, even as it remained down to the time of the Emperors,
although suburbs were added;--as the author of a constitution, since he
constitutes the _plebes_ as the second half of the nation;--and as the
founder of the connexion with the Latins, who before that had only been
either at war with the Romans, or else in a state of forced dependance
upon them.
In these respects he is of such consequence, that we must dwell at some
length on the subject. Tarquinius Priscus and Servius Tullius, for the
sake of clearness, shall here be treated as if they were historical
persons; but merely for the designation of relations and causes,
their names serving instead of an _x_. In this manner, as was already
remarked, we start from the most ancient form of Rome previous to this
change.
In its first form, Rome consisted of a city on the Palatine,
surrounded by a wall and ditch, with a suburb, and of a Sabine town
on the Quirinal and on the Tarpeian Hill. From the union of both,
Rome arose; and from the union of both bodies of citizens, the Roman
citizenship. All modern states, with the single exception of the
canton of Schwytz, have their governments and subdivisions according
to their territory. Every city is divided into districts and wards,
and on these, in representative governments, the representation is
based: he who has his abode in a district is both an elector, and
may also be elected in it. But the view which the ancients took was
this, that the land was only the substratum of the state; that the
state itself was formed of individuals; and that the relations of
these to the whole community were modified in different ways by the
corporations. Hence the state was divided into a certain number of
associations, each of which again consisted of several families. These
associations had among themselves their assemblies, their rights of
inheritance, &c. their tribunals, and especially their sanctuaries.
Whoever belonged to them, bequeathed these to his children; and
wherever he might live, within or without the state, he was always
deemed to belong to that association. Whoever, on the contrary, did not
belong to it by right of birth, could only come in as an exception,
if that association acknowledged him. A man might be received into
the state with all the rights which the ancients confined to the
citizen as such, he might acquire landed property, he might sue and
be sued; and yet, unless he had a share in some association, he was
only an inmate, and could not be invested with an office, nor could
he vote. This view was generally entertained by all the most ancient
states. The state could merely bestow upon an individual the right
of abode and civil privileges: it could not command the association
to receive any one. In many states, the associations had not even
the right of admitting any body. This is the case with the castes
which always remain exclusive, and which, being separate, allow of
no intermarriage. Such an association, comprehending a number of
families from which one may go out, but into which one either cannot
enter at all, or only by the adoption of the whole association, is a
clan, and by no means what we call family, which implies an origin
from a common root; for when these clans have patronymics, they are
always merely symbolical, and derived from heroes.[66] I assume it as
a certain fact that among the Romans the division of the nation was
into _gentes_, which were analogous to the γένη of the Greeks, and to
the _Geschlechter_ of our German forefathers. This is a presupposition
to start from, for which, when the time comes, historical proofs will
not be wanting. Let us first speak of that people concerning which the
accounts are more distinct,--the Greeks. Their γένη are associations
which, notwithstanding their common name, are not to be looked upon
as families sprung from the same ancestors; but as the descendants
of those persons, who at the foundation of the state were united
in a corporation of this kind. This is expressly stated in Pollux,
undoubtedly from Aristotle, wherein it is asserted that the _Gennetæ_
were called from the γένη; and that they were connected not by descent
(γένει μὲν οὐ προσήκοντες) but by ἱερά which they had in common. Then
we have also the evidence of Harpocration concerning the Homerides
in Chios; he says that they were a _genos_ in that island, but that
according to the opinion of the well-informed they had no relationship
whatever with Homer. These γένη are just like the Arabian tribes,
the Beni Tai are ten thousand families who cannot all descend from
Edid Tai; or like the clans of the Highlanders, who were named after
individuals; yet it was only in a poetical sense that they spoke of
themselves as the kinsmen and descendants of these. In the Highlands
there were five thousand Campbells able to bear arms, who looked upon
the Duke of Argyle as their cousin.
Concerning the Roman _gentes_ we have no positive evidence, like that
of Pollux and Harpocration (such perhaps as Verrius Flaccus would have
given), that they were corporations without relationship; but we have
an important definition of Cicero’s in the _Topica_. He there gives
the word _gentiles_ as a difficult subject for definition; and such it
was, because in fact time in its course had wrought a thorough change
in the original institution. The _gentes_ in Cicero’s days had lost
much of their former consequence, and their constitution had been
affected by law decisions. He says, _Gentiles sunt, qui inter se,
eodem nomine sunt. Non satis est. Qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt. Ne
id quidem satis est. Quorum majorum nemo servitutem servivit. Abest
etiam nunc. Qui capite non sunt deminuti. Hoc fortasse satis est._
According to this, the Scipios and Sulla were _gentiles_; for they
are _eodem nomine_, &c. Suppose that one of the Cornelii had been
_addictus_ as liable to a debt, or condemned to death for a crime,
then he was _capite deminutus_, and ousted from his tribe, exactly
what the English in feudal language call “corruption of blood.” And
should he now as an addictus beget children, these also were outcasts,
and did not belong to the _gens_. By the added clause _quorum majorum
nemo servitutem servivit_, all the _Libertini_ and their descendants
were excluded, although bearing the gentile name of their patrons;
yet all the _Peregrini_ were left, whom one might admit if one chose.
But this in all likelihood is an addition which was unknown to the
old gentile law. For, in my opinion, there was in the earlier times
no difference whatever with regard to the Libertini: they belonged to
the _gens_ as well as the patrons. Yet this was a moot point, as is
shown by the remarkable lawsuit between the patrician and plebeian
Claudii (the Marcelli), for the inheritance of a _Libertinus_ in Cicero
_de Oratore_. On that occasion a _res judicata_ was pronounced by the
centuries, that the patrician Claudii could not inherit in a case of
this kind; from which the conclusion was afterwards drawn that the
_Libertini_ did not belong to the _gens_.
In the whole of this definition, there is not a word about a descent
from a common stock, closely connected as the idea would seem with it.
Hence it clearly follows that the _gentes_ in Rome were of the same
nature as the Greek γένη. _Genus_ and _gens_ are moreover quite the
same word, a thing which often happens with words of the old language,
e. g. _cliens_ and _clientus_,[67] _Campans_[68] and _Campanus_, and
likewise _Romans_ and _Romanus_: the genitives _Romanum_ and _Romanom_
come from that old contracted nominative.
The very institution of the _gens_ essentially implies a division
of the state by its fundamental laws into a certain number of such
associations, which then constituted small states by themselves,
and enjoyed special privileges of which the extent was very great:
_jus gentium_, and _jura gentium_, originally had perhaps a somewhat
different, a much wider meaning than we generally believe. The numbers
of the _gentes_ are always found in such a proportion to the state
as never could have been the result of chance. In Attica there were
360 γένη, a number which the grammarians very correctly refer to the
division of the year, or of the compass. This is also the case in
Germany; in Cologne there were three orders, each of fifteen houses
(Geschlechter); in Florence there were three times four and twenty
houses; in Dittmarsch three times ten. Now in Rome there were probably
three times one hundred _gentes_, i. e. three tribes of a hundred
clans each; wherefore Livy gives them the name of _centuria_, and not
_tribus_. There usually existed between the division into tribes and
that into clans an intermediate one comprising the latter, as the
φράτραι: in Greece, the curies at Rome, which corresponded to the
orders in Cologne, and to the classes in the Lombard towns. These
Curies are parts of a _Tribus_, and a combination of several _gentes_
(probably consisting always of ten) for common sacrifice. And just
as every _gens_ had its own _gentilician sanctuaries_,--for _sacra
familiarum_, which sometimes we find mentioned in modern writers,
were unknown to the Romans,--so likewise as member of a Cury, each
individual had some special duties besides of worship, and a vote in
the popular assemblies. The ancients did not vote by poll, but by
corporations: from the earliest times therefore it continued to be
the established usage at Athens that recruiting and voting should be
carried on by φυλαί (_Tribus_). Four Phylæ might be outvoted by six;
although, if polled, the latter were very inferior in numbers. In Rome
they went still farther: they did not vote by Tribes but by Curies.
The reason for it is easy to be seen: for, since at first the Ramnes
and the Tities were ruling alone, difficulties might have arisen from
allowing only these two to vote. It might easily have happened that one
tribe would be for, and the other against; and this would have led to
collisions. But if each Tribe was again divided into Curies, and voted
accordingly, it was then perhaps more likely that some one Cury gave
the casting vote. Before the admission of the third estate this would
necessarily happen. Afterwards we find that the turn of the Curies and
the _prærogativa_ were decided by lot, a thing which cannot be presumed
to have been done before; for by this means the Luceres might have got
the initiative as well as the two others. But here we have an instance
of the innumerable stages by which the Roman constitution developed
itself; and it is precisely this gradual development which has given
such a long duration to Roman freedom. For the true secret of a great
statesman, who is quite as seldom found as any other great genius, is
indeed the gradual perfection and reform of the several points of an
existing constitution, and not the sudden setting up of a finished work.
Thus therefore the Curies came into the place of the tribes. During
the reign of Tarquinius, the third estate was admitted to the full
citizenship: these are the _gentes minores_. The gentes are such
an essential element of the constitution, that, as _gentes civium
patriciæ_ is the formal expression for _patricii_, thus also _gentes
civium majores_ and _minores_ is said. It is stated that the senate
had consisted of two hundred, and that Tarquinius had raised it to
three hundred by the admission of the _gentes minores_. This can only
mean that he gave the third tribe the full citizenship, and received a
number of them, which corresponded to that of their _gentes_, into the
senate; and this is the usual course of things. In Cologne also, the
second and third order were admitted to offices later than the first.
It is a great change in the constitution, and one which completes it
for the first _populus_. The third estate at the beginning was not
quite on the same footing with the rest: their senate was not consulted
until the other two had already voted, and in the same way their Curies
were certainly only allowed to vote when the others had already given
theirs. With regard to the priestly offices, they were only admitted to
the college of the Vestals. Where we find _duumviri_, these are but the
representatives of the two first tribes: it is in later times only that
we find _triumviri_, and when these are patrician, they represent the
three tribes. But they are likewise often plebeian, and then based upon
the plebeian constitution to be treated of hereafter.
One of the widest spread peculiarities of former times, is the
difference made between the old homebred citizens and those who have
come from without. This difference has been almost every where done
away with by the notions of the eighteenth century. In North America
there is hardly any homebred population: with the exception of the
eligibility for the presidentship, it matters not in the least how
long one has lived in the country; there is no difference between
him who is come from the first colonists, and the man who has just
landed. Among the ancients, the admission to the rights of citizenship
was every where difficult: the alien needed not to be of a foreign
tongue, he might belong to the same nation as the citizen, and even to
the same tribe of the nation. The lines of demarcation are drawn in
the most varied manner. In the oldest constitution of which we have
any authentic knowledge, that of the Jews, we already find such a
distinction. The people consists of tribes with unequal rights, just
as the tribes of the Romans; besides these, are the persons who had
been received into the congregation of the Lord. With regard to the
latter, the Pentateuch expressly makes this distinction, that some
nations might be received, and others not. These aliens form a mass
closely connected with the Jewish people, but out of the tribes. In
after times, when the Jewish constitution is better known to us from
books of more recent date, the population is divided into Jews and
Proselytes; and the latter again into two classes,--the Proselytes
of Righteousness, and the Proselytes of the Gate.[69] The former had
political and civil rights, yet they were excluded from civic honours;
they could buy land, make wills, marry Jewish women, &c. &c. The
Proselytes of the Gate had to accommodate themselves to the Jewish
customs; they could not do any thing which was against the ceremonial
law for fear of giving offence; but they did not participate in civil
rights with the inhabitants of the country.
The same system presents itself, only less distinctly, in all the Greek
constitutions,--a fact about which so much nonsense has been talked.
Among the Greeks there existed from the very earliest times, besides
the sovereign body of the citizens, a community of native freemen,
who had civil rights, but by no means in every instance the privilege
of intermarriage with the ruling tribe; they might sue and be sued,
yet they had no share in the government. It was otherwise with the
aliens or the freedmen, who were bereft of all the personal rights of
citizens, and only protected against violence by taking a citizen for
their patron. This twofold distinction, that one might be born in a
country and exercise civil rights to a certain extent; and that those
who were aliens had no civil rights whatever, was a very general notion.
The body of the Roman citizens was now enlarged. At its first origin
it was an aristocracy, only so far as the subjected people of the
neighbourhood and the freedmen stood in the position of vassals to the
citizens; beyond this, no aristocratical relation whatever existed.
But when Sabine and Latin communities were so incorporated with Rome
that they got full civil rights, and had to serve, that class was
formed which in our German towns we call _Pfahlbürger_ (burghers of the
pale), an expression which no one has rightly and clearly understood.
The derivation of this word is from _Pahl_, or _Pfahl_, (_pale_);
in Ireland, the counties round Dublin were said to be “within the
English pale.” This name was also given in Germany to the district in
the immediate vicinity of a town. The freemen who lived in it had,
properly speaking, no rights of citizenship, as these were limited
to the _Geschlechter_ (the _Houses_), but merely civil rights. The
signification of the word in the course of time was more and more
widened, it being also applied to those aliens who had acquired the
right of community with a country (Landrecht), or a town (Burgrecht),
the _isopolity_ of the Greeks. The investigation of this subject,
which is perfectly analogous to the origin of the Roman _plebes_, has
to me been fraught with such considerable difficulties, because in
the sixteenth century these relations had vanished, and we therefore
nowhere find any thing more about them. In the fifteenth century this
expression is still found, but hardly in the sixteenth. Johannes Von
Müller did not understand it, and has used it without any proper
meaning. Now, when a province, or a town, or a baron established such
a right of community (_Landrecht_ or _Burgrecht_) with a town, the
consequences of it were twofold. In the first place, both parties
protected each other in their feuds; and moreover, the strangers might
settle with their vassals in the town, where they had the full civil
rights of freemen, and also their own courts of law: yet they were not
of the sovereign people, as they had no share in the government; and in
this respect the _Houses_, as having the sovereignty, stood on quite
a different footing. Many of the communities beyond the Tiber, Sabine
and Latin, entered into relations of this kind with the Romans, and it
was chiefly on the Aventine that they settled. The account given by the
Roman historians is, that Ancus had led them from their homes, and had
made them take up their abode there; but there are circumstances which
make this impossible. For, since all the land near Rome was occupied,
they could not have got any there, and must therefore have had their
dwellings some miles away from their fields. It is very possible that
some of the most distinguished were obliged to settle in Rome. This
citizenship “of the pale” now became more and more enlarged. The great
body of the people did not as yet form a corporation, though they
contained all the elements of one: they increased in the city and the
environs at such a rate, especially owing to the union with Latium
in the reign of Servius Tullius, that they far outnumbered the old
population, and formed the chief strength of Rome, and were employed to
a great extent in the wars. And the more they grew, the more did the
Tribes, which only intermarried among themselves, die off.
Thus arose the Roman _Plebes_,--the Greek δῆμος, in German _Gemeinde_.
The _demos_ comprehended all those who had the inferior citizenship,
and who therefore owed service to the state, but had no rights but
that of personal freedom. Thus the δῆμος stands in contraposition to
the πολῖται, the _plebes_ to the _populus_, the _Gemeinde_ to the
_Bürgerschaft_, the _commune_ to the _cittadine_.[70] I also think
that πόλις was not originally the term for city (which was called
ἄστυ), but just like _populus_, a Tyrrhenian word; and that both of
these bear the same meaning which we have stated above, _Populus_
having been formed by reduplication from πόλις. The commonalty is in
all states the main part as far as numbers are concerned; yet the way
in which it developed itself was different in the ancient world from
what it was in the middle ages. In the middle ages, the commonalty
resided within the walls: it often settled, as for instance in Geneva,
round the _cité_, the heart of the town, in the _bourg_, _borgo_, the
suburbs; and its members were therefore called _bourgeois_. These
suburbs were then likewise fortified, and in the course of time gained
equal rights with the cities. In Germany the same thing happened, the
name only being different, for _Bürger_ and _Geschlechter_ have the
same meaning; and there the cities sprang up, particularly after the
tenth century, when the age had become more settled. And in Gaul,
where a _civitas_ and a royal villa still existed from the times of
the Romans, a place often grew up near the villa, which remained under
the protection of the king, and under the management of the mayors
of the Palace. This is the original meaning of the word _ville_, as
opposed to _cité_. There is therefore a distinction in French towns
between _la cité_, _la ville_, and _le bourg_. Wherever the commonalty
was growing up within the walls, it was formed of quite different
elements. In the Germanic states, aliens were better treated on the
whole than they were in the ancient world, or even in France. The
_Beisassen_ of the small Swiss cantons, as for instance of Uri, are,
properly speaking, nothing else but subjugated communities; the
inhabitants of St. Gervais were subjects of Geneva. In France, by the
_droit d’aubaine_, the liege lord was heir to the aliens who were not
naturalized; for they were not allowed to make a will. In all those
medieval towns where trade and commerce were paramount, the commonalty
soon divided itself into guilds, which got their own heads and wardens,
their own privileges and style, as well as property; as to capital
jurisdiction, it could only be granted by the kings, and wherever it
was exercised, they had a share in it. The wardens of the companies
at first appear in the council to take care that their rights were
not infringed upon; but they soon took their seats as members, and
ended by getting the ascendency. This is clearly seen in the Italian
cities, e. g. in the case of the seven old guilds at Florence. During
the feuds of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the clans or houses had
still the upperhand; but soon afterwards, about the time of Rudolf of
Habsburg, the guilds are every where the ruling power,--in Italy in the
thirteenth century, and in Germany about the middle of the fourteenth;
at Zurich as well as at Augsburgh, at Strasburg, Ulm, Heilbronn, and
the Suabian imperial cities. The transition is made by the houses
(_Geschlechter_) sharing the government with the guilds: wherever this
is conceded, the union is effected peacefully; but where it is refused,
it is only after a sanguinary struggle, which generally ends in the
destruction of the houses. But sometimes also the reverse takes place,
as at Nuremberg, where the guilds were crushed.
This union of the clans and of the community, or the guilds, is called
in Greece πολιτεία; in Italian _popolo_, the meaning of which is
somewhat different from that of the Roman _populus_.[71] The partition
was so fully carried out, that at Florence, for example at the _palazzo
vecchio_, and on books also, the coat of arms of the city, a fleur
de luce, and that of the commonalty (_il commune_), a cross, gules,
field argent, are seen side by side. The expression _il commune_
easily gives rise to misconceptions; it does not mean the union, but
the commonalty, as Savigny has pointed out to me. At Bologna there
is a _palatium civium_, and a _palatium communis_. The _Capitano del
popolo_ and the _Capitano di parte_ at Florence are also difficult to
be understood. In the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the
_Capitano di parte_, that is, of the party of the Guelphs, having
driven the Ghibellines out of the city, was placed at the head of
affairs, and the others had their rights of citizenship suspended. The
single _Capitano_ of the houses was nevertheless called _di parte_.
But among the ancients it was not the guilds within the walls which
formed the commonalty; but the population of the country round the
city, which consisted of quite different elements, comprehending people
of the highest as well as of the lowest ranks. The notion, therefore,
is altogether a wrong one, that the _Plebes_ was made up of the poorer
classes only. It was occasioned already by the language employed in
Plato and Aristotle, as they had only the word δῆμος to designate
city-corporation, commonalty, the union of both,--in short, all that
did not belong to the ruling class, and moreover the common people.
Dionysius knew the word δῆμος only as contradistinguished to βουλὴ,
ὄχλος being the proper term for the mass of poor. Yet he also is not
free from that mistake, but carried it into Roman history; and as he
went much more fully into detail with regard to these relations than
Livy did, he led the restorers of ancient history into quite erroneous
notions. Livy likewise did not see the matter in a clear light; yet
he has many passages from which it is manifest, that the annalists
whom he followed were correct in their views. A further cause of this
confusion is, however, to be found in the pecuniary embarrassments and
debts which are stated to have prevailed among the Plebes; but which,
as we shall see hereafter, are only to be understood of the mortgages
which encumbered the landowners in many communities. The Plebes is the
counterpart of the Populus, as the Romans in general divide all the
primary agencies in nature and in the world of intellect into two; one
part being male, and the other female: as for instance, Vulcanus and
Vesta are the element of fire; Janus and Jana the heavenly lights, the
sun and moon; the generating power of the earth, Saturnus and Ops; the
earth as solid ground, Tellumo and Tellus; and thus also the entire
state, Populus and Plebes, both of which together formed its whole.
Under the protection of the Populus, a number of dependents[72]
(_cluentes_, from _cluere_ to hear) dwelt within the liberties of
the old town, which extended for about one German mile (nearly five
English) on the road leading to Alba. The boundary may be laid down
very accurately: unfortunately, the thought struck me only after my
departure from Italy. The way in which these clients came to be bound
to their patrons, just as the vassals were to their liege-lords, to
ransom them from captivity, to pay the portion of their daughters, to
be their stay and defence in the time of trouble, had its origin from
very different causes. They may partly have been old native Siculians,
who on being conquered by the Cascans, swore fealty in order to be
mercifully dealt with; foreigners may also have come in as residents,
and placed themselves under the guardianship of a Roman citizen;
there may likewise have been among them some of the inhabitants of
those places which were obliged to submit to the supremacy of Rome;
and the slave who had gained his freedom, stood to his late master in
the relation of a client. This class must necessarily have gone on
increasing so long as Rome was in a flourishing state. The asylum, in
the old tradition, has reference to the clientship, the clients having
really gathered together from all quarters. Quite distinct from them,
however, were the free communities, from which the country population
arose, of which the first beginning was traced back to the times of
Ancus. Scaliger, in one of the noblest of divinations, has discovered
that Catullus calls the Romans _gens Romulique Ancique_, in which
Romulus represents the clans, Ancus the commonalty. This _plebes_ now
increased, partly owing to the enlargement of the territory, and partly
also, without doubt, in consequence of the extinction of some of the
clans; in which case their former clients having no more liege lord,
now joined themselves to the commonalty; and many came in besides from
the free cities with which there were relations of isopolity. Such
organizations are, however, imperfect in their beginnings, and are only
developed in the course of time. Towns like those of the Tellenians,
Ficanians, Politorians, were surely quite isolated at first, and had no
regularly organized power. It is beyond a doubt, that in all the towns
of Italy a _Populus_ and a _Plebes_ existed; and this was also the
case in the Greek colonies of Lower Italy and Sicily, which in their
constitutions exhibit the closest analogy to the states of Italy. In
the former even the same names were certainly in use.
Before the age of Servius Tullius the country district was not yet
united with the state, to which it was linked perhaps by the king
alone: it does not even seem to have had _commercium_, that is to
say, no patrician could acquire property in it, and _vice versa_.
In many countries also, the rule was in force, down to the latest
times, that the landed property of the peasant could not pass to the
nobleman; a most judicious custom, which, however, was set aside owing
to the illusion that it was a vain limitation. Still less can any
intermarriage be presumed to have existed between the patricians and
plebeians. The children of such a marriage were not admitted to the
rank of their (patrician) father; but they rather followed the worse
blood, that is to say, theirs was under any circumstances the inferior
right. The _Lex Mensia_[73] has not devised this; but merely revived
the rule, and more clearly defined it in difficult cases. A lawgiver
now came forth, who on one hand gave to the commonalty a constitution
complete in itself, and, on the other invented forms by which it
was united to the whole body. The former part of this plan has been
entirely overlooked, and the latter appeared to Livy and Dionysius
quite a riddle; so much had circumstances changed since Fabius, who
had still a perfectly correct insight into these matters. In Rome a
great revolution in literature had been brought about by Cicero; and
Livy must have felt himself as much a stranger among the authors of the
earlier times as we do with regard to those who were before Lessing:
few only were still acquainted with books. And there was likewise a
great deal in the federal citizenship of the Latins abrogated by the
_Lex Julia_, on account of which the remembrance of the former state
of things has perished. Thus it is easy to understand, how it was that
the judicious Livy and the learned Dionysius were quite mistaken as to
these points, and nevertheless have preserved a great number of hints
from ancient sources, from which we may with much trouble guess the
truth. To take an example from our own times, I really believe that
there are not now ten people at Cologne, who know what the constitution
of their city was two hundred years ago. How many are there, who still
know any thing about the constitution of their own town before the
French revolution?
The division of such a country population was local. This was not
peculiar to Rome, we find it also to have been the case in Greece:
Clisthenes took the _ager Atticus_ as the basis for the division of
the Athenian people. The whole was divided into certain definite
parts, to effect which they did not reckon together several large
places, but they chose a particular number which seemed suitable, for
instance, one hundred, into which the division was to be made; and for
this purpose some large places were to be parcelled into districts,
and other smaller ones to be combined. These divisions according to a
number fixed before hand, were so general among the Romans, that, when
Augustus divided the city into fourteen regions, he did not count how
many _Vici_ there were, but to each region he assigned a certain number
of _Vici_. Now the lawgiver whom we call Servius Tullius took all those
portions of the city of Rome which were inhabited by burghers of the
pale, and the country around, and divided the former into four and the
latter into twenty-six regions. This must be assumed as true: the proof
that this statement of Fabius is correct would lead us too far. Every
_Populus_ presupposes almost as its necessary counterpart a _Plebes_;
in a certain sense therefore there was already a _Plebes_ before the
reign of Ancus, although an insignificant one. Roma, Quirium, Lucerum
had each of them their commonalty; these and the settlement on the
Esquiliæ in the time of Servius Tullius constituted the four first
tribes, the first of which, the Palatina, corresponds to the Palatine;
the second, the Collina, to the Quirinal; the third, the Suburana, to
the Cælius with the Carinæ and Subura; the fourth, the Esquilina to
the Esquiline and Viminal. This organization is to be dated before
the _Murus Servii_, as is proved to a certainty by the existence of
the Esquilina. Each of these regions had a corresponding local tribe,
so that all those who, at the time of their being established, were
living in a place, were inscribed there on the register of the local
tribes, and their descendants after them.[74] This continued so during
the first generation; but in the course of time it was changed, as
the descendants did not always remain in the same place. The names
of the country tribes were not taken originally from the districts,
but from heroes, being at the same time surnames for the tribes and
for the clans; for it was evidently the object of this legislation
to amalgamate the different elements of the people. The remembrance
of olden times, when those places had been independent, was to be
absorbed in the idea that they were Roman. They acquired common _sacra_
like the tribes composed of clans, as Dionysius expressly mentions.
Sacred rites were always among the ancients a bond of union. That
the plebeian tribes had _sacra_, we know from the fact that Tarquin
the Proud positively forbade them. Besides this, there was a local
subdivision into _vici_ for the city, and into _pagi_ for the country.
Each of these vici had a warden (_magister_); each tribe, a tribune.
The same system was established at Athens. If for instance a person was
registered at Acharnæ, and emigrated to Sunium, he still remained an
Ἀχαρνεύς. As in the earlier times these tribes were all equal, there
was no occasion for any one to wish to be registered in another tribe;
but afterwards it was different, when there arose between the tribes
an inequality of political consideration, of which I shall afterwards
speak. The _tribus urbanæ_ were inferior to the _rusticæ_, and the
removal from the latter to the former was a _nota ignominiæ_: this
dates from the censorship of Fabius Maximus. If a man became a Roman
citizen _sine suffragio_, he was not received into a plebeian tribe;
nor could he get admission therein by isopolity or emancipation; and
therefore he could not hold any office, nor have a vote. A vote in the
plebeian tribes belonged only to those who were settled on the land,
and to the cultivators of the soil; he who got his livelihood by some
other trade was debarred from it.
Now that the lawgiver had constituted the two bodies, the patricians
and the plebeians, he might, as is done in modern states, have put them
side by side in two separate assemblies. Yet this was impracticable in
those earliest times, inasmuch as they both looked upon each other as
enemies. In order to effect an accommodation, Servius established the
centuries (_centuriæ_), similar to the _concilio grande_ in Venice,
in which every one was equal to his neighbour on entering the Hall,
whether he were rich or poor, each being in a plain garb. It was the
object of the centuries, to unite the patricians and the plebeians,
and those who grew up at the side of the plebeians, and now took the
place which these formerly held; and at the same time to exclude
those, who, as they had no property at all, could give no guarantee to
the state. The centuries therefore contained the whole of the first
estate; of the second, those who were qualified to vote; of the third,
all those, who, owing to their means, were equals of the second; and,
besides, some distinguished trades. Great confusion with regard to
this was created in Roman history by the views of Livy and Dionysius,
who imagined the tribes to have differed as to rank and fortune only.
They thought that the old body of the citizens, which contained the
patricians, had been divided into curies, and that these were all
placed on the same footing; but that this had been an oppressive
democracy which Servius Tullius had done away with by establishing
the centuries. This mistake is the same as that into which Sismondi
falls when he represents the Italian cities, at the time in which they
first appear in history, as having been democratically governed,--a
prodigious error! Had the Roman historians attentively studied the
old law books, they could not possibly have remained in darkness with
regard to these things. It is true, however, that it is not yet fifty
years since Möser’s first researches, by the light of which we too have
only begun to get a clear insight into our own institutions.
According to the old system, the clansmen not only served on horseback,
as in aftertimes, but likewise on foot: it was also just the same
originally in the German cities. They had not at first the least
likeness to a nobility. We may take it for granted that each clan
served in war with one horseman and ten foot soldiers; and hence the
statement in Plutarch, that the first town had consisted of about
one thousand households. This looks like history; yet such additions
as “about,” and others of the same kind, in Plutarch, Dionysius, and
other writers of the later times, are touches put in to subdue the
tone of colouring which seemed to them too bright. The narrative is
quite ancient, but it is not so much history as the personification of
a system of rights. In the earliest Rome there were a hundred clans,
and consequently a thousand foot soldiers, each of whom was deemed
to have been furnished by one house.[75] Besides these the country
population had to serve, being probably called out according to their
place of abode. The new laws made a change in the phalanx; relieved the
old citizens from the duty of serving as foot soldiers; and granted
them immunities for serving as horsemen. In laying the burthen of the
foot-service on the plebeians, they also at the same time gave them
corresponding privileges, and thereby the means of upholding their
freedom. In this manner they divided the population into horsemen and
footmen, without however excluding the commonalty from the cavalry.
The military array of all the European nations in ancient times was
analogous to the Greek phalanx. It was a mass of men which acted by the
pressure of its own weight, and these were armed with pikes and charged
with them against each other in files eight, ten, or twelve deep. The
barbarians never fought in dense masses, and the Asiatics were merely
archers. When the soldiers, as at Rome, stood ten files deep, those
who were in the rear were not, of course, quite so much exposed and in
need of so much armour as those in front: they wanted, if they closed
their shields properly, no breast-plates, nor did the hindmost ranks
even require greaves. Part of them also were light troops, slingers who
threw either leaden bullets or stones. Every one at Rome who served
on foot, had to find his equipments at his own expense, and therefore
according to his means; so that the wealthier citizens were completely
armed, while those who were badly off were called upon to serve as
slingers only. When wars became protracted, gaps occurred in the ranks,
as the first rows grew thinner; in this case, the men who were behind
took possession of the arms and equipments of the slain, and being now
already trained, stepped into their places. At the same time there
followed a reserve in case of need. These therefore were the three
component parts of the Roman line of battle,--the legion proper, the
light armed, and last of all the men in the reserve, who stepped into
the hindmost ranks when those in front had been filled up from thence.
Servius therefore looked upon the whole nation, Populus and Plebes,
as an army, _exercitus vocatus_. And as this militia had to march
against the enemy abroad, there was need besides of carpenters for
building bridges, pitching tents, &c., and of musicians;--the former
constituted one, the latter two centuries;--and now only was the host
(_Classis_)[76] quite organized. These centuries did not consist of
plebeians, as no plebeian was allowed to carry on any other trade but
that of agriculture; otherwise he renounced his caste and was struck
off by the censors from his tribe (_capitis deminutio_,) originally
without any disgrace being attached to it. Yet the Romans had from the
earliest times companies of trade, which were traced back as high as
Numa, and of which there were three times three,--pipers, goldsmiths,
carpenters, dyers, girdlers, tanners, braziers, potters, and then all
the rest. Of this the intention certainly was to give the craftsmen
of the city also an existence as a corporation, just as in the
middle ages. But as those who were in these centuries were generally
freedmen and foreigners, it became an object of ambition to get out
of them, and to be enrolled among the tribes; and so the companies
could never thrive. They were of greater importance at Corinth. By the
division into centuries, the lawgiver connected the plebeians with the
patricians and ærarians. To the trades so necessary for warfare as the
carpenters and musicians, distinct centuries were assigned, by which
they acquired the same rights which would have belonged to them, if
they had served in war as plebeians. The carpenters were reckoned in
the first class on account of their importance, the musicians in the
fifth.
Lastly, he had regard to those free people who did not belong to the
commonalty. Many of these certainly entered the service, either by
conscription or as volunteers; for I cannot imagine that the _capite
censi_, and the _proletarii_, should not have had to do any service at
all. They were not, however, arrayed against the enemy; but they were
camp followers, (_lixæ et calones_). We have no reason to presume that
these had always been slaves.
Thus was an army now completely formed; and by this, together with the
horsemen, Servius caused the people to be represented. For the cavalry
he chose the three old double tribes, or six centuries of Tarquinius
Priscus; then twelve other centuries of the Plebes, which were the most
distinguished among the commonalty. In the six centuries was the entire
patrician body; which indeed had on the whole a very insignificant
number of votes, but, as we shall see by and by, the upperhand in
other respects. Within these, there was perfect equality; there was no
distinction of age: every century had a vote.
In the plebeian body, Servius Tullius selected from among those of
higher rank and greater wealth, two classes,--that of the former Latin
nobility, and that in which the rest were placed. To this noble class
he assigned the twelve other equestrian centuries, and that without
regard to property, with the exception perhaps of such persons as
were quite impoverished, a fact which must be particularly urged; for
according to the received opinion, they were deemed to have been the
richest. Had the knights at that time already been the richest, that is
to say, if we are to look upon them as having been in the same state as
after the war with Hannibal, what a senseless constitution would then
have been the result! All fortunes, between a million sesterces (the
sum which at the end of the second Punic war was the qualification of
this class) and 100,000, would not have been classified in any way; and
yet lower than that again in a great number of divisions. And we have
also the explicit testimony of Polybius, that the property standard was
of new introduction with regard to the knights, contrary to the old
system, in which birth was the qualification. Another proof, besides,
is the statement that, even as the censors registered a burgher of the
pale in the plebeian tribes, so did they likewise place a plebeian
in the equestrian body as a mark of distinction; which excludes a
classification according to property. In the reign of Augustus it was
indeed quite a different case. At that time, the most distinguished men
could not become knights without a certain amount of fortune.
Yet what is meant by _census_? With us every description of property
would be valued, all rights which might be reckoned as a capital. It
was otherwise with the Romans. It is to be considered as a proved fact,
that the census affected realized property only, “_res corporales_,”
that is to say, substantial objects; not _res incorporales_, as for
instance, debts and obligations. Thus, if I have 50,000 asses in
land, and owe 10,000 to some one else, I in fact possess only 40,000.
Yet this was not at all regarded in the census of the ancients, as
no notice was taken of incumbrances. This very point, which is of
paramount importance, has never once been noticed by the earlier
writers on Roman history, because they were no men of business. One
must not look upon the census as a property tax, but as a land tax; or
as a consolidation of direct taxes. Certain objects were estimated at
a certain value, according to prescribed rules, and then one paid a
corresponding assessment on the thousand. In Dutch Friesland the landed
estates were rated according to pounds, and a certain tax assessed on
these pounds. An estate was hence called _Pondemate_ (Pound-mead),
and a certain number of pence were paid on it. Thus the Roman census
comprehended all the landed estates, and without doubt all _res
mancipî_ as well; but I am quite convinced that nothing was assessed
on outstanding debts, however rich an individual might have been from
these sources. The Attic census on the other hand was really a property
tax. From thence it followed that the whole floating property in the
state had very little weight; for the richest monied man might have
come off without any tax, whilst the land had all the burthens, but
likewise all the privileges. In this the census closely corresponds to
our direct taxes, in which also no account is taken of the mortgages
with which an estate is encumbered.
All who did not belong to the equestrian centuries were again divided
into those who possessed upwards of 12,500 asses, and the poorer ones,
whose census did not reach that sum. The former were distributed
into five classes: in these there were no patricians whatever, but
all the plebeians whose census amounted to the sum fixed, and the
_ærarii_, that is to say, those who were not in the tribes, but had
an income which made them equal to those who were. The ærarians are
now what the plebeians had been before: as soon as they acquire
landed property, they enter into the tribes. In the first class were
all those who in landed estates, metals, agricultural implements,
beasts of draught, slaves, flocks, herds, and horses, possessed as
much property as was valued at 100,000 asses and upwards: these were
divided into eighty centuries. All who were above sixteen and under
forty-five, were reckoned among the _juniores_; from forty-five to
sixty, among the _seniores_. In Sparta, the obligation to military
service lasted until the sixtieth year; at Rome, it was in the case of
the _seniores_ limited to the defence of the walls only. As regards
numerical proportion, the _seniores_ certainly were not half of the
whole:--men of that age, according to what is a favourable average of
life in the south, would be scarcely a fourth part, or more exactly
two-sevenths;--all who were alive above forty-six, might have been
about the half. There is every probability that in those times all the
rights and obligations of citizenship ceased at the sixtieth year.
In Greece, a greater value was placed on the capacity of old people;
among the Melians, the whole government was placed in the hands of the
aged men above sixty. Although the _seniores_ amounted indeed to not
more than about half the number of the _juniores_, yet they had quite
as many votes, and may also have been called up first to give their
suffrages. The remainder were divided into four classes, of 75,000,
50,000, 25,000, and 12,500 asses. Of these, the second, third, and
fourth had twenty centuries each; the fifth had thirty. A hundred
thousand asses was no great fortune; it was pretty nearly equivalent to
ten thousand drachmas of Athens, an as being worth about a stiver and a
half.[77] At the levies, each century had to serve according to a fixed
rate; so that those which contained but a small number, had to do more
military duty than the larger ones. The conscription was from tribes
and centuries combined. In the thirty tribes, one man was always called
from each century of the _juniores_, from each century therefore thirty
men. Each following class had to furnish more troops; and that in such
a manner, that when the first supplied a single contingent, the second
and third were to send double ones, and the fourth again only a single
one, employed as a javelin corps. The fifth also served with a double
contingent.
The object of the constitution, which was based upon property, would
have been quite defeated, if the first class had not possessed a
preponderance of votes. The centuries in the lower classes were strong
in numbers in an inverse ratio to their fortunes: out of thirty-five
citizens who were able to vote, six only belonged to the first class.
Dionysius does not see his way through all the details; yet he plainly
states that it was according to property that the whole of the
calculations were made.
All those who had property, the assessed value of which amounted to
less than 12,500 asses, were moreover divided into such as still
belonged to the _locupletes_, which was the case if their rateable
property was worth more than fifteen hundred asses; and into those who
had even less. The latter were called _proletarii_, which means persons
who paid no tax: they formed a century. The _locupletes_ comprehended
all the plebeians but the proletarians, and so far they were all equal;
yet there was a gulf between them and the proletarians. Any _locuples_,
for instance, could in a court of law become personal security for
another; the proletarian could not. With money, of course, he only
could be _vindex_, who was able to prove from the censor’s books that
he had the requisite property; and certainly _locupletes_ alone could
be appointed as judges by the prætor, and appear as witnesses, which
is shown by the term _locupletes testes_. The proletarians, therefore,
were placed in quite a different category. Whether at that time they
may not also have been debarred from voting in the plebeian tribes, is
uncertain.
This is the system of centuries as established by Servius, with regard
to which Livy materially differs from Dionysius, and both of them from
Cicero in the second book _de Republica_. This passage is very ill
written, but it may be amended. There result from it 195 centuries:
170 in the five classes; two of the _locupletes_, or _assidui_; the
_accensi_ and _velati_; two of the proletarians (the _proletarii_ in
the stricter acceptation of the word), and the _capite censi_; and
the three centuries of the trades; and lastly, eighteen equestrian
centuries, consisting of the six patrician and twelve plebeian
ones. Several conjectures have been made concerning that passage of
Cicero’s, all of which are wrong; as for instance, what Hermann,
highly-distinguished scholar as he is, has said about it. Yet if one
is familiar with these researches, every thing may be made clear by
the Roman combinations of numbers, as I have elucidated them. It was
the aim and object of the whole system, that the minority should
decide:[78] wealth and birth combined were to turn the scale, and
that by means of the eighteen equestrian centuries and the eighty of
the first class, which were the earliest called up to vote; if these
were unanimous, every question was decided by them, as they formed the
majority of the centuries, though far inferior in number to the rest
of the citizens. Among those who were equal in rank, it was again the
minority which decided; for the centuries of the _seniores_ contained
so much fewer voters than those of the _juniores_.
Had the intention of this institution been that which historians assign
to it, it would have been highly unjust to the patricians, who still
continued to form a considerable part of the nation. Those who gave
the account did not see that the latter belonged in no way to the
classes,--their presence in the centuries was merely that they might
be represented, and therefore important as symbolical only;--and they
contented themselves with saying that they probably voted with the
rich, consequently with the first class. Rich, however, the patricians
were not by any means, according to the census: they were tenants _in
capite_, not freeholders. But that injustice did not exist at all; for
the centuries stood in the same relation to the curies as the House of
Commons does to the House of Lords. No election was valid which the
curies had not approved of; nor any law either, for this is the meaning
of the expression, _ut patres auctores fierent_. Besides this, the
centuries could not deliberate on any subject which had not been laid
before them by the Senate; and no one from among them could get up and
speak, which the curies were perfectly at liberty to do. In the tribes
it seems to have been allowed, after the tribunes had made a motion,
to discuss it until it was put to the vote; yet this perhaps was a
privilege but seldom used. Thus therefore was the commonalty extremely
restricted in the system of the centuries: it was merely a step towards
a free commonwealth. The assembly of the tribes at that time had no
legislative power of any kind: it had merely to elect its officers,
to make rates for common purposes, and perhaps there was likewise
already a sort of poor law administration, as bread was distributed
under the superintendence of the ædiles at the temple of Ceres. But
the most important privilege of the tribes was this, that a right of
appeal to them, such as the patricians had long had to the curies, was
also granted by Servius Tullius to the plebeians, against sentences of
chastisement for refractory conduct towards the authorities.
The laws of Servius Tullius may have contained much more besides,
but Tarquin the Proud is said to have entirely destroyed them; that
is to say, they were not to be found in the _jus Papirianum_. There
are stated to have been fifty laws. How far the equalization of both
orders may have been carried in other respects, is uncertain; the
exclusive claim of the patricians to the use of the public land, and
the practice of pledging the person for debt, are said to have been
done away with. More certain it is that the lawgiver meant also to lay
down the royal dignity, and to bring in the consulship in its stead,
so that Populus and Plebes should each be represented by a consul;
which was only accomplished a hundred and fifty years later by the
_lex Licinia_. He considered himself as a νομοθέτης, like Lycurgus and
Solon. The transition was easy, as indeed the kings likewise were only
elective magistrates for life; a system which in earlier times seems to
have been very common among the Italian people. The election of two
consuls seems to have been projected in the commentaries of Servius
Tullius (_duo consules creati sunt ex commentariis Servii Tullii_;
Liv.) But it was not carried into effect; be it that he lost his life
too soon, or that he himself put it off. Tanaquil, in the legend, is
said to have adjured him not to resign the throne, nor abandon her and
hers. All that is ascribed to king Servius Tullius, was not entirely
accomplished by him: it became the exciting cause of the revolution of
Tarquin the Proud. Although a reign of forty-four years is assigned to
Servius, Livy knows of one war only, that against the people of Cære
and Tarquinii, which was ended in a few weeks. Dionysius also does not
give a single detail which has even the semblance of truth. The length
of his reign has been prolonged beyond all bounds; whereas there is
every likelihood that it was but a short one.
To the same lawgiver the settlement of the relations with the Latins
is attributed. It is said that he made a league with them, and induced
them to erect a common _Sacrum_ on the Aventine, in which the tablets
containing the covenant were set up; that Rome had offered sacrifice
there, and that this, as Livy tells us, was a _Confessio rem Romanam
esse superiorem_. The inquiry into the condition of the Latin people,
is decidedly one of the most difficult of that class of subjects: at
first every thing belonging to it seemed to me to be confused, and
it was only step by step that I came to have clear views with regard
to it. It is a mistake of the ancients which I have shared with them
until very lately, that Servius had acquired the hegemony over the
Latins. This was first done by Tarquin: the very same authors who
represent it to be the work of Servius, themselves tell it afterwards
of Tarquin. The establishment of the festival of the _feriæ Latinæ_
on the Alban Mount was from the earliest times ascribed to Tarquinius
Priscus or Superbus; more correct, however, is the opinion of others,
and also of some of the ancients, that it originated with the _Latini
Prisci_. If here the chief of the Latins offered the sacrifice, and
the Romans merely took part in it; it is natural, that in order to
adjust the balance between the two nations, a counterpoise was formed
on the other side, in which Rome got the precedence, and the Latins
were guests only. This was accordingly done in the temple of Diana on
the Aventine. At a later period, the Latins, having become independent,
transfer this symbol of a national right to a grove before the gates
of Aricia. In earlier times, Alba was the sovereign state; afterwards,
the Romans and Albans are bound in friendly alliance as two distinct
nations; under Servius, they join in a close confederation and
communion of sacrifice. Thus leagued were the Romans, not only with
the Latins, but also with the Sabines; and they constituted a great
state, of which Rome was the centre. Without doubt part of Etruria
was also subjected to them. This we consider to have been the work
of Servius, a hypothesis which is recommended by its simplicity and
which rids us of the contradiction above mentioned. When the plebeians
became citizens, the Latins drew nigher to the Romans, and mounted in
fact upon that step which the plebeians had just left. Thus we find
in Roman history, as long as there are signs of life in the people, a
steady advance of the more recent institutions, as the old ones, upon
which they grew, fell into decay. Those who at first were mere allies,
are afterwards incorporated, and form plebeian tribes. Thus the whole
of the Roman constitution is a sound healthy development, in which
nothing stagnates: the Roman people ever revives and springs up anew;
and--what Montesquieu looks upon as the only true progress in the life
of states,--Rome, until the fifth century, is the only state which
always fell back upon its first principles, so that its life became
ever more noble and more vigorous. Afterwards, people begin to check
and to keep down what is fresh rising up, and then life is thrown back,
and the seeds of decay are first sown. Signs of this evil already
show themselves a hundred years before the Gracchi; it breaks out in
their time, and from thence goes on increasing for forty years, until
it gives birth to the Social War, and that of Sylla and Marius, out of
which the people comes forth as a confused mass, being no more able
to subsist in republican unity, and necessarily wanting an absolute
authority to guide them. One might exactly tell how Rome could have
become young again, and have kept up for some hundreds of years longer.
The good path lay open; but people were blinded by selfish and besotted
prejudice, and they tried when too late to follow it.
With regard to the gradual increase of the city there exist very
contradictory opinions, which in the common topographies, as for
instance that of Nardini, cause the most confused chaos. Yet this may
be set to rights. It should be born in mind that the views which have
influenced these statements are manifold. The statement of one set is
that a hill was built upon under such or such a king; of another, that
it had been taken into the town; and of a third, that those who dwelt
on it had obtained the freedom of the city. The result of my researches
is as follows. Old Rome was situated on the Palatine: the Pomœrium of
Romulus mentioned in Tacitus, which ran from the Forum Boarium through
the Circus as far as to the Septizonium, S. Gregorio, the arch of
Constantine, the Thermæ of Titus, and from thence back through the Via
Sacra by the temples of Venus and Roma,--even the whole of this circuit
is a suburb built around the old city, and surrounded, not by walls,
but by a rampart and ditch. At that time there was on the Quirinal and
the Tarpeian rocks the Sabine town, which likewise had its Pomœrium:
between the two ramparts and ditches a road ran along,--the Via Sacra.
On this stood the Janus Quirini, a gateway which was _bifrons_, turned
on one side towards the Roman and on the other towards the Sabine town;
closed in times of peace, because it was not then wished that there
should be any intercourse between the two cities; open in war, as both
towns were in a league, and bound to give support to each other. A
case quite analogous to this is to be found in the Gætulian town of
Ghadames beyond Tripoli: the place is inhabited by two hostile tribes,
and is divided by a wall into two parts, which are connected by a
gate; likewise closed in peace, and open during war.[79] As for the
Cælius, some say that Romulus; others, that Tullus Hostilius; others,
that Ancus Marcius added it to the city. The key to which is this;
that under Ancus the hill, already inhabited before, was connected
with the town by a ditch, the _fossa Quiritium_, from the old moat of
the Pomœrium to the Porta Capena, which was the first enlargement of
Rome; and that this was partly to drain off the water, and partly for
defence. There is too much water there for excavations to be easily
made, otherwise the finest antiquities might be found in the Circus:
the Obelisk was brought to light from thence in the sixteenth century.
The _Agua Marrana_ is not the _aqua damnata_ of Agrippa: in the old
Circus there was a canal which carried the water off. Here was the
_septem viarum vicus_ where Ancus cut the ditch, perhaps as far as the
sewers. Moreover the Roman and the Sabine towns were still separated by
the Forum, which was a marsh. The whole neighbourhood of the Velabrum
was as yet a river or a lake; and before this was drained, a topical
union of the two towns was impossible: the Janus, probably a dyke, was
the only road. To effect this, the works were now executed which are
ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus, the immense sewers, or more properly,
river tunnels, consisting of one main and several minor channels. The
main sewer (_cloaca maxima_) of a most ancient style of architecture,
may be seen to this day, and still carries off the water. Its width
is 18 palms,[80] and it is formed by three stone vaults of _peperino_
(a volcanic stone from Gabii and Alba), one above the other, built in
the shape of a semicircle. These form the gigantic work: the stones,
each of which is 7½ palms long, and 4⅙ palms broad, are joined by no
cement or dovetailing, nor any thing of the kind; they hold together
merely from the way in which they fit, and the exact closing of the
arch. The structure has not for two thousand years undergone the
slightest change, having stood unshaken the shock of earthquakes, which
have laid waste the rest of the city, and overthrown obelisks; so that
one might say that it will see the end of the world. This is the work
which made it possible to form Rome into a whole of that extent which
it afterwards had. The entire embankment of the river, the quay, is
likewise built of stone, of the volcanic stone from Alba; and we may
recognise there also the same style of architecture. The other vaults
begin between the Quirinal and the Viminal, and run beneath the Forum
Augustum, the Forum Romanum and the Forum Boarium into the Velabrum and
the _cloaca maxima_. They are of equally perfect preservation; but they
lie deep under ground. They were found during the papacy of Benedict
XIV. They are executed on the same immense scale; but they are built of
_travertino_, from which it is manifest, that they are of a later age,
and yet perhaps of the time of the republic, somewhat about the first
half of the fifth century, before the war of Hannibal. Now therefore
the whole country as far as the river was inhabitable, even beyond the
Capitoline hill. Soon, however, were greater plans devised for the
enlargement of the city. On the north side of the Esquiline, where the
kings had built a rampart, level space was to be secured which had
the advantage of not being able to be flooded,--a high and dry plain,
whither the country people might take refuge in case of war. For this
reason Servius Tullius constructed his great rampart from the Porta
Collina to the Esquiline gate,--almost the fifth of a German mile, and
a moat besides, an hundred feet broad and thirty deep. The earth from
the moat formed the rampart, which was protected by a lining wall on
the side of the ditch, and by battlements and towers on the top. Of
this stupendous work, which Pliny justly regards with wonder, there is
hardly anything whatever left; its line only may yet be traced. But
in the times of Augustus, even in those of Pliny, it was in perfect
preservation, and therefore it was not possible to talk at random about
it. It was a public promenade of the Romans: Dionysius has seen it,
and walked on it a hundred times. Rome had now gained her seven hills,
since the Viminal was first brought by that wall within the precincts
of the city, which thus had a circumference of more than a German mile,
like Athens after the Persian wars; a considerable town even for our
days. We therefore see again how false is the opinion of Florus and
others, who look upon the time of the kings, as being one of childhood
(_infans in cunis vagiens_): on the contrary, after the expulsion of
the kings Rome fell to a low ebb for a long time.
Well worth our attention is the Etruscan tradition concerning Servius
Tullius, and the fragment of Claudius’ speech on the tablets at Lyons,
which contains the notices of Cæles Vibenna and Mastarna from Etruscan
historians.[81] I never was so much surprised by any literary discovery
as by this. Not a soul had taken any heed of it before;--people don’t
look at such square letters, especially when they are those of the
silly Claudius. I at that time still believed in the Etruscan origin
of Rome, and thought that quite a new light would thus be shed upon
the whole of the Roman history. Cælius Vibenna must be an historical
person: mention is made of him too frequently and too distinctly;
his name also is such that the Romans could not have invented it, as
the Etruscan language was as foreign to them, as the Celtic to us
Germans. Nor is it perhaps to be doubted that he had a friend Mastarna.
But when I search into the legislation which is ascribed to Servius
Tullius,--whatever abatements may be made on the score of historical
precision, especially with regard to chronology, although the fact
is unquestionable that Servius reigned before the last king, and was
overthrown by the thoroughly historical Tarquin the Proud,--this
legislation was yet so peaceful and so free, that I cannot bring myself
to believe that a condottiere, a captain of freebooters (for such were
those enlisted troops) should have made such mild laws, and intended
to change the monarchy into a republic. The whole civil and political
legislation of Servius Tullius bears the impress of a thoroughly Latin
stamp; the relation also to the Latins bespeaks a Latin lawgiver. He
may have been a Corniculan, and have ascended the throne in a manner
which was contrary to the established custom. He may have sprung from
a marriage of disparagement between one of the Luceres with a woman of
Corniculum before the connubium was conceded, and this may be at the
bottom of the history of his descent; but a foreigner, or a leader of
marauders, he certainly was not. I do not in the least doubt Claudius’
honesty, nor do I impugn the importance of the Etruscan books; yet we
must not rate their value too high. What they really were could not be
known before Mai discovered the Veronese Scholia on the Æneid (1818).
In these are found quotations from two Etruscan historians, Flaccus
and Cæcina, which considerably lower our expectations concerning the
value of the Etruscan books for the early times. It seems that just
as the Romans misunderstood the old Latin history, and substituted
the Tyrrhenian one, thus also the Etruscans kept to the traditions
of the Tyrrhenians whom they had brought under their yoke, and made
Tarchon, him who plays his part in Virgil, and may be met with in the
Roman tradition as Tarquinius Priscus, the founder of their empire
from Tarquinii. If Claudius had really at hand the old Etruscan rolls
written from right to left, of which Lucretius speaks, he was on very
slippery ground; but how much more so, if he followed Flaccus and
Cæcina, who wrote without any sort of criticism. The books of the
Etruscans are for the most part dated too early. Etruria had from
the war of Hannibal to that of Sylla, for more than a hundred years,
enjoyed profound peace under the supremacy of the Romans; in this time
most of the works of Etruscan literature must be placed. Before the
Social War, as Cicero states, the sciences flourished all over Italy,
of which we have no more any detailed knowledge; certainly histories
were written in the whole of Italy, just as in Rome. Now if any one
read in the Etruscan books Cæles Vibenna and Mastarna, and chose to
put things together, he might have thought with some vanity, “what has
become of this Mastarna? very likely he is that Servius Tullius, whose
birth has been shrouded in mystery.” Somebody may thus have stumbled
upon this idea quite by himself, and Claudius indeed, addle-headed
as he was, was sure to believe such a thing. Thus he also says of
the _tribuni militares consulari potestate_, “_qui seni sæpe octoni
crearentur_.” But there have always either been six of these, half of
whom were patricians and half plebeians, or _promiscue_; or else only
three patricians, making four with the _præfectus urbi_: once only we
know of eight, when the two censors were reckoned with them, as Onuphr.
Panvinius has shown.[82] This may have happened once or twice besides;
but at all events it was an anomaly. From this we see that Claudius
did not understand the Fasti. Our notice of Mastarna therefore is
according to all appearances based upon very slight authority. The
Etruscan annals from which Claudius drew may have been old; but that
they really were so, is nowhere stated.
The unity of the poem of the Tarquins from the arrival of Tarquinius
Priscus to the fight at the Regillus cannot be mistaken,--a noble theme
for an epic poet, much more worthy of being treated by Virgil than the
Æneid. The account seems credible, and to have been derived from old
traditions, that the legislation of Servius Tullius had to be carried
through almost by force; that he arbitrarily formed his centuries;
and then that these for the second time acknowledged him as king,
and ratified his laws. All such changes among the ancients have been
brought about in the same way. Moreover it is said that the patricians
were angry at this legislation, although it took nothing from them, and
merely gave something to the second order; and that they made attempts
to murder the king, for which he compelled them to dwell, not on the
Esquiline where his house stood, but in the valley below it. All this,
as a tradition, has much probability from its intrinsic consistency.
Yet the tragedy itself has its origin in the king’s own house. His two
daughters, one of them good, the other wicked, are married to the two
sons of Tarquinius Priscus; the good one to the younger L. Tarquin,
a brave but ambitious young man, the wicked daughter to Aruns the
elder brother. The latter saw that Aruns was disposed to give up his
claims to the throne, and on this she offered L. Tarquin her hand to
be gained by murdering her husband; he accepted it, and carried out
her intentions. Tarquin, we are told, now formed a party among the
patricians, and arranged with them for the murder of Servius Tullius;
the king, when he made his appearance in the Curia, was flung down the
steps, and the body guards dispatched him in the street; and Tullia
went to greet her husband as king, and as she was returning drove
over the corpse, owing to which the street got the name of _vicus
sceleratus_.
That Servius lost his life in a rebellion of Tarquin, and that the
latter was supported by the whole body of the citizens, in particular
by the Luceres, his own party (_factio regis, gentes minores_), so that
these reaped the fruits of the revolution, and the two first tribes
thought themselves hardly dealt with, may be looked upon as historical.
Yet I am far from considering as such all the details which are given
about the daughters of the old king: they are no more so than the tale
of Lady Macbeth. There is so wide a gulf between our manners and the
crimes of the South, that we have not a notion of their possibility or
impossibility; yet even if those accounts were possible, historical
they are not. That the rule of Tarquin the Proud was brilliant but
frightfully oppressive, and that he trampled the laws of Tullius
under foot, may belong to history; but those appalling massacres of
his cannot but be poetry. Tarquin has perhaps the misfortune of an
awful poetical celebrity, much worse than he may have deserved. Yet he
cannot have entirely abolished the laws of Servius at once. There may
be some truth in the statement that he put down the meetings of the
plebeian tribes; that he did away with their festivals; and that he
did not call them together for legislation and the election of their
magistrates. Nor, in fact, was there much occasion for these last, the
criminal judges being chosen by the patricians. When it is recounted,
that Tarquin undertook immense works, that he built the magnificent
Capitoline temple, after having arranged the site for it, it is
possible that he used the plebeians as his bondmen, that many of them
committed suicide on that account, and that in order to prevent this
he had the corpses fastened upon a cross. We must here proceed with
caution and circumspection; the details will always remain uncertain,
and all that cannot be set aside as impossible, is not therefore
necessarily true. That Tarquin did not abolish the division into
classes, seems to me certain; partly because it was advantageous for
him to have the improved military organization, and partly because from
the connection which he entered into with Latium, we are to conclude
that the constitutions of the two states were the same; so that either
Servius Tullius gave to the Romans a Latin constitution, or Tarquin to
the Latins the Roman one. Even if Tarquin the Proud and his revolution
in favour of the patricians, especially those of the third order, are
quite historical, yet it is still singular that the third order should
seem nevertheless after that revolution to have been inferior to the
two others. This very fact, that the interests of the two first tribes
clashed with those of the third, paved the way for a popular revolution.
According to Livy and Dionysius, the Latins, with the exception of
Gabii, were induced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome and of
Tarquin; on the other hand, Cicero in the books _De Republica_ says,
_universum Latium bello subegit_. Whether this war was merely passed
over by the others, or whether Cicero let fall the expression from
carelessness only, cannot now be decided. It is probable that there
have always existed discrepancies between the narrations of poetry and
history: the tale of Turnus Herdonius has a highly poetical colouring.
Whilst under Servius there was an alliance with reciprocity, Latium
now entered into that relation in which afterwards the _Socii Italici_
stood, when they bound themselves _ad majestatem populi Romani comiter
colendam_. It seems also that the Latins, when there was a change of
rulers at Rome, had refused to renew the alliance concluded under the
late king.
In the alliance between Rome and Carthage, (of which the original
treaty was kept among the archives of the ædiles, which also Polybius,
as he states himself, not without a great deal of trouble, translated
into Greek, since even the Romans themselves could hardly decypher
and tell the meaning of the old writing; an alliance which was to
be renewed from time to time, as in our days is still the case with
those with the Barbary states,) we see the whole coast, not only of
the Prisci Latini, but as far as Terracina, which at that time perhaps
was still Tyrrhenian and not Volscian, in the possession of Rome; its
inhabitants are called in the Greek translation ὑπήκοοι. Rome concludes
the alliance for them as well as for herself; it is stipulated that,
if the Carthaginians should make conquests in Latium, they were to
give them up to the Romans. This treaty is as authentic as any thing
can be: it is a strange whim of an otherwise estimable man,[83] to
take it for an invention of Polybius. Here, therefore, Latium is
still dependent on Rome, to which dependence Livy also bears witness:
it was a relation newly established. Afterwards, when all as far as
Antium rise up in hostility against Rome, we again recognise a decline
of Roman power. The _Feriæ Latinæ_ are an assembly of all the Latin
nations, not merely of the Prisci Latini on the Alban Hill, where we
know that the Latin authorities must needs have had the presidency. Yet
Dionysius tells us that Tarquin had established the festival; that a
bullock was killed, of which the delegates of the several towns each
received a piece (_carnem Latinis accipere_). The Milanese Scholiast on
Cicero’s oration for Plancius[84] says, that with regard to this there
had been a different tradition; that some had ascribed the festival
to Tarquinius Priscus,--this is a mere falsification for Tarquinius
Superbus out of spite against the latter, just as the foundation of
the Capitol was referred to the former king,--others to the Prisci
Latini, which consequently would place it in the earliest times. The
latter are perfectly right. The festivals existed long before Tarquin,
as long as there was a Latin people. Yet, at the same time, the other
opinion has arisen from a mistake which is very easily accounted for;
for if Tarquin the Proud obtained the supremacy over Latium, he would
also naturally preside at the sacrifices as the Ætolians did at Delphi
during their hegemony, from whence the well known expression in the
inscriptions, ἱερομνημονούντων Αἰτωλῶν.
In order to make a full use of Latium for his own ends, whilst yet
he did not quite trust the Latins, he did not wish to admit their
troops in distinct legions, under their own officers. He therefore
combined the Roman with the Latin legions, and then divided these again
into two parts. The Latins had a similar organization to that of the
Romans: the system of centuries among the latter was based upon the
thirty tribes, among the former upon the thirty towns. He united two
centuries into a maniple, the Roman officer being _primus centurio_;
as in the East Indian possessions of the English, the officers are
exclusively Europeans.[85] Livy confounds the _primus centurio_ with
the _primipilus_. Here the maniples now first make their appearance;
and this is the plain meaning of what Livy tells in a confused manner,
but which may certainly be unravelled.
We are, however, not a little puzzled as to what we are to believe
of the detached accounts. It is stated that Tarquin had established
colonies at Signia and Circeii, and that he had taken Gabii by
stratagem. The latter is false, and the accounts are compiled out of
two in Herodotus of Zopyrus and of Thrasybulus of Miletus. Authentic is
the alliance with Gabii, from which we see that Gabii was out of the
union of the thirty towns, the relation with which had been already
settled before. Still in the times of Horace, the original treaty, one
of the few which had been preserved, was kept in a temple. It is clear
from it, that Gabii had acquired isopolity by a formal compact.