THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS.
ROMAN GENTILE SOCIETY.—FOUR STAGES OF ORGANIZATION—1. THE GENS;
2. THE CURIA, CONSISTING OF TEN GENTES; 3. THE TRIBE, COMPOSED
OF TEN CURIÆ; 4. THE POPULUS ROMANUS, COMPOSED OF THREE
TRIBES.—NUMERICAL PROPORTIONS—HOW PRODUCED.—CONCENTRATION OF
GENTES AT ROME.—THE ROMAN SENATE.—ITS FUNCTIONS.—THE ASSEMBLY
OF THE PEOPLE.—ITS POWERS.—THE PEOPLE SOVEREIGN.—OFFICE OF
MILITARY COMMANDER (REX).—ITS POWERS AND FUNCTIONS.—ROMAN
GENTILE INSTITUTIONS ESSENTIALLY DEMOCRATICAL.
Having considered the Roman gens, it remains to take up the curia
composed of several gentes, the tribe composed of several curiæ, and
lastly the Roman people composed of several tribes. In pursuing the
subject the inquiry will be limited to the constitution of society as
it appeared from the time of Romulus to that of Servius Tullius, with
some notice of the changes which occurred in the early period of the
republic while the gentile system was giving way, and the new political
system was being established.
It will be found that two governmental organizations were in existence
for a time, side by side, as among the Athenians, one going out and the
other coming in. The first was a society (_societas_), founded upon the
gentes; and the other a state (_civitas_), founded upon territory and
upon property, which was gradually supplanting the former. A government
in a transitional stage is necessarily complicated, and therefore
difficult to be understood. These changes were not violent but gradual,
commencing with Romulus and substantially completed, though not
perfected, by Servius Tullius; thus embracing a supposed period of
nearly two hundred years, crowded with events of great moment to the
infant commonwealth. In order to follow the history of the gentes to
the overthrow of their influence in the state it will be necessary,
after considering the curia, tribe and nation, to explain briefly the
new political system. The last will form the subject of the ensuing
chapter.
Gentile society among the Romans exhibits four stages of organization:
first, the gens, which was a body of consanguinei and the unit of the
social system; second, the curia, analogous to the Grecian phratry,
which consisted of ten gentes united in a higher corporate body;
third, the tribe, consisting of ten curiæ, which possessed some of the
attributes of a nation under gentile institutions; and fourth, the
Roman people (_Populus Romanus_), consisting, in the time of Tullus
Hostilius, of three such tribes united by coalescence in one gentile
society, embracing three hundred gentes. There are facts warranting
the conclusion that all the Italian tribes were similarly organized at
the commencement of the historical period; but with this difference,
perhaps, that the Roman curia was a more advanced organization than the
Grecian phratry, or the corresponding phratry of the remaining Italian
tribes; and that the Roman tribe, by constrained enlargement, became a
more comprehensive organization than in the remaining Italian stocks.
Some evidence in support of these statements will appear in the sequel.
Before the time of Romulus the Italians, in their various branches,
had become a numerous people. The large number of petty tribes, into
which they had become subdivided, reveals that state of unavoidable
disintegration which accompanies gentile institutions. But the federal
principle had asserted itself among the other Italian tribes as well
as the Latin, although it did not result in any confederacy that
achieved important results. Whilst this state of things existed, that
great movement ascribed to Romulus occurred, namely: the concentration
of a hundred Latin gentes on the banks of the Tiber, which was
followed by a like gathering of Sabine, Latin and Etruscan and other
gentes, to the additional number of two hundred, ending in their
final coalescence into one people. The foundations of Rome were thus
laid, and Roman power and civilization were to follow. It was this
consolidation of gentes and tribes under one government, commenced by
Romulus and completed by his successors, that prepared the way for the
new political system—for the transition from a government based upon
persons and upon personal relations, into one based upon territory and
upon property.
It is immaterial whether either of the seven so-called kings of Rome
were real or mythical persons, or whether the legislation ascribed to
either of them is fabulous or true, so far as this investigation is
concerned: because the facts with respect to the ancient constitution
of Latin society remained incorporated in Roman institutions, and
thus came down to the historical period. It fortunately so happens
that the events of human progress embody themselves, independently
of particular men, in a material record, which is crystallized in
institutions, usages and customs, and preserved in inventions and
discoveries. Historians, from a sort of necessity, give to individuals
great prominence in the production of events; thus placing persons,
who are transient, in the place of principles, which are enduring.
The work of society in its totality, by means of which all progress
occurs, is ascribed far too much to individual men, and far too little
to the public intelligence. It will be recognized generally that the
substance of human history is bound up in the growth of ideas, which
are wrought out by the people and expressed in their institutions,
usages, inventions and discoveries.
The numerical adjustment, before adverted to, of ten gentes to a curia,
ten curiæ to a tribe, and three tribes of the Roman people, was a
result of legislative procurement not older, in the first two tribes,
than the time of Romulus. It was made possible by the accessions gained
from the surrounding tribes, by solicitation or conquest; the fruits of
which were chiefly incorporated in the Tities and Luceres, as they were
successively formed. But such a precise numerical adjustment could not
be permanently maintained through centuries, especially with respect to
the number of gentes in each curia.
We have seen that the Grecian phratry was rather a religious and social
than a governmental organization. Holding an intermediate position
between the gens and the tribe, it would be less important than either,
until governmental functions were superadded. It appears among the
Iroquois in a rudimentary form, its social as distinguished from its
governmental character being at that early day equally well marked. But
the Roman curia, whatever it may have been in the previous period, grew
into an organization more integral and governmental than the phratry of
the Greeks; more is known, however, of the former than of the latter.
It is probable that the gentes comprised in each curia were, in the
main, related gentes; and that their reunion in a higher organization
was further cemented by intermarriages, the gentes of the same curia
furnishing each other with wives.
The early writers give no account of the institution of the curia; but
it does not follow that it was a new creation by Romulus. It is first
mentioned as a Roman institution in connection with his legislation,
the number of curiæ in two of the tribes having been established in his
time. The organization, as a phratry, had probably existed among the
Latin tribes from time immemorial.
Livy, speaking of the favor with which the Sabine women were regarded
after the establishment of peace between the Sabines and Latins through
their intervention, remarks that Romulus, for this reason, when he
had divided the people into thirty curiæ bestowed upon them their
names.[328] Dionysius uses the term phratry as the equivalent of curia,
but gives the latter also (κουρία),[329] and observes further, that
Romulus divided the curiæ into decades, the ten in each being of
course gentes.[330] In like manner Plutarch refers to the fact that
each tribe contained ten curiæ, which some say, he remarks, were
called after the Sabine women.[331] He is more accurate in the use of
language than Livy or Dionysius in saying that each tribe contained ten
curiæ, rather than that each was divided into ten, because the curiæ
were made of gentes as original unities, and not the gentes out of a
curia by subdivision. The work performed by Romulus was the adjustment
of the number of gentes in each curia, and the number of curiæ in
each tribe, which he was enabled to accomplish through the accessions
gained from the surrounding tribes. Theoretically each curia should
have been composed of gentes derived by segmentation from one or more
gentes, and the tribe by natural growth through the formation of more
than one curia, each composed of gentes united by the bond of a common
dialect. The hundred gentes of the Ramnes were Latin gentes. In their
organization into ten curiæ, each composed of ten gentes, Romulus
undoubtedly respected the bond of kin by placing related gentes in the
same curia, as far as possible, and then reached numerical symmetry
by arbitrarily taking the excess of gentes from one natural curia to
supply the deficiency in another. The hundred gentes of the tribe
Tities were, in the main, Sabine gentes. These were also arranged in
ten curiæ, and most likely on the same principle. The third tribe, the
Luceres, was formed later from gradual accessions and conquests. It
was heterogeneous in its elements, containing, among others, a number
of Etruscan gentes. They were brought into the same numerical scale
of ten curiæ each composed of ten gentes. Under this re-constitution,
while the gens, the unit of organization, remained pure and unchanged,
the curia was raised above its logical level, and made to include, in
some cases, a foreign element which did not belong to a strict natural
phratry; and the tribe also was raised above its natural level, and
made to embrace foreign elements that did not belong to a tribe as the
tribe naturally grew. By this legislative constraint the tribes, with
their curiæ and gentes, were made severally equal, while the third
tribe was in good part an artificial creation under the pressure of
circumstances. The linguistic affiliations of the Etruscans are still
a matter of discussion. There is a presumption that their dialect was
not wholly unintelligible to the Latin tribes, otherwise they would not
have been admitted into the Roman social system, which at the time was
purely gentile. The numerical proportions thus secured, facilitated the
governmental action of the society as a whole.
Niebuhr, who was the first to gain a true conception of the
institutions of the Romans in this period, who recognized the fact
that the people were sovereign, that the so-called kings exercised a
delegated power, and that the senate was based on the principle of
representation, each gens having a senator, became at variance with the
facts before him in stating in connection with this graduated scale,
that “such numerical proportions are an irrefragible proof that the
Roman houses [gentes][332] were not more ancient than the constitution;
but corporations formed by a legislator in harmony with the rest
of his scheme.”[333] That a small foreign element was forced into
the curiæ of the second and third tribes, and particularly into the
third, is undeniable; but that a gens was changed in its composition
or reconstructed or made, was simply impossible. A legislator could
not make a gens; neither could he make a curia, except by combining
existing gentes around a nucleus of related gentes; but he might
increase or decrease by constraint the number of gentes in a curia, and
increase or decrease the number of curiæ in a tribe. Niebuhr has also
shown that the gens was an ancient and universal organization among the
Greeks and Romans, which renders his preceding declaration the more
incomprehensible. Moreover it appears that the phratry was universal,
at least among the Ionian Greeks, leaving it probable that the curia,
perhaps under another name, was equally ancient among the Latin tribes.
The numerical proportions referred to were no doubt the result of
legislative procurement in the time of Romulus, and we have abundant
evidence of the sources from which the new gentes were obtained with
which these proportions might have been produced.
The members of the ten gentes united in a curia were called _curiales_
among themselves. They elected a priest, _curio_, who was the chief
officer of the fraternity. Each curia had its sacred rites, in the
observance of which the brotherhood participated; its _sacellum_ as
a place of worship, and its place of assembly where they met for the
transaction of business. Besides the _curio_, who had the principal
charge of their religious affairs, the _curiales_ also elected an
assistant priest, _flamen curialis_, who had the immediate charge of
these observances. The curia gave its name to the assembly of the
gentes, the _comitia curiata_ which was the sovereign power in Rome to
a greater degree than the senate under the gentile system. Such, in
general terms, was the organization of the Roman curia or phratry.[334]
Next in the ascending scale was the Roman tribe, composed of ten curiæ
and a hundred gentes. When a natural growth, uninfluenced externally,
a tribe would be an aggregation of such gentes as were derived by
segmentation from an original gens or pair of gentes; all the members
of which would speak the same dialect. Until the tribe itself divided,
by processes before pointed out, it would include all the descendants
of the members of these gentes. But the Roman tribe, with which alone
we are now concerned, was artificially enlarged for special objects and
by special means, but the basis and body of the tribe was a natural
growth.
Prior to the time of Romulus each tribe elected a chief officer whose
duties were magisterial, military and religious.[335] He performed in
the city magisterial duties for the tribe, as well as administered its
_sacra_, and he also commanded its military forces in the field.[336]
He was probably elected by the curiæ collected in a general assembly;
but here again our information is defective. It was undoubtedly an
ancient office in each Latin tribe, peculiar in character and held by
an elective tenure. It was also the germ of the still higher office of
_rex_, or general military commander, the functions of the two offices
being similar. The tribal chiefs are styled by Dionysius leaders of the
tribes (τριβῶν ἡγεμονίας).[337] When the three Roman tribes had
coalesced into one people, under one senate, one assembly of the
people, and one military commander, the office of tribal chief was
overshadowed and became less important; but the continued maintenance
of the office by an elective tenure confirms the inference of its
original popular character.
An assembly of the tribe must also have existed, from a remote
antiquity. Before the founding of Rome each Italian tribe was
practically independent, although the tribes were more or less united
in confederate relations. As a self-governing body each of these
ancient tribes had its council of chiefs (who were doubtless the chiefs
of the gentes), its assembly of the people, and its chiefs who commanded
its military bands. These three elements in the organization of the
tribe; namely, the council, the tribal chief, and the tribal assembly,
were the types upon which were afterwards modeled the _Roman senate_,
the _Roman rex_, and the _comitia curiata_. The tribal chief was in all
probability called by the name of _rex_ before the founding of Rome;
and the same remark is applicable to the name of senators (_senex_),
and the _comitia_ (_con-ire_). The inference arises, from what is
known of the condition and organization of these tribes, that their
institutions were essentially democratical. After the coalescence of
the three Roman tribes, the national character of the tribe was lost in
the higher organization; but it still remained as a necessary integer
in the organic series.
The fourth and last stage of organization was the Roman nation or
people, formed, as stated, by the coalescence of three tribes.
Externally the ultimate organization was manifested by a senate
(_senatus_), a popular assembly (_comitia curiata_), and a general
military commander (_rex_). It was further manifested by a city
magistracy, by an army organization, and by a common national
priesthood of different orders.[338]
A powerful city organization was from the first the central idea of
their governmental and military systems, to which all areas beyond Rome
remained provincial. Under the military democracy of Romulus, under the
mixed democratical and aristocratical organization of the republic,
and under the later imperialism it was a government with a great city
in its centre, a perpetual nucleus, to which all additions by conquest
were added as increments, instead of being made, with the city, common
constituents of the government. Nothing precisely like this Roman
organization, this Roman power, and the career of the Roman race, has
appeared in the experience of mankind. It will ever remain the marvel
of the ages.
As organized by Romulus they styled themselves the Roman People
(_Populus Romanus_), which was perfectly exact. They had formed a
gentile society and nothing more. But the rapid increase of numbers
in the time of Romulus, and the still greater increase between this
period and that of Servius Tullius, demonstrated the necessity for a
fundamental change in the plan of government. Romulus and the wise men
of his time had made the most of gentile institutions. We are indebted
to his legislation for a grand attempt to establish upon the gentes a
great national and military power; and thus for some knowledge of the
character and structure of institutions which might otherwise have
faded into obscurity, if they had not perished from remembrance. The
rise of the Roman power upon gentile institutions was a remarkable
event in human experience. It is not singular that the incidents that
accompanied the movement should have come to us tinctured with romance,
not to say enshrouded in fable. Rome came into existence through a
happy conception, ascribed to Romulus, and adopted by his successors,
of concentrating the largest possible number of gentes in a new city,
under one government, and with their united military forces under one
commander. Its objects were essentially military, to gain a supremacy
in Italy, and it is not surprising that the organization took the form
of a military democracy.
Selecting a magnificent situation upon the Tiber, where, after leaving
the mountain range it had entered the campagna, Romulus occupied the
Palatine Hill, the site of an ancient fortress, with a tribe of the
Latins of which he was the chief. Tradition derived his descent from
the chiefs of Alba, which is a matter of secondary importance. The new
settlement grew with marvelous rapidity, if the statement is reliable
that at the close of his life the military forces numbered 46,000 foot
and 1,000 horse, which would indicate some 200,000 people in the city
and in the surrounding region under its protection. Livy remarks that
it was an ancient device (_vetus consilium_) of the founders of cities
to draw to themselves an obscure and humble multitude, and then set up
for their progeny the autocthonic claim.[339] Romulus pursuing this
ancient policy is said to have opened an asylum near the Palatine, and
to have invited all persons in the surrounding tribe, without regard
to character or condition, to share with his tribes the advantages and
the destiny of the new city. A great crowd of people, Livy further
remarks, fled to this place from the surrounding territories, slave as
well as free, which was the first accession of foreign strength to
the new undertaking.[340] Plutarch,[341] and Dionysius[342] both refer
to the asylum or grove, the opening of which, for the object and with
the success named, was an event of probable occurrence. It tends to
show that the people of Italy had then become numerous for barbarians,
and that discontent prevailed among them in consequence, doubtless, of
the imperfect protection of personal rights, the existence of domestic
slavery, and the apprehension of violence. Of such a state of things
a wise man would naturally avail himself if he possessed sufficient
military genius to handle the class of men thus brought together.
The next important event in this romantic narrative, of which the
reader should be reminded, was the assault of the Sabines to avenge
the entrapment of the Sabine virgins, now the honored wives of their
captors. It resulted in a wise accommodation under which the Latins and
Sabines coalesced into one society, but each division retaining its
own military leader. The Sabines occupied the Quirinal and Capitoline
Hills. Thus was added the principal part of the second tribe, the
Tities, under Titius Tatius their military chief. After the death of
the latter they all fell under the military command of Romulus.
Passing over Numa Pompilius, the successor of Romulus, who established
upon a broader scale the religious institutions of the Romans, his
successor, Tullus Hostilius, captured the Latin city of Alba and
removed its entire population to Rome. They occupied the Cœlian
Hill, with all the privileges of Roman citizens. The number of citizens
was now doubled, Livy remarks;[343] but not likely from this source
exclusively. Ancus Martius, the successor of Tullus, captured the Latin
city of Politorium, and following the established policy, transferred
the people bodily to Rome.[344] To them was assigned the Aventine Hill,
with similar privileges. Not long afterwards the inhabitants of Tellini
and Ficana were subdued and removed to Rome, where they also occupied
the Aventine.[345] It will be noticed that in each case the gentes
brought to Rome, as well as the original Latin and Sabine gentes,
remained locally distinct. It was the universal usage in gentile
society, both in the Middle and in the Upper Status of barbarism, when
the tribes began to gather in fortresses and in walled cities, for the
gentes to settle locally together by gentes and by phratries.[346] Such
was the manner the gentes settled at Rome. The greater portion of these
accessions were united in the third tribe, the Luceres, which gave it a
broad basis of Latin gentes. It was not entirely filled until the time
of Tarquinius Priscus, the fourth military leader from Romulus, some of
the new gentes being Etruscan.
By these and other means three hundred gentes were gathered at Rome
and there organized in curiæ and tribes, differing somewhat in tribal
lineage; for the Ramnes, as before remarked, were Latins, the Tities
were in the main Sabines and the Luceres were probably in the main
Latins with large accessions from other sources. The Roman people
and organization thus grew into being by a more or less constrained
aggregation of gentes into curiæ, of curiæ into tribes, and of tribes
into one gentile society. But a model for each integral organization,
excepting the last, had existed among them and their ancestors from
time immemorial; with a natural basis for each curia in the kindred
gentes actually united in each, and a similar basis for each tribe in
the common lineage of a greater part of the gentes united in each.
All that was new in organization was the numerical proportions of
gentes to a curia, of curiæ to a tribe, and the coalescence of the
latter into one people. It may be called a growth under legislative
constraint, because the tribes thus formed were not entirely free
from the admixture of foreign elements; whence arose the new name
_tribus_=a third part of the people, which now came in to distinguish
this organism. The Latin language must have had a term equivalent to
the Greek phylon (φῦλον) = tribe, because they had the same
organization; but if so it has disappeared. The invention of this new
term is some evidence that the Roman tribes contained heterogeneous
elements, while the Grecian were pure, and kindred in the lineage of
the gentes they contained.
Our knowledge of the previous constitution of Latin society is mainly
derived from the legislation ascribed to Romulus, since it brings
into view the anterior organization of the Latin tribes, with such
improvements and modifications as the wisdom of the age was able to
suggest. It is seen in the senate as a council of chiefs, in the
_comitia curiata_ as an assembly of the people by curiæ, in the
office of a general military commander, and in the ascending series
of organizations. It is seen more especially in the presence of the
gentes, with their recognized rights, privileges and obligations.
Moreover, the government instituted by Romulus and perfected by his
immediate successors presents gentile society in the highest structural
form it ever attained in any portion of the human family. The time
referred to was immediately before the institution of political society
by Servius Tullius.
The first momentous act of Romulus, as a legislator, was the
institution of the Roman senate. It was composed of a hundred members,
one from each gens, or ten from each curia. A council of chiefs as
the primary instrument of government was not a new thing among the
Latin tribes. From time immemorial they had been accustomed to its
existence and to its authority. But it is probable that prior to the
time of Romulus it had become changed, like the Grecian councils,
into a pre-considering body, obligated to prepare and submit to
an assembly of the people the most important public measures for
adoption or rejection. This was in effect a resumption by the people
of powers before vested in the council of chiefs. Since no public
measure of essential importance could become operative until it
received the sanction of the popular assembly, this fact alone shows
that the people were sovereign, and not the council, nor the military
commander. It reveals also the extent to which democratic principles
had penetrated their social system. The senate instituted by Romulus,
although its functions were doubtless substantially similar to those
of the previous council of chiefs, was an advance upon it in several
respects. It was made up either of the chiefs or of the wise men of
the gentes. Each gens, as Niebuhr remarks, “sending its decurion who
was its alderman,”[347] to represent it in the senate. It was thus a
representative and an elective body in its inception, and it remained
elective, or selective, down to the empire. The senators held their
office for life, which was the only term of office then known among
them, and therefore not singular. Livy ascribes the selection of the
first senators to Romulus, which is probably an erroneous statement,
for the reason that it would not have been in accordance with the
theory of their institutions. Romulus chose a hundred senators, he
remarks, either because that number was sufficient, or because there
were but a hundred who could be created Fathers. Fathers certainly
they were called on account of their official dignity, and their
descendants were called patricians.[348] The character of the senate as
a representative body, the title of Fathers of the People bestowed upon
its members, the life-tenure of the office, but, more than all these
considerations, the distinction of patricians conferred upon their
children and lineal descendants in perpetuity, established at a stroke
an aristocracy of rank in the centre of their social system where it
became firmly intrenched. The Roman senate, from its high vocation,
from its composition, and from the patrician rank received by its
members and transmitted to their descendants, held a powerful position
in the subsequent state. It was this aristocratic element, now for the
first time planted in gentilism, which gave to the republic its mongrel
character, and which, as might have been predicted, culminated in
imperialism, and with it in the final dissolution of the race. It may
perhaps have increased the military glory and extended the conquests of
Rome, whose institutions, from the first, aimed at a military destiny;
but it shortened the career of this great and extraordinary people,
and demonstrated the proposition that imperialism of necessity will
destroy any civilized race. Under the republic, half aristocratic, half
democratic, the Romans achieved their fame, which one can but think
would have been higher in degree, and more lasting in its fruits, had
liberty and equality been nationalized, instead of unequal privileges
and an atrocious slavery. The long protracted struggle of the plebeians
to eradicate the aristocratic element represented by the senate, and to
recover the ancient principles of democracy, must be classed among the
heroic labors of mankind.
After the union of the Sabines the senate was increased to two hundred
by the addition of a hundred senators[349] from the gentes of the
tribe Tities; and when the Luceres had increased to a hundred gentes
in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, a third hundred senators were added
from the gentes of this tribe.[350] Cicero has left some doubt upon
this statement of Livy, by saying that Tarquinius Priscus doubled the
original number of the senators.[351] But Schmitz well suggests, as an
explanation of the discrepancy, that at the time of the final increase
the senate may have become reduced to a hundred and fifty members, and
been filled up to two hundred from the gentes of the first two tribes,
when the hundred were added from the third. The senators taken from the
tribes Ramnes and Tities were thenceforth called Fathers of the Greater
Gentes (_patres maiorum gentium_), and those of the Luceres Fathers
of the Lesser Gentes (_patres minorum gentium_).[352] From the form
of the statement the inference arises that the three hundred senators
represented the three hundred gentes, each senator representing a gens.
Moreover, as each gens doubtless had its principal chief (_princeps_),
it becomes extremely probable that this person was chosen for the
position either by his gens, or the ten were chosen together by the
curia, from the ten gentes of which it was composed. Such a method of
representation and of choice is most in accordance with what is known
of Roman and gentile institutions.[353] After the establishment of the
republic, the censors filled the vacancies in the senate by their own
choice, until it was devolved upon the consuls. They were generally
selected from the ex-magistrates of the higher grades.
The powers of the senate were real and substantial. All public measures
originated in this body—those upon which they could act independently,
as well as those which must be submitted to the popular assembly and
be adopted before they could become operative. It had the general
guardianship of the public welfare, the management of their foreign
relations, the levying of taxes and of military forces, and the general
control of revenues and expenditures. Although the administration of
religious affairs belonged to the several colleges of priests, the
senate had the ultimate power over religion as well. From its functions
and vocation it was the most influential body which ever existed under
gentile institutions.
The assembly of the people, with the recognized right of acting upon
important public measures to be discussed by them and adopted or
rejected, was unknown in the Lower, and probably in the Middle Status
of barbarism; but it existed in the Upper Status, in the agora of the
Grecian tribes, and attained its highest form in the ecclesia of the
Athenians; and it also existed in the assembly of the warriors among
the Latin tribes, attaining its highest form in the _comitia curiata_
of the Romans. The growth of property tended to the establishment of
the popular assembly, as a third power in gentile society, for the
protection of personal rights and as a shield against the encroachments
of the council of chiefs, and of the military commander. From the
period of savagery, after the institution of the gentes, down to
the times of Solon and Romulus, the popular element had always been
active in ancient gentile society. The council of chiefs was usually
open in the early conditions to the orators of the people, and public
sentiment influenced the course of events. But when the Grecian and
Latin tribes first came under historical notice the assembly of the
people to discuss and adopt or reject public measures was a phenomenon
quite as constant as that of a council of chiefs. It was more perfectly
systematized among the Romans under the constitution of Romulus than
among the Athenians in the time of Solon. In the rise and progress
of this institution may be traced the growth and development of the
democratic principle.
This assembly among the Romans was called the _comitia curiata_,
because the members of the gentes of adult age met in one assembly by
curiæ, and voted in the same manner. Each curia had one collective
vote, the majority in each was ascertained separately, and determined
what that vote should be.[354] It was the assembly of the gentes,
who alone were members of the government. Plebeians and clients, who
already formed a numerous class, were excluded, because there could
be no connection with the _Populus Romanus_, except through a gens
and tribe. This assembly, as before stated, could neither originate
public measures, nor amend such as were submitted to them; but none
of a certain grade could become operative until adopted by the
_comitia_. All laws were passed or repealed by this assembly; all
magistrates and high public functionaries, including the _rex_, were
elected by it on the nomination of the senate.[355] The _imperium_ was
conferred upon these persons by a law of the assembly (_lex curiata de
imperio_), which was the Roman method of investing with office. Until
the _imperium_ was thus conferred, the person, although the election
was complete, could not enter upon his office. The _comitia curiata_,
by appeal, had the ultimate decision in criminal cases involving the
life of a Roman citizen. It was by a popular movement that the office
of _rex_ was abolished. Although the assembly of the people never
acquired the power of originating measures, its powers were real and
influential. At this time the people were sovereign.
The assembly had no power to convene itself; but it is said to have
met on the summons of the _rex_, or, in his absence, on that of the
praefect (_praefectus urbi_). In the time of the republic it was
convened by the consuls, or, in their absence, by the praetor; and
in all cases the person who convened the assembly presided over its
deliberations.
In another connection the office of _rex_ has been considered. The
_rex_ was a general and also a priest, but without civil functions, as
some writers have endeavored to imply.[356] His powers as a general,
though not defined, were necessarily absolute over the military forces
in the field and in the city. If he exercised any civil powers in
particular cases, it must be supposed that they were delegated for
the occasion. To pronounce him a king, as that term is necessarily
understood, is to vitiate and mis-describe the popular government to
which he belonged, and the institutions upon which it rested. The
form of government under which the _rex_ and basileus appeared is
identified with gentile institutions and disappeared after gentile
society was overthrown. It was a peculiar organization having no
parallel in modern society, and is unexplainable in terms adapted
to monarchical institutions. A military democracy under a senate,
an assembly of the people, and a general of their nomination and
election, is a near, though it may not be a perfect, characterization
of a government so peculiar, which belongs exclusively to ancient
society, and rested on institutions essentially democratical. Romulus,
in all probability, emboldened by his great successes, assumed powers
which were regarded as dangerous to the senate and to the people, and
his assassination by the Roman chiefs is a fair inference from the
statements concerning his mysterious disappearance which have come
down to us. This act, atrocious as it must be pronounced, evinces that
spirit of independence, inherited from the gentes, which would not
submit to arbitrary individual power. When the office was abolished,
and the consulate was established in its place, it is not surprising
that two consuls were created instead of one. While the powers of the
office might raise one man to a dangerous height, it could not be the
case with two. The same subtlety of reasoning led the Iroquois, without
original experience, to create two war-chiefs of the confederacy
instead of one, lest the office of commander-in-chief, bestowed upon a
single man, should raise him to a position too influential.
In his capacity of chief priest the _rex_ took the auspices on
important occasions, which was one of the highest acts of the Roman
religious system, and in their estimation quite as necessary in the
field on the eve of a battle as in the city. He performed other
religious rites as well. It is not surprising that in those times
priestly functions are found among the Romans, as among the Greeks,
attached to or inherent in the highest military office. When the
abolition of this office occurred, it was found necessary to vest
in some one the religious functions appertaining to it, which were
evidently special; whence the creation of the new office of _rex
sacrificulus_, or _rex sacrorum_, the incumbent of which performed
the religious duties in question. Among the Athenians the same idea
reappears in the second of the nine archons, who was called _archon
basileus_, and had a general supervision of religious affairs.
Why religious functions were attached to the office of _rex_ and
_basileus_, among the Romans and Greeks, and to the office of _Teuctli_
among the Aztecs; and why, after the abolition of the office in the two
former cases, the ordinary priesthoods could not perform them, has not
been explained.
Thus stood Roman gentile society from the time of Romulus to the time
of Servius Tullius, through a period of more than two hundred years,
during which the foundations of Roman power were laid. The government,
as before remarked, consisted of three powers, a senate, an assembly
of the people, and a military commander. They had experienced the
necessity for definite written laws to be enacted by themselves,
as a substitute for usages and customs. In the _rex_ they had the
germinal idea of a chief executive magistrate, which necessity pressed
upon them, and which was to advance into a more complete form after
the institution of political society. But they found it a dangerous
office in those times of limited experience in the higher conceptions
of government, because the powers of the _rex_ were, in the main,
undefined, as well as difficult of definition. It is not surprising
that when a serious controversy arose between the people and Tarquinius
Superbus, they deposed the man and abolished the office. As soon as
something like the irresponsible power of a king met them face to
face it was found incompatible with liberty and the latter gained
the victory. They were willing, however, to admit into the system
of government a limited executive, and they created the office in a
dual form in the two consuls. This occurred after the institution of
political society.
No direct steps were taken, prior to the time of Servius Tullius, to
establish a state founded upon territory and upon property; but the
previous measures were a preparation for that event. In addition to the
institutions named, they had created a city magistracy, and a complete
military system, including the institution of the equestrian order.
Under institutions purely gentile Rome had become, in the time of
Servius Tullius, the strongest military power in Italy.
Among the new magistrates created, that of warden of the city (_custos
urbis_) was the most important. This officer, who was chief of the
senate (_princeps senatus_), was, in the first instance, according to
Dionysius, appointed by Romulus.[357] The senate, which had no power to
convene itself, was convened by him. It is also claimed that the _rex_
had power to summon the senate. That it would be apt to convene upon
his request, through the call of its own officer, is probable; but that
he could command its convocation is improbable, from its independence
in functions, from its dignity, and from its representative character.
After the time of the Decemvirs the name of the office was changed
to præfect of the city (_præfectus urbi_), its powers were enlarged,
and it was made elective by the new _comitia centuriata_. Under
the republic, the consuls, and in their absence, the praetor, had
power to convene the senate, and also to hold the _comitia_. At a
later day, the office of praetor (_praetor urbanus_) absorbed the
functions of this ancient office and became its successor. A judicial
magistrate, the Roman praetor was the prototype of the modern judge.
Thus, every essential institution in the government or administration
of the affairs of society may generally be traced to a simple germ,
which springs up in a rude form from human wants, and, when able to
endure the test of time and experience, is developed into a permanent
institution.
A knowledge of the tenure of the office of chief, and of the functions
of the council of chiefs, before the time of Romulus, could they be
ascertained, would reflect much light upon the condition of Roman
gentile society in the time of Romulus. Moreover, the several periods
should be studied separately, because the facts of their social
condition were changing with their advancement in intelligence. The
Italian period prior to Romulus, the period of the seven _reges_, and
the subsequent periods of the republic and of the empire are marked by
great differences in the spirit and character of the government. But
the institutions of the first period entered into the second, and these
again were transmitted into the third, and remained with modifications
in the fourth. The growth, development and fall of these institutions
embody the vital history of the Roman people. It is by tracing these
institutions from the germ through their successive stages of growth,
on the wide scale of the tribes and nations of mankind, that we can
follow the great movements of the human mind in its evolution from
its infancy in savagery to its present high development. Out of the
necessities of mankind for the organization of society came the gens;
out of the gens came the chief, and the tribe with its council of
chiefs; out of the tribe came by segmentation the group of tribes,
afterwards re-united in a confederacy, and finally consolidated by
coalescence into a nation; out of the experience of the council came
the necessity of an assembly of the people with a division of the
powers of the government between them; and finally, out of the military
necessities of the united tribes came the general military commander,
who became in time a third power in the government, but subordinate
to the two superior powers. It was the germ of the office of the
subsequent chief magistrate, the king and the president. The principal
institutions of civilized nations are simply continuations of those
which germinated in savagery, expanded in barbarism, and which are
still subsisting and advancing in civilization.
As the Roman government existed at the death of Romulus, it was social,
and not political; it was personal, and not territorial. The three
tribes were located, it is true, in separate and distinct areas within
the limits of the city; but this was the prevailing mode of settlement
under gentile institutions. Their relations to each other and to the
resulting society, as gentes, curiæ and tribes, were wholly personal,
the government dealing with them as groups of persons, and with the
whole as the Roman people. Localized in this manner within inclosing
ramparts, the idea of a township or city ward would suggest itself when
the necessity for a change in the plan of government was forced upon
them by the growing complexity of affairs. It was a great change that
was soon to be required of them, to be wrought out through experimental
legislation—precisely the same which the Athenians had entered upon
shortly before the time of Servius Tullius. Rome was founded, and its
first victories were won under institutions purely gentile; but the
fruits of these achievements by their very magnitude demonstrated
the inability of the gentes to form the basis of a state. But it
required two centuries of intense activity in the growing commonwealth
to prepare the way for the institution of the second great plan of
government based upon territory and upon property. A withdrawal of
governing powers from the gentes, curiæ and tribes, and their bestowal
upon new constituencies was the sacrifice demanded. Such a change would
become possible only through a conviction that the gentes could not be
made to yield such a form of government as their advanced condition
demanded. It was practically a question of continuance in barbarism,
or progress into civilization. The inauguration of the new system will
form the subject of the next chapter.