JANE KoSATHER C iiff-» i ^: THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY DUCKWORTH'S STUDENT SERIES (Or. 8vo. 6s. net each.) Vol. I. Outline History of Greek Religion By L. R. Farnbll, M.A., D.Litt., Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, etc. etc. Vol. II. The Study of Roman History By B. W. Henderson, M.A., D.Litt., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, etc. etc. Other volumes in preparation. THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY BY BERNARD W. HENDERSON M.A., D.LiTT. FELLOW AND TUTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON SOMETI3IE FELLOW OF 3IERT0N COLLEGE, OXFORD AUTHOR OF "the LIFE AND PRINCIPATE OF THE EMPEROR NEKO " "civil AVAR AND REBELLION IN THE ROM.VN EMPIRE," ETC. LONDON DUCKWOKTH & CO. 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN T)Gi/.o6 ** ^^ H'.sl^oRu - SATHER Firsk isstud 1920 New Edition 1921 All rights reserved. To W. WARDE FOWLER, ESQ. (Lincoln College, Oxford) Dear ** Sub-Rector," For by this title I have called you always for close on thirty years : I ask your acceptance of the dedication of this little book, as a small recognition of luif ailing kindness on your part and of grati- tude on mine. You were my sole tutor in Roman history in old days when I was a scholar of Lincoln, an immature and boyish scholar, rather cocksure of myself, certainly very ignorant of what learning meant. My admiration for Rome, my love for Italy, I owe mainly to you. These have never failed me since. But herein, I think, you did me still greater service when you bade me never be impatient, never be in a hurry, always try to think things out for myself. Thiis you would have me kindle my torch at the same flame which has lit j'-our whole life of luidying service to learning as it did that of one whose name I heard first from you, Mark Pattison, late Rector of our College. How much not only the study of Roman life and belief, but also Oxford herself owes to you, we your pupils now of many " University " generations know as no others — we are proud to think — can know quite so well. One of that happy company offers you this small tribute of affection and esteem. BERNARD W. HENDERSON. M35949 PREFACE MOST writers on history, whether on ancient or on modern history, are of necessity didactic. The more exhaustive their treatment of a subject is, the more they by their very excellence tend to discourage further enquiry into it. There seems not much help for this state of things. The aim of this little book is different. As a tutor in Roman History, I have at times been accused by worried pupils of delighting over much in the " heuristic method." This simply means that I like asking them questions and dislike impart- ing information in tabloid shape. This is really the main object of this book also — to ask questions, to suggest to any student who may read it subjects for his own consideration and research. It has certainly not been my primary object to tell once more the often-repeated tale of Rome's history. To be in charge of a working-party in a trench has some advantages as well as responsibilities. To direct, to encourage, at times to take a hand — this is similarly my desire in this book. Above all, it is meant to provoke enquiry, if not dissent, by the workers (a proceeding viewed with less favour in a trench). I hope that its main feature may turn out to be as it were a menu to the banquet. If taken as the banquet itself it will be Barmecide fare. 9 10 PREFACE The common praise which greets man)" a worthy book is that it leaves nothing else to be said upon the subject. From our Oxford point of view this is no praise at all. Neither is it, in history, ever true. Probably the Manual of Military Law comes nearest to this curious ideal. Not even Beethoven has exhausted the possibilities of emotion in music, nor Mozart those of melody. Not even does a Gibbon or a Mommsen close the road of research in Roman History to those who would follow it further up into the hills. History in its ancient meaning is enquiry, and enquiry it remains. And the very spirit of Oxford is the spirit of enquiry. This book is meant to be a call to students younger than its writer to adventure boldly upon a noble study. It is this spirit of adventure which alone can now remake our England, as it made her three and a half centuries ago. Surely the adventure is to be pursued in the domain of thought as well as in action and the exploration of life. In all University men, and not least in the members of what by tradition is the '' West Country " College in Oxford, this boldness should be instinctive. In this book I try to guide the adventurous along one chosen road. There are very many other roads. I suspect that all are tending towards the same far-distant goal. At least " Sursum corda." We are not to be scared. Exeter Colleqe, Oxford, June, 1919. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE Preface ....... 9 I. Introduction: The Uniqueness of Rome . 13 II. The Conquest and the Organisation of Italy ....... 27 III. Roman Constitutional History : The First Five Centuries . . . . .61 IV. The "Three Periods" of Roman History 63 V. Features and Problems of the " Polybian " Period, 265-133 b.c 72 VI. Problems of the "Revolution" Period, 133-31 b.c 79 VII. Features of the History of the Early PrINCIPATE, 31 B.C.-A.D. 117 . . .97 VIII. Conclusion . . . . . .117 IX. The Authorities : Their Value and their Use . . . . . . .121 Appendices — A. On Reading for Greats . . . .135 B. Select Bibliography . . , , . 146 Index . .,.,... 157 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY ^' « * « • CHAPTER I ' . - •■ * INTRODUCTION : THE UNIQUENESS OF ROME THE study of Roman History is that of a process first, and, secondly, that of a method. The process is the course of events by which a city on the western side of Italy came in the course of centuries to acquire an Empire which included all Western and Southern Europe, the North African coast, the Valley of the Nile as far south as Assuan, the shores of the Black Sea, and a great part of Central Europe and of hither Asia. The method is that by which the citizens and the rulers of this city maintained their government over races which, though at first alien, were presently in large measure incorporated into the city's franchise ; by which these men substituted a civilisation of their own in place of the Oriental or barbarian customs which they destroyed. This civilisation was itself from early days the product of a blend of peoples. It was not purely indigenous. Great part of it was borrowed from a neighbouring folk, the Greeks, whom these men had subdued, but not destroyed. It is thus often found convenient to divide Roman History into two main periods, that of the 18 14 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY Acquisition, and that of the Maintenance, of the Empire. The death of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. marks a rough boundary between the two. Yet this is but a rough-hewn division. Great parts of the Roman Empire were acquired after that date. And the problem of the maintenance of their conquests bad faced Roman Republican statesmen for long years before it. In reality (as was seen ri century earlier by a sage Greek historian who had set himself to tell the whole story of Rome's advance to universal dominion)^ it is impossible to dissever methods of conquest from arts of government. The dynamic and the static were two aspects of the same political and military genius which have made the his- tory of Rome the most alluring chapter in the story of Man before the days of the discovery of the New World and of the glory of the conquest of the sea. At the very outset of the study of this subject, it is important to realise a distinctiveness in the underlying conception of Roman as contrasted with all previous history. The main lesson taught by that distinctiveness is of abiding value for all the ages. It has been but emphasised by the story of modern Europe and of the United States of America. " Empires " have been acquired both by races, such as the Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, British, and by ''City States," ^ such as Athens, Sparta, 1 Polybius. » A " City State " may be defined as a State whose Central and Local Governments are in the main identical : in which small distinction, if any, can be drawn between municipal and State institutions : in which sovereignty, whether it resides with the Few or the Many, tends to be exercised directly and is not de- legated to Representatives. Examples of such a State are not confined to " Ancient History." INTRODUCTION 15 and Rome.^ Of these Empires some have arisen only to decay and pass away quickly. Others have challenged all the vicissitudes of time, and have endured for many centuries. The very foundation of this permanence is the power of inclusiveness, of reconciliation, of sympathy. Of the possession of this power the Roman State gives the first real example in the history of mankind. This is the uniqueness of Rome. That this should be in essence the distinctive mark of a people, hard, warlike, greedy, brutal, and militarist if ever folk was militarist, seems a grim paradox, almost a jest of bitter taste indulged in by a cynically humorous Providence. But the fact remains true. 2 The truth of it is established by a cursory survey of the course of Ancient History. The Oriental Monarchies of the Ancient World, Assyria, Babylonia, Media, Persia, Egypt, were despotisms with little power of any but material development. Any unity won by them was based on force. Our modern belief, now strengthened by the events of the last few years, is that Individualism (i.e. the right to Independence of Thought) and Freedom (i.e. the right to self-government) are essential not only to progress but to political life itself. But these Oriental Monarchies had no room for either Individualism or Freedom. They ^ Empires based on Religion, such as Islam, form a category apart and cannot be considered here. Their permanence depends on the vigour of their propaganda and the vitality of their creed. But here also comprehensiveness is the keynote of success. ^ The " practical " character of the Roman mind was never more clearly displayed than by the truth of this paradox. I call attention to this again later. 16 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY wrought great structural works. They bestowed happiness of a sort upon many myriads of men. They dealt death or bondage to many myriads more. To political life, to political thought, they contribute little save lessons of negation. The interest of their history is small save to those who would morbidly dissect a body politic full of stagna- tion, corruption, and decay, or to that honourable enthusiast, the " mere antiquarian." The Greek City State exhibited both Individualism and Freedom in a great variety of forms and with vivid energy. Hence in Greek history two opposing tendencies developed side by side, the one of Unity, the other of Disunion. His individualism made the Greek realise his contrast with the non-Hellene, the alien, the /3dpl3apo9. He produced in con- sequence a lively theory of " Pan-Hellenism." But in actual life this Greek unity was hardly more than a voluntary association of independent political units dictated by a merely temporary identity of interests. It was the pressure from outside threaten- ing his Freedom which made any such association possible, and only for so long as the pressure lasted. That the facts fell so far short of the theories of Greek historian, philosopher, and poet was due to the second tendency to Disunion or Separation, which is so marked a feature of all Greek history. The feeling of the worth of the individual himseK, and of the responsibility of the individual to himself and to his fellows, is perhaps the chief debt which modern civilisation owes to the Hellene. In due course the Christian religion came to reinforce this sense of Individuality and to give to it a religious INTRODUCTION 17 sanction. But earlier in its political development it proved little short of disastrous to that very Freedom wherein it sought to find its most notable expression. Voluntarily to abandon any function of man as a free political agent appeared unworthy of a man. Autonomy, even of the smallest unit, seemed worth more than life itself. The peril threatened by Persian ambition welded together one-half of the Greek world (and only one- haK) to join forces against the foe. When the invader was driven in hideous rout back to Asia, rival ambitions divided the conquerors. Athens' " Empire " was built upon a goodwill which vanished in a decade. Men were very clear-sighted in those days. If there was no goodwill to be won or created by conciliation, if the subjects' passion for autonomy defied any attempt to modify it, why base an Empire on anything but the Will to Power ? Athens' Empire, despite magniloquence, was so based, and it lasted barely half a century. Sparta in- herited her task. Owing to her usual stupidity she incurred a speedier failure. Then city challenged city in hatred and envy. Memories of bitter wrong and of violence were always being refreshed. Greek disunion seemed triumphant, and the barbarian was once more knocking at the gates. So reckless had Greek individualism become of the higher synthesis. In its atmosphere science, literature, philosophy, gave the richest of fruit to man. Pure Art's birth was still the Republic's. Yet a price was paid for this great Greek creed of the reasonable- ness of man's enquiry into all the things of man, of -nature, and of God. This price was the political B 18 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY impotence of the Greek City State. Freedom it- self bade fair to be sacrificed to the very love of Freedom. Then in this crisis there came to the rescue the Macedonian. To him, truer Hellene than the degenerate Hellene himself, was due the first manifestation in the Greek world of an actual visible Unity of political institutions. Only an Alexander could cast down the walls of separation between Greek city and Greek city. His Empire planted a victorious Hellenism on the shores of Oxus and of Indus. True, the political independence of the Greek City State was now dead. But the Greek city under Macedonian sway exhibited a sturdy life of its own. And only Macedonian com- pulsion could Hellenise the East. Surely here was a lasting Empire, based on community of government, of interest, of sympathy, and of language ? It was a short-lived dream. On the homeland Alexander bestowed peace : on the ruder tribes of the East the elements of culture. There was no guarantee of permanence in these gifts. On the death of the monarch his Empire split into frag- ments. No slow development of natural processes had produced it ; no human insight or adaptiveness ensured it. Created by the sword, by the sword it was rent asunder. Alexander had hoped to fuse together Greek and Oriental by encouraging inter- marriage. It was a practical device worthy of Aristotle's pupil. But the scheme came to sorry shipwreck on the rock of Greek sentiment. His own folk resented the degradation. Panhellenism INTRODUCTION 19 was a wide fair garden, but its very name implied that the barbarian was kept outside its enclosing wall. Thus Alexander left to the Western world but the memory of a transient " Universal Empire." Already by the end of the third century B.C. this Empire had become a welter of states, a mere (Tuyxy(ri9 TToXireico}/. And if the unit of political life was now larger than the City State, this was due to the simple fact that Providence tended to side with the larger number of battalions. One ever-famous city still recalls the hero's name. Elsewhere among the jostling peoples of the East whom he subdued, a few rare coins or rarer legends alone preserve the memory of the greatest Greek " Emperor " in the record of history. To what end served the toil and the fading triumph ? In the year 338 B.C. a single battle, that of Chaeronea, ended the tale of Athens' independence. With it, the glamour and the fascination of the Greek City State pass away. Through the en- wrapping mist of the next two centuries are dimly seen shapeless figures of struggling inglorious Federations, of vain statesmen or heroic princes hopelessly pursuing after welfare, of sullen insurgent mobs clamouring for the sole rule of the proletariate. Out of this confusion Order sprang. But this Order was sternly imposed by a Western conqueror. Left to their own devices, the Greeks could no more have fashioned it than can a woodland reverting to the wild yield corn for the life of man.^ 1 The history of the Greek world in the third and second centuries b.c. provides a study of extraordinary fascination, which is due in part to Polybiua and Plutarch among ancient 20 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY It was in this same year, 338 B.C., that two victories gained by Rome in distant Italy over her sister cities of the Latin League mark the most obvious beginnings of an Empire which should be wider than any which Alexander knew, and yet persist. Progress towards it was slow and toilsome. Often it was increased by the operation of the most selfish of motives and wrested to the most unworthy of ends. Often its growth was unrealised by the Romans themselves, or, when realised, was un- welcome to them. Yet the political Unity which Rome created achieved at last the success denied to all earlier Empires. It endured, for many hundreds of years in fact — in consequences, to this our own day. It is in this fact of permanence that the Roman Empire differs obviously from all its predecessors. Nor was this permanence mainly due to the grim fighting qualities of the race. The Empire was indeed won by the sword. The dead lay strewn over many a Roman battlefield from Britain, Gaul, and Germany in the West to Armenia and Mesopo- tamia in the East. But the Empire was kept and consolidated by a genius for inclusiveness, for assimilation, which was the one priceless gift be- stowed upon Rome by Fortune, a gift which the capricious goddess denied to her spoilt favourite child, the Greek. To this breadth of conception authors, to Freeman and Mahaffy among modern. Alike the investigator into modern Federal Institutions, and he who traces the tendency of democracies to sell their soul to Bolshevism, find here rich precedent and material for thought. The Oxford student of Roman History may so select his " period " or special subject as to include this. See below, pp. 63-71. INTRODUCTION 21 and generosity of idea were indeed added other qualities. Roman genius for war and political organisation, Roman " aptness at imitation,"^ Roman moral simplicity and straightness (qualities which we dare not underrate), all helped to ensure to this people a lasting supremacy. ^ But the " aptness to include " was Rome's talisman to open to her the gates of Empire. Her foes fight her on many a stricken field. A generation passes, and the sons of the conquered are fighting in the armies of the conqueror. There remained one people which not even Rome could assimilate or absorb. But that elusive and dis- turbing Greek superiority of thought and intellect she had the grace to acknowledge, and, however clumsily, to imitate, to admire, and to promote. The civilising work of Hellenism was carried on vigorously under the aegis of the Roman Government. It was fostered zealously by a long succession of enlightened Roman statesmen, in glad captivity to their captives. St. Paul's career and writings bear conclusive witness to the wide diffusion of Hellenism, reaching from Italy 3 to Galatia in the first century a.d. Rome was true heir to the inspiration of Alexander. Yet here lay a danger which presently became visible. East and West, sundered by differences of language and of culture, threatened to part company. Signs of such disruption became obvious 1 A quality expressly assigned the Roman by Polj'^bius. 2 I am well aware that a favourite charge brought by famous writers against Roman diplomacy is that of " slimness," and is on some notorious occasions justified. Butitmay be exaggerated, and I doubt if this ever served Rome well in the long rmi. ^ And especially in Southern France. But Christianity here -was somewhat later in origin. 22 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY when the whole fabric of State was shaken by the revolutionary passions of the first century b.c. It needed the insight of the greatest Roman of all time to avert this disaster, to restore the imperilled unity. The Emperor Augustus fashioned two strong weapons. An all-controlling Central Government checked sternly all incipient nationalist disloyalty. But this by itself was not enough. There was also need of some common bond of union to link every part of the far-flung Empire together in a community of sentiment as well as in one of control or of interest. The second instrument of Augustus' government which supplied this want was Csesar -Worship. It was this which gave to loyalty and to patriotism that strongest of all sanctions, the sanction of religion. From that Prince's day the unity of the Roman Empire was based not only on strong government, not only on good government, not only on the content of the governed, but finally on a patriotism which drew its inspiration from religion itseK. Hence ensued a curious result. At the verv time when the worship of " Roma et Augustus " was being established under Government auspices in every centre of provincial life,^ when the old " religion of Numa " was finding its consummation in a State creed politically devised and diplomatically maintained, there befell an event which changed the history of mankind for ever. The birth of Christ in a turbulent, despised, and petty corner of the * The evidence for its universality is very nearly conclusive. Cf. especially the valuable article "Concilia" in Ruggiero's Dizionario Epigrafico. INTRODUCTION 23 Roman world was itself the consummation of that Jewish religious experience which had for so many centuries been but a side-stream of tendency, but which now for the first time joined the main river of world history. But when the new religion, Christianity, challenged Caesar-Worship for its pride of place, the bitterest of struggles ensued. By their own essential natures, neither rival could understand the other. ^ At last the Emperor Constantino owned defeat, and, by establishing Christianity as the State religion, thereby disarmed it. In very truth one leading conception of the old City State won hereby a most notable victory. *' The State owes the gods a public worship." This conception prevails throughout human history from Homer's day to our own. Christianity, in its earnest individualism, had been disposed to deny the truth of this, and it had been strengthened in its defiance by the opposition which it encountered. Let a man save his own soul, and what matters the rest 'i But when Constantino enthroned Christian- ity amid the ruins of all its rivals, he thereby vindicated the old thesis that the State as such had a duty towards religion. Thus the religious bond of union seemed maintained in fact, if changed in form, throughout the Roman world. The Empire still held together. Yet it was the Emperor Constantino himself who, by founding his new city upon the site of Byzantium in A.D. 330, hastened the severance of Roman from Greek and undid a work of union which had lasted * I have dwelt on and explained this at greater length in my Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero, pp. 3-13-357 and notes. 24 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY for five hundred years. For Hellenism had now found a new centre and rallying -point. And Christianity at once proved to be a weaker cement than Csesar -Worship had been. Its primary claim had always been on the individual ; and though this was always a claim on the individual in Society rather than in isolation/ yet this Society was the complete Society of mankind rather than any particular political Society, however wide in extension. The Christian could hardly be less a citizen of the world than the Imperial Stoic had been. What frontiers could the Kingdom of God admit ? In A.D. 395 Honorius and Arcadius divided their world between them. The Roman Empire was finally cleft in twain. The Western, " Roman," Empire lasted barely a century more, and then fell before the barbarian invaders from the North. But so long and so stoutly had the Romans held out against their repeated attacks that the con- querors came prepared to admire, to imitate, and to learn those elements of humanity, of law, of civilisa- tion, of religion of which Goth, Vandal, Teuton, in their savage homes knew but little. The Eastern, " Byzantine," Empire lasted yet a thousand years * The fjLopuTTjs, according to the most practical of all philosophers (before the days of the English Utilitarians), is not quite hiiman. He tends, in fact, to be ^ drjplov r) 6e6s. The hermits of the Nubian desert hardly give the lie to this alterna- tive. St. Paul, as well as an English schoolboy, might have called their caricature of Christianity a beastly life. To find its justifi- cation in the circumstances of the time (an apologia for the selfish- ness of the creed) is no small tribute to Roman Order, the ruin of which produced, inter alia, such despairing results. Yet the very hermits tended to rail on the world in communities, and thus pay unconscious homage to the sagacity of the Greek philosopher. INTRODUCTION 26 until Constantinople fell in a.d. 1453. Stereotyped and fossilised though its institutions soon became, the greatest example in history up to our own day of the curse of bureaucracy, it yet maintained some kind of shadowy claim to the supremacy of an undivided Roman Empire, and it was always the one bulwark of European civilisation against attacks from the East and South. For many centuries Byzantium preserved the name and did the work of Rome.^ For many centuries " Rome " and " Roman " were names to inspire the dread or excite the cupidity of the warriors enlisted under Islam's banners. But in the West the Byzantine claim to represent Rome was hotly denied, alike by Gothic and Lombard chieftains and by Bishops of Rome. And here, if the unity of the Roman Empire existed no longer in fact, yet in idea it persisted still. Invigorated by a rude barbarian ingrafting, Rome now became missioner of civilisation to the northern peoples, substituting for their tribal and nomadic instincts her old historic conceptions of unity, order, and stability. Finally, Rome won acceptance for the idea of Universality in government, religion, and law, from races capable as the old Romans themselves had been of realising it and of acting faithfully upon it. Until in due course this one also of " Earth's great golden dreams went past into the dark." Long before this, the study of Roman History as ^ " The chief work of Rome in the world was the defence of Mediterranean civilisation against external enemies." (W. ^ Warde Fowler, Rome, p. 229.) • 26 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY such is ended. Its uniqueness consists of this con- ception of political unity, rendered effective through twelve hundred years of life by the comprehensive- ness which shared privilege, by the generosity which bestowed franchise freely. To indicate the chief stages of this long history and the particular problems which in the various " periods " called for decision by Rome's rulers ; to examine, however briefly, the character of some of the ancient records concerning it, on which our knowledge of it must be founded ; and to suggest, at least by constant implication, that method of study which Oxford requires of those among her students who would learn for themselves something of this most vital chapter in the history of mankind — these are now my tasks. To suggest rather than dogmatically to assert should be my main endeavour. For the study of Roman History can only be profitable if it is, in Mark Pattison's words, an " understanding study." CHAPTER II THE CONQUEST AND THE ORGANISATION OF ITALY SOME jSfteen miles from the sea the River Tiber describes in its hurrying course a double bend in the shape of the letter S. In the upper part of this it encloses a level parade ground. This from the earliest days of the city which sprang up upon the river's eastern bank was consecrated to the service of the God of War and known as the Campus Martius. Below this the Tiber encircles the base of two of the little cluster of low hills over which the city spread. These two hills were called the Palatine and the Esquiline. On the river's western bank there rises a loftier hill, the Janiculum, scene of Garibaldi's heroic defence of Republican Rome against the assaulting French in 1849. To one standing beside the great Italian's statue on the crest of the Janiculum the view ranges far over the tumbled masses of houses, churches, and palaces of modern Rome to the wide levels of the encompassing plain. Over these levels there creep lines of ruined aqueducts which guide the eye to the encircling mountains beyond. Only seawards over the flat plain there is nothing to arrest the imagination. ' The nearest mountain -group lies to the south- 27 28 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY east. These are the Alban Hills, and they rise sharply out of the desolate Campagna, the cham- paign-ground of a pastoral community, to attain in Monte Cavo a height of over 3000 feet. This shapely mountain climbs steeply from the forest- encircled lakes of Alba and of Nemi, and broods over these ancient homes of religious awe as some Scafell over its bleaker lonelier tarns. Small white towns shine brightly on the lower slopes of the Alban Hills, old pleasure resorts in times of peace for the noble families and Popes of Rome, but in sterner days refuges for them from peril or from plague. In these hills' bosom the ancient Latin race had its origin. Here, at Alba Longa, it built for its needs its earliest city, the hearthstone and most sacred sanctuary of the people and their tutelary God, Jupiter of Latium. In the traditions of the Romans it was the boy Ascanius, son of ^Eneas of Troy, who fortified Long Alba with much strength, and there the race of Hector ruled for full three hundred years. And all these years beneath their gaze the turbid river hurried seawards through its morass-encumbered desolate plain where as yet no man dared to dwell. Tradition is at times a sure guide to historic probability, even though the heroic personalities of the saga are the invention of patriotic legend. For long years before man ventured to descend to the richer plains by the river he sought security in hamlets among the hills. Only in the plain could a settlement grow into a city. But only beneath the shelter of the kindly hills could he live in safety '^ with his flocks and herds. In their recesses the little THE CONQUEST OP ITALY 29 communities of Latins formed a rude confederation together to worship their God on the Alban Mount. And when, many years later, the city of the plain usurped the place of the city of the hills as chief of the Latin League, Rome continued to celebrate these rites in the shrine and after the manner consecrated by religion, sentiment, and tradition. Deity is conservative in His likes and clings faithfully to His most ancient seat. The Roman's reverence for tradition and custom (and never existed a people more conservative) had its roots struck down deep into the soil of his fathers, whence the happy race was never torn up nor driven to tempt fortune beyond the estranging sea. But in due course of years the more hungry or adventurous among the hillmen, shepherds in search of better pasturage, youngsters perhaps irked by their elders' ways, others perhaps fugitives and outlaws from justice (Roman sagamen loved this last tale the best) came down from their heights. They settled on those low hills on the river bank which, when fortified with rude walls of earth or stone, still offered them protection, and also promised them an ample water-supply and good grazing-ground hard by.^ And this was the origin of Rome.^ 1 That th9 " seven hills " (in reality more than seven) were some thirty feet higher 2500 years ago than they are to-day is certain. They have weathered away, and the swampy valleys separating them have to some extent had their level raised. The " lapis niger," showing the level of the early Forimi, was recently disinterred far below the level of the modern street at the base of the Capitol. 2 Another theory is that Rome begins as a military outpost for the Latins asfainst the Etruscans from the verv first. This "seems to me less likelv. 30 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY The reconstruction of early history to-day depends less on tradition (albeit for all its colour and its life it still must rely wellnigh exclusively upon this) than on arguments from " Survivals " and ** Finds." That the earliest settlers on the site of Rome were in the main pastoral can be shown by all three kinds of evidence.^ For a time these small pastoral communities remained independent, each on its own hill. There were settlements of Latins from the Alban Hills, of kindred Sabellian and Sabine men from the eastern mountains, possibly of strange Etruscans from beyond the river. But when all were so closely congregated together, amalgamation could not be very long deferred. We need hardly postulate the " work of some legislator under Greek influence "^ for so very obvious a " Sjmoekismus " as this. This was the beginning of Rome's growth. In fact the site was admirable for a city's development, whether as regards defence or advance. On the north and west lay the river. In Italy south of the Apennines all the main natural lines of communication run from north to south. These ^ e.g., by the character of the traditional festivals (Lupercalia: Palilia, etc.) : the use of milk instead of wine in sacred rites ; the reckoning of wealth in terms of cattle ("pecunia" from " pecus ")i the Italian " aes signatum," stamped with the Ox : the Romulus-Remua legend, etc. In like manner perhaps the Merivale stone -circles on Dartmoor, too big for roofing, indicate primitive cattle -pounds. Such books as Warde Fowler's Roman Festivals throw light on the primitive Romans' waj's of life as well as upon their conceptions of religion. The beginnings of Roman history, however, and the critical analysis of Roman legend are the happy hunting-ground of modern Italian rather than of Oxford scholars (e.g. E. Pais). There is some opportunity here for the latter. ^ Mommsen. THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 31 converged to cross the obstacle which the impetuous Tiber threw in their way at one point where the river narrowed and an island in it formed a stepping- stone across it. Opposite this crossing lay Rome. Here there was built a wooden bridge, the Pons Sublicius, and this for sacred reasons remained of wood even when the city had become the Augustan monument of marble. The Janiculum on the western bank was the " bridge-head." So long as a Roman garrison held this hill, Rome was safe from attack from the north. The red flag floating on the hilltop showed that the crest was safely guarded. But let the red flag fall, and no Roman Assembly could meet on the plain of Mars. For the Roman Assembly was always the people-in-arms, and the fall of the flag surely showed that its presence was needed elsewhere. If the garrison were driven from the hiU down to the river, they would cross by the wooden bridge. This then hewn down, Rome was still secure. The most famous of early Roman legends does but enshrine the "standing" military fact. On the east and south of the city, the widespread- ing plain gave timely notice if any enemy approached from the hills. These could only be raiders, and there was time enough to drive cattle and folk within the circuit of some stout wall of defence. Against this wall the robbers' onslaught broke as vainly as ever Scotch marauders' onset surging fruitlessly up against the Peel Towers of the Border. And then the marauders must soon retire back to their mountain fastnesses. Why too should not a few hundreds of horsemen be collected to harry their coming and going? The "State" (a big 32 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY word, presently inevitable) would give them their horses. Not yet were the days of wandering Celtic hordes, of the desperate defence of the citizens* last hope, the Arx Capitolina, Capitol and Citadel of Rome. Safe from destruction, the little city grew. Some folk tended their herds in the plain. Some laboured on the stubborn fields. Some plied in their rude boats up and down stream, bringing down produce to the shelter of the city walls, or reaching the sandy seacoast and trafficking with the kindly Greeks to the south of the river mouth. To the north were Tuscan pirates, a horrid danger. But the passage of the river must be guarded from the sea. Therefore at the mouth of it the people early planted a settlement, Ostia. There was no fear lest this should become a rival city. On that flat, crumbling, and dangerous coast it would enjoy no chance of rivalry. The Roman tribesmen skirmishing along the river bank under their savage chiefs, or floating in war coracles down-stream, could have sacked it any day. But some safe anchorage amid the shifting sands was needed. A daring pirate might harry the coast, but the city fifteen miles up-stream was safe enough with Ostia as watch-dog. And in fact no invader threatened from the sea until in the days of Rome's last agony Genseric landed at Ostia in a.d. 455. Here then was founded the first of the " Roman Colonies," by tradition the only Colony established in the days of the Roman kings.* 1 " Ostia" would be a most attractive subject for a mono- graph. The relics of the once happy little port, daily crumbling away into the devouring river ; the keen interest in its welfare shown by the early Emperors : the Claudian harbour, now a THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 33 It is with the persons of these same seven Roman kings that tradition links the events of the story of Rome's early growth. For Tradition, mother of History, always loves living personalities more than the dead stuff of geographical or economic statistics, or the gossamer web of probabilities and tendencies. The sequence of the Roman kings and their work is of a somewhat artificial make. The tradition, in its literary shape, is late and was fashioned under Greek influence. In its well-known form we cannot trace it back beyond the middle or end of the third century B.C. The result is one of Art rather than of certainty. The first king is the shepherd-founder. The second is the law-giver. The thkd is the warrior, who destroyed Alba and rid his citizens of a danger from their now jealous kinsmen in the hills. The fourth king must push the advance in other directions, and make good the city's defences against the grim horror threatening from the black forests beyond the river. To him therefore were ascribed the fort on the Janiculum, the Pons Sublicius, and the colony of Ostia. Then tradition reveals a fact which may so have displeased the patriotic Latin citizen that he sought to obscure it. For the fifth king is a Tarquin, / i.e. an Etruscan " Tarchon " or Prince. That the weird uncanny warrior folk over the Tiber were reedy mere: Trajan's "Porto" : memories of Virgil and his Emperor : — all invite the wandering scholar, archaeologist and historian both. Then let his monograph grow into one on *' Roman harbours," and let him roam from Ravenna, Rimini, and Ancona to Civita Vecchia and Pisa. But when would he return to Oxford to write ? Ireland may be the land nearest to the Saints in Heaven ; but Italy is nearest to the Englishman's heart. 34 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY restless and pressing south is shown by the cities which they established in Campania, far to the south of Rome. And Rome lay right in their way. Despite red flag, wooden bridge, and all the rest of the defences, it seems certain that the Etruscans captured the Latin city in their stride. Thereafter princes of Etruscan blood ruled it, to its own great advantage, until at last the native element rose in rebellion against their alien overlords, overthrew the foreign dynasty, and declared once and for all that Rome had had enough of kings. And from that day forth to the end of the Roman Empire Rome en- dured no " Rex," save only as a title given to a priest, in itself reminiscent of early monarchical duties. None the less, in their day the Etruscan kings served Rome well. The fifth king drained the city, honoured the Gods, and broadened the basis of privilege. The sixth king, Servius Tullius (whose name deserves always to be held in remembrance), built, so tradition said, a new great ring wall of defence, now embracing the Aventine and Capito- line hills, and instituted a notable organisation of Rome's now powerful army. Of the wall relics are to this day still shown. The new army numbered, it was reckoned, over 18,000 men. This was a larger force than the Athenians, at the height of their strength, managed to put into the field against their Peloponnesian enemies. Under the Tar quins Rome's power was pushed out in all directions, to Veil over the river, to Gabii by the Sabine Mountains, to Ardea under the Volscian heights. The days of the shepherd settlements on the seven hills are now far remote. Rome is a child no longer. THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 35 Then came the expulsion of the kings, the " Re- gifugmm." And just as at Athens (Herodotus' opinion notwithstanding), at Corinth, at Syracuse, and at many another Greek town the overthrow of a reigning " tyrant " dynasty cost the city the loss of much of its pov/er and prestige (nor was such loss always made good), so it befell at Rome. On the fall of the Tarquins the city soon found that her influence stopped at the very Servian wall itself. But recovery was rapid. The tide of Roman advance had receded only to sweep forward with more resistless flood, as soon as the first confusions and distresses were ended. To explain the causes of that advance in Italy, to show reasons for the lines which it followed, are the tasks for the student of the history of Rome between the traditional date of the establishment of the Republic in 509 B.C. and the beginning of the Punic Wars in 265 B.C. Both military and moral reasons may be adduced to justify the Roman conquest of Italy. The vigour of the Roman's training, the firmness of his discipline, his endurance, his passionate determina- tion never to own defeat, his native hardihood, the stern fervour of his patriotism, his quiet faith in his protecting Gods, his unblemished courage, simplicity of life, hardy ambition — a sermon for modern daj^s could be preached from any of these texts. Only on the Spartans among ail other peoples of antiquity did Fortune or Nature seem to bestow a similar combination of gifts. Even the Spartan lacked somewhat of the Romanes ** pietas " and - gravitas," his sense of duty and responsibility. 36 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY For these were largely fruit of those endearing ties of family life which the Spartan sacrificed to the apparent claims of stern military necessity when he made the barracks his boys' home, the parade ground their recreation, the sergeant, not the father, their instructor. To both peoples doubtless the State became their real religion. Both therefore offered their children's individuality as a full and perfect oblation to their insistent God. But few Romans seem to exhibit quite that elavishness of soul which marks a Spartan or a Prussian. And if both Roman and Spartan lacked quickness of mind, versatility and suppleness of apprehension, the former had two further advantages over the latter. By reasons of his generous use of conquest, the Roman had the numbers which made good repeated checks and defeats and always reinvigorated his will to conquer. This generosity was perhaps not for a moment instinctive in the race. But the Roman, set in the midst of a circle of sturdy foes, had the surpassing wit to see that for his very safety's sake he must reinforce his armies by new citizens admitted from his foemen's ranks. Then when the need for this seemed past, he tried to deny his franchise to the conquered, and at once incurred a peril which came near to destroying him. But in defeat he learnt his old lesson anew, and the wisdom of his statesmen saved him. Rome's second advantage was her position in Italy. The geography of Italy as marking out the lines and directing the fortunes of the Roman bid for mastery is a subject worthy of close attention. THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 37 Here only the barest outline of research can be suggested. The student who would trace the history of the earlier wars waged by Republican Rome must, map in hand, wander through the highlands of Central Italy on foot, and find therein a joy which few pleasures of activity can surpass. Then with his material self -won he may return to studies in a library. Here is an outline of the whole long story. The tale of the Romans' advance east and south of their city is that of a lowland warrior folk pene- trating up into the hostile girdle of mountains. The shapes and beauty of these hill masses fascinate the wanderer to-day. But their natural difficulties perplexed the commanders of many a Roman army. And behind these mountains lay the wild moorlands of Samnium, the ravines and recesses of the Abruzzi. Valleys, however, penetrate the mountain barrier up from the plain of Latium ; practicable passes lead to the upper waters of rivers which flow east- wards to the Adriatic sea, or south and south- east to enrich the fertile Campanian plain. Not only did such valleys invite advance by the Romans, but they separated hostile tribe from tribe. Such separation spelt divided counsels, conflicting in- terests, mutual jealousy. Just as in the Highlands of Scotland two hundred years ago, the generals and statesmen of the lowland Power learnt to take quick advantage of such local animosities. Every Roman statesman was himseK an Army officer. " Divide et impera " was a very early maxim of Roman statecraft ; for it was made possible by the -^very nature of the country. Disasters among the 38 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY hills were bound to befall the lowland armies. But the mountaineer can never push his advantage home. Only on one terrible occasion did Civil War in the city tempt the Samnite hillmen to adventure up to the gates of Rome. Then Sulla at the CoUine Gate saved her very existence for the world. ^ But for the most part the victorious Highlander halts upon his mountain ridge, fatally embarrassed by the thought of descending to the plain with its open manoeuvres and cavalry on- slaughts. Then"^ due course up again from the lowland comes flooding the attack through the ever- open channels of access. It overtops the defiant hills and submerges their inhabitants. Thus after many weary years of warfare, Sabines, Samnites, Marsi, iEqui, Volsci, all submitted to Roman might, and were presently, many of them, incorporated on terms into the very Roman State itself. Famous alliances, as with the Hernici and with their own kinsmen the Latins, gave invaluable aid to the Romans. When at last the Latins them- selves tried one last fall with the all-conquering city, the Romans were strong enough to risk every- thing against their erstwhile allies. These offered to Rome a choice of Federation on equal terms or War. Rome made her choice and won the day. '' Her ' No I ' to the Latins was one of the turning- points in the history of Italy and of the world."- 1 Cf. Freeman's Essay on Sulla {Historical Essays, Vol. I) ; a brilliant study. But whom does not the Roman Claverhouse (as Arnold of Rugby called him) inspire ? 5 Greenidge, Roman Public Life, p. 298 i a book whose re- markable merit is sorely hampered by closeness of print and dullness of style. THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 39 Close on the heels of Rome's victory over her kins- men there followed sixty years' relentless struggle with the Samnites. By the early years of the third centm-y B.C. the lowland City had subdued the eastern mountaineers, and the way lay open for her to the rich spoils of the southern lands. Long before this a danger more grim had threatened from the north. From the heights beyond the Janiculum the Roman, as he looked northwards to the black ridge of the Ciminian Forest, knew what peril lay lurking in and behind the woods. For all his self-confidence, the forest filled him with some such dread as that which haunted day and night the early Canadian settler in his regard of the sombre woods which brooded over the waters of the St. Lawrence or parried his adventurous thrust into the wild from little daring Montreal. The parallel must not be pushed too far. For the Etruscans were no roving predatory savages, but a powerful long-established League of hill-set fortress cities. Yet no people with whom they came into contact but regarded them with horror and dismay. The adventurous Greek sea- rover dared not push his way into the haunts of the Tuscan corsairs. The Greek colonist ventured no farther north than Cumse on the Bay of Naples. One powerful Syracusan monarah dealt the Etruscan navy so heavy a blow early ^ in the fifth century B.C. that he rid Sicilian waters for ever of the pest. But still the dark blue Tyrrhenian Sea hid its mysterious dangers and was no safe voyaging for any stranger. And on land the menacing clouds hung heavy in the north. To the Romans the 40 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY Etruscans stayed for long years an enigma and a dread. At this very day this people with their undecipherable tongue, their demon ghosts and monsters, their grotesque art, an abortion and caricature of Attic models, their gloomy devil- haunted rites, remain the puzzle-people of antiquity. Their very land expressed the weirdness of their genius, its cold and grey-blue soil seamed with dead watercourse and lonely valley, hewn deep with rock-set tombs. For Etruria's story we forget smiling Tuscany of the Middle Ages, and many- jewelled Florence on Arno-side. Jagged ruins of Faesulae's walls, Sutrium's squalid beggary, Bolsena tragedy-encompassed, some lonely monastery in the desolate hills fit place for contest with Satanic power, the wilderness which climbs up to Amiata's cold and lofty peak, the very Tuscan poet himself who bore the mark of Hell graven for ever on his forehead — these are Etruria. Let the Oxford student who would rewrite the story of Rome's warring with her people first penetrate the remote- ness of her hills. 1 It was not till the year 310 B.C. that a Roman army first crossed the Ciminian Ridge. Then the main struggle began. Victory was won by hard fighting, but ensured by other devices, the planting out of fortress colonies, the building of roads, and, chiefly, by the incorporation of conquered com- ^ Dennis' great work on Eturia is not only a masterpiece : it remains an invitation to some student of Roman History to follow in the Master's steps. And Minoan is not the only lan- guage which still defies modern learning. Incidents in the long struggle between Siena and Florence suggest that the nature of the people had not been greatly changed by the veneer of Christ- ianity spread over it. THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 41 munities into the Roman franchise. When once the Etruscans had submitted, their neighbours, the Umbrian hill-folk, gave little trouble. Through the heart of their land the Romans drove their Great North Road, the Via Flaminia. This pene- trated the main Apennine chain by the " Furlo Pass," reached the Adriatic at Fanum Fortunse, and followed the coastline north to the small harbour and frontier fortress of Ariminum. This, the main line of communications for Rome's armies with North Italy, was built in 220 b.c.^ Satisfied with their conquests of Etruria and Umbria, the Romans had very good reason to wish to stay their advance on the hither side of the rampart of the Apennines. These mountains reach round in a giant curve, separating Northern Etruria and the valley of the Arno from the broad plain which lies between the Apennines and Alps. Through this plain the Po flows eastwards for 200 miles to enter the Adriatic by a maze of channels and lagoons. It became a home of red cities, many of Roman colonial foundation, a land of such extra- ordinary fertility (as it is to this day) that a traveller in the second century B.C. could declare that he could live there comfortably en pension for a farthing a day. (This is no longer the case.) ^ But when the Romans ^ The walk from Fano to Orvieto and Rome along the course of the Ancient road is an attractive one. Its chief difficiilty is the avoidance of tempting by-ways. * " Surely such is the fertility of this cotmtry that I think no region or province under the sun may compare with it. ... It is wholly plaine, and beautified with such abundance of goodly rivers, pleasant meadows, fruitful vineyards, fat pastures, delect- able gardens, orchards, woods and what not, that the first view thereof did even refocillate my spirits and tickle my senses with "Inward joy. ... It seemeth to me to be the very Elysian fields, 42 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY first came into touch with the district, it was no part of Italy at all in their eyes. In the fifth century B.C. horde after horde of Celtic immigrants had come swarming down into it from over the Alps, the precursors of a long fatal series of northern invaders of Italy. These " Gauls " drove the Etruscan settlers whom they found in the land back over the Apennines, and partitioned the conquered land among their tribes. North of the Po were the Insubres, Cenomanni, and Veneti ; south of it the Boii and Lingones, the latter spreading down the Adriatic coast as far as Ariminum. Thus to the Romans this whole land was " Gaul this side of the Alps," Gallia Cisalpina, the military " Key of Italy " in later years. From time to time the Gauls cast forth fresh swarms to try their fortunes to the south, and always at the news the alarm at Rome was intense. There was good reason for such alarm. One such swarm actually in 390 B.C. annihilated the Roman defend- ing army on the little Allia river and sacked the city itself. Only the capital remained in Roman hands. Another such horde marched down the western road and was with difficulty crushed at Telamon some six years before Hannibal crossed the Alps. The Gallic tribes in Italy welcomed both Hannibal and his brother Hasdrubal with en- thusiasm, and, on the whole, clave stoutly to the Carthaginian invader. A century passed by, and so much decanted and celebrated by the verses of poets, or the Tempo or Paradise of the world . . . insomuch that I said to^ myself that this country was fitter to be an habitation for the immortall Gods than for mortall men." (Tiips. Coryat'«5^ Crudities : a description of Lombardy in 1608.> THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 43 then again a mixed swarm of peoples from beyond the Alps, Cimbri and Teutones, came as a locust flight down on north Italy. This time Marius, in bitter fighting, saved Rome. This " northern danger " was persistent, until the Romans' punitive and precautionary measm^es had at last the mastery. But it was reserved for the destroyer of the Roman Republic himself, Julius Caesar, first to adventure to attack the Gauls in their more distant homes and to drive the " Germans " back beyond the Rhine. Long ere this the Celtic folk in the valley of the Po had been so merged in the Roman civilisation that some of Rome's noblest poets and writers hail from this homeland and, intensely Italian in senti- ment though they were, may even have had an infusion of Celtic blood in their veins. ^ Although the actual Roman franchise was not extended to the Po until 89 B.C. or to the Alps for forty years more, when Italy became first veritably one land (a unity lost again on the break up of the Roman Empire, and regained only on September 20, 1870, never again to be surrendered to the northern barbarian), yet practically by the year 200 B.C. Rome was free to deal with the north of Italy as she pleased. By this year also her grip had fastened remorse- lessly on the luxurious and effeminate Greek cities of Campania and the south. In vain these had called a champion to theu' aid from Epirus overseas. In vain they had rallied to the more doughty Car- thaginian warrior. Rome bided her time, and took her full revenge. Far removed again beyond the ^ e.g. Virgil from Mantua, Livy from Padua, Catullus from "Verona. 44 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY central moorland wastes, which mere mule tracks crossed, lay the Apulian and Calabrian plains. To enter them was to appropriate. " Introiese victoria fuit." Thus the Romans became by conquest masters of the fair land of Italy. By the middle of the third century B.C. her influence reached to the Apennines ; a century later her military frontier touches the Alps, and her dominions are spread far beyond the seas. Whence arose new dangers and new problems. ^ Conquest is the work of the soldier, the use of conquest that of the statesman. This use of con- quest, according to that most sane historian Polybius, is the truer test of a nation. It were little advantage to Rome to gain victory after victory, to sack city after city, to crush tribe after tribe, if thereby she did but acquire rule over an ever-growing number of subjects oppressed and sullenly malcontent. But the Roman's genius for organisation and govern- ment was greater even than his aptitude for war. Else had the history of Europe been far other than it has been. The details of this organisation, first of Italy and then abroad, and the methods of Roman government may be narrated so prosaically, may be so overwhelmed by the multitude of minutiae, may be so tangled up in bitter controversy concern- ing special points, as to induce weariness or even * Here I can only call attention to a subsidiary but valuable subject for study, viz. the question of the causes which deter- mined the fact {pace Mahan and the history of the Punic Wars) that Rome never became a great naval Power, nor had the Roman any taste for tha conquest of tl%e seas. That Sea Power did play at times a part in the determination of various Roman wars is certain — a fact which does but emphasise the general Roman indifference. This subject may be commended to the student. THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 45 disgust in the student and thrust the study down into disfavour and neglect. Yet this history of methods and principles of government, though it may not vie in interest with biographies of statesmen or deeds of warriors, claims both by its intrinsic value and by its greater difficulty both appreciation and reflection. Of such study, the Organisation of Italy by Rome forms an indispensable chapter. Owing, however, to the scanty, baffling, and erratic nature of the evidence this happens to be one of the most intricate subjects of study in the whole of Roman history. Of all the gifts in Pan- dora's box, that of crass unintelligibility seems to have been specially reserved for the ancient lexico- grapher, from whom come tantalising fragments of information concerning it. Conclusions are presented confidently enough. But if some stout- hearted enquirer delve at any point down to the foundations he will find these slight and resting on shifting sand. So much the more reason is there for digging. A parti-coloured map of Italy in the days before the Social War, about 100 B.C., in which each community is given a colour appropriate to its particular status in relation to Rome, reveals a chequer-board suggestive of Harlequin's costume.^ On the one hand stand the " Latins," the '* Nomen Latinum." These consist partly of the ancient towns of " Latin rights," partly of the newer Latin colonial foundations, thirty-five in number. But the bulk of these colonies have nothing Latin about ^ Such an ingenioua map is given by Belooh in his indispens- -able book Der Italische Bund. 46 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY them save the status. Roman citizens composed them, who surrendered their franchise to gain thereby intelligible advantages of greater autonomy in their local government. Neither had the term " Jus Latinum " itself alv/ays the same meaning. Old " Latin rights were more extensive than New " (whatever the origin of the latter — a disputed question). Like the word " politics " in Mr. Pickwick's famous words, the " Nomen Latinum " " comprises in itself a difficult study of no inconsiderable magnitude." Its history has to be traced from the Foedus Cassianum of 493 B.C. down to the survival of "Latinitas " in the Digest of Justin- ian. It suggests a good thesis for a monograph. Teohnically no " Latin " was a Roman citizen : all Latins were " peregrini." But the main bulk of these last were the " Italian allies," Socii Italici. Among these also we meet with a bewildering multiplicity of varieties, a baffling diversity of privilege or hardship. Some cities or tribes are bound to Rome by a Treaty, Foedus ; but the terms of these treaties are by no means always the same. Others, less favoured, have had a Law, Lex, imposed on them by the Roman Government, which deter- mines their duties. Such an " unilateral Act " is more easily modified or revoked in Rome's own interests than is the " bilateral Treaty." Some again enjoy more or less of a real " liberty," and are immune from Roman taxation. The great majority of the whole number are absolutely *' surrendered into the Roman power." Yet by Roman grace these " dediticii " enjoyed some measure at least of self-government. Finally, a few stand proudly THE CONQUEST OP ITALY 47 apart, treating on equal terms with Rome as independent Sovereign Communities. These differences of status were the result of the history of each town. Two main principles, however, governed Roman statesmanship in the matter. Military service on behalf of Rome in some shape or other was demanded of all " peregrin! " whenever Rome had need of it. And in return Rome was usually ready to bestow as large a measure of local seK-government as seemed compatible with her own security. None of them could possess an independent foreign policy. But Home Rule in purely domestic concerns was the keynote of Roman statecraft. Hence we may understand how puzzled such an invader as Hannibal might w^eli be, when he found his manifestos of " liberty " failing so often to win for him the joyful allies on whose help he too con- fidently reckoned. Now he would come to a city whose folk might seem to dally with the offer. Yet they had no bitter discontent to set against the lively danger of acceptance. And as for military service — why, Hannibal as well certainly expected this from them. A few miles farther on, and he would be calling on '* Latins " to fling away the yoke of Rome. How could he realise that these same ** Latins " were colonists from Rome, descend- ants, sons maybe, of Roman citizens themselves ? Now he would come to ancient enemies of the city on the Tiber, brooding over ancient wrongs. Here he might enlist recruits. But among these memories was one of Rome's ruthlessness perchance. Their present condition was not insufferable. Should they venture all on a single throw ? Ever and again a 48 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY true Roman garrison town, or a walled city whose inhabitants proudly called themselves Roman citizens, would defy his direst efforts. This curious complexity of status which prevailed throughout Italy was verily Rome's salvation in the Hannibalic invasion, as it was once again in the still graver peril of the Social War at the beginning of the first century B.C. Sharply distinguished from all peregrini and Latins in status, if not so sharply in the rights actually enjoyed, were the many communities of Roman citizens, scattered up and down Italy. Thirty -five of these towns were " Roman Colonies." These were mostly garrison towns planted at selected strategic points to guard the great roads or to keep watch over a newly conquered tribe. But by far the most important of these, as indeed of all the communities of Italy, and the one chief explanation of Rome's mastery in the land, were the *' Incorporated Municipalities," the Municipia. For the Roman, the word " municipium " deserves to be written always in letters of gold. Its creation dates back to the fourth century B.C., when first Rome conceived this idea of incorporating the citizens of a conquered town into her own franchise instead of destroying, enslaving, or removing them wholesale. The first certain example of such incorporation is the famous instance of the town of Caere in South Etruria in 353 B.c.^ " Caerite Rights " were henceforth freely bestowed. For two and a half centuries Rome never turned back- ward along this path. Doubtless the main reason * Tusculum is an earlier, but a more doubtfvil, example. THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 49 why she bestowed her citizenship upon the van- quished was her desire to swell the ranks of her citizen armies. The duty of military service was universal, and the Roman soldier was given a training and a discipline superior at least to those of the Italian ally, who was equally bound to serve. But, motive apart, and although full citizenship was rarely given (the new citizens had no vote in the Roman Assemblies and could not hold office in the Roman State), Roman citizens these men became none the less. Their sons or grandsons became inheritors of the feelings of Roman pride and patriotism. And in course of time the new citizens were sure to attain equality of rights with the old. This then was the " municipium," a town whose inhabitants possessed at least some part of the Roman franchise, and originally gained that fran- chise by direct incorporation into the Roman State. ^ In the course of two centuries Italy was covered by a network of these towns. And presently the majority of Italian communities still kept outside the franchise wall came passionately to desire admittance into the magic garden. Herein resides the startling difference between the fortunes of Imperial Athens and those of Imperial Rome. The subjects of the former sprang to arms to destroy, of the latter to claim part in, the ruling city. Ancient History presents perhaps no more significant lesson 1 The monstrous anomaly of a "Latin mmiicipium " only makes a late appearance. Then in time the word came practi- cally to designate any town other than Rome enjoying local self- government, and so we are on the high road to our own English use of the term " municipal." 60 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY for the meditation of the modern world than this. In time the Roman municipia regained their local autonomy while still remaining integral parts of the Roman State. A vigorous development of " municipal " institutions replaced the citizens' direct participation in the functions of Government in the first century of our era. The study of this " municipium," both in the history of the meaning of the word and in the reality and liveliness of its civic enthusiasm, is one of the most engrossing within the whole range of Roman history. Our own free town life goes back to the Roman " municipium." This it is which constitutes, in logical language, the *' differentia " of the Roman as distinct from every other State of Antiquity. It was the final cause of Rome's triumph, the justification of her magnificent greatness.^ ^ In these last pages I have indicated in briefest outline a subject of study whose resources are well-nigh inexhaustible. Let a student trace the history and fortunes of any single Italian town, and it will give him enjoyment for many happy months (though it will not enhance his chances of "success in the Schools " ; philosophy's claims are too greedy for this). The whole subject of the Organisation of Italy is dealt with at enormous length by Marquardt, and admirably also by Beloch {v. Bibliography ad fin.). Every Dictionary of Classical An- tiquities, such as Smith, Pauly-Wissowa, Daremburg et Sagiio, Ruggiero, has long articles sub voce. Colonia, Municipium, Prsefectura, et al. Ruggiero's Dizionario Epigrafico is in some respects the most suggestive, but its progress still after a quarter of a century towards the end of the alphabet is one of more than Teutonic deliberation. Every Handbook of Roman Constitu- tional History (perhaps those of Greenidge and Willems are the two best) grapples furiously with the subject. I have myself dealt with it recently at some length in the Cambridge Companion to Latin Studies, pages 3G6-390. German monographs may be neglected. But let a student choose his town in Italy, France or Spain. And if he finds himself in the " Middle Ages " before he haiB done with it, so much the more enjoyable his citizenship. CHAPTER III ROMAN CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY : THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES THE history of the Roman Constitution, both Republican and Imperial, formed for many years the subject of what was probably the most famous of all the courses of lectures delivered in Oxford to students reading for the Final Honour School of Literae Humaniores.^ The lecturer's exhaustive treatment seemed to leave little scope or promise for further research. And always behind his lectures there lurked vaguely in the background the monumental volumes of Mommsen's Staatsrecht. Bold writers published works of their own upon the ^ Those of H. F. Pelham, late Camden Professor of Ancient History. His few published works (viz. the clear, concise little Outlines of Roman History and the disjecta membra of articles contributed to various periodicals and now collected and pub- lished as Essays on Eoman History) reveal so superb a quality of workmanship that the regret for his trnwritten History of the Roman Principate grows keener and keener as his memory re- cedes. Some fatality seems to cling to those who cherish the hope of writing a connected history on a great scale of the early Roman Empire. Mommsen, Pelham, and Greenidge all promised themselves the work, and by no one of them was it accomplished. Pelham' s Oxford Lectures were those on the Constitutional History both of the Roman Republic and of the early Principate. Ho also lectured on Claudius, Nero, the Flavian Emperors, and Trajan. None of these lectures have been published. They remain rich ore to mine for those who heard them and possess them. 61 52 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY subject. They drew in part at least from that inexhaustible fount. Bolder students dipped their little buckets into it. But if they themselves took the plunge, they struggled presently out again to dry land, and thereafter remained for the most part content with the comfortable precision and luminous conciseness of the lectures of their Oxford Master. The very liberty to differ reduced itself to some scrupulous examination of minute details. Two other Oxford historians of profound knowledge and wide repute scrutinised microscopically the principles of Roman Criminal Law and Procedure.^ Over these again towered the giant figure of the German Intellectual Super -Man. In such fields of study there has remained little for gleaning. It makes little difference whether the last stook is removed from these harvest-fields or ilot.^ Rural Economy offers better rewards for independent digging. All three Oxford savants have lately passed away. The Professor's famous lectures remain unpublished, manuscripts cherished on many a dusty bookshelf and in many an English country house and parson- age. To manj^ generations of Oxford men the lecturer's incisive voice seems still to echo from the walls of his ancient College Hall.^ Nor for those who come after can any other quite take his empty place. Yet still in this one part of the realm of ^ J. L. Strachan-Davidson, Master of Balliol, in his Problems of the Roman Criminal Law, and A. H. J. Greenidge, in his The Legal Procedure of Cicero* 8 Time. Cf. too the latter writer's Roman Public Life and many articles in the Dictionary of Antiquities. 2 A Cambridgeshire custom. * Exeter College. ROMAN CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 53 Roman History the modern student sits humbly at the feet of kings, and may hardly carve out a kingdom for himself. In this book then I merely direct attention to a few leading features of the Constitutional History of Rome. Guides are superfluous in " The High." Or (to change the metaphor) the stores of knowledge concerning it are easily accessible, and everyone can carry them away.^ Rome of the Kings exhibits the familiar features of a monarchically governed City State. There is a King, nominated by his predecessor. His election is confirmed by the Elders and acclaimed by the populace. There is a Senate, which consists of the "Patres," the Chiefs of the clans (gentes). And there is a Citizen Body, the Cives or Quirites. These are variously divided, now into Tribes, now into local " Curiae." They meet together for business in an Assembly constituted on the basis of the latter division, called the Comitia Curiata. Though this earliest-known Constitution is Greek in type, Rome " in her political evolution worked out her own salvation. ' ' This was due to the external relations in which she found herself involved and to the concurrent development of her political ideas. The rapid growth of the city, the constant influx of strangers, the migrations of Latins to Rome to claim her citizenship — all these added on to the 1 There is a notable French translation in seventeen volumes of Mommsen's and Marquardt's Staatsrecht und Staatsverwaltung : also in three volumes of Mommsen's Strafrecht. Few would prefer the German originals. 54 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY original " gentes " a mass of new inhabitants, citizens and non-citizens. These formed the " plebeian " families, and the " clients " in dis- tinction from the old " patrician " burghers. Thus there arose an urban proletariate which had at first few rights and equally few duties. " Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them." Child-bearing was indeed desirable to an ancient City State, though not all had the wit to see it. For no such State, and Rome least of all, avoided enemies at the gate. But children hungry and in rags are not quite excl^isively a mark of modern progress, and the money-lender or his equivalent doubtless existed in Mousterian days. At Rome the proletariate began presently to be of opinion that there must be political remedies for social evils, a belief as familiar as it is old. The pressure of constant wars, the ever-increasing military needs of the city, gave to men who even in militarist Rome were unwilling to be cannon- fodder except on terms their opportunity to secure if not happier lives for themselves at least brighter hopes for their sons. And the Roman, in his own hard practical fashion, was apt to be curiously devoted to his boys. Quite early there began a tendency towards the removal of distinctions between classes and a levelling-up of privilege. Under the alien Etruscan monarchs the process was naturally expedited. New and old were blended together to form the People in Arms who met in Assembly arranged by Companies — " Centuriae." Henceforward the *' Comitia Centuriata " was always the chief Assembly — at least in prestige — ROMAN CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 55 of the people of Rome.^ In it privileges of birth had to give way to those of wealth. This wealth, as in an early community was inevitable, was reckoned in landed property. Now the spoils of war consisted chiefly in land appropriated from the conquered. Hence the distribution of these spoils among the citizens, i.e. the soldiers, quickly became a question of grave political importance. The origin of Rome's troublesome and persistent " Agrarian Problem " is found in her military achievements. When monarchy disappeared, a new important constitutional principle took its place. This was that of the " Collegiality " of elected magistrates. For many years this system was even applied at times to the conduct of campaigns, until sad ex- perience taught the folly of this use of it. Possibly its origin was due to the fact that the Roman people itseK was an amalgamation of distinct but equal elements. Henceforward the principle was essential to the very existence of the Republican Constitution. The consequences of its application to Roman Public Life were far-reaching. It was applied with logical strictness and clearness of insight (within limits suggested by Roman common sense) to every branch of the administration. The result * The more adventurous student may investigate the problem of the composition and divisions of the Comitia Centuriata (i) in " Servian " days : (ii) in the latter half of the third century B.C. : (iii) as handled by Sulla : (iv) in the days of Cicero. If, however, the " system of Pantagathus " pleases him, let him remember (a) that Pantagathus was neither an ancient lexicographer nor a Byzantine monk, but a (comparatively) modern Italian scholar : (6) that his delight in arithmetical simplicity may be more satisfactory to the non-mathematically-minded than true to fact. 56 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY of this was to place the executive under the control of the only deliberative body in the State which existed in permanent session. This body was the Senate. By the beginning of the third century B.C. Rome had become in theory a pure democracy. Supreme power seemed vested in the popular Assembly alone. But the next century and a half revealed a constitution which in its practical working was anything but democratic. Polybius. the sagacious and experienced Greek political thinker and himself a practical statesman, studied it and thereupon evolved his characteristic " Theory of the Balance of Power in the Roman Constitution.'* But in actual practice a well-nigh undisputed author- ity was exercised by the Senate during these years. Constant peril abroad gave the mastery at home to this Aristocracy of talent and official experience. And the CoUegiality of the magistrates weakened decisively any attempted opposition by the executive. Later again, the Collegiate principle fell on evil days. But the disregard of it provoked bitter civil wars. Julius Caesar displayed an open contempt for it. He was requited by the Republican's dagger. The Roman felt instinctively and justly that such contempt was mark of a would-be King. It was reserved for the acuteness of Augustus to devise a new form of Constitution in place of the out-worn Republic, wherein this Collegiate principle could seem to be reconciled with the actual possession by one man of supreme power in the State. The char- acter of this, the " Constitution of the Principate," was a tacit recognition of the traditional strength ROMAN CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 57 and value of the old Republican principle of Collegiality. We may now hark back from such general con- siderations to consider the development in other respects of the Constitution of the early Roman Republic. At the end of the sixth century B.C., when the Republic began, ^ all powers were confined still to the patricians except in so far as the Centuriate Assembly elected magistrates and passed laws. But even such laws were not valid until they received the sanction of the patrician Senators. This sanction was termed the Patrum Auctoritas. And the executive magistrates, viz. the two annual Consuls, their assistants the Quaestors, the occasional Dictator and his Chief-of-Staff, the Magister Equitum, though elected by the whole body of the People, could only be patricians. The plebeians, resentful against this appropriation of all authority by their presumed betters, took to meeting inform- ally and to passing resolutions of their own. Any such decree of a '' Concilium Plebis " was, however, as little binding upon any other than the plebeian himself as is a decree of Convocation upon the con- science or practices of any Nonconformist. This plebeian Council existed altogether outside of the Constitution. But it existed. Concurrently (or even earlier) the plebeians dealt another shrewd blow to their masters. Intolerable grievances, particularly those of debt and its penalties, soon led to the annual appointment of champions of the plebs, the " Tribuni plebis." * The traditional date is 509 b.c. 58 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY These were elected by the Plebeian Assembly. They could never count technically as *' Magistrates of the Roman People," for the populus Romanus was composed of all citizens, patricians as well as plebeians. And no patrician had a vote in the election of the Tribunes. But the Tribunes, even though from the first sacrosanct (a doubtful com- pliment), were far from being omnipotent. For many a year a Tribune who wished to make a resolution of the plebs binding upon the populus had to induce some genuine " curule magistrate " to reintroduce the proposal before an Assembly of the populus, and again the sanction of the Patres was necessary before such could become a Law. Thus the plebeians, who very soon constituted the great bulk of the entire people, were hampered at every turn. A further remedy for their dis- abilities might seem to be provided by the creation, at some uncertain time in the fifth or fourth century, of yet another legislative Assembly, called the Comitia Tributa. The Concilium Plebis had long been " voting by tribes " — one tribe, one vote.^ The votes of each tribe were determined by the majority within each one. This method of voting was obviously simpler and also it was fairer to the majority than was the cumbrous system of voting by Centuries, where men's votes had a very unequal value. Hence the tribal system of voting was now applied to the new Assembly of the populus. In this therefore the plebeians could exert their will. But this Comitia Tributa enjoyed a rather indistinct 1 After 241 B.C. there were thirty-five Roman " tribes," and never more. ROMAN CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 59 existence.^ And, in fact, it was not by any such tricks of machinery that a remedy could be found for the legislative incompetence of the plebeians, or democratic equality, at least in name, be won. For more than two centuries there raged the " Struggle between the Orders." Into the details of this domestic warfare I do not here enter. But the main features of the slow Constitutional develop- ment engendered by it may here be noted. Each one of them forms a subject of study in itself. They were some five in number. (1) The gradual equalisation of plebeians with patricians in the right to hold magistracies and to pass laws which were binding on all the citizens. (2) The multiplication of executive offices, result- ing in a weakening of the magistracies and their dependence upon the deliberative elements in the Constitution. (3) The growth of a *' New Nobility " of Office, not of Birth. It was thus composed of rich plebeians as well as of patricians, and tended, in virtue of the pride of place, to become every whit as exclusive as the old aristocracy had been. (4) The increase in the power of the Senate, now composed almost exclusively of ex-officials.^ Its permanence, its experience, and its freedom of discussion gave this Council every possible advantage over the more spasmodic Assemblies of populus or plebs. * It is only of very recent years that modern scholars liave been able to distinguish the Comitia Tributa from the Concilium Plebis and evoke the former from historic shades. 2 Every young magistrate entered the Senate on his election to office and retained his seat in that Body for life. 60 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY (5) The comparative weakness of the Senate's possible rivals in the Constitution. Thus the executive was hampered by its many subdivisions and by the principle of Collegiality ; and the populace by its entire dependence on the executive for any right to meet at all, by the cumbrous nature of its constitutional machinery, and by the division of functions between its more or less equal co- ordinate Assemblies. Yet when the notable Lex Hortensia was carried in 286 B.C. the democracy at Rome seemed at last to have won a complete victory. By this year the plebeians could pass resolutions (plebiscita) which were binding on the whole community. They had also " won in the long race for honours."^ Their own officials, the Tribunes, by the very nature of their office, seemed pledged up to the hilt to champion popular interests against any aristocratic interfer- ence or arbitrary authority. The aggressive power of the Tribunate was remarkable. The tribunician veto, which was applicable to any action of any magistrate, constituted a unique weapon of defence. And by their inviolability the tribunes might well seem to enjoy the special favour of Heaven. The champions of the people were blest of the Gods, and in them at least the people too were blessed. ^ And surely the Roman democracy had urgent need to use the weapons which it had so laboriously forged. The lover of the picturesque may depict Capitalism as a hydra coiling its insidious folds ^ Greenidge. 2 Inviolability is of course capable of other, less flattering, explanations ; but the most implacable of despoiled opponents never found the mark of Cain on the brow of a Roman tribune. ROMAN CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 61 about the honest Roman worker's neck. In sober fact, social evils began to press heavily upon the proletariate. Wealth had acquired an undue influence. The hunger for land, always a charac- teristic Roman trait, became all the more insistent as, in the now more settled condition of Italy, the supply of land for distribution became always more precarious. Why should the rich, sprung now mainly from the people's ranks and despising them all the more for it, mock the hungry folk with the sight of their large estates, almost flaunt their appropriation of magistracy and of land alike in the eyes of the poor ? The time was ripe for popular social legislation. The machinery to ensure it was perfected. What hindered the peaceful coming of the social revolution ? When the Epeirote invader Pyrrhus had been driven home again ; when the malcontent Greek cities were quelled ; when there remained no tribe, city, or race in Italy from the Po to the Straits of Messina which dared any longer to challenge Roman might — what military need any longer existed which might delay the indulgence in the sweets of social reform ? There was little on the surface to reveal the under- lying weakness of popular power at Rome. Inter arma silent leges. From out of the un- troubled blue there came rushing storm after storm of desperate war. In the grim crisis of the Punic Wars the Senate took firm hold of the helm of State. It alone could and did save Rome. The people trembled and obeyed. More than a century of ceaseless fighting deferred all thought of social legislation. Army after army of the Roman people 62 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY crossed the seas to battle in Sicily, Africa, Greece, Macedonia, Asia ; struggled over Alpine and Pyrenean rampart to contend for Gaul and Spain. There was no breathing space for thought, no thought for anything save the necessities and the comfort- able spoils of war. The people of Rome went fighting, at the first for dear life, later for the rewards of victory. As did the grandsire, so did the son. All played the man in the open field. Wh^t was democracy but an untimely phantom, scarcely to be seen in the crude noonday light of war ? Let it back to its forgotten shades and slumber there deeply for a hundred and thirty years. But what should befall if ever wars should cease, and some leader of the people call to it to awake ? CHAPTER IV THE " THREE PERIODS " OF ROMAN HISTORY AT this point, the opening of the Punic Wars, -^jL there begins the first of the " Three Periods " of Roman History, one of which the Oxford ** Greats " student is invited to study closely.^ His choice is free. Each period offers to him special attractions of its own. The " First Period " embraces Republican History only. Its limits are the beginning of the First Punic War and the Battle of Actium. This period falls into two obvious halves. The first section, which is the property of this period only, contains the history of the Great Wars, 265-146 B.C. The authority for this part of the story is Polybius, not Livy. In it is also contained that wonderful chapter of human sorrow, the tale of dying Greece. Its second section, 146-31 B.C., is common to both the " First " and the " Second Period " of Roman History. This is the story of Rome in revolution, the Civil Wars, and the death- agony of the Republic. The greatest and most human figures in the whole 1 For the " Statutable " details and requirements, see Appen- .dix. «8 64 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY history of Rome move across this stage, the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Cicero, Julius Csesar, Octavian. Attendant in their company are many lesser men, but these too are intensely alive, amaz- ingly " modern." We live in the very streets of crowded Rome. We listen to the disputes, trials, debates, and uproar. We share in the conflict of hopes and fears ; marvel at the riots ; shudder at the savageries and cruelties of men with desires and passions like our own. We admire and hate, and instinctively take sides. We would stand apart and judge dispassionately, but find ourselves against our very will plunged anew into the party strife, cheering one leader, deriding another, with the zest of the most fiery bigot. Are we democrats ? Gracchus is our hero. Is sheer Bolshevism to prevail ? Sulla will save the State from this its deadliest peril. Is a narrow selfish clique to have the mastery over our ancient rights ? Sulla's own pet subaltern shall mock its incompetent stupidity. Is the soldier to be omni- potent ? Are five centuries of Republican glory to count for nothing ? Cicero, the silver-tongued, shall plead the Republic's cause and offer on our behalf his life a sacrifice for our dead liberty. May we never again have peace, order, and good govern- ment ? Caesar has won new realms for us beyond the Alps : he, the conqueror, shall bestow these still more precious gifts on us besides. Shall we place our necks beneath a tyrant's yoke ? Pompey has given us an Eastern Empire spacious beyond our wildest dreams : he seeks nothing save honour for himself : he will save us from the would-be King. THE " THREE PERIODS " 65 The ungrateful dagger has murdered Csesar. Who shall now redeem us from the drab, sordid wretched- ness of politicians' bickerings, and our soldiers from deadly warfare on Mesopotamian sands and from the fiery darts of the enemy ? Mark Antony, the romantic paladin or burly soldier of fortune, yet perhaps but a jolly overgrown schoolboy after all, shall fill the Oriental world with wonder and troubled Rome with whisperings. Is bloodshed to last for ever ? Is no one of us ever again to call his home, his life, his own ? From out the ruins of a shattered world there steps a young princely figure, virile, courageous, with mien and features of a youthful God. The Republic shall be in Octavian's keeping to his long life's end. Not Plutarch, alas ! is our sustenance on the earlier portion of this road (yet who will not read him ?). One wretched book of dismal Appian is allotted in his place, sorry, mouldy fare. In Sallust we find style again : in Cicero's Letters the very life-blood of the period. The " Second Period " of Roman History (" From the end of the Third Punic War to the accession of Vespasian ") shares with the First this exciting story of the end of the Republic. Its gravest loss is that the student, starting with the year 146 B.C., cannot reahse the Republic's splendour or the true nature of that Senate which in the earlier days was its chief glory. In compensation for this loss the *' Period " offers him the early Principate for study and that series of Roman Emperors, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, who, both by the gloomy genius of a Tacitus and the venomous 66 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY gossip of a Suetonius, live for us as do no other monarchs of any land or time. But in reality the personal ought not to be the one absorbing fascina- tion of the period. For here is the story of the reconstruction of a ruined world, of institutions both restored and new, of government at last vitalising, just, and strong. For his " authority " the student of it goes indeed to Tacitus. To whom else should he go ? But lest he be misled by the Roman Master-Artist, and come to believe his study little but that of Palace intrigue, of half-lunatic despots and cruel ambitious Queens,^ of foulness in high places, of crawling plot and smiling treachery — lest he see Rome, the Capital, illumined in one blaze of lurid light against a background of impenetrable darkness brooding over the world beyond, the very Roman " stones " cry out and will not hold their peace. Among the most impelling attractions of this Imperial period is the chance it affords for the study of Roman inscriptions, invaluable in the scope of their information, human in utterance as hardly Tacitus himself is human. Their variety is in- exhaustible. Augustus' stately manifesto, graven for us on Ancyra's temple walls, may rivet the attention duly. But in a sense no less appealing is the simple record of service, regiment, decorations, 1 Women, it has been said, play no part in the history of Athena's city. They are prominent enough in the story of the more masculine Rome during the Ciceronian Age and the early Empire. Fulvia, Livia, Julia, Messaliua, Agrippina, Poppasa, Domitia, Faustina, all who " Have done with tears and treasons And love for treason's sake " — Yet Rome had her Octavia as well. THE '' THREE PERIODS " 67 placed upon some Roman soldier's tomb in his dearly-loved little native city, proudly commemorat- ing the honours of its townsman. And these are multiplied by seventy times seven and again by seventy. Yet the vast and ever-increasing numbers of such finds need not discourage or terrify. Only a small selection can indeed be read. But the student of this period has guidance and oppor- tunity enough to be able to realise for himself how greatly the whole aspect of the history of the Empire has changed in our day since Theodor Mommsen first conceived the mightiest historical project of the nineteenth century and began the publication of the " Corpus " of Latin Inscrip- tions. The '' Third Period " of Roman History ('' From 43 B.C. to the death of Trajan ") begins at an arti- ficial date and ends abruptly at a time when the Empire is in confusion. It shares with the " Second Period " the history of the early Principate, but has three remarkable subjects of study peculiar to itseK. These are the Civil Wars of a.d. 68-69 (for though these are nominally included in the Second Period, the student of this does not offer the Histories of Tacitus and does not in fact concern himself with the " Year of the Four Emperors ") ; the recon- struction of a disordered world (the work of the Flavian Emperors) ; and, thirdly, the whole record of Trajan's warlike prowess both north of the Danube and in Mesopotamia. The Civil Wars of a.d. 68-69 give an opportunity better perhaps than any other fighting in antiquity for the application of modern strategical principles to test the adequacy 68 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY of the ancient records.^ But this period labours under some serious disadvantages when compared in interest and value with its two predecessors. To profess a study of Roman History and yet know nothing of the Republic is like the building of a house from the first or second story upwards. The suite of rooms may be magnificent, but what of the foundations ? Again, the authorities to be read, so far as they are first class, are confined to the earlier portion of the period. For the tale of years after a.d. 70 two of the " lives " of Suetonius and a selection from Pliny's Letters (a very painful contrast to Cicero's) ^ hardly cover the ground, even with the incomparable " Agricola " of Tacitus added. In fact there is no good authority for the outstanding figure of the second section of the period, the warrior Trajan. At the same time, this fact undoubtedly gives greater opportunities for in- ^ I have tried to develop this somewhat novel method of dealing with ancient military history in my study of the " His- tories " of Tacitus {Civil War and Rebellion in the Roman Empire, London, 1908). Naturally this book has annoyed the older, specially the German, school of writers, who pin their faith to the brilliant Tacitus. I have also treated Corbulo's campaign in Armenia in like manner (in my Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero, chapter 5). Here too I admit that Tacitus does not emerge imscathed from the scrutiny. I suggest that the Peloponnesian War ought to be and can be advantageously re -studied from this same point of view. Unless at times some fresh disturbing gale blows through our ancient Oxford forest, this, despite its stately beauty, will in due course perish, choked by its litter of dead leaves. 2 Pliny's Letters to Trajan and the Emperor's " brief and pithy answers " have been reasonably called " one of the most precious treasures that have survived from ancient literature " (Warde Fowler, Rome, p. 236). But to turn from Cicero and his friends to the bulk of Pliny's correspondence is to leave the sandal-wood, cedar, and cassia of the ivory palaces for plain hutments of varnished deal. THE " THREE PERIODS " 69 dividual research, and this is an undoubted gain, though somewhat discounted by the completeness of French monographs on Domitian and Trajan. The use of inscriptions is hardly, at least in kind, more extended for the Third than it is for the Second Period. And finalty, if the period begins too late, it ends too soon. Who does not now understand the craving for ease after war, for port after stormy seas ? The reign of Hadrian, the Peace-maker, the restorer of a war-worn Empire, is the happy sequel to the restlessness of the impetuous career of Trajan. To Hadrian justice has not been done. To him was due the very possibility of the " Golden Age " of the Antonines, the " most brilliant and happiest in all Roman history." ^ For his story we have little " authority " save the miserable work of a late literary hack. But it was not this reason which ended the period at Trajan's death. For a short time Hadrian's Principate was actually included in the schedule. Then the blameless Emperor was found to be indeed the last straw which broke its back. Few would read the period, and he was hurriedly excluded outside its limits. This rapid survey of the three " Periods " may be enough to show that each has an attractiveness of its own for different tastes. He who likes military history best will choose the First or Third ; he to whom the history of institutions and of government 1 Warde Fowler, who calls Hadrian " one of the most capable and efficient men who ever wielded great power." This praise leaves us a little cold. Efficiency seems inevitably to suggest Weltmacht, and the "business man" may be saviour of the State, but we do not love him. How pedestrian the Muse of 'History may be ! 70 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY mainly appeals, the Second. The lover of literature will undoubtedly prefer Tacitus to Polybius ; the lover of Greece, its history and its language, will make the contrary choice. H^ who would by his own research try to make inferior straw into excellent bricks may perhaps build most happily an habita- tion for himself in the Third Period. Inscriptions entice to the Second or Third, biography to all alike. If the Third Period has its Vespasian, Agricola, Domitian, and Trajan, the First can counter with Hannibal, Philopoemen, Cleomenes, Aratus. Plutarch's charm is shared by all three. The appealing study of the condition and welfare of any province under Roman Government can be only half completed by the student of the First Period, and is in most cases not begun at all by the student of the Third. ^ The great majority of men choose the Second Period ; a tiny number only select the First. The majority choose wisely. The Second Period is easily the most living in actuality, valuable in authorities, rich in materials for debate, for appre- ciation, for the knowledge and the understanding of Rome. But the choice is free. Airla eXojuLevov. One brief word may be added. There may be those who are attracted by the history of the begin- nings of Christianity, who are undeterred by the furious controversies which this history has for generations excited, who undauntedly set them- selves to breast the Pelion-upon-Ossa of writings which it^has upraised and daily yet upraises, out- Pelioning Pelion. Such must avoid the First Period ^ Britain is a notable exception. THE " THREE PERIODS " 71 and seek rather the Third. But the Greats student is for the most part well advised in considering very warily before he adventures far up this beaten mountain track. For he may haply find it lose the very semblance of a track, and while his head is wrapped in soddening mist his feet will be stuck fast in a quagmire of churned and ineluctable mud.^ ^ I have given some hint of the nature of some of these con- troversies in my Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero, Ap- pendix B, " Christianity and the Government." From the sacerdotal trend of thought in history (as elsewhere) Heaven save us all. CHAPTER V FEATURES AND PROBLEMS OF THE " POLYBIAN '* PERIOD, 265-133 B.C. THE chief " political " interest of these years is the story of the wars by which Rome gained the mastery over the whole of the Mediter- ranean basin from the shores of Asia Minor to the Gibraltar Straits and the Bay of Biscay. Their " constitutional " interest is really not Roman at all, but is that provided by the history of Federal Govern- ment in the Greek world, its nature, its varieties, its strength or weakness. But the student of the Roman history of the time finds himself impelled to ponder over this story, not only by invitation of the " authorities " whom he reads (or ought to read), but also by the intrinsic interest and very modern importance of the whole subject of Federalism. Still richer is the mine which the student of military history and of diplomacy may explore, hard beaten though the gallery leading to the heart of it may by this time seem to be. It is on the first part of the long road that the amplest treasure lies to his hand. For more than sixty years Rome p-ix4 C^l^rthage were locked together i^ thei? herolQ 72 THE " POLYBIAN " PERIOD 73 death -grapple. Here is the study of diplomacies which led to war, which enforced or accepted peace, their wisdom or their folly ; of the strategy of campaigns and the tactics of battle ; of the worth of cavalry and the art of siege ; of the use and misuse of naval power ; of rivers, mountains, and fortresses guiding the course of events ; of plans that go awry, of despair that is defied, of the innumer- able chances and caprice of war. Here the student must determine the prospects of the rivals at the outset of the combat, compare their resources, contrast their methods of government, estimate the homogeneity or heterogeneity of their popula- tions, appraise their endurance of the blows of fortune or indulgence in the sweets of victory. Above all he must ask himself what were the real causes of the final and complete triumph of the Roman. 1 Why does the Victrix Causa, approved though it be whether by the Gods or by the fruits which humanity gathers from the victory, so seldom enlist on its side men's sympathy ? To contemporaries fear lest they suffer the like doom may in many ^ In this period the student also runs a peculiar risk. There is a malignant gadfly, that of delight in topographical controversy , which seems chiefly to haunt the battlefields of the Second Punic War — the river-banks of Trebia, of Aufidus, of Metaurus, the reedj^ shores of Trasimene, above all, the snows of the Alpine Pass (the metaphor here, on scientific grounds, goes limping). How badly I was myself stung by it is shown by a succession of papers in the Journal of Philology, the Classical Review, and the English Historical Revietv. To such ephemerida references need not be given. There may be many other victims, who may be wished a sweet discomfiture and a speedy recovery. The infec- tion, while it lasts, is, however, feverish, most exciting, and not unpleasant. And if the gadfly, true to its historic type, drive '^'he bitten overseas, it surely justifies itself. 74 THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY cases incite to this dislike of the victors. Proximus ardet Ucalegon. Later Ages are moved always by the sense of tears in mortal things, unless indeed they find in the defeated neither resolution of endurance nor any trace of generosity of soul, unless they see brutality, impiety, and arrogance suffering at last the visitation of the righteous wrath of God. Then let Him exact the uttermost farthing, and who shall say Him nay ? But even though man at his sternest or with imagination asleep and interest dulled forget the miseries of the women, the hunger, nakedness, and torment of the children, yet when he sees the figure of some champion of the vanquished defiant of terror, challenging fate, scornful of ruin, then always men's hearts go out to such a one despite all the warnings or dissuasion of their judgment. On the field of his last defeat even a Macbeth, a Richard, a Napoleon, enforces admiration. How much more whole-heartedly do we rally to Hector's side, or help to man the defences of Alesia ? ^ Thus no generation passes but some new tribute is paid to Hannibal. The child of nine swearing his boyish oath of undying vengeance on the insolent Roman, the stalwart general in the pride of years, conqueror alike of Nature and of Man, unworsted on any Italian field of battle, the veteran in his last years, baffled counsellor and mocked 1 One of the quaintest illustrations of this human instinct ia that supplied by the " Boadicea " statue on the Embankment at Westminster. A poet's enthusiasm, unhistorical patriotism, and chivalry, have surromided a veritable, if maltreated, savage with an atmosphere of glamour, and provided a striking example of the pathetic fallacy. THE " POLYBIAN " PERIOD 75 plaything of a puppet braggart King, the Car- thaginian is a hero of tragedy, of its pity and its terror. " Ah me, when the mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley and the curled tendrils of the anise, on a later day they live again, and spring in another year ; but we men, we the great and wise and mighty, when once w^e die, in hollow earth we sleep, gone down into silence, a right, long, endless, una wakening sleep." But the two cities are in truth the protagonists in the drama of the Punic Wars. The final siege of Carthage, that proud Phoenician city, as cruel and beautiful as the western sea, takes rank in our minds with that of Calais, Antwerp, or of Paris fifty years ago. The young heroic Roman conqueror, as the town burns beneath his gaze, turns to his grave Greek counsellor with apprehension and tears, citing half unwillingly the great lament for Troy : €(r