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 thegentesin Rome were of the same nature as the Greek γένη.Genusandgensare moreover quite the same word, a thing which often happens with words of the old language, e. g.cliensandclientus,[67]Campans[68]andCampanus, and likewiseRomansandRomanus: the genitivesRomanumandRomanomcome from that old contracted nominative.
The very institution of thegensessentially implies a division of the state by its fundamental laws into a certainnumber of such associations, which then constituted small states by themselves, and enjoyed special privileges of which the extent was very great:jus gentium, andjura gentium, originally had perhaps a somewhat different, a much wider meaning than we generally believe. The numbers of thegentesare 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 hundredgentes, i. e. three tribes of a hundred clans each; wherefore Livy gives them the name ofcenturia, and nottribus. 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 aTribus, and a combination of severalgentes(probably consisting always of ten) for common sacrifice. And just as everygenshad its owngentilician sanctuaries,—forsacra 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 Titieswere 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 theprærogativawere 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 thegentes minores. The gentes are such an essential element of the constitution, that, asgentes civium patriciæis the formal expression forpatricii, thus alsogentes civium majoresandminoresis 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 thegentes 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 theirgentes, 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 firstpopulus. The third estate at the beginning wasnot 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 findduumviri, these are but the representatives of the two first tribes: it is in later times only that we findtriumviri, 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 betterknown 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, andhad to serve, that class was formed which in our German towns we callPfahlbürger(burghers of the pale), an expression which no one has rightly and clearly understood. The derivation of this word is fromPahl, orPfahl, (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 theGeschlechter(theHouses), 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), theisopolityof the Greeks. The investigation of this subject, which is perfectly analogous to the origin of the Romanplebes, 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 (LandrechtorBurgrecht) 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 theHouses, 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 themfrom 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 RomanPlebes,—the Greek δῆμος, in GermanGemeinde. Thedemoscomprehended 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, theplebesto thepopulus, theGemeindeto theBürgerschaft, thecommuneto thecittadine.[70]I also think that πόλις was not originally the term for city (which was called ἄστυ), but just likepopulus, a Tyrrhenian word; and that both of these bear the same meaning which we have stated above,Populushaving 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 wasdifferent 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 thecité, the heart of the town, in thebourg,borgo, the suburbs; and its members were therefore calledbourgeois. 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, forBürgerandGeschlechterhave 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 acivitasand 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 wordville, as opposed tocité. There is therefore a distinction in French towns betweenla cité,la ville, andle 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. TheBeisassenof 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 thedroit 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 endedby 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 Italianpopolo, the meaning of which is somewhat different from that of the Romanpopulus.[71]The partition was so fully carried out, that at Florence, for example at thepalazzo 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 expressionil communeeasily gives rise to misconceptions; it does not mean the union, but the commonalty, as Savigny has pointed out to me. At Bologna there is apalatium civium, and apalatium communis. TheCapitano del popoloand theCapitano di parteat Florence are also difficult to be understood. In the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, theCapitano 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 citizenshipsuspended. The singleCapitanoof the houses was nevertheless calleddi 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 thePlebeswas 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, fromcluereto 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 Romansgens Romulique Ancique, in which Romulus represents the clans, Ancus the commonalty. Thisplebesnow 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; andmany 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 aPopulusand aPlebesexisted; 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 hadcommercium, that is to say, no patrician could acquire property in it, andvice 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. TheLex 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 perfectlycorrect 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 theLex 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 theager Atticusas 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 manyVicithere were, but to each region he assigned a certain number ofVici. 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 thecountry 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. EveryPopuluspresupposes almost as its necessary counterpart aPlebes; in a certain sense therefore there was already aPlebesbefore 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 theMurus 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 commonsacralike the tribes composed of clans, as Dionysius expressly mentions. Sacred rites were always among the ancients a bond of union. That the plebeian tribes hadsacra, we know from the fact that Tarquin the Proud positively forbade them. Besidesthis, there was a local subdivision intovicifor the city, and intopagifor 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. Thetribus urbanæwere inferior to therusticæ, and the removal from the latter to the former was anota ignominiæ: this dates from the censorship of Fabius Maximus. If a man became a Roman citizensine 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 theconcilio grandein 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 thereforecontained 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 whomwas 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. Thesetherefore 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 theyhad 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 thecapite censi, and theproletarii, 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 bycensus? 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; notres 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 calledPondemate(Pound-mead), and a certain number ofpence were paid on it. Thus the Roman census comprehended all the landed estates, and without doubt allres mancipîas 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 theærarii, 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 thejuniores; from forty-five to sixty, among theseniores. In Sparta, the obligation to military service lasted until the sixtieth year; at Rome, it was in the case of thesenioreslimited to the defence of the walls only. As regards numerical proportion, theseniorescertainly 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 thesenioresamounted indeed to not more than about half the number of thejuniores, 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 thejuniores, 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. Thecenturies 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 thelocupletes, 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 calledproletarii, which means persons who paid no tax: they formed a century. Thelocupletescomprehended all the plebeians but the proletarians, and so far they were all equal; yet there was a gulf between them and the proletarians. Anylocuples, for instance, could in a court of law become personal security for another; the proletarian could not. With money, of course, he only could bevindex, who was able to prove from the censor’s books that he had the requisite property; and certainlylocupletesalone could be appointed as judges by the prætor, and appear as witnesses, which is shown by the termlocupletes 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 bookde 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 thelocupletes, orassidui; theaccensiandvelati; two of the proletarians (theproletariiin the stricter acceptation of the word), and thecapite censi; and the three centuries of the trades; and lastly, eighteen equestrian centuries, consisting of thesix 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 theseniorescontained so much fewer voters than those of thejuniores.
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 tenantsin 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 notdeliberate 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 thejus 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 thelex 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 commonamong 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 commonSacrumon 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 aConfessio 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 theferiæ Latinæon 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 originatedwith theLatini 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 firstsown. 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 wasbifrons, 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 thatthere 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, thefossa 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. TheAgua Marranais not theaqua damnataof Agrippa: in the old Circus there was a canal which carried the water off. Here was theseptem viarum vicuswhere 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 thewater. Its width is 18 palms,[80]and it is formed by three stone vaults ofpeperino(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 thecloaca 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 oftravertino, 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 takerefuge 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 thetraditions 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 thetribuni 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, orpromiscue; or else only three patricians, making four with thepræfectus 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 thereforeis 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 ofvicus 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 abolishthe 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 booksDe Republicasays,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 theSocii Italicistood, when they bound themselvesad 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 alliancewhich 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. TheFeriæ Latinæare 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 whichis 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 beingprimus centurio; as in the East Indian possessions of the English, the officers are exclusively Europeans.[85]Livy confounds theprimus centuriowith theprimipilus. 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.