In the meanwhile, the Etruscan war had broken out in the year 444. A
distinguishing characteristic of the Etruscans is the good faith with
which they observed truces; and to this quality it must be attributed
that the people of Tarquinii did not take any advantage of the
circumstances of the Samnite war. Yet the victory of the Samnites
near Lautulæ seems to have given them the first impulse. The union of
the Etruscan towns was hard to accomplish; for at that time, not to
speak of Cære, which had concluded peace for a hundred years, there
were nine states which had to take that common step, although their
interests were quite different.[145] The people of Tarquinii, for
instance, had nothing to fear from the Gauls; but other states were
threatened by them. When they were still considering, the tables had
already turned, victory having in the meanwhile come back again to the
Romans,--one reason more for the Etruscans to begin the war. Thus in
442, the Romans already looked upon an Etruscan war as unavoidable,
and therefore appointed a dictator: yet the preparations of the
Etruscans took up so much time that the whole of the following year
passed away very quietly. It was only in the second year, that they
commenced hostilities; but they found the Romans prepared. Their army
was, however, considerable; and they acted on the offensive, a power
which they may have acquired in their fierce wars with the Gauls. The
Romans sent Q. Æmilius to Etruria, as the Etruscans were besieging
the Roman border fortress Sutrium. The mountains of Viterbo had since
the Gallic war been the frontier towards Etruria: they are now a bare
ridge of hills; they were then covered with a thick forest. This is
the _Silva Ciminia_ of which Livy gives such a romantic description.
It was nothing but the natural barrier between two nations which were
unfriendly, and did not wish to have much intercourse: such a border
may purposely be allowed to be overgrown with wood, and to become a
wilderness. Such is the boundary between Austrian Croatia and Bosnia,
where, since the memory of man, the wood has been left to itself,
except that there are some wretched roads in it here and there. This
forest was by no means on the scale of a _Silva Hercynia_, to which
Livy likens it; but according to his own account, just broad enough
for the Romans to take about a couple of hours to march through it.
Sutrium and Nepete were the real border strongholds of the Romans;
but always against Vulsinii, not against Tarquinii and Falerii: there
the country was quite open, and had intercourse with Rome. The Roman
consul now made his appearance to relieve Sutrium. Livy gives a very
lively description of the battle; we see from him, that the Romans long
kept back their strong reserve. This they often did to the very latest
moment, allowing the troops engaged to shed their blood to the last
drop: by this means, they gained many a victory. Thus it happened also
this time: after having fought the whole day with the Etruscans, they
conquered in the evening by bringing up the reserve. Livy says that in
this battle the Etruscans had more men killed, while the Romans had the
greater number of wounded; the reason of which is this, that the Romans
fought with the _pilum_ and the sword, but the Etruscans, who were
armed after the Greek fashion, used the lance: these had also a large
body of light troops. Even if we should listen to this account of Livy,
we cannot believe in the result, that the Etruscans had been completely
beaten; as in the following year, they were still encamped before
Sutrium, and Fabius came forth to its relief. As their army was very
great, Fabius thought it hazardous, as well as unnecessary, to attack
them; for in truth, bold as the Romans were, on the whole, they were
rather circumspect: they did not like to open a campaign with a battle.
Livy’s description of these wars is an immense exaggeration, which
is the more to be wondered at, as his other histories of the Fabian
house are so very exact. Fabius Pictor wrote not more than a hundred
years after these events; and he is such an excellent writer, that
we cannot lay the blame to him. There can be no doubt that Fabius was
followed by Diodorus, whose account is here quite plain and credible,
and not in any way to be reconciled with that of Livy: from whom the
latter has taken his, heaven knows. According to Livy, the Etruscans in
three battles must have lost a hundred thousand men; and not to speak
of numbers at all, his description of the siege of Sutrium is quite
incredible. Perhaps the only foundation there is for the first battle
of Fabius in Livy, is, that by a very clever march he threw Roman
troops and provisions into Sutrium. But when the Etruscans did not even
then raise the siege, Fabius conceived the plan, which seemed foolhardy
in the Romans, of invading Etruria itself across the Ciminian forest.
The announcement of it spread terror in Rome. It seemed inevitable that
the army would get between two Etruscan hosts; the Etruscans of Sutrium
might cut off its direct retreat, and their return was only possible by
going a great way round through Umbria, which was likewise a difficult
country to pass. The senate deemed the undertaking so hazardous, that
they sent five delegates, and two tribunes of the people, to dissuade
him from it;--the tribunes accompanied the delegates, evidently to
arrest him, if he should refuse to obey;--but Fabius had started in
all haste, and, when the commissioners reached him, he already stood a
conqueror in the midst of Etruria, just like Prince Eugene, by whom the
order not to fight was read after the battle. Fabius in fact had pushed
his army in advance, but had himself remained behind with the cavalry;
then, leaving his camp standing, he undertook a great reconnoitring,
and by this deceived the Etruscans during the day; towards sunset,
he now followed his army and unexpectedly crossed the mountain.
According to Diodorus, if we adopt the right reading,[146] Fabius, on
the contrary, had invaded Etruria by going all the way round through
Umbria, and had thus taken the Etruscans in the rear: in that case, the
march across the Ciminian forest would be pure invention.
In this rich country, the Romans had their lust of plunder sated to
the full, no enemy having been there for a hundred years, not even
the Gauls. The Etruscans now raised the siege of Sutrium, and marched
to Perusia, where Fabius won a decisive battle against them. Perusia,
Cortona, and Arretium immediately negociated, making peace for a term
of years: thus the western towns, Tarquinii, Vulsinii, Volaterræ,
were left to themselves, and they tried to get a treaty on tolerable
conditions.[147] The Romans did not perhaps wish to enter into a formal
peace: on both sides, they were well pleased to drag on from year to
year with the help of armistices. Vulsinii alone held out for thirty
years, always drawing in single towns along with it; but the war was
constantly interrupted by truces. At Vulsinii, the clients had gained
a voice in the government: but the proud Vulsinians afterwards wished,
by a counter revolution, to bring back the new _Plebes_ to their old
state of dependence; and as they did not succeed, they chose rather to
let their city be destroyed by the Romans, than to share its honours
with their former vassals. It was by raising their subjects, that they
had been enabled to resist so long, whilst the other places, which were
much better off, had already yielded in the first campaign: these had
an enemy in their own subjects.[148]
The Romans had begun to form connexions also with Umbria; they had
concluded a treaty with Camers, and had taken Nequinum, a very strong
place on the Nera, near the northern frontier of the old Sabine
country: the latter they changed into a Latin colony under the name
of Narnia. They extended their colonial system thus far already, and
by this means cut off the communication between Etruria and Samnium:
at the same time, they had built strongholds like these at the mouth
of the Liris, in Minturnæ and Suessa. In Narni, there seems to have
been a garrison of Samnite auxiliaries; for it is said in the Fasti,
that Q. Fabius, in his fifth, and P. Decius, in his fourth consulship,
triumphed over the Umbrians and Samnites. With Samnium, there was peace
by this time; but marauding was common among the Samnites.
A visible consequence of the peace with the Samnites, is shown in the
relation between the Tarentines and Lucanians. During the war, there
is no trace of any unfriendliness between these two peoples; but from
the moment that the peace was concluded, there is hostility between
them, and the Tarentines have to seek for assistance. This is to be
accounted for by the fact, that until then the Samnites had ruled over
the Lucanians, and had also made use of them against the Romans. The
Tarentines called in Cleonymus, because, as the Greek accounts inform
us, they were at war with the Lucanians and Romans: these two nations
therefore must have been leagued together. Cleonymus was a prince
of Sparta, son of the old king Cleomenes; yet as the succession to
the throne there was not fixed, and he might be excluded, he readily
listened to the invitation of the Tarentines: he was no common-place
man; from that time, however, he became an adventurer, and entered the
service of several nations. He brought over with him five thousand men,
engaged a still stronger body, and forced the Lucanians to make peace.
Hereupon, he got possession of Metapontum, in his own name, or in that
of Tarentum; but he oppressed it with contributions, which could not
possibly be paid, and he showed himself there to be a true tyrant. To
the Tarentines he behaved so ill, that they broke off their connexion
with him. They got rid of him; for he was taken into pay by one of the
parties against Agathocles of Syracuse. The undertaking miscarried; and
as Cleonymus on his return found the territory of the Tarentines closed
against him, he seized upon Corcyra, and made it his chief arsenal for
further expeditions. From thence he went against the Sallentines, and
was defeated by a Roman general; then he marched into Venetia, and
through the lagunes, against Padua; but he got on the mudbanks, and
was obliged to retreat with some loss. After having roved about for
more than twenty years, he returned to Sparta, and accommodated himself
to the state of things there: but he was bitterly offended. He then
beguiled Pyrrhus into his ill-fated expedition against Sparta, and must
have died soon afterwards at an advanced age.
From these notices, circumstances may be gathered which the Roman
annals pass over in silence. Not long before this, the Romans had
carried on war in Apulia against the Sallentines, who were staunch
friends of Tarentum. We now find the Romans allied with the Sallentines
against Cleonymus; and hence it is likely that the Tarentines,
throughout the Samnite war, were hostile to Rome, and that they made
peace with her at the same time as the Lucanians. That a treaty
afterwards existed between Rome and Tarentum, is certain; as the
violation of a compact, twenty years later, is given as a cause of the
war between the two states. One of its conditions was this, that no
Roman ship of war was to show itself north of the Lacinian promontory.
This treaty is indeed called an ancient one in Livy; but to an
historical writer who weighs his words so little, a treaty of twenty
years standing may already seem an old one. There cannot have been any
concluded earlier, as the Tarentines until then appear to have been
always hostile to the Romans.
Besides the eminent men of that age already spoken of, we have to
mention Appius Claudius, who on account of the misfortune which befell
him, of losing his eyesight, has become celebrated under the name of
the Blind. He is quite a strange character, and his acts seem to be
most inconsistent, unless we call to mind the times in which he lived.
Born and bred in the pride of the patrician party, he goes to such
lengths as to refuse as _interrex_ to take any votes for the election
of a plebeian consul, a fact which we know from Cicero; and yet he
is the first to bring the sons of freedmen into the senate, passing
over distinguished men: contrary to usage and custom, he tries, when
censor to arrogate to himself extensive powers which had long since
been curtailed by the constitutional laws; and in his old age, he again
appears as the saviour of the state, who in the day of trouble, by his
eloquence upholds the drooping courage of the fainthearted senate.
This character is therefore quite a puzzle. If with Dionysius and the
modern writers, we were to believe that the struggle at Rome, like
that at Athens, was between the rich and the ὄχλος we should think it
indeed strange that Appius admitted the children of freedmen into all
the tribes, and even placed them in the senate. We must therefore look
deeper into the matter, and have before our mind the temper of the
parties and classes which existed at the time. During the fifty years
which followed the passing of the Licinian law, nobility had already
become the attribute of a considerable number of plebeian families,
many of which had even then the _jus imaginum_. Among the patricians,
the number of the ennobled families was now very limited; and it is a
question, whether the plebeian clans of noble rank were not quite as
many as the patrician ones, most of the latter having either become
extinct or impoverished: we commonly find over and over again the
Claudii, Cornelii, Sulpicii, Furii. The plebeians stood in the same
relation to the patricians, as the _nobili_ of the _Terra Firma_ to the
city nobles of Venice; had these _notables_ become a corporation, as
Maffei proposed, they would have formed a _Plebes_: but the nobles of
Venice hated nothing so much as that very nobility of Padua, Verona,
&c., whilst on the contrary they were friendly and kind towards the
native low Venetian. This was the relation of the Roman patrician to
his client, in contradistinction to the free plebeian order: a proud
patrician, like Appius Claudius, looked upon Licinius, Genucius, and
others, as most hateful rivals. Such an aristocracy, looking with a
most jealous eye on clans whose equal rank it cannot gainsay, seeks for
allies from among the very opposites to aristocracy. Such alliances
have been most often seen in the South of Europe: the Santafedists at
Naples were Lazzaroni; the royalist volunteers in Spain were from the
very lowest of the people. Appius appears, on the one hand, as a man of
great name in history; on the other, he is spoken of by Livy as a _homo
vafer_, a trickster: this perhaps was not quite an unfounded opinion of
him. Appius Claudius, and others of his fellow-patricians, seem to have
still entertained the idea of depriving the plebeian nobles of their
influence, by calling in a party which of itself could make no claim to
honour. Principles like these were fatal in every respect, and hindered
the onward march of the constitution. Notwithstanding all this, Appius
Claudius was a most distinguished man; and reasons may even be brought
forward for his innovations, which would in some measure justify them.
He received the children of freedmen into the senate, and distributed
the freedmen themselves among the tribes. From this latter point, we
must go on again.
It was the distinguishing character of the plebeian order, that its
members were landowners, and had their livelihood free and independent,
the very reverse of the condition of the clients. The plebeian,
like the patrician, was to be well-born, εὐγενής, _ingenuus_; and
therefore, as well as his rival, he added to his name those of his
father and grandfather. The _libertinus_ could not thus show proof of
his ancestors: if he was a freedman himself, he could not name any
father at all; if his father was a freedman, he could but mention
him alone; but if his grandfather already had been free, then the
wall of partition fell to the ground,--he was perfectly _ingenuus_,
and could be admitted into the tribes. Now in the course of so long
a war, the numbers of those who were bound to serve, had very much
fallen off, and the conscription was felt to be a heavy burthen. It
is a remark of Aristotle, that the character of the Athenian _Demos_
had been much changed in the Peloponnesian war; for its numbers had
lessened, and the gaps had been filled up by freedmen and others. If
then the Roman people kept to its system of only adding whole tribes,
whilst the vacancies in the old ones were scarcely ever filled up, and
the enlistments were to be made in the same proportions as before,
the citizens who belonged to those old tribes were very hardly dealt
with: hence it was but a natural thought, to increase the number of
those who were bound to serve. But among the Romans, rights and duties
were inseparably united; and thus we may understand why it was that
the censor wished to complete the tribes. He who had to bear the
burthen of the war, was also to enjoy the advantage of belonging to
the commonalty. The undoubted power of the censors to enrol names in
the lists of the tribes, the knights, and the senate, and to strike
them off likewise, warrants the supposition that the deficiency of
two ancestors was not, after all, an insurmountable obstacle to
entering the tribes; and that it could not have been altogether a
thing unheard of, that freedmen were received in them. Yet if it had
been done hitherto, it was in truth but seldom, and in the case of
individuals; and the innovation of Appius consisted in this, that
he placed the freedmen in a mass among the tribes. In one point of
view, this measure was a happy expedient; but there was besides to be
considered the change of relations between the different elements of
the state, which are to be looked upon in history as always tending to
shift their ground. Under the then existing circumstances, the trades
might have become of greater importance than they were formerly. If,
instead of the slaves, many ærarians carried on the trades and enriched
themselves, the relations between the different classes were changed,
and the state was then obliged to have regard to their reasonable
demands: excessive advantages were not indeed to be granted them,
and at the same time, established institutions and vested interests
were to be protected against the too luxuriant growth of what was
fresh and new. With these principles, free states have always been
able to maintain their ground. Thus at that period a class of people
is formed, which we now meet with for the first time, namely, the
notaries, or _scribæ_, who had a wider range than the _tabelliones_
under the emperors. They became a guild, which in Cicero’s times was
exclusive, and into which one had to pay for admission: its members
were people of the most motley description. According to the Roman
constitution, no other kind of knowledge was requisite for holding
an administrative office, but the _artes liberales_, which comprised
everything that a man of good education was supposed to have learned;
on the other hand, the whole mass of that business of which the greater
part of the work of officials is made up, was done by the _scribæ_.
Thus there was an immense deal of writing at the prætor’s office;
yet the minutes were neither kept by the prætor himself, nor by any
other _homo ingenuus_, but by the _scribæ_. This profession was very
lucrative; all transactions were drawn up in writing by them according
to certain forms. These men were employed not by the authorities only,
but in every possible kind of business; for the Romans wrote to a
fearful amount. They kept all the accounts of the ædiles, the laborious
registers of the censors and others, while the functionaries themselves
only superintended the whole; they also did the same services for the
bankers (_negotiatores, equites_), as every Roman was obliged to keep
his own accounts, his books of receipts and expenses, and this in
deference to public opinion, that he might not be considered as a _homo
levis_. For this purpose they frequently kept a _scriba_.
This class now comes forward for the first time, and as a body of
the greatest weight, owing to Cn. Flavius. If Appius wished to drag
down the leading plebeians from the position which they had won, it
was no longer feasible to have recourse to arms in conjunction with
clients and isopolites; but he had to gain his point by cunning, which
was done by uniting a great mass with the patrician order, and so he
introduced _libertini_ into the tribes: he had then a majority in the
resolutions of the _Plebes_. In a like manner, the _municipes_ might
further his plans; and he was himself able, by removing, as censor, the
independent plebeians from the senate, and by bringing into it men of
low birth, to carry measures which were formerly not to be thought of.
Something similar occurs in the undertaking of Sylla, who likewise,
more than two hundred years afterwards, came back to his legislation,
and promoted men of the lowest rank, who were mere proletarians, into
the senate. There is to be found in Livy, from the censorship of Appius
downwards, a difference between the _Plebs sincera_ and the _forensis
factio_; evidently the former is the old _Plebs_, and the latter the
incorporated freedmen and isopolites.
Those who had been newly received into the senate, must therefore
have been only the creatures of Appius Claudius and his party. He
certainly did not think of a _tyrannis_, being too sensible a man to
do so: his son is said to have had such an idea; but he must have been
mad. His plan could therefore have only been for the interest of the
aristocracy: on what is called the “right side” in the French chamber
of deputies, there is indeed no want of people who have been raised
up by the revolution from the very lowest ranks. That Appius entered
_libertini_ upon the rolls of the senate, excited such heartburning,
that the consuls summoned the senate according to its former
composition: he seems in fact to have also made omissions, very likely
among the plebeian senators. His list was therefore never made use of.
The period for which the censorship was held, had for a long time been
reduced from five years to one and a half. Appius claimed all the five
years, and carried his point, until at last he wanted to be consul
and censor both at once. This was against the Genucian law; and the
tribunes had decided upon having him arrested, if he should try and
do this by force: he then resigned the censorship. It is, however,
possible that he wished to retain it, not so much from motives of
ambition, as for the sake of those great works which he had begun
to execute. He made the Appian road, the _regina viarum_. For, the
Latin one, which led through Tusculum, and through the country of the
Hernicans, being then so much infested, and not yet quite restored
to the possession of the Romans, the Appian road was to serve as a
shorter and safer one: it led by Terracina, Fundi, and Mola, to Capua.
At first, he laid it down as far as Velitræ, then to Setia round the
Pontine marshes. That portion which crosses the marshes themselves,
he did not make;--even that which was afterwards constructed, was not
of much use for the Roman troops;--but he cut a canal through them,
in order to drain part of them: for to drain the whole, was not, and
will perhaps never be possible. This canal was meant for the conveyance
of warlike stores from Cisterna to Terracina; which was necessary, as
the Romans had no fleet, and the Tarentines could easily cut off their
communication by sea with Campania. The mainroad for the troops passed
over the mountains, and by Setia, _via Setina_, which, therefore, in
the list of roads is mentioned separately: it is the same road, which
throughout the middle ages, until the times of Pius VI., was again the
common one, when the Pontine marshes were deserted. The Romans chose
it, because the distance between Cisterna and Terracina through the
marshes is too great for one day’s march. There lay indeed between the
two places _Forum Appii_ on the canal; but indeed it must have been
inhabited during the winter only: on the _Via Setina_, on the other
hand, the armies might encamp on the hills during the summer nights.
Had they wished to bivouack in the Pontine marshes during the night,
they would have been destroyed by the malignant fevers; consequently
the _Via Setina_ was a necessity. The _Via Appia_, even if Appius
should have carried it on the whole length to Capua, has not been
executed by him with that magnificence which we now admire in those
parts of it which have not been intentionally destroyed; those closely
fitting polygons of basalt, which thousands of years were not able to
disturb, are of somewhat later date. The road was now made because
it was wanted; and it was not until the year 457, that they began
at all to pave it with _peperino_, and some years later with basalt
(_silex_),--at first a small portion, from the Porta Capena to the
temple of Mars, of which we have positive information in Livy. Before
that time, there were highroads already, which along the mainway had
footpaths paved with _peperino_; that is to say, with flag-stones
(_saxo quadrato_) of that material. For the basaltic pavement, the
fines especially were appropriated.
Appius was also the first who brought an aqueduct to Rome, the _aqua
Appia_. The Roman aqueducts of later times were of immense extent; the
one built by Appius was but a small beginning, being only for immediate
wants. They had to fetch water in Rome from wells, but chiefly from
cisterns (_putei_), as that which is got from the Tiber is so bad.
Those quarters of the city which lay low on marshy ground, as the
Velabrum, the _Forum Olitorium_, had of course no wells, and people
were therefore obliged to do as well as they could with cisterns: to
supply those parts, was the object of the _aqua Appia_. It was brought
to Rome from a distance of eight (Italian) miles, and supplied only the
lower town, not the hills, as Livy expressly states. It was finished
in the middle of the Samnite war, after the year 440, when fortune
began to turn in favour of the Romans; and it was all under ground, as
Frontinus tells us, that it might not be destroyed in some of the many
Latin insurrections. For it was feared that arches built above ground
might be demolished, as was done by the Goths in Belisarius’ times.
It led by the Cœlius under the Porta Capena to the Aventine, as far
as the spot where Piranesi very exactly hit upon it, near the _Clivus
Publicius_, at the corner of the hill. The outlet is now covered with
rubbish, the water having been choked by stalactites, as in several
other aqueducts. This undertaking was a benefit unknown throughout the
whole of Greece.
These two works are said to have induced Appius Claudius not to lay
down his censorship, until they should be completed, and much has been
written here about the struggle between him and the tribunes. If it
was merely his intention to carry out this design, the way in which
the tribunes behaved would have been paltry enough: but perhaps these
works were too grand for the circumstances of the times; and it is a
question, how far he may have burthened the existing generation for
the benefit of those who came after. According to a statement which
Diodorus has taken from Fabius, who, though a patrician himself, was
indeed an enemy to oligarchy, Appius actually undertook them without
any authority from the senate. This would certainly have been an
audacious enterprise; and, to judge from his disposition, it was not
impossible. He seems also to have made sales of the _ager publicus_ for
this purpose; and thus, while the _Plebes_ suffered, the members of his
own order were losers as well.
His real agent seems to have been the Cn. Flavius, who has been
already mentioned. This man was the son of a freedman; he could
therefore use the name of his father only, which was Annius. This is
an Etruscan name; so that Annius was very likely an Etruscan slave,
who had perhaps been a man of consequence in his own country, and had
only lost his freedom (_ingenuitas_) by having been taken prisoner.
Cn. Flavius became the benefactor of the people, in a manner of which
we cannot easily form an idea. According to the most ancient Roman
custom, there were thirty-eight court-days in the year of ten months,
the kings, and then the consuls, sitting in judgment every eighth day,
consequently on the nundines. This was afterwards done away with; the
nundines were no more to be the same as the court-days, as on these the
country plebeians were in such numbers in the town, that a tumult might
easily be raised. The thirty-eight days were therefore distributed
over the whole year of twelve months; and there being too few of them,
single days were added, on which likewise _lege agebatur_. But now
there was a double difficulty; and the patricians took advantage of
the circumstance to keep the plebeians in a state of dependance. The
thirty-eight days had been distributed irregularly throughout the year;
so that if any one wanted, for instance, to sue by a _vindicatio_, he
did not know when the prætor would sit in judgment, but had to make
inquiries in the forum, or of the pontiffs, on what day a _legis actio_
might be brought in. Now it might be answered, that one could surely
have remembered the eight and thirty days: but then there were others
besides, half _fasti_ and half _nefasti_, on which _lege agebatur_;
and others again, on which _comitia_ were appointed to be held, but
yet _lege non agebatur_. And therefore, as we are told, Appius ordered
his _scriba_ Cn. Flavius constantly to find out from the lawyers, on
what days _legi agi posset_; Flavius by this means made a calendar on
a tablet of plaster (_album_), and publicly set it up: it was then
frequently copied, and the plebeians were full of gratitude towards
him. Indeed, to secure their independence still further, he also
published the _formulæ actionum_:--according to Cicero, this was done
after his time only, as the forms themselves were first invented at a
later period; according to others, it was he who did it, which is much
more likely. We must not imagine this to have been a regular system
of laws, although it is generally termed _jus Flavianum_, but a set
of forms of proceeding for every case,--a sort of “Complete Lawyer.”
This was felt to be a heavy blow to the influence of the higher classes
on the common people. Until then, no one could transact any business
without a legal adviser; for certain acts could only be performed on
certain days, and so forth. This manual of law is a great step in the
progress of political freedom.
As a requital for these benefits, Cn. Flavius had the votes of the
plebeians in the election for the ædiles. When it was objected to
him that he could not be an ædile, _quia scriptum faceret_, he took
an oath that he would give up his notary business; from which we
may gather, that, at that time, it was still incompatible with the
condition of an _ingenuus_. Together with him, one Q. Anicius of
Præneste, who a few years before had still been a public enemy of the
Romans,--perhaps the remote ancestor of that Anician family which was
so brilliant in the last days of the western empire,--was elected in
opposition to two distinguished plebeians, a Pœtelius and a Domitius;
which proves that in this case, isopolites and _libertini_, the
_factio forensis_, combined, and decided the election. We find from
Pliny, that Flavius made a vow, _si populo reconciliasset ordines_; by
_populo_ the patricians are meant, and as Flavius performed his vow,
the reconciliation must have been effected: very likely he acted as
mediator during the later censorship of Fabius and Decius, inducing
the _libertini_ to allow their rights to be abridged, as the good of
the republic required. For from the mingling of these men with the
tribes, there arose great fermentation, down to the censorship of Q.
Fabius Maximus and P. Decius. A reconciliation then took place (449):
the _libertini_ could not entirely forego their rights; but they were
combined by Fabius into four tribes, the _tribus urbanæ_, which always
remained _tribus libertinorum_, and consequently _minus honestæ_. This
measure had most beneficial results. For when we call to mind that
the votes were given by tribes, in each of which it was the majority
which decided; we may easily imagine, that if the _libertini_, who were
engaged in trades and dwelt in the city, were scattered through all
the tribes, they, being always present, must have formed the majority
in any meeting which was suddenly called; as among the plebeians of
each tribe, but few of those who lived out of the town, could have made
their appearance: and thus, in such assemblies of the commonalty, the
whole power had passed into the hands of the _libertini_. The system
of Appius would therefore have become most pernicious, without this
wholesome change.
At the time of the second Samnite war, another change took place,
namely, the abolition of the _nexum_, which Livy assigns to the
consulship of C. Pœtelius and L. Papirius; but according to Varro, as
corrected from the MS., it was brought about during the dictatorship
of Poetelius, 441. With this also agrees the circumstance, that the
impoverished state of the families of the bondmen for debt is said to
have been a consequence of the disaster at Caudium. We thus see, how
even at so late a period, events which did not strictly belong to the
province of real political history, were arbitrarily interpolated in
the annals. A youth is ill treated; he rung to the forum; a tumult
arises: then it came to pass that the _nexum_ was abolished, so that
the person of the debtor, or those of his children, were now no more
to be detained. This shows us a state of things in which the mob have
already great power. We cannot doubt but that by this time indeed,
wealthy people pledged themselves _realiter_ by the _fiducia_, if they
had quiritary property; and this kind of mortgage may have become
more general, the more the quiritary property increased among the
plebeians. It was now permitted as the only one, and it was forbidden
to pledge one’s person. But if any one incurred a debt by a _delictum_,
the relation of the _addictio_ remained; and he was to continue in it,
until he redeemed himself: this is certainly the case, even as late
as in the war with Hannibal. The continuance of this relation has led
many into error, and has awakened in them a suspicion of the law of
Pœtelius; but _addictio_ is something quite different from the _nexum_.
Livy calls this law _novum initium libertatis plebis Romanæ_.
In consequence of the Ogulnian law, from the year 462, the number of
the _Pontifices majores_ was increased from four to eight, and those
of the augurs from four to nine: the increase was taken from the
ranks of the plebeians. A ninth pontiff was the _Pontifex maximus_,
who without doubt was chosen _promiscue_ from both orders. Afterwards
_cooptatio_ was by a decree: whether it were thus from the beginning,
is hidden in darkness. Twenty years later, Ti. Coruncanius was the
first plebeian _Pontifex maximus_. Livy gives us the _suasoria_ of
Decius on the occasion of the Ogulnian law; but the speech is not
quite in the character of that age: for, the patricians now knew right
well, that they could no longer keep their privileges. This change is
evident from the fact, that, although at that time there is no doubt
that the nominations to the priesthoods were made by the curies, or by
cooptation on the part of the college, yet the law was not transgressed
at all, and the plebeians were at once admitted to these offices.
Thus the spirit of real life had prevailed over the letter of mere
institutions. People as yet only called themselves patricians and
plebeians; but there existed already the parties of those who were
noble, and of those who were not: the former comprised all the eminent
patrician and plebeian families.
The admission to the priesthoods was a point in which the plebeians
were highly interested; as the pontiffs were the guardians of the civil
law, and the keepers and the fountain head of the whole of the _jus
sacrum_, and the augurs, whose declarations in that age were certainly
still considered authentic, exercised influence upon all transactions
of importance.