S 
 
HISTORY 
 
 ROME. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D., 
 
 LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 
 
 HEAD MASTER OF RUGBY SCHOOL, 
 AND MEMBER OF THE ARCH.EOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ROME. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 EARLY HISTORY TO THE BURNING OF ROME BY THE GAULS. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 ' 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 B. FELLOWES; F. AND J. RIVINGTON ; E. HODGSON; G. LAWFORD J J. M. 
 RICHARDSON ; J. BAIN ; AND S. HODGSON : ALSO, J. H. PARKER, OXFORD ; 
 AND J. AND J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 1845. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, 
 ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. 
 
TO 
 HIS EXCELLENCY 
 
 CHARLES CHRISTIAN BUNSEN, 
 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY'S MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY 
 AT THE COURT OF ROME, 
 
 THIS HISTORY IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 WITH EVERY FEELING OF ADMIRATION, ESTEEM, AND REGARD, 
 BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND AND SERVANT, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 A 2 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN attempting to write the History of Rome, I am 
 not afraid of incurring the censure pronounced by 
 Johnson upon Blackwell \ that he had chosen a sub- 
 ject long since exhausted ; of which all men knew 
 already as much as any one could tell them. Much 
 more do I dread the reproach of having ventured, 
 with most insufficient means, upon a work of the 
 greatest difficulty ; and thus by possibility deterring 
 others from accomplishing a task which has never 
 yet been fulfilled, and which they might fulfil more 
 worthily. The great advances made within the last 
 thirty years in historical knowledge have this most 
 hopeful symptom, that they have taught us to ap- 
 preciate the amount of our actual ignorance. As 
 
 1 In his review of Blackwell's Memoirs of the Court of Augustus. 
 Works, Vol. II. 8vo. 1806. 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 we have better understood what history ought to 
 be, we are become ashamed of that scanty infor- 
 mation which might once have passed for learning ; 
 and our discovery of the questions which need to be 
 solved has so outrun our powers of solving them, 
 that we stand humiliated rather than encouraged, 
 and almost inclined to envy the condition of our 
 fathers, whose maps, so to speak, appeared to them 
 complete and satisfactory, because they never sus- 
 pected the existence of a world beyond their range. 
 
 Still although the time will, I trust, arrive, when 
 points now altogether obscure will receive their full 
 illustration, and when this work must be superseded 
 by a more perfect history, yet it may be possible in 
 the mean while to render some service, if I shall be 
 able to do any justice to my subject up to the extent 
 of our present knowledge. And we, who are now 
 in the vigour of life, possess at least one advantage 
 which our children may not share equally. We 
 have lived in a period rich in historical lessons be- 
 yond all former example ; we have witnessed one of 
 the great seasons of movement in the life of man- 
 kind, in \vhich the arts of peace and war, political 
 parties and principles, philosophy and religion, in all 
 their manifold forms and influences, have been de- 
 veloped with extraordinary force and freedom. Our 
 own experience has thus thrown a bright light upon 
 
PREFACE. VI 1 
 
 the remoter past : much which our fathers could not 
 fully understand, from being accustomed only to 
 quieter times, and which again, from the same cause, 
 may become obscure to our children, is to us per- 
 fectly familiar. This is an advantage common to all 
 the present generation in every part of Europe ; but 
 it is not claiming too much to say, that the growth 
 of the Roman Commonwealth, the true character of 
 its parties, the causes and tendency of its revolutions, 
 and the spirit of its people and its laws, ought to be 
 understood by none so well as by those who have 
 grown up under the laws, who have been engaged in 
 the parties, who are themselves citizens of our kingly 
 commonwealth of England. 
 
 Long before Niebuhr's death I had formed the 
 design of writing the History of Rome ; not, it may 
 well be believed, with the foolish notion of rivalling 
 so great a man, but because it appeared to me that 
 
 his work was not likely to become generally popular 
 
 < 
 
 in England, and that its discoveries and remarkable 
 wisdom might best be made known to English 
 readers by putting them into a form more adapted 
 to our common taste. It should be remembered 
 that only the two first volumes of Niebuhr's History 
 were published in his lifetime ; and although careful 
 readers might have anticipated his powers of nar- 
 ration even from these, yet they were actually, by 
 
Vlii PREFACE. 
 
 the necessity of the case, more full of dissertations 
 than of narrative; and for that reason it seemed 
 desirable to remould them for the English public, 
 by assuming as proved many of those results which 
 Niebuhr himself had been obliged to demonstrate 
 step by step. But when Niebuhr died, and there 
 was now no hope of seeing his great work completed 
 in a manner worthy of its beginning, I was more 
 desirous than ever of executing my original plan, of 
 presenting in a more popular form what he had 
 lived to finish, and of continuing it afterwards with 
 such advantages as I had derived from a long study 
 and an intense admiration of his example and 
 model. 
 
 It is my hope then, if God spares my life and 
 health, to carry on this history to the revival of the 
 western empire, in the year 800 of the Christian cera, 
 by the coronation of Charlemagne at Rome. This 
 point appears to me its natural termination. We 
 shall then have passed through the chaos which 
 followed the destruction of the old western empire, 
 and shall have seen its several elements, com- 
 bined with others which in that great convulsion 
 had been mixed with them, organized again into 
 their new form. That new form exhibited a marked 
 and recognized division between the so-called secular 
 and spiritual powers, and thereby has maintained in 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 Christian Europe the unhappy distinction which 
 necessarily prevailed in the heathen empire between 
 the church and the state ; a distinction now so 
 deeply seated in our laws, our language, and our 
 very notions, that nothing less than a miraculous 
 interposition of God's providence seems capable, 
 within any definite time, of eradicating it. The 
 Greek empire, in its latter years, retained so little 
 of the Roman character, and had so little influence 
 upon what was truly the Roman world, that it seems 
 needless, for the sake of a mere name, to protract 
 the story for six hundred and fifty years further, 
 merely to bring it down to the conquest of Constan- 
 tinople by the Turks. 
 
 The first volume embraces the infancy of the 
 Roman people, from their origin down to the capture 
 of Rome by the Gauls, in the middle of the fourth 
 century before the Christian sera. For the whole 
 of this period I have therefore enjoyed Niebuhr's 
 guidance ; I have every where availed myself of his 
 materials as well as of his conclusions. No acknow- 
 ledgment can be too ample for the benefits which I 
 have derived from him : yet I have not followed him 
 blindly, nor compiled my work from his. It seemed 
 to be a worthier tribute to his greatness, to endeavour 
 to follow his example ; to imitate, so far as I could, 
 his manner of inquiry ; to observe and pursue his 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 hints ; to try to practise his master art of doubting 
 rightly and believing rightly ; and, as no man is in- 
 fallible, to venture sometimes even to differ from his 
 conclusions, if a compliance with his own principles 
 of judgment seemed to require it. But I can truly 
 say, that I never differ from him without a full 
 consciousness of the probability that further inquiry 
 might prove him to be right. 
 
 The form and style in which I have given the 
 legends and stories of the first three centuries of 
 Rome may require some explanation. I wished to 
 give these legends at once with the best effect, and 
 at the same time with a perpetual mark, not to be 
 mistaken by the most careless reader, that they were 
 legends and not history. There seemed a reason, 
 therefore, for adopting a more antiquated style, 
 which otherwise of course would be justly liable 
 to the charge of affectation. 
 
 It might seem ludicrous to speak of impartiality 
 in writing the history of remote times, did not those 
 times really bear a nearer resemblance to our own 
 than many imagine; or did not Mitford's example 
 sufficiently prove that the spirit of modern party 
 may affect our view of ancient history. But many 
 persons do not clearly see what should be the true 
 impartiality of an historian. If there be no truths in 
 moral and political science, little good can be derived 
 
PREFACE. Xi 
 
 from the study of either : if there be truths, it must 
 be desirable that they should be discovered and em- 
 braced. Scepticism must ever be a misfortune or a 
 defect : a misfortune, if there be no means of arriving 
 at truth ; a defect, if while there exist such means 
 we are unable or unwilling to use them. Believing 
 that political science has its truths no less than moral, 
 I cannot regard them with indifference, I cannot but 
 wish them to be seen and embraced by others. 
 
 On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that 
 these truths have been much disputed ; that they 
 have not, like moral truths, received that universal 
 assent of good men which makes us shrink from 
 submitting them to question. And again, in human 
 affairs, the contest has never been between pure 
 truth and pure error. Neither then may we assume 
 political conclusions as absolutely certain ; nor are 
 political truths ever wholly identical with the pro- 
 fessions or practice of any party or individual. If 
 for the sake of recommending any principle, we dis- 
 guise the errors or the crimes with which it has been 
 in practice accompanied, and which in the weakness 
 of human nature may perhaps be naturally connected 
 with our reception of it, then we are guilty of most 
 blam cable partiality. And so it is no less, if for the 
 sake of decrying an erroneous principle, we depre- 
 ciate the wisdom, and the good and noble feelings 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 with which error also is frequently, and in some 
 instances naturally, joined. This were to make our 
 sense of political truth to overpower our sense of 
 moral truth ; a double error, inasmuch as it is at 
 once the less certain, and to those who enjoy a 
 Christian's hope, by far the less worthy. 
 
 While then I cannot think that political science 
 contains no truths, or that it is a matter of indiffer- 
 ence whether they are believed or no, I have endea- 
 voured also to remember, that, be they ever so cer- 
 tain, there are other truths no less sure ; and that 
 one truth must never be sacrificed to another. I 
 have tried to be strictly impartial in my judgments 
 of men and parties, without being indifferent to those 
 principles which were involved more or less purely 
 in their defeat or triumph. I have desired neither 
 to be so possessed with the mixed character of all 
 things human, as to doubt the existence of abstract 
 truth ; nor so to dote on any abstract truth, as to 
 think that its presence in the human mind is incom- 
 patible with any evil, its absence incompatible with 
 any good. 
 
 In this first volume of my History, I have followed 
 the common chronology without scruple ; not as true, 
 but as the most convenient. Where the facts them- 
 selves are so uncertain, it must be a vain labour to 
 try to fix their dates minutely. But when we arrive 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 at a period of greater certainty as to the facts, then 
 it will be proper to examine, as far as possible, into 
 the chronology. 
 
 Those readers who are acquainted with Niebuhr, 
 or with the history written by Mr. Maldon, for the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, may 
 be surprised to find so little said in this volume upon 
 the antiquities of the different nations of Italy. The 
 omission, however, was made deliberately; partly 
 because the subject does not appear to me to belong 
 essentially to the early history of Rome, and still 
 more, because the researches now carried on with so 
 much spirit in Italy, hold out the hope that we may 
 obtain, ere long, some more satisfactory knowledge 
 than is at present attainable. Pelasgian inscriptions, 
 written in a character clearly distinguishable from 
 the Etruscan, have been discovered very recently, as 
 I am informed, at Agylla or Caere. And the study 
 and comparison of the several Indo-Germanic lan- 
 guages is making such progress, that, if any fortunate 
 discovery comes in to aid it, we may hope to see the 
 mystery of the Etruscan inscriptions at length un- 
 ravelled. I was not sorry, therefore, to defer any 
 detailed inquiry into the antiquities of the Italian 
 nations, in the expectation that I might be able 
 hereafter to enter upon the subject to greater 
 advantage. 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 Amongst the manifold accomplishments of Nie- 
 buhr's mind, not the least extraordinary was his 
 philological knowledge. His acquaintance with the 
 manuscripts of the Greek and Roman writers was 
 extensive and profound ; his acuteness in detecting 
 a corrupt reading, and his sagacity in correcting it, 
 were worthy of the critical ability of Bentley. On 
 no point have I been more humbled with a sense of 
 my own inferiority, as feeling that my own profes- 
 sional pursuits ought, in this respect, to have placed 
 me more nearly on a level with him. But it is far 
 otherwise. I have had but little acquaintance with 
 manuscripts, nor have I the means of consulting 
 them extensively ; and the common editions of the 
 Latin writers in particular, do not intimate how 
 much of their present text is grounded upon con- 
 jecture. I have seen references made to Festus, 
 which on examination have been found to rest on 
 no other authority than Scaliger's conjectural piecing 
 of the fragments of the original text. But besides 
 this, we often need a knowledge of the general cha- 
 racter of a manuscript or manuscripts, in order to 
 judge whether any remarkable variations in names or 
 dates are really to be ascribed to the author's having 
 followed a different version of the story, or whether 
 they are mere blunders of the copyist. For instance, 
 the names of the consuls, as given at the beginning 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 of each year in the present text of Diodorus, are 
 in many instances so corrupt, that one is tempted 
 to doubt how far some apparent differences in his 
 Fasti from those followed by Livy, are really his 
 own, or his copyist's. And the text of Caesar's Com- 
 mentaries is also so corrupt, and has in the later 
 editions been sometimes so unhappily corrected, that 
 I dread the period when I shall have to follow it as 
 the main authority of my narrative, and can no longer 
 look to Niebuhr's sagacity for guidance. 
 
 There are some works which I have not been able 
 to consult ; and there are points connected with the 
 topography of Rome and its neighbourhood, on 
 which no existing work gives a satisfactory expla- 
 nation. On these points I have been accustomed to 
 consult my valued friend Bunsen, Niebuhr's successor 
 in his official situation as Prussian Minister at Rome, 
 and his worthy successor no less in the profoundness 
 of his antiquarian, and philological, and historical 
 knowledge. From him I have received much im- 
 portant aid the continuation of the benefit which I 
 derived from his conversation, when I had the hap- 
 piness of studying the topography of Rome with 
 him, and of visiting in his society some of the most 
 memorable spots of ancient Latium. Without his 
 encouragement and sympathy I should scarcely have 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 brought this volume to a completion ; may he accept 
 my warmest acknowledgments for this and for the 
 many other proofs which I have received, during the 
 last ten years, of his most valued friendship. 
 
 Fox How, Ambleside, 
 January l>th, 1838. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Early Legends of Rome 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The early History of Rome 20 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Of the city of Rome, its territory, and its scenery 30 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Stories of the later Kings 37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The History of the later Kings of Rome, and of the greatness of 
 
 the Monarchy 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Miscellaneous notices of the state of the Romans under their 
 
 Kings 84 
 
 VOL. I. a 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Story of the Banishing of King Tarquinius and his House, 
 
 and of their attempts to get themselves brought back again . 101 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Rome after the end of the Monarchythe Dictatorship the Tri- 
 bunes of the Commons 123 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Spurius Cassius the League with the Latins and Hernicans 
 
 the Agrarian Law. A. u.c. 261-269 151 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Ascendancy of the Aristocracy the Fabii and their Seven Con- 
 sulshipsthe Publilian Law. A. u.c. 269-283 165 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Wars with the ^Equians and Volscians Legends connected with 
 
 these Wars Stories of Coriolanus and of Cincinnatus . .180 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Wars with the Etruscans Veii Legend of the slaughter of the 
 
 Fabii at the river Cremera 210 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Internal History the Terentilian Law Appointment of the ten 
 High Commissioners to frame a Code of written Laws. 
 A.U.C. 284-303 . . 219 
 
CONTENTS. xix 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The first Decemvirs, and the Laws of the Twelve Tables . . .254 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The second Decemvirate Story of Virginia Revolution of 305 . 298 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Internal History Constitution of the year 306 Valerian Laws, 
 and Trials of the Decemvirs Reaction in favour of the Patri- 
 cians Canuleian Law Constitution of 312 Counter-Revo- 
 lution 316 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Internal History from 312 to 350 the Censorship, and the limi- 
 tation of it by Mamercus ^Emilius Sp. Mselius and C. 
 Ahala the Qusestorship laid open to the Commons Six 
 Tribunes of the Soldiers appointed, and pay issued to the 
 Soldiers 345 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Wars of the Romans from 300 to 364 the ^Equians and Vol- 
 
 scians the Etruscans Siege and Capture of Veii .... 373 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Internal History from 350 to 364 Plebeian Military Tribunes 
 
 Banishment of Camillus 408 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 State of foreign Nations at the period of the Gaulish invasion 
 
 Italy, Sardinia, Corsica 422 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dionysius the Elder, Tyrant of Syracuse 448 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Carthage Barbarians of Western Europe East of Europe 
 Greece Macedonia Illyria 476 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Miscellaneous Physical History 500 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Gauls invade Central Italy Battle of the Alia Burning of 
 Rome Ransom of the Capitol and of the City Retreat of 
 the Gauls 517 
 
 TABLE of CONSULS and MILITARY TRIBUNES from the beginning 
 
 of the Commonwealth to the taking of Rome by the Gauls . 554 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY LEGENDS OF ROME. 
 
 " The old songs of every people, which bear the impress of their 
 character, and of which the beauties whether few or many must be 
 genuine, because they arise only from feeling, have always been valued 
 by men of masculine and comprehensive taste." Sir J. MACKINTOSH, 
 Hist, of England, Vol. I. p. 86. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF 
 
 WHEN the fatal horse was going to be brought CHAP. 
 within the walls of Troy ', and when Laocoon had < J 
 
 J 111 H w^Eneaa 
 
 been devoured by the two serpents sent by the gods went over 
 
 * J . sea from 
 
 to punish him because he had tried to save his coun- Trov to 
 
 the land of 
 
 try against the will of fate, then ^Eneas and his the Latins. 
 father Anchises, with their wives 2 , and many who 
 followed their fortune, fled from the coming of the 
 evil day. But they remembered to carry their gods 
 with them 3 , who were to receive their worship in a 
 
 1 Arctinus, 'iXi'ov -rrepvis, quoted 3 See the Tabula Iliensis, taken 
 
 by Proclus, Chrestomathia, p. 483. from Stesichorus. [Annali dell' 
 
 See Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellen. Institute di Corrispond. Archeolog. 
 
 Vol. 1. p. 356. 1829, p. 232.] 
 
 " Nsevius, Fragm. Bell. Pun. I. 
 1520. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, happier land. They were guided in their flight from 
 
 ThTi^Md' the city 4 , by the god Hermes, and he built for them 
 
 of .(Eneas. & s ^^ ^ Q carrv them over the sea. When they put 
 
 to sea the star of Venus 5 , the mother of ./Eneas, 
 
 stood over their heads, and it shone by day as well 
 
 as by night, till they came to the shores of the land 
 
 of the west. But when they landed, the star 
 
 vanished and was seen no more; and by this sign 
 
 ./Eneas knew that he was come to that country, 
 
 wherein fate had appointed him to dwell. 
 
 whic^hef 1 ^ e Trojans, when they had brought their gods 
 
 Baw,showin g on shore, bearan to sacrifice 6 . But the victim, a 
 
 him where 
 
 buiidh U i! d milk-white sow just ready to farrow, broke from the 
 "ty- priest and his ministers and fled away. ./Eneas fol- 
 lowed her ; for an oracle had told him, that a four- 
 footed beast should guide him to the spot where he 
 was to build his city. So the sow went forwards 
 till she came to a certain hill, about two miles and 
 a half from the shore where they had purposed to 
 sacrifice, and there she laid down and farrowed, and 
 her litter was of thirty young ones. But when 
 ./Eneas saw that the place was sandy and barren 7 , 
 he doubted what he should do. Just at this time 
 he heard a voice which said, " The thirty young of 
 the sow are thirty years ; when thirty years are 
 passed, thy children shall remove to a better land ; 
 meantime do thou obey the gods, and build thy city 
 in the place where they bid thee to build." So the 
 
 4 Tabula Iliensis, and Naevius, quoted by Servius, JEn. I. 381. 
 quoted by Servius, Mn. I. 170. 6 Dionysius, I. 56. 
 
 Edit. Lion. 1826. 7 Q.Fabius,apudServium,Virg. 
 
 5 Varro de Rebus divinis, II. JEn. I. v. 3. 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 3 
 
 Trojans built their city on the spot where the sow CHAP. 
 had farrowed. J 
 
 Now the land belonged to a people who were the f ^neas. 
 
 iMi /> MR i ii T Of his wars 
 
 children of the soil 8 , and their king was called Lati- with the 
 
 TT -ii people of the 
 
 nus. lie received the strangers kindly, and granted country. 
 to them seven hundred jugera of land 9 , seven jugera 
 to each man, for that was a man's portion. But soon 
 the children of the soil and the strangers quarrelled ; 
 and the strangers plundered the lands round about 
 them 10 ; and king Latinus called upon Turnus, the 
 king of the Rutulians of Ardea, to help him against 
 them. The quarrel became a war : and the strangers 
 took the city of king Latinus, and Latinus was killed ; 
 and .'E.neas took his daughter Lavinia and married 
 her, and became king over the children of the soil ; 
 and they and the strangers became one people, and 
 they were called by one name, Latins. 
 
 But Turnus called to his aid Mezentius, kinsf of HOW he dis- 
 appeared m 
 
 the Etruscans of Caere ". There was then another ^.^ 
 battle on the banks of the river Numicius, and Tur- ^? a ed 
 nus was killed, and J^neas plunged into the r j, V er asa s od - 
 and w r as seen no more. However his son Ascanius 
 declared that he was not dead, but that the gods 
 had taken him to be one of themselves 12 ; and his 
 people built an altar to him on the banks of the Nu- 
 micius, and worshipped him by the name of Jupiter 
 
 8 " Aborigines." Cato, Origi- 10 Cato, apud Servium, ./En. I. 
 nes, apud Servium, JEn. I. v. 6. 267, et ./En. IV. 620. 
 
 9 Cato, apud Servium, JEn XI. n Cato, apud Servium, JEn, I. 
 v. 316. But it should be observed 267. 
 
 that the MSS. of Servius give the 12 Servius, JEn. IV. 620. JEn. 
 
 number of jugera variously. XII. 794. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Indiges, which means, "the God who was of that 
 v ', ' very land 13 ." 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ASCANIUS. 
 
 HowAsca- The war went on between Mezentius and As- 
 
 nms slew 
 
 aJd Z buiit 8 ' canms > tne son f ^Eneas; and Mezentius pressed 
 hard upon the Latins, till at last Ascanius met him 
 man to man, and slew him H in single fight. At that 
 time Ascanius was very young, and there were only 
 the first soft hairs of youth upon his cheeks ; so he 
 was called lulus, or " the soft-haired," because, when 
 he was only a youth, he had vanquished and slain 
 his enemy, who was a grown man. At length the 
 thirty years came to an end, which were foreshown 
 by the litter of thirty young ones of the white sow. 
 Ascanius then removed with his people to a high 
 mountain, which looks over all the land on every 
 side, and one side of it runs steep down into a lake : 
 there he hewed out a place for his city on the side 
 of the mountain, above the lake ; and as the city 
 was long and narrow, owing to the steepness of the 
 hill, he called it Alba Longa, which is, the " White 
 Long City," and he called it white, because of the 
 sign of the white sow 15 . 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ROMULUS. 
 
 Sand "" Numitor I6 was the eldest son of Procas, king of 
 , u and ere Alba Longa, and he had a younger brother called 
 
 suckled by 
 
 a she- wolf 
 
 and fed by Livy, I. 2. ^ Servius, /En. I. v. 270. 
 
 a wood- ' Cato, apud Servium, ^n. I. I6 Livy, I. 3. Dionysius, 1.76, 
 
 pecker. 2 g 7 . et Plutarch, in Romulo. 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 5 
 
 Amulius. When Procas died, Amulius seized by CHAP. 
 force on the kingdom, and left to Numitor only his ^~f t r^ 
 share of his father's private inheritance. After this ofRoinull * s - 
 he caused Numitor's only son to be slain, and made 
 his daughter Silvia become one of the virgins who 
 watched the ever-burning fire of the goddess Vesta. 
 But the god Mamers, who is called also Mars, be- 
 held the virgin and loved her, and it was found that 
 she was going to become the mother of children. 
 Then Amulius ordered that the children, when born, 
 should be thrown into the river. It happened that 
 the river at that time had flooded the country ; 
 when, therefore, the two children in their basket 
 were thrown into the river, the waters carried them 
 as far as the foot of the Palatine Hill, and there the 
 basket was upset, near the roots of a wild-fig tree, 
 and the children thrown out upon the land. At this 
 moment there came a she-wolf down to the water 
 to drink, and when she saw the children, she carried 
 them to her cave hard by, and gave them to suck ; 
 and whilst they were there, a woodpecker came 
 backwards and forwards to the cave, and brought 
 them food 17 . At last one Faustulus, the king's 
 herdsman, saw the wolf suckling the children ; and 
 when he went up, the wolf left them and fled 18 ; so he 
 took them home to his wife Larentia, and they were 
 bred up along with their own sons on the Palatine 
 Hill ; and they were called Romulus and Remus l9 . 
 
 '7 Ovid, Fasti, III. 54. Servius l3 Gellius, Noct. Attic. VI. c. 7, 
 Mn I. v. 273. quoted from Messurius Sabinus. 
 
 ls Ennius, Annal I. 78. 
 
6 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. When Romulus and Remus grew up, the herds- 
 ', ' men of the Palatine Hill chanced to have a quarrel 
 
 The legend 
 
 of Romulus, with the herdsmen of Numitor, who stalled their 
 
 How it was 
 
 found out cattle on the hill Aventmus. Numitor s herdsmen 
 
 who they 
 
 were. laid an ambush, and Remus fell into it, and was 
 taken and carried off to Alba. But when the young 
 man was brought before Numitor, he was struck 
 with his noble air and bearing, and asked him who 
 he Avas. And when Remus told him of his birth, 
 and how he had been saved from death, together 
 with his brother, Numitor marvelled, and thought 
 whether this might not be his own daughter's child. 
 In the mean while, Faustulus and Romulus hastened 
 to Alba to deliver Remus ; and by the help of the 
 young men of the Palatine Hill, who had been used 
 to follow him and his brother, Romulus took the 
 city, and Amulius was killed ; and Numitor was 
 made king, and owned Romulus and Remus to be 
 born of his own blood. 
 
 HOW they The two brothers did not wish to live at Alba, 
 
 disputed 
 
 which but loved rather the hill on the banks of the Tiber 
 
 should give 
 
 his name where they had been brought up. So they said that 
 
 to the city, * 
 
 and of the they would build a city there ; and they inquired of 
 
 sign of the * 
 
 vultures, the gods by augury, to know which of them should 
 give his name to the city. They watched the hea- 
 vens from morning till evening, and from evening 
 till morning 20 ; and as the sun was rising, Remus 
 saw six vultures 21 . This was told to Romulus ; but 
 as they were telling him, behold there appeared to 
 
 i0 Ennius, Annal. I. v. 106, 107. ^ Livy, I. 7. 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 7 
 
 him twelve vultures. Then it was disputed again, CHAP. 
 which had seen the truest sign of the gods' favour : * L 
 but the most part gave their voices for Romulus, of Romulus. 
 So he began to build his city on the Palatine Hill. 
 This made Remus very angry ; and when he saw the 
 ditch and the rampart which were drawn round the 
 space where the city was to be, he scornfully leapt 
 over them 22 , saying, " Shall such defences as these 
 keep your city ?" As he did this, Celer, who had the 
 charge of the building, struck Remus with the spade 
 which he held in his hand, and slew him ; and they 
 buried him on the hill Remuria, by the banks of the 
 Tiber, on the spot where he had wished to build his 
 city. 
 
 But Romulus found that his people were too few HowRomu- 
 
 lus opened 
 
 in numbers; so he set apart a place of refuge 23 , to a place of 
 
 refuge, and 
 
 which any man might flee, and be safe from his how , h is 
 
 people 
 
 pursuers. So many fled thither from the countries c ? rried off 
 
 the women 
 
 round about ; those who had shed blood, and fled f th ? nei e h - 
 
 bounug 
 
 from the vengeance of the avenger of blood ; those P e P le - 
 who were driven out from their own homes by their 
 enemies, and even men of low degree who had run 
 away from their lords. Thus the city became full 
 of people ; but yet they wanted wives, and the 
 nations round about would not give them their 
 daughters in marriage. So Romulus gave out that 
 he was going to keep a great festival, and there were 
 to be sports and games to draw a multitude toge- 
 ther 24 . The neighbours came to see the show, with 
 
 22 Ovid, Fasti, IV. 842. 23 The famous Asylum. See Livy, I. 8. 
 24 Livy, I. 9. 
 
8 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CH j AP - their wives and their daughters : there came the 
 d^ people of Caenina, and of Crustumerium, and of 
 of Romulus. Antemna, and a great multitude of the Sabines. But 
 while they were looking at the games, the people of 
 Romulus rushed out upon them, and carried off the 
 women to be their wives. 
 
 HOW for Upon this the people of Csenina first made war 
 the Sabines upon the people of Romulus 25 : but they were beaten, 
 on them, and Romulus with his own hand slew their king 
 
 and of the _ _ _. . 
 
 treason of Acron. JNext the people of Crustumerium, and of 
 Tarpcia. Antemna, tried their fortune, but Romulus con- 
 quered both of them. Last of all came the Sabines 
 with a great army, under Titus Tatius, their king. 
 There is a hill near to the Tiber, which was divided 
 from the Palatine Hill by a low and swampy valley ; 
 and on this hill Romulus made a fortress, to keep off 
 the enemy from his city. But when the fair Tarpeia, 
 the daughter of the chief who had charge of the 
 fortress, saw the Sabines draw near, and marked 
 their bracelets and their collars of gold, she longed 
 after these ornaments, and promised to betray the 
 hill into their hands if they would give her those 
 bright things which they wore upon their arms 2G . So 
 she opened a gate, and let in the Sabines ; and they, 
 as they came in, threw upon her their bright shields 
 which they bore on their arms, and crushed her to 
 HOW the death. Thus the Sabines got the fortress which was 
 
 god Janus 
 
 saved the O n the hill Satuniius ; and they and the Romans 
 
 city from J 
 
 the Sabines. joined battle in the valley between the hill and the 
 
 25 Livy, I. 10. 26 Ljvy^ l. n. 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 9 
 
 city of Romulus 27 . The Sabines began to get the 
 better, and came up close to one of the gates of the T^Tk^' 
 city. The people of Romulus shut the gate, but it of Ronmlus ' 
 opened of its own accord ; once and again they shut 
 it, and once and again it opened. But as the Sa- 
 bines were rushing in, behold, there burst forth from 
 the Temple of Janus, which was near the gate, a 
 mighty stream of water, and it swept away the Sa- 
 bines, and saved the city. For this it was ordered that 
 the Temple of Janus should stand ever open in time of 
 war, that the god might be ever ready, as on this day, 
 to go out and give his aid to the people of Romulus. 
 
 After this they fought again in the valley ; and the HOW the 
 
 women who 
 
 people of Romulus were beginning to flee, when Ro- liad been 
 
 carried off 
 
 mulus prayed to Jove, the stayer of flight, that he ade P eace 
 
 r J J between 
 
 might stay the people 28 ; and so their flight was their father* 
 stayed, and they turned again to the battle. And ^ b ^ s t ; lie 
 now the fight was fiercer than ever : when, on a R m * n * and 
 
 the Sahmes 
 
 sudden, the Sabine women who had been carried off H , vedt s e - 
 
 ther. 
 
 ran down from the hill Palatinus, and ran in between 
 their husbands and their fathers, and prayed them to 
 lay aside their quarrel 29 . So they made peace with 
 one another, and the two people became as one : the 
 
 27 Macrobius, Saturnalia, I. 9- tent, as given by Tacitus, Annal. 
 
 Macrobius places the scene of this XII. 24. Yet Macrobius relates 
 
 wonder at a gats " which stood the wonder as having happened 
 
 at the foot of the hill Viminalis." at one of the gates of the Roman 
 
 It would be difficult to reconcile city, when the Romans were at 
 
 this story with the other accounts war with Tatius ; and it seemed 
 
 of the limits of the two cities of needless to destroy the consistency 
 
 Romulus and Tatius; and cer- of the whole story by the unsea- 
 
 tainly a gate at the foot of the sonable introduction of a topo- 
 
 Viminal could not have existed in graphical difficulty, 
 the walls of the city of Romulus, !8 Livy, I. 12. 
 according to the historical ac- 29 Livy, I. 13. 
 count of their direction and ex- 
 
10 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CH j AP - Sabines with their king dwelt on the hill Saturnius, 
 TheirwuT' w ^ich is also called Capitolium, and on the hill Qui- 
 of Romulus, rinalig; and the people of Romulus with their king- 
 dwelt on the hill Palatinus. But the kings with 
 their counsellors met in the valley between Saturnius 
 and Palatinus, to consult about their common mat- 
 ters ; and the place where they met was called Co- 
 mitium, which means " the place of meeting." 
 
 Soon after this, Tatius was slain by the people of 
 Laurentum, because some of his kinsmen had wronged 
 them, and he would not do them justice 30 . So Ro- 
 mulus reigned by himself over both nations ; and his 
 own people were called the Romans, for Roma was 
 the name of the city on the hill Palatinus; and 
 the Sabines were called Quirites, for the name of 
 their city on the hills Saturnius and Quirinalis was 
 Quirium 31 . 
 HowRomu- The people were divided into three tribes 32 ; the 
 
 Jus ordered 
 
 his people. Ramnenses, and the Titienses, and the Luceres : the 
 Ramnenses were called from Romulus, and the Ti- 
 tienses from Tatius ; and the Luceres were called 
 from Lucumo, an Etruscan chief, who had come to 
 help Romulus in his war with the Sabines, and dwelt 
 on the hill called Caelius. In each tribe there were 
 ten curise, each of one hundred men c3 ; so all the 
 men of the three tribes were three thousand, and 
 
 30 Livy, I. 14. sistency to the story, that I have 
 
 !1 Perhaps I hardly ought to ventured to adopt it. 
 
 have embodied Niebuhr's con- 32 Livy, 1. 13. Varro deLin. Lat. 
 
 jecture in the legend, for certainly 55. Ed. Miiller. Servius, Mn.V. 
 
 no ancient writer now extant 560. 
 
 speaks of the town " Quirium." 33 Paternus, quoted by Lydus, 
 
 Yet it seems so probable a con- de Magistratibus, c. 9. 
 
 jecture, and gives so much con- 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 11 
 
 these fought on foot, and were called a legion. There CHAP. 
 were also three hundred horsemen, and these were ^7-7- ' 
 
 The legend 
 
 called Celerians, because their chief was that Celer ofRomulus - 
 who had slain Remus. There was besides a council 
 of two hundred men, which was called a senate, that 
 is, a council of elders. 
 
 Romulus was a just king, and gentle to his peo- HOW he 
 
 i . /. .1 /> i vanished 
 
 pie : it any were guilty of crimes, he did not put suddenly in 
 them to death, but made them pay a fine of sheep Mars, and 
 or of oxen 34 . In his wars he was very successful, and shipped as 
 enriched his people with the spoils of their enemies. 
 At last, after he had reigned nearly forty years, it 
 chanced that one day he called his people together 
 in the field of Mars, near the Goats' Pool 35 : when, 
 all on a sudden, there arose a dreadful storm, and 
 all was as dark as night ; and the rain, and thunder 
 and lightning, were so terrible, that all the people 
 fled from the field, and ran to their several homes. 
 At last the storm was over, and they came back to 
 the field of Mars, but Romulus was nowhere to be 
 found ; for Mars, his father, had carried him up to 
 heaven in his chariot 3G . The people knew not at 
 first what was become of him; but when it was 
 night, as one Proculus Julius was coming from Alba 
 to the city, Romulus appeared to him in more than 
 mortal beauty, and grown to more than mortal sta- 
 ture, and said to him, " Go, and tell my people that 
 they weep not for me any more ; but bid them to be 
 brave and warlike, and so shall they make my city 
 
 34 Cicero de Republica, II. 9. 36 " Quirinus 
 
 35 Livy, I. 16. Martis equis Acheronta fugit." 
 
 Horat. III. Carm. 3. 
 
12 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the greatest in the earth." Then the people knew 
 
 < J ' that Romulus was become a god ; so they built a 
 
 temple to him, and offered sacrifice to him, and 
 
 worshipped him evermore by the name of the god 
 
 Quirinus. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF NUMA POMPILIUS. 
 
 HOW for one When Romulus was taken from the earth, there 
 
 whole year ..-,., , ml /^ 
 
 the Romans was HO OliQ lOimd to TClgn in hlS place . I he fee- 
 had no king. .. . 
 
 nators would choose no king, but they divided them- 
 selves into tens: and every ten was to have the 
 power of king for five days, one after the other. So 
 a year passed away, and the people murmured, and 
 said, that there must be a king chosen. 
 HowNuma Now the Romans and the Sabines each wished 
 
 Pompilius ii-ii i* i i 
 
 was chosen that the king should be one of them ; but at last it 
 was agreed that the king should be a Sabine, but 
 that the Romans should choose hinv 8 . So they 
 chose Numa Pompilius ; for all men said that he was 
 a just man, and wise, and holy. 
 
 or his wise Some said that he had learnt his wisdom from 
 
 and pious 
 
 ordinances; Pythagoras, the famous philosopher of the Greeks 39 ; 
 
 and of the J r 
 
 favour but others would not believe that he owed it to any 
 
 shown 
 
 f re ig n teacher. Before he would consent to be king, 
 ne consulted the gods by augury, to know whether it 
 was their pleasure that he should reign 40 . And as he 
 feared the gods at first, so did he even to the last. 
 He appointed many to minister in sacred things "", 
 
 V Livy, I. 17. 40 Livy, I. 18. 
 
 518 Dionysius, II. 58. 41 Livy, I. 19. 
 
 39 Livy, I. 18. Dionysius, I. 59. 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 13 
 
 such as the Pontifices who were to see that all CHAP. 
 things relating to the gods were duly observed by - v j^7 c ~ 
 all ; and the Augurs, who taught men the pleasure p^ 11 "^,, 
 of the gods concerning things to come ; and the 
 Flamens, who ministered in the temples ; and the 
 virgins of Vesta, who tended the ever-burning fire ; 
 and the Salii who honoured the god of arms with 
 solemn songs and dances through the city on certain 
 days, and who kept the sacred shield which fell down 
 from heaven. And in all that he did, he knew that 
 he should please the gods ; for he did every thing by 
 the direction of the nymph Egeria, who honoured him 
 so much that she took him to be her husband, and 
 taught him in her sacred grove, by the spring that 
 welled out from the rock, all that he was to do 
 towards the gods and towards men 42 . By her coun- 
 sel he snared the gods Picus and Faunus in the grove 
 on the hill Aventinus, and made them tell him how 
 he might learn from Jupiter the knowledge of his 
 will, and might get him to declare it either by 
 lightning or by the flight of birds 43 . And when men 
 doubted whether Egeria had really given him her 
 counsel, she gave him a sign by which he might 
 prove it to them. He called many of the Romans 
 to supper, and set before them a homely meal in 
 earthen dishes 44 ; and then on a sudden he said, 
 that now Egeria was come to visit him ; and straight- 
 way the dishes and the cups became of gold or pre- 
 
 42 Livy, I. 19, 20. Ovid, Fasti, " 4 Plutarch, Numa, 15. Diony- 
 III. 276. sius, II. 60. 
 
 43 Ovid, Fasti, III. 289, et seqq. 
 Plutarch, Numa, 15. 
 
14 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, cious stones, and the couches \vere covered with rare 
 TheTelmi' aTi ^ costly coverings, and the meats and drinks were 
 of Numa abundant and most delicious. But though Numa 
 
 Pompilms. 
 
 took so much care for the service of the gods, yet he 
 forbade all costly sacrifices 45 ; neither did he suffer 
 blood to be shed on the altars, nor any images of the 
 gods to be made ^ 6 . But he taught the people to 
 offer in sacrifice nothing but the fruits of the earth, 
 meal and cakes of flour, and roasted corn. 
 of his good- For he loved husbandry, and he wished his peo- 
 
 ness towards 
 
 his people, pie to live every man on his own inheritance in peace 
 
 and how 
 
 there were and in happiness. So the lands which Romulus had 
 
 no wars in 
 
 his reign. ^On in war, he divided out amongst the people, and 
 gave a certain portion to every man 47 . He then or- 
 dered landmarks to be set on every portion 48 ; and 
 Terminus the god of landmarks had them in his 
 keeping, and he who moved a landmark was ac- 
 cursed. The craftsmen of the city 49 , who had no 
 land, were divided according to their callings ; and 
 there were made of them nine companies. So all was 
 peaceful and prosperous throughout the reign of king 
 Numa ; the gates of the temple of Janus were never 
 opened, for the Romans had no wars and no enemies ; 
 and Numa built a temple to Faith, and appointed a 
 solemn worship for her 50 , that men might learn not 
 to lie or to deceive, but to speak and act in honesty. 
 And when he had lived to the age of fourscore 
 years, he died at last by a gentle decay, and he was 
 
 45 Cicero de Repub. II. 14. 48 Dionysius, II. 74. Plutarch, 
 
 46 Plutarch, Numa, 8. Varro, Numa, 16. 
 
 apud Augustin. Civit. Dei, IV. Plutarch, Numa, 17. 
 31. 50 Livy, I. 21. 
 
 47 Cicero de Repub. II. H. 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 15 
 
 buried under the hill Janiculum, on the other side CHAP. 
 of the Tiber ; and the books of his sacred laws and ' v 
 ordinance were buried near him in a separate tomb 51 . 
 
 THE LEGEND OF TULLUS HOSTILIUS. 
 
 When Numa was dead, the Senators again for a How Tullus 
 
 Hostilius 
 
 while shared the kingly power amongst themselves. w . as chosen 
 But they soon chose for their king Tullus Hostilius, 
 whose father's father had come from Medullia, a city 
 of the Latins, to Rome, and had fought with Romulus 
 against the Sabines 52 . Tullus loved the poor, and 
 he divided the lands which came to him as king, 
 amongst those who had no land. He also bade those 
 who had no houses to settle themselves on the hill 
 Cselius, and there he dwelt himself in the midst of 
 them. 
 
 Tullus was a warlike king, and he soon was called of his war 
 
 with the 
 
 to prove his valour ; for the countrymen of the Alban Aibans, and 
 
 J of the com- 
 
 border and of the Roman border plundered one b ^ between 
 
 the Horatu 
 
 another 53 . Now Alba was governed by Caius Clu- and the 
 
 Curiatn. 
 
 ilius, who was the dictator ; and Cluilius sent to Rome 
 to complain of the wrongs done to his people, and 
 Tullus sent to Alba for the same purpose. So there 
 was a war between the two nations, and Cluilius led 
 his people against Rome, and lay encamped within 
 five miles of the city, and there he died. Mettius 
 Fufetius was then chosen dictator in his room ; and as 
 the Aibans still lay in their camp, Tullus passed them 
 by, and marched into the land of Alba. But when 
 
 51 Plutarch, Numa, 22. 53 Livy, I. 22, et seqq. 
 
 52 Dionysius, III. 1. 
 
16 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Mettius came after him, then, instead of giving bat- 
 ^ e > the two leaders agreed that a few in either army 
 should fight in behalf of the rest, and that the event of 
 this combat should decide the quarrel. So three twin 
 brothers were chosen out of the Roman army, called 
 the Horatii, and three twin brothers out of the Alban 
 army, called the Curiatii. The combat took place 
 in the sight of both armies ; and after a time all the 
 Curiatii were wounded, and two of the Horatii were 
 slain. Then the last Horatius pretended to fly, and 
 the Curiatii each, as they were able, followed after 
 him. But when Horatius saw that they were a great 
 way off from one another, he turned suddenly and 
 slew the first of them ; and the second in like man- 
 ner ; and then he easily overcame and slew the third. 
 So the victory remained to the Romans. 
 
 Then the Romans went home to Rome in tri- 
 of'the *ud um P n M an d Horatius went at the head of the army, 
 mfon'ium 86 * 1 Dearm g his triple spoils. But as they were drawing 
 for the deed. near fo fae Capenian gate, his sister came out to 
 meet him. Now she had been betrothed in mar- 
 riage to one of the Curiatii, and his cloak, which she 
 had wrought with her own hands, was borne on 
 the shoulders of her brother ; and she knew it, and 
 cried out, and wept for him whom she had loved. 
 At the sight of her tears Horatius was so wroth that 
 he drew his sword, and stabbed his sister to the 
 heart ; and he said, " So perish the Roman maiden 
 who shall weep for her country's enemy." But men 
 
 b4 Livy, I. 26. 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 17 
 
 said that it was a dreadful deed, and they dragged CHAP. 
 him before the two judges who judged when blood v ^ ' 
 
 c The legend 
 
 had been shed. For thus said the law, ofTuiius 
 
 Hostilms. 
 
 " The two men shall give judgment on the shedder of blood. 
 If he shall appeal from their judgment, let the appeal be tried. 
 If their judgment be confirmed, cover his head. 
 Hang him with a halter on the accursed tree; 
 Scourge him either within the sacred limit of the city or without." 
 
 So they gave judgment on Horatius, and were going 
 to give him over to be put to death. But he ap- 
 pealed, and the appeal was tried before all the Ro- 
 mans, and they would not condemn him because he 
 had conquered for them their enemies, and because 
 his father spoke for him, and said, that he judged 
 the maiden to have been lawfully slain. Yet as 
 blood had been shed, which required to be atoned 
 for, the Romans gave a certain sum of money to 
 offer sacrifices to atone for the pollution of blood. 
 These sacrifices were duly performed ever afterwards 
 by the members of the house of the Horatii. 
 
 The Albans were now become bound to obey the of the fear- 
 Romans 55 : and Tullus called upon them to aid hinimentof 
 
 c tr " i TTJ Mettius Fu- 
 
 lll a war against the people or V en and Jf idenae. fets, and 
 
 But in the battle the Alban leader, Mettius Fufe- destruction 
 
 , __. of Alba. 
 
 tins, stood aloof, and gave no true aid to the Ko- 
 inans. So, when the Romans had won the battle, 
 Tullus called the Albans together as if he were 
 going to make a speech to them ; and they came to 
 
 55 Livy, I. 27, et seqq. 
 VOL. I. 
 
18 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, hear him, as was the custom, without their arms ; 
 ;, r r* and the Roman soldiers gathered around them, and 
 
 The legend 
 
 HoTtffluB khey could neither fight nor escape. Then Tullus 
 took Mettius and bound him between two chariots, 
 and drove the chariots different ways, and tore him 
 asunder. After this he sent his people to Alba, and 
 they destroyed the city, and made all the Albans 
 come and live at Rome; there they had the hill 
 Caelius for their dwelling-place, and became one 
 people with the Romans. 
 
 HOW king After this, Tullus made war upon the Sabines, and 
 
 Tullus, 
 
 having of- gained a victory over them 56 . But now, whether it 
 
 fended the * 
 
 gods, was were that Tullus had neglected the worship of the 
 
 killed by 
 
 lightning, gods whilst he had been so busy in his wars, the 
 signs of the wrath of heaven became manifest. A 
 plague broke out among the people, and Tullus him- 
 self was at last stricken with a lingering disease. 
 Then he bethought him of good and holy Numa, 
 and how, in his time, the gods had been so gracious 
 to Rome, and had made known their will by signs 
 whenever Numa inquired of them. So Tullus also 
 tried to inquire of Jupiter, but the god was angry 
 and would not be inquired of, for Tullus did not 
 consult him rightly ; so he sent his lightnings, and 
 Tullus and all his house were burnt to ashes. This 
 made the Romans know that they wanted a king 
 who would follow the example of Numa ; so they 
 chose his daughter's son Ancus Marcius, to reign 
 over them in the room of Tullus. 
 
 Livy, I. 31. 
 
EARLY LEGENDS. 19 
 
 THE STORY OF ANGUS MARCIUS. CHAP. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ancient story does not tell much of Ancus Mar- or the good 
 cius. He published the religious ceremonies which An^s 
 Numa had commanded, and had them written out 
 upon whited boards, and hung up round the forum, 
 that all might know and observe them 57 . He had 
 a war with the Latins and conquered them, and 
 brought the people to Rome, and gave them the hill 
 Aventinus to dwell on 58 . He divided the lands of 
 the conquered Latins amongst all the Romans 59 ; and 
 he gave up the forests near the sea which he had 
 taken from the Latins, to be the public property of 
 the Romans. He founded a colony at Ostia, by the 
 mouth of the Tiber 60 . He built a fortress on the hill 
 Janiculum, and joined the hill to the city by a 
 wooden bridge over the river 61 . He secured the 
 city in the low grounds between the hills by a great 
 dyke, which was called the dyke of the Quirites 62 . 
 And he built a prison under the hill Saturnius, to- 
 wards the forum, because as the people grew in 
 numbers, offenders against the laws became more 
 numerous also 63 . At last king Ancus died, after a 
 reign of three-and-twenty years **. 
 
 57 Livy,1.32. Dionysius, 111.36. 61 Livy, I. 33. 
 
 58 CicerodeRepub.il. 18. Livy, '"' Livy, I. 33. 
 I 33. 2 3 Livy, I. 33. 
 
 59 Cicero de Repub. II. 18. M Cicero de Repub. II 18. Livy 
 
 60 Cicero, ib. Livy, I. 33. Dio- says, " twenty-four years." I. 35. 
 nysius, III. 44. 
 
 c 2 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 'E* To>v (lpr)[jLfva>v T(K[iT)pla>v TOiavra av ns vopifav /zaXiora a 8iij\6ov, 
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 f)yT)(rdp,fVos fK T>V eVi^avecrrarcoi' OT)p.fia>v, a>s TraXata elvai, a 
 THUCYDIDES, I. 21. 
 
 CHAP. I HAVE given the stories of the early kings and 
 * J- ' founders of Rome, in their own proper form ; not 
 history of wishing any one to mistake them for real history, but 
 
 Rome. 
 
 thinking them far too famous and too striking to be 
 omitted. But what is the real history, in the place 
 of which we have so long admired the tales of Romu- 
 lus and Numa? This is a question which cannot be 
 satisfactorily answered : I shall content myself here 
 with giving the few points that seem sufficiently 
 established ; referring those who desire to go deeply 
 into the whole question, to that immortal work of 
 Niebuhr, which has left other writers nothing else to 
 do, except either to copy or to abridge it. 
 
 The first question in the history of every people is, 
 What was their race and language ? the next, What 
 was the earliest form of their society, their social and 
 
EARLY HISTORY. 21 
 
 political organization ? Let us see how far we can CHAP. 
 answer these questions with respect to Rome. v ^ ' 
 
 The language of the Romans was not called Ro- Language of 
 
 the Romans. 
 
 man, but Latin. Politically, Rome and Latium were 
 clearly distinguished, but their language appears to 
 have been the same. This language is different from 
 the Etruscan, and from the Oscan ; the Romans, 
 therefore, are so far marked out as distinct from the 
 great nations of central Italy, whether Etruscans, 
 Umbrians, Sabines, or Samnites. 
 
 On the other hand, the connexion of the Latin Partly con- 
 
 nected with 
 
 language with the Greek is manifest. Many com- that of 
 
 Greece. 
 
 rnon words, which no nation ever derives from the 
 literature of another, are the same in Greek and La- 
 tin ; the declensions of the nouns and verbs are, to a 
 great degree, similar. It is probable that the Latins 
 belonged to that great race which, in very early 
 times, overspread both Greece and Italy, under the 
 various names of Pelasgians, Tyrsenians, and Sicu- 
 lians. It may be believed, that the Hellenians were 
 anciently a people of this same race, but that some 
 peculiar circumstances gave to them a distinct and 
 superior character, and raised them so far above 
 their brethren, that, in after-ages, they disclaimed all 
 connexion with them '. 
 
 1 The Pelasgians, in the opinion own comedies, the story of which 
 
 of Herodotus, were a barbarian was borrowed from Philemon, 
 
 race, and spoke a barbarian Ian- says, 
 
 guage. I. 57, 58. This merely " Philemo scripsit, Plautus vertit 
 
 means that they did not speak barbare." 
 
 Greek. No one doubts the con- Trinummus, Prolog, v. 1 9. 
 
 nexion between Greek and Latin ; That is, " translated into Latin." 
 
 yet Plautus, speaking of one of bis The discovery of affinities in Ian- 
 
22 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 But in the Latin language there is another element 
 besides that which it has in common with the Greek. 
 
 Partly with 
 
 that of the This element belongs to the languages of central 
 
 Oscans. . 
 
 Italy, and may be called Oscan. Further, Niebuhr 
 has remarked, that whilst the terms relating to 
 agriculture and domestic life are mostly derived 
 from the Greek part of the language, those relating 
 to arms and war are mostly Oscan 2 . It seems, then, 
 not only that the Latins were a mixed people, partly 
 Pelasgian and partly Oscan; but also that they 
 arose out of a conquest of the Pelasgians by the 
 Oscans: so that the latter were the ruling class 
 of the united nation ; the former were its sub- 
 jects. 
 
 Differences The Latin language, then, may afford us a clue to 
 Romans and the origin of the Latin people, and so far to that of 
 
 the other -i T -r i i n* 
 
 Latins. the Romans. But it does not explain the dmerence 
 
 guages, when they are not so close 
 as to constitute merely a difference 
 of dialect, belongs only to philolo- 
 gers. Who, till very lately, sus- 
 pected that Sanskrit and English 
 had any connexion with each other? 
 
 2 He instances on the one hand, 
 Domus, Ager, Aratrum, Vinum, 
 Oleum, Lac, Bos, Sus, Ovis ; 
 while on the other hand, Duellum, 
 Ensis, Hasta, Sagitta, &c., are 
 quite different from the corre- 
 sponding Greek terms. See Nie- 
 buhr, Rom. Gesch. Vol. I. p. 82. 
 Ed. 1827. 
 
 The word "scutum" was, in the 
 first edition of this work, intro- 
 duced inadvertently into the list of 
 Latin military terms, unconnected 
 with Greek; as it is evidently of 
 the same family with O-KVTOS : but 
 yet there are so many words of the 
 
 same family in the other languages 
 of the Indo-Germanic stock, that 
 the connexion belongs rather to 
 the general resemblance subsisting 
 between all those languages, than 
 to the closer likeness which may 
 subsist between any two of them 
 towards one another. And this 
 more distant relationship exists, I 
 doubt not, between the Oscan and 
 even the Etruscan languages, and 
 the other branches of the Indo- 
 Germanic family; and so far Greek, 
 as well as Sanskrit, Persian, or 
 German, may be rightly used as 
 an instrument to enable us to 
 decypher the Etruscan inscrip- 
 tions. Lanzi's fault consisted in 
 assuming too close a resemblance 
 between Greek and Etruscan ; in 
 supposing that they were sisters, 
 rather than distant cousins. 
 
EARLY HISTORY. 23 
 
 between the Romans and Latins, to which the pe- CHAP. 
 culiar fates of the Roman people owe their origin. ' ^ ' 
 We must inquire, then, what the Romans were, 
 which the other Latins were not ; and as language 
 cannot aid us here, we must have recourse to 
 other assistance, to geography and national tradi- 
 tions. And thus, at the same time, we shall arrive 
 at an answer to the second question in Roman 
 history, What was the earliest form of civil society 
 at Rome? 
 
 If we look at the map, we shall see that Rome Distinct 
 
 geographical 
 
 lies at the farthest extremity of Latium, divided position of 
 
 Rome. 
 
 from Etruria only by the Tiber, and having the Sa- 
 bines close on the north, between the Tiber and the 
 Anio. No other Latin town, so far as we know, was 
 built on the Tiber 3 ; some were clustered on and 
 round the Alban hills, others lined the coast of the 
 Mediterranean, but from all these Rome, by its posi- 
 tion, stood aloof. 
 
 Tradition reports that as Rome was thus apart intcr- 
 
 . . mixture of 
 
 from the rest of the Latin cities, and so near a neigh- Sabine and 
 
 Etruscan 
 
 bour to the Etruscans and Sabines, so its popula- institutions 
 
 and people. 
 
 tion was in part formed out of one of these nations, 
 and many of its rites and institutions borrowed from 
 the other. Tradition describes the very first founders 
 of the city as the shepherds and herdsmen of the 
 
 3 I had forgotten what may be nuta di Dragoncella. But West- 
 
 the single exception of Ficana, phal places Ficana at Trafusa, 
 
 which, according to Festus, stood which is at some distance from the 
 
 on the road to Ostia, at the ele- Tiber; so that, according to him, 
 
 venth milestone from Rome : that the statement in the text would be 
 
 is, according to Sir W. Gell and absolutely correct, 
 others, at the spot now called Te- 
 
24 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, banks of the Tiber, and tells how their numbers 
 v - were presently swelled by strangers and outcasts 
 from all the countries round about. It speaks of a 
 threefold division of the Roman people, in the very 
 earliest age of its history ; the tribes of the Ram- 
 nenses, Titienses, and Luceres. It distinctly acknow- 
 ledges the Titienses to have been Sabines ; and in 
 some of its guesses at the origin of the Luceres, it 
 connects their name with that of the Etruscan Lu- 
 cumones 4 , and thus supposes them to have been 
 composed of Etruscans. 
 
 We know that for all points of detail, and for 
 keeping a correct account of time, tradition is worth- 
 less. It is very possible that all Etruscan rites and 
 usages came in with the Tarquinii, and were falsely 
 carried back to an earlier period. But the mixture 
 of the Sabines with the original people of the Pala- 
 tine hill, cannot be doubted ; and the stories of the 
 asylum, and of the violence done to the Sabine 
 women, seem to show that the first settlers of the 
 Palatine were a mixed race, in which other blood was 
 largely mingled with that of the Latins. We may 
 conceive of this earlier people of Mamers, as of the 
 Mamertini of a more historical period : that they 
 were a band of resolute adventurers from various 
 parts, practised in arms, and little scrupulous how 
 they used them. Thus the origin of the highest 
 Roman nobility may have greatly resembled that 
 
 4 So Junius Gracchanus, as 55 ; and so also Cicero, de Re- 
 quoted by Varro, de L. L., V. sec. publica, II. 8. 
 
EARLY HISTORY. 25 
 
 larger band of adventurers who followed the standard CHAP. 
 
 . IL 
 
 of William the Norman, and were the founders of ' ' 
 
 the nobility of England. 
 
 The people or citizens of Rome were divided into Division of 
 
 the Roman 
 
 the three tribes of the Ramnenses, Titienses, and people into 
 
 three tribes. 
 
 Luceres 5 , to whatever races we may suppose them 
 to belong, or at whatever time and under whatever 
 circumstances they may have become united. Each 
 of these tribes was divided into ten smaller bodies 
 called curise ; so that the whole people consisted of 
 thirty curia} : these same divisions were in war re- 
 presented by the thirty centuries which made up the 
 legion, just as the three tribes were represented by 
 the three centuries of horsemen; but that the sol- 
 diers of each century were exactly a hundred, is 
 apparently as unfounded a conclusion, as it would be 
 if we were to argue in the same way as to the mili- 
 tary force of one of our English hundreds. 
 
 I have said that each tribe was divided into ten Tribes made 
 curias; it would be more correct to say, that the 
 
 union of ten curise formed the tribe. For the state 1C 
 grew out of the junction of certain original ele- 
 ments ; and these were neither the tribes, nor even 
 the curise, but the gentes or houses which made up 
 the curise. The first element of the whole system 
 
 5 These in Livy's first book are Priscus and the augur, Attus Na- 
 
 called merely " Centuriae equi- vius, were supposed to represent 
 
 turn," ch. 13. But in the tenth the three tribes, and their number 
 
 book, ch. 6, they appear as " An- was fixed on that principle : just 
 
 tiquae tribus." Both expressions as the thirty centuries of foot 
 
 come to the same thing, for the soldiers represented the thirty 
 
 three centuries of horsemen, as ap- curiee. 
 pears by the story of Tarquinius 
 
26 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, was the gens or house, an union of several families 
 v ^ ' who were bound together by the joint performance 
 of certain religious rites. Actually, where a system 
 of houses has existed within historical memory, the 
 several families who composed a house were not ne- 
 cessarily related to one another ; they were not really 
 cousins more or less distant, all descended from a 
 common ancestor. But there is no reason to doubt 
 that in the original idea of a house, the bond of 
 union between its several families was truly sameness 
 of blood : such was likely to be the earliest acknow- 
 ledged tie ; although afterwards, as names are apt to 
 outlive their meanings, an artificial bond may have 
 succeeded to the natural one ; and a house, instead of 
 consisting of families of real relations, was made up 
 sometimes of families of strangers, whom it was pro- 
 posed to bind together by a fictitious tie, in the hope 
 that law, and custom, and religion, might together 
 rival the force of nature. 
 
 The houses Thus the state being made up of families, and 
 clients. r every family consisting from the earliest times of 
 members and dependents, the original inhabitants of 
 Rome belonged all to one of two classes : they were 
 either members of a family ; and, if so, members of a 
 house, of a curia, of a tribe, and so, lastly, of the 
 state : or they were dependents on a family ; and, if 
 so, their relation went no further than the immediate 
 aggregate of families, that is, the house : with the 
 curia, with the tribe, and with the state, they had no 
 connexion. 
 
 These members of families were the original citi- 
 
EARLY HISTORY. 27 
 
 zens of Rome; these dependents on families were CHAP. 
 the original clients. 
 
 The idea of clientship is that of a wholly private The cotn - 
 
 mons, or 
 
 relation ; the clients were something to their re- P kbs - 
 spective patrons, but to the state they were nothing. 
 But wherever states composed in this manner, of a 
 body of houses with their clients, had been long 
 established, there grew up amidst, or close beside 
 them, created in most instances by conquest, a popu- 
 lation of a very distinct kind. Strangers might come 
 to live in the land, or more commonly the inha- 
 bitants of a neighbouring district might be con- 
 quered, and united with their conquerors as a subject 
 people. Now this population had no connexion with 
 the houses separately, but only with a state com- 
 posed of those houses : this was wholly a political, 
 not a domestic relation ; it united personal and pri- 
 vate liberty with political subjection. This inferior 
 population possessed property, regulated their own 
 municipal as well as domestic affairs, and as free men 
 fought in the armies of what was now their common 
 country. But, strictly, they were not its citizens; 
 they could not intermarry with the houses; they 
 could not belong to the state, for they belonged to no 
 house, and therefore to no curia, and no tribe ; con- 
 sequently they had no share in the state's govern- 
 ment, nor in the state's property. What the state 
 conquered in war became the property of the state, 
 and therefore they had no claim to it ; with the state 
 demesne, with whatever in short belonged to the state 
 
28 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, in its aggregate capacity, these, as being its neighbours 
 ' v- ' merely, and not its members, had no concern. 
 
 Such an inferior population, free personally, but 
 subject politically, not slaves, yet not citizens, was 
 the original Plebs, the commons of Rome. 
 Their settle- The mass of the Roman commons were conquered 
 
 ment on the . . _ . 
 
 Aventine Latins 6 . These, besides receiving grants or a portion 
 of their former lands, to be held by them as Roman 
 citizens, had also the hill Aventinus assigned as a 
 residence to those of them who removed to Rome. 
 The Aventine was without the walls, although so 
 near to them : thus the commons were, even in the 
 nature of their abode, like the Pfalburger of the mid- 
 dle ages, men not admitted to live within the city, 
 but enjoying its protection against foreign enemies. 
 Members It will be understood at once, that whatever is 
 houses were said of the people in these early times, refers only 
 citizens'. to the full citizens, that is, to the members of the 
 houses. The assembly of the people was the as- 
 sembly of the curias ; that is, the great council of the 
 members of the houses ; while the senate, consisting 
 of two hundred senators, chosen in equal numbers 
 from the two higher tribes of the Ramnenses and 
 Titienses, was their smaller or ordinary council. 
 The king's The power of the king was as varied and ill de- 
 
 power over 
 
 the citizens, fined as in the feudal monarchies of the middle ages. 
 
 and over the / - v . , 
 
 commons. Over the commons he was absolute ; but over the 
 real people, that is, over the houses, his power was 
 
 6 See Niebuhr's chapter "Die Gemeinde und die plebeischen Tribus." 
 
EARLY HISTORY. 29 
 
 absolute only in war, and without the city. Within CHAP. 
 the walls every citizen was allowed to appeal from v ^ 
 the king, or his judges, to the sentence of his peers ; 
 that is, to the great council of the curiae. The king 
 had his demesne lands 7 , and in war would receive 
 his portion of the conquered land, as well as of the 
 spoil of moveables. 
 
 7 Cicero de Republics*, V. 3. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE CITY OF ROME, ITS TERRITORY, AND ITS 
 SCENERY. 
 
 Muros, arcemque procul, ac rara domorum 
 
 Tecta vident. 
 
 Hoc nemus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice collem, 
 Quis Deus incertum est, habitat Deus." 
 
 VIRGIL, JEn. VIII. 
 
 CHAP. IF it is hard to carry back our ideas of Rome from 
 
 in 
 v ..- ' its actual state to the period of its highest splendour, 
 
 Early state ; , . 
 
 of the city of it is yet harder to go back in fancy to a time still 
 
 Rome. 
 
 more distant, a time earlier than the beginning of its 
 authentic history, before man's art had completely 
 rescued the very soil of the future city from the 
 dominion of nature. Here also it is vain to attempt 
 accuracy in the details, or to be certain that the 
 several features in our description all existed at the 
 same period. It is enough if we can image to our- 
 selves some likeness of the original state of Rome, 
 before the undertaking of those great works which 
 are ascribed to the later kings. 
 
 The original The Pomoerium of the original city on the Pala- 
 ' tine, as described by Tacitus ', included not only the 
 
 1 Tacitus, Annal. XII. 24. It his description, that the consecra- 
 is evident, by the minuteness of ted limits of the original city had 
 
CITY OF ROME, ETC. 
 
 31 
 
 hill itself, but some portion of the ground imme- CHAP 
 diately below it ; it did not, however, reach as far* ., 
 as any of the other hills. The valley between the 
 Palatine and the Aventine, afterwards the site of 
 the Circus Maximus, was in the earliest times 
 covered with water ; so also was the greater part 
 of the valley between the Palatine and the Capito- 
 line, the ground afterwards occupied by the Roman 
 forum. 
 
 been carefully preserved by tradi- 
 tion ; and this is exactly one of the 
 points on which, as we know by 
 our own experience with regard to 
 parish boundaries, a tradition kept 
 up by yearly ceremonies, may safe- 
 ly be trusted. The exact line of 
 this original Pomoerium is thus 
 marked by Bunsen in his descrip- 
 tion of Rome, Vol. I. p. 137 : " It 
 set out from the Forum Boarium, 
 the site of which is fixed by the 
 Arch of Septimius Severus, at the 
 Janus Quadrifons," (this must 
 not be confounded with the Arch 
 of Severus on the Via Sacra, just 
 under the capitol,) "and passed 
 through the valley of the circus, 
 so as to include the Ara Maxima, 
 as far as the Ara Consi, at the foot 
 of the hill. It then proceeded 
 from the Septizonium, (just op- 
 posite the church of S. Gregorio, 
 at the foot of the Palatine,) till it 
 came under the baths of Trajan, 
 (or Titus,) which were the Curias 
 Veteres. From thence it passed 
 on to the top of the Velia, on 
 which the Arch of Titus now 
 stands, and where Tacitus places 
 the Sacellum Larium." It fol- 
 lowed nearly the line of the Via 
 Sacra, as far as the eastern end of 
 the Forum Romanum. But Taci- 
 
 tus does not mention it as going 
 on to join the Forum Boarium, 
 because in the earliest times this 
 valley was either a lake or a 
 swamp, and the Pomoerium could 
 not descend below the edge of the 
 Palatine hill. Nibby, in his work 
 on the walls of Rome, places the 
 Curias Veteres on the Palatine, 
 and the Sacellum Larium between 
 the Arch of Titus and the Forum 
 on the Via Nova. The position of 
 the Curias Veteres is certainly 
 doubtful. Niebuhr himself (Vol. I. 
 p. 283. Note 735. Eng. Tr.) 
 thinks that the Pomoerium can 
 scarcely be carried so far as the 
 foot of the Esquiline ; and the 
 authority for identifying the Curias 
 Veteres with the site of the Baths 
 of Titus or Trajan is not decisive ; 
 for it only appears that Biondo 
 writing in 1440 calls the ruins of 
 the Baths " Curia Vecchia," and 
 says that in old legal instruments 
 they were commonly so called. 
 (Beschreibung Roms, Vol. III. 
 part 2, p. 222.) Now considering 
 the general use of the word Curia, 
 and that the name is in the sin- 
 gular number, it by no means 
 follows that Biondo's Curia Vetus 
 must be the Curias Veteres of 
 Tacitus. 
 
32 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. But the city of the Palatine hill grew in process 
 ' ^ ' of time, so as to become a city of seven hills. Not 
 
 The original ... 
 
 seven hiiis. the seven famous hills of imperial or republican 
 Rome, but seven spots more or less elevated, and all 
 belonging to three only of the later seven hills, that 
 is, to the Palatine, the Cselian, and the Esquiline. 
 These first seven hills of Rome were known by the 
 names of Palatium, Velia, Cermalus, Cselius, Fagutal, 
 Oppius, and Cispius 2 . Of this town the Aventine 
 formed a suburb; and the dyke of the Quirites, 
 ascribed in the story to Ancus Marcius, ran across 
 the valley from the edge of the Aventine to that of 
 the Cselian hill near the Porta Capena 3 . 
 
 Theydidnot At this time Rome, though already a city on 
 
 include all * . ' 
 
 the seven seven hills, was distinct from the Sabme city on the 
 
 hills of the * 
 
 later city. Capitoline, Quirinal, and Viminal hills. The two 
 cities, although united under one government, had 
 
 8 For the account of this old other seven spots, see Bunsen, 
 
 Septimontium, see Festus under description of Rome, Vol. I. p. 
 
 the word " Septimontio." Festus 141. Velia was the ascent on the 
 
 adds an eighth name, Suburra. north-east side of the Palatine, 
 
 Niebuhr conjectures that the in- where the Arch of Titus now 
 
 habitants of the Pagus Sucusanus, stands. Cermalus, or Germalus, 
 
 (which was the same district as was on the north-west side of the 
 
 the Suburra, and lay under the Palatine just above the Velabrum: 
 
 Esquiline and Viminal hills, near Fagutal is thought to have been 
 
 the church of S. Francesco diPaola, the ground near the Porta Esqui- 
 
 where a miserable sort of square lina, between the Arch of Gallie- 
 
 is still called Piazza Suburra,) nus and the Sette Sale. Oppius 
 
 may have joined in the festival of and Cispius were also parts of the 
 
 the inhabitants of these seven hills Esquiline; the former is marked 
 
 or heights, although they were not by the present church of S. Maria 
 
 themselves "Montani," (see Varro Maggiore, and the latter lay be- 
 
 de L. L., VI. 24. Ed. Muller,) to tween that church and the baths 
 
 show that they belonged to the city of Diocletian, 
 of the Palatine, and not to the 3 See Niebuhr, Vol. I. p. 403. 
 
 Sabine city of the Capitoline hill. Ed. 2nd, and Bunsen, Beschrei- 
 
 For the exact situations of the bung Roms, Vol. 1. p. 020. 
 
CITY OF ROME, ETC. 33 
 
 still a separate existence ; they were not completely CHAP. 
 blended into one till that second period in Roman v - 
 history which we shall soon have to consider, the 
 reigns of the later kings. 
 
 The territory of the original Rome during its first The Ager 
 
 . Romanus. 
 
 period, the true Ager Romanus, could be gone round 
 in a single day 4 . It did not extend beyond the 
 Tiber at all, nor probably beyond the Anio ; and, on 
 the east and south, where it had most room to spread, 
 its limit was between five and six miles from the 
 city. This Ager Romanus was the exclusive pro- 
 perty of the Roman people, that is of the houses ; 
 it did not include the lands conquered from the 
 Latins, and given back to them again when the 
 Latins became the plebs or commons of Rome. Ac- 
 cording to the augurs 5 , the Ager Romanus was a 
 peculiar district in a religious sense ; auspices could 
 be taken within its bounds, which could be taken no 
 where without them. 
 
 And now what was Rome, and what was the Scenery of 
 country around it, which have both acquired an in- bourffood of 
 terest such as can cease only when earth itself shall 
 perish ? The hills of Rome are such as we rarely see 
 in England, low in height but with steep and rocky 
 sides 6 . In early times the natural wood still re- 
 
 4 See Strabo, Lib. V. p. 253. recollections of my visit to Rome 
 Ed. Xyland, and compare Livy, I. in 1827, was inserted some time 
 23. " Fossa Cluilia, ab Urbe baud since in the History of Rome 
 plus quinque millia." And II. 39. published by the Society for the 
 " Ad Fossas Cluilias V. ab Urbe Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. I 
 M. P. castris positis, populatur am obliged to mention this, lest I 
 inde Agrum Romanum." might be suspected of having bor- 
 
 5 See Varro de L. L., V. 33. Ed. rowed from another work with- 
 Miiller. out acknowledgment what was in 
 
 6 The substance of this descrip- fact furnished to that work by 
 tion, taken from my journals and myself. 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, mained in patches amidst the buildings, as at this 
 . - - day it grows here and there on the green sides of 
 the Monte Testacco. Across the Tiber the ground 
 rises to a greater height than that of the Roman 
 hills, but its summit is a level unbroken line, while 
 the heights, which opposite to Rome itself rise imme- 
 diately from the river, under the names of Janiculus 
 and Vaticanus, then sweep away to some distance 
 from it, and return in their highest and boldest form 
 at the Monte Mario, just above the Milvian bridge 
 and the Flaminian road. Thus to the west the view 
 is immediately bounded ; but to the north and north- 
 east the eye ranges over the low ground of the 
 Campagna to the nearest line of the Apennines, 
 which closes up, as with a gigantic wall, all the 
 Sabine, Latin, and Volscian lowlands, while over it 
 are still distinctly to be seen the high summits of the 
 central Apennines, covered with snow, even at this 
 day, for more than six months in the year. South 
 and south-west lies the wide plain of the Campagna ; 
 its level line succeeded by the equally level line of 
 the sea, which can only be distinguished from it by 
 the brighter light reflected from its waters. East- 
 ward, after ten miles of plain, the view is bounded 
 by the Alban hills, a cluster of high bold points 
 rising out of the Campagna, like Arran from the 
 sea, on the highest of which, at nearly the same 
 height with the summit of Helvellyn 7 , stood the 
 Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the scene of the com- 
 
 7 The height of the Monte Cavo 3055 English feet, by Col. Mudge ; 
 
 is variously given at 2938 or 2965 by Mr. Otley, in his Guide to the 
 
 French feet. See Bunsen, Vol. I. Lakes, it is estimated at 3070. 
 p. 40. Helvellyn is reckoned at 
 
CITY OF ROME, ETC. 35 
 
 mon worship of all the people of the Latin name. CHAP. 
 Immediately under this highest point lies the crater- ' -^ 
 like basin of the Alban lake ; and on its nearer rim 
 might be seen the trees of the grove of Ferentia, 
 where the Latins held the great civil assemblies of 
 their nation. Further to the north, on the edge of 
 the Alban hills looking towards Rome, was the town 
 and citadel of Tusculum ; and beyond this, a lower 
 summit crowned with the walls and towers of Labi- 
 cum seems to connect the Alban hills with the line 
 of the Apennines just at the spot where the citadel 
 of Pracneste, high up on the mountain side, marks the 
 opening into the country of the Hernicans, and into 
 the valleys of the streams that feed the Liris. 
 
 Returning nearer to Rome, the lowland country character 
 of the Campagna is broken by long green swelling 
 ridges, the ground rising and falling, as in the heath 
 country of Surrey and Berkshire. The streams are 
 dull and sluggish, but the hill sides above them con- 
 stantly break away into little rocky cliffs, where on 
 every ledge the wild fig now strikes out its branches, 
 and tufts of broom are clustering, but which in old 
 times formed the natural strength of the citadels of 
 the numerous cities of Latium. Except in these 
 narrow dells, the present aspect of the country is 
 all bare and desolate, with no trees nor any human 
 habitation. But anciently, in the time of the early 
 kings of Rome, it was full of independent cities, 
 and in its population and the careful cultivation of 
 its little garden-like farms, must have resembled the 
 most flourishing parts of Lombardy or the Nether- 
 lands. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Such was Rome, and such its neighbourhood ; such 
 also, as far as we can discover, was the earliest form 
 of its society, and such the legends which fill up 
 the place of its lost history. Even for the second 
 period, on which we are now going to enter, we have 
 no certain history ; but a series of stories as beautiful 
 as they are unreal, and a few isolated political insti- 
 tutions, which we cannot confidently connect with 
 their causes or with their authors. As before then, 
 I must first give the stories in their oldest and most 
 genuine form ; and then offer, in meagre contrast, 
 all that can be collected or conjectured of the real 
 history. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 STORIES OF THE LATER KINGS. 
 
 " Quis novus hie nostris successit sedibus hospes ? 
 Quern sese ore ferens, quam forti pectore et artnis ?" 
 
 VIRGIL, Mn. IV. 
 
 STORY OF L. TARQUINIUS PRISCUS. 
 
 IN the days of Ancus Marcius there came to Rome CHAP. 
 
 IV 
 
 from Tarquinii, a city of Etruria, a wealthy Etruscan J. 
 and his wife '. The father of this stranger was a birth of 
 
 y-i 10 ( /-+ ' i i i / i Tarquinius, 
 
 Greek , a citizen of Corinth, who left his native and how he 
 
 . -IT came to 
 
 land because it was oppressed by a tyrant, and found Rome. 
 a home at Tarquinii. There he married a noble 
 Etruscan lady, and by her he had two sons. But 
 his son found, that for his father's sake he was still 
 looked upon as a stranger ; so he left Tarquinii, and 
 went with his wife Tanaquil to Rome, for there, it 
 was said, strangers were held in more honour. Now 
 as he came near to the gates of Rome, as he was 
 sitting in his chariot with Tanaquil his wife, an 
 eagle came and plucked the cap from his head, and 
 bore it aloft into the air; and then flew down again 
 
 1 Livy, I. 34. 
 
 2 Livy, ibid. Dionys. III. 4648. Cicero de Republic^, II. 19. 
 
38 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, and placed it upon his head, as it had been before. 
 
 v * ' So Tanaquil was glad at this sight, and she told her 
 
 husband, for she was skilled in augury, that this was 
 a sign of the favour of the gods, and she bade him 
 be of good cheer, for that he would surely rise to 
 greatness. 
 
 or his Now when the stranger came to Rome, they 
 
 favour with 
 
 king Ancus. called him Lucius Tarquinius 3 ; and he was a brave 
 man and wise in council ; and his riches won the 
 good w r ord of the multitude ; and he became known 
 to the king. He served the king well in peace and 
 war, so that Ancus held him in great honour, and 
 when he died he named him by his will to be the 
 guardian of his children. 
 
 of MS deeds g u ^ Tarquinius was in great favour with the peo- 
 
 m war. 
 
 pie ; and when he desired to be king, they resolved 
 to choose him rather than the sons of Ancus. So 
 he began to reign, and he did great works both in 
 war and peace. He made war on the Latins, and 
 took from them a great spoil 4 . Then he made war 
 on the Sabines, and he conquered them in two 
 battles, and took from them the town of Collatia, 
 and gave it to Egerius, his brother's son, who had 
 come with him from Tarquinii. Lastly, there was 
 another war with the Latins, and Tarquinius went 
 round to their cities, and took them one after 
 another; for none dared to go out to meet him in 
 open battle. These \vere his acts in war. 
 
 3 Cicero, Livy, and Dionysius, 4 Livy, I. 35 38. 
 in locis citatis. 
 
STORIES OF THE LATER KINGS. 39 
 
 He also did great works in peace 5 ; for he made 
 vast drains to carry off the water from between the n 
 
 Of his works 
 
 Palatine and the Aventine, and from between the in P cace - 
 Palatine and the Capitoline Hills. And in the space 
 between the Palatine and the Aventine, after he 
 had drained it, he formed the Circus, or great race- 
 course, for chariot and for horse races. Then in the 
 space between the Palatine and the Capitoline he 
 made a forum or market-place, and divided out the 
 ground around it for shops or stalls, and made a 
 covered walk round it. Next he set about building 
 a wall of stone to go round the city ; and he laid the 
 foundations of a great temple on the Capitoline Hill, 
 which was to be the temple of the gods of Rome. 
 He also added a hundred new senators to the senate, 
 and doubled the number of the horsemen in the 
 centuries of the Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres, 
 for he wanted to strengthen his force of horsemen ; 
 and when he had done so, his horse gained him great 
 victories over his enemies. 
 
 Now he first had it in his mind to make three new or the 
 centuries of horsemen, and to call them after his own pur, AU 
 name. But Attus Navius, who was greatly skilled 
 in 6 augury, forbade him. Then the king mocked at his 
 art, and said, " Come now, thou augur, tell me by 
 thy auguries, whether the thing which I now have in 
 my mind may be done or not." And Attus Navius 
 asked counsel of the gods by augury, and he an- 
 
 5 Livy, I. 38. 35. Dionysius, 70, 71. Cicero de Divinat. I. 17, 
 III. 67, 68. 32. 
 
 6 Livy, I. 36. Dionysius, III. 
 
40 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, swered, " It may." Then the king said, " It was in 
 
 IV 
 
 J ' my mind that thou shouldst cut in two this whetstone 
 with this razor. Take them, and do it, and fulfil 
 thy augury if thou canst." But Attus took the razor 
 and the whetstone, and he cut, and cut the whetstone 
 asunder. So the king obeyed his counsels, and made 
 no new centuries; and in all things afterwards he 
 consulted the gods by augury, and obeyed their 
 bidding. 
 
 HOW Tarquinius reigned long and prospered greatly ; 
 
 Tarquinius . , . 
 
 chose and there was a young man brought up in his house- 
 
 ServiusTul- .",-.-. , , , 
 
 lius to be his hold, of whose birth some told wonderful tales, and 
 how 1 he was said that he was 7 the son of a god ; but others said 8 
 
 murdered by 
 
 the sons of that his mother was a slave, and his father was one 
 
 king Antus. 
 
 of the king's clients. But he served the king well, 
 and was in favour with the people, and the king 
 promised him his daughter in marriage. The young 
 man was called Servius Tullius. But when the sons 
 of king Ancus saw that Servius was so loved by king 
 Tarquinius, they resolved to slay the king, lest he 
 should make this stranger his heir, and so they should 
 lose the crown for ever. So they 9 set on two shep- 
 herds to do the deed, and these went to the king's 
 palace, and pretended to be quarrelling with each 
 other, and both called on the king to do them right. 
 The king sent for them to hear their story : and while 
 he was hearing one of them speak, the other struck 
 him on the head with his hatchet, and then both of 
 them fled. But Tanaquil, the king's wife, pretended 
 
 7 Dionysius, IV. 2. Ovid, Fasti, 8 Cicero de Repub. IF. 21. 
 VI. 627. 9 Livy, I. 40. 
 
STORIES OF THE LATER KINGS. 41 
 
 that lie was not dead, but only stunned by the blow ; CHAP. 
 
 IV 
 
 and she said that he had appointed Servius Tullius to * ..- * 
 rule in his name, till he should be well again. So 
 Servius went forth in royal state, and judged causes 
 amidst the people, and acted in all things as if he 
 were king, till after a while it was known that the 
 king was dead, and Servius was suffered to reign in 
 his place. Then the sons of Ancus saw that there 
 was no hope left for them ; and they fled from 
 Rome, and lived the rest of their days in a foreign 
 land. 
 
 THE STORY OF SERVIUS TULLIUS. 
 
 Long live the Commons' King, King James. 
 
 LADY OF THE LAKE. 
 
 Servius Tullius was a just and good king 10 ; henowkimr 
 loved the commons, and he divided among them the enlarged the 
 
 city. 
 
 lands which had been conquered in war, and he made 
 many wise and good laws, to maintain the cause of 
 the poor, and to stop the oppression of the rich. He 
 made war with the Etruscans 1! , and conquered them. 
 He added the Quirinal and the Viminal Hills 12 to 
 the city, and he brought many new citizens to live 
 on the Esquiline ; and there he lived himself amongst 
 them. He also raised a great mound of earth to 
 join the Esquiline and the Quirinal and the Viminal 
 Hills together, and to cover them from the attacks 
 of an enemy. 
 
 He built a temple 13 of Diana on the Aventine, 
 
 10 Dionysius, IV. 1315. 40. 12 Livy, I. 43. 
 
 11 Livy, I. 42. 13 Livy, I. 45. 
 
42 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, where the Latins, and the Sabines, and the Romans, 
 1 v^ ' should offer their common sacrifices ; and the Romans 
 
 were the chief in rank amongst all who worshipped 
 
 at the temple. 
 or his good He made a new order of things for the whole 14 
 
 laws, and 
 
 how he people ; for he divided the people of the city into 
 
 divided the 1 J 
 
 people into four tribes, and the people of the country into six- 
 classes and 
 centuries, and-twenty. Then he divided all the people into 
 
 classes, according to the value of their possessions ; 
 and the classes he divided into centuries ; and the 
 centuries of the several classes furnished themselves 
 with arms, each according to their rank and order: 
 the centuries of the rich classes had good and full 
 armour, the poorer centuries had but darts and slings. 
 And when he had done all these works, he called all 
 the people together in their centuries, and asked if 
 they would have him for their king ; and the people 
 answered that he should be their king. But the 
 nobles hated him, because he was so loved by the 
 commons ; for he had made a law that there should 
 be no king after him, but two men chosen by the 
 people to govern them year by year. Some even 
 said that it was in his mind to give up his own 
 kingly power, that so he might see with his own 
 eyes the fruit of all the good laws that he had 
 made, and might behold the people wealthy and free 
 and happy. 
 HOW he Now king Servius had no son 15 , but he had two 
 
 married his , , , , . 
 
 two daugh- daughters ; and he gave them in marriage to the 
 
 ters to the 
 
 two sons 
 
 of king 14 Dionysius, IV. 16 20 Livy, 15 Livy, I. 46. 
 
 Tarqumius. I. 43. Cicero de Republic^, II. 22. 
 
STORIES OF THE LATER KINGS. 43 
 
 two sons of king Tarquinius. These daughters were CHAP. 
 of very unlike natures, and so were their husbands : * - ' 
 for Aruns Tarquinius was of a meek and gentle 
 spirit, but his brother Lucius was proud and full of 
 evil ; and the younger Tullia, who was the wife of 
 Aruns, was more full of evil than his brother Lucius ; 
 and the elder Tullia, who was the wife of Lucius, 
 was as good and gentle as his brother Aruns. So the 
 evil could not bear the good, but longed to be joined 
 to the evil that was like itself: and Lucius slew his 
 wife secretly, and the younger Tullia slew her hus- 
 band, and then they were married to one another, 
 that they might work all the wickedness of their 
 hearts, according to the will of fate. 
 
 Then Lucius plotted with the nobles 15 , who hated HOW Lucius 
 
 Tarquinius 
 
 the good king ; and he joined himself to the sworn plotted 
 
 J . against him, 
 
 brotherhoods of the young nobles, in which they and caused 
 
 * . him to be 
 
 bound themselves to stand by each other in their murdered, 
 deeds of violence and of oppression. When all was 
 ready, he waited for the season of the harvest, when 
 the commons 16 , who loved the king, were in the 
 fields getting in their corn. Then he went suddenly 
 to the forum with a band of armed men, and seated 
 himself on the king's throne before the doors of the 
 senate-house, where he was wont to judge the peo- 
 ple. And they ran to the king, and told him that 
 Lucius was sitting on his throne. Upon this the 
 old man 17 went in haste to the forum, and when he 
 saw Lucius, he asked him wherefore he had dared 
 
 15 Livy, I. 46. Dionysius, IV. 30. 1; Livy, I. 48. 
 
 16 Dionysius, IV. 38. 
 
44 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, to sit on the king's seat. And Lucius answered, that 
 v % ' it was his father's throne, and that he had more 
 right in it than Servius. Then he seized the old 
 man, and threw him down the steps of the senate- 
 house to the ground ; and he went into the senate- 
 house, and called together the senators, as if he were 
 already king. Servius meanwhile arose, and began 
 to make his way home to his house ; but when he 
 was come near to the Esquiline Hill, some whom 
 Lucius had sent after him overtook him and slew 
 him, and left him in his blood in the middle of the 
 way. 
 HOW the Then the wicked Tullia 18 mounted her chariot, 
 
 wicked . 
 
 Tuilia drove and drove into the forum, nothing ashamed to go 
 
 her chariot 
 
 over her amidst the multitude of men, and she called Lucius 
 
 father's dead 
 
 bod y . out from the senate-house, and said to him, " Hail 
 to thee, King Tarquinius ! " But Lucius bade her to 
 go home ; and as she was going home, the body of 
 her father was lying in the way. The driver of the 
 chariot stopped short, and showed to Tullia where 
 her father lay in his blood. But she bade him drive 
 on, for the furies of her wickedness were upon her, 
 and the chariot rolled over the body ; and she went 
 to her home with her father's blood upon the wheels 
 of her chariot. Thus Lucius Tarquinius and the 
 wicked Tullia reigned in the place of the good king 
 Servius. 
 
 13 Livy, I. 48. 
 
STORIES OF THE LATER KINGS. 45 
 
 THE STORY OF LUCIUS TARQUINIUS THE TYRANT. 
 
 CHAP. 
 IV. 
 
 Tvpawos v6fj.aia re Ktvel irdrpia, Kal Piarai yvvcuKas, KTfivft re 
 
 uKpirovs. HERODOTUS, III. 80. 
 
 Superbos 
 
 Tarquini fasces. HORACE, Carm. I. 12. 
 
 Lucius Tarquinius gained his power wickedly, and or king 
 
 i 11 i TT -i Tarquinius 
 
 no less wickedly did he exercise it. He kept a guard 19 and his 
 of armed men about him, and he ruled all things at 
 his own will : many were they whom he spoiled of 
 their goods, many were they whom he banished, and 
 many also whom he slew. He despised the senate, 
 and made no new senators in the place of those 
 W 7 hom he slew, or who died in the course of nature, 
 wishing that the senators might become fewer and 
 fewer, till there should be none of them left. And 
 he made friends of the chief men among the Latins, 
 and gave his daughter in marriage to Octavius Ma- 
 milius of Tusculum ; and he became very powerful 
 amongst the Latins, insomuch that when Turnus Her- 
 donius of Aricia had dared to speak against him in 
 the great assembly of the Latins, Tarquinius accused 
 him of plotting his death, and procured false witnesses 
 to confirm his charge; so that the Latins judged 
 him to be guilty, and ordered him to be drowned. 
 After this they were so afraid of Tarquinius, that 
 they made a league with him, and followed him in 
 his wars wherever he chose to lead them. The Her- 
 
 19 Livy, I. 4952. 
 
40 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 nicans - also joined this league, and so did Ecetra 
 and Antium, cities of the Volscians. 
 Of MS Then Tarquinius made war upon the rest of the 
 
 buildings, 
 
 and how he Volscians, and he took 21 Suessa Pometia, in the low- 
 prepared the 
 
 ground for lands of the Volscians, and the tithe of the spoil was 
 
 his new 
 
 temple. forty talents of silver. So he set himself to raise 
 mighty works in Rome ; and he finished what his 
 father had begun ; the great drains to drain the low 
 grounds of the city, and the temple on the Capitoline 
 Hill. Now the ground on which he was going to build 
 his temple, was taken up with many holy places of the 
 gods of the Sabines, which had been founded in the 
 days of king Tatius. But Tarquinius consulted the 
 gods by augury whether he might not take away these 
 holy places, to make room for his own new temple. 
 The gods allowed him to take away all the rest, 
 except only the holy places of the god of Youth 22 , 
 and of Terminus the god of boundaries, which they 
 would not suffer him to move. But the augurs said 
 that this was a happy omen, for that it showed how 
 the youth of the city should never pass away, nor 
 its boundaries be moved by the conquest of an 
 enemy. A human head was also found, as they were 
 digging the foundations of the temple, and this 
 too was a sign that the Capitoline Hill should be 
 the head of all the earth. So Tarquinius built a 
 mighty temple, and consecrated it to Jupiter 23 , and 
 to Juno, and to Minerva, the greatest of the gods of 
 the Etruscans. 
 
 " Dionysius, IV. 49. the story of the elder Tarquinius. 
 
 21 Livy, I. 53. 55, 56. 23 Dionysius, IV. 61. 
 
 22 Dionysius, III. 69. He tells 
 
STORIES OF THE LATER KINGS. 47 
 
 At this time there came a strange woman 24 to the CHAP. 
 
 IV. 
 
 king, and offered him nine books of the prophecies Zr~r< ' 
 
 Of the 
 
 of the Sibyl for a certain price. When the king 1 stran ge >- 
 
 ~ man who 
 
 refused them, the woman went and burnt three of brought the 
 
 books of the 
 
 the books, and came back and offered the six at the S ,! by 1 1 . to 
 
 the king. 
 
 same price which she had asked for the nine ; but 
 they mocked at her, and would not take the books. 
 Then she went away, and burnt three more, and 
 came back and asked still the same price for the 
 remaining three. At this the king was astonished, 
 and asked of the augurs what he should do. They 
 said that he had done wrong in refusing the gift 
 of the gods, and bade him by all means to buy the 
 books that were left. So he bought them ; and the 
 woman who sold them was seen no more from that 
 day forwards. Then the books were put into a chest 
 of stone, and were kept under ground in the Capitol, 
 and two men 25 were appointed to keep them, and 
 were called the two men of the sacred books. 
 
 Now Gabii 2G would not submit to Tarquinius, like HOW Tar- 
 the other cities of the Latins ; so he made war against Gabii 
 it ; and the war was long, and Tarquinius knew not treaclfery of 
 how to end it. So his son Sextus Tarquinius pre-Sextus. 
 tended that his father hated him, and fled to Gabii : 
 and the people of Gabii believed him and trusted 
 him, till at last he betrayed them into his father's 
 power. A treaty was then made with them, and he 
 
 24 Dionysius, IV. 62. A. Gellius, was the later number. Gellius 
 I. 19. gives "Fifteen." 
 
 25 See Livy, III. 10, and VI. 37. 26 Livy, I. 53, 54. 
 Dionysius gives "Ten," which 
 
48 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, gave them the right of becoming citizens of Rome 27 , 
 * ^ ' and the Romans had the right of becoming citizens 
 
 of Gabii, and there was a firm league between the 
 
 two people. 
 
 HOW he Thus Tarquinius was a great and mighty king ; 
 
 his people, but he grievously oppressed the poor, and he took 
 
 and made ni 11 p i ci i 
 
 them work away all the good laws or king oervms, and let the 
 rich oppress the poor, as they had done before the 
 days of Servius. He made the people labour at his 
 great works : he made them build his temple, and 
 dig and construct his drains ; and he laid such bur- 
 dens 28 on them, that many slew themselves for very 
 misery ; for in the days of Tarquinius the tyrant it 
 was happier to die than to live. 
 
 27 Dionysius, IV. 58. 
 
 28 Cassius Hemina, quoted by Servius, JEn. XII. 603. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS OP ROME, AND 
 OF THE GREATNESS OF THE MONARCHY. 
 
 TT! p.eya rj\6(v 17 /SaertAei'a tcr^voj. THUCYD. II. 97' 
 
 O ovre TOVS aX\ovs of/re avrovs 'A$r/i>aiovy Tftpl TUJV 
 Tvpdvvcov aKpiftes ovdfv Aeyotray. TUUCYD. VI. 54. 
 
 THE stories of the two Tarquinii and of Servius CHAP. 
 Tullius are so much more disappointing than those ^^ 
 of the earlier -kings, inasmuch as they seem at first jg u $ s the 
 to wear a more historical character, and as they laterkin ^ 
 
 are not 
 
 really contain much that is undoubtedly true; but histoncal - 
 yet, when examined, they are found not to be history, 
 nor can any one attach what is real in them to any 
 of the real persons by whom it was effected. The 
 great drains or cloacae of Rome exist to this hour, to 
 vouch for their own reality ; yet of the Tarquinii, by 
 whom they are said to have been made, nothing is 
 certainly known. So also the constitution of the 
 classes and centuries is as real as Magna Charta or the 
 Bill of Rights ; yet its pretended author is scarcely 
 a more historical personage than King Arthur ; we 
 do not even know his name or race, whether tus 
 VOL. i. E 
 
50 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 were Servius Tullius, or Mastarna *, a Latin or an 
 Etruscan; the son of a slave reared in the palace of 
 the Roman king, or a military adventurer who set- 
 tled at Rome together with his companions in arms, 
 and was received with honour for his valour. Still 
 less can we trust the pretended chronology of the 
 common story. The three last reigns, according to 
 Livy, occupied a space of 107 years ; yet the king, 
 who at the end of this period is expelled in mature 
 but not in declining age, is the son of the king who 
 ascends the throne a grown man in the vigour of life 
 at the beginning of it : Servius marries the daugh- 
 ter of Tarquinius, a short time before he is made 
 king, yet immediately after his accession he is the 
 father of two grown-up daughters, whom he marries 
 to the brothers of his own wife : the sons of Ancus 
 Marcius wait patiently eight-and-thirty years, and 
 then murder Tarquinius to obtain a throne which 
 they had seen him so long quietly occupy. Still 
 then we are in a manner upon enchanted ground ; 
 the unreal and the real are strangely mixed up toge- 
 ther ; but although some real elements exist, yet the 
 general picture before us is a mere fantasy : single 
 trees and buildings may be copied from nature, but 
 their grouping is ideal, and they are placed in the 
 
 1 This is the name by which he Lyons about two centuries since, 
 
 was called in the Etruscan histo- and is now preserved in that city, 
 
 ries, quoted by the emperor Clau- It was printed by Brotier at the 
 
 dius in his speech upon admitting end of his edition of Tacitus, and 
 
 the Gauls to the Roman franchise, has been also published in the col- 
 
 This speech was engraved on a lections of inscriptions, 
 brass plate, and was dug up at 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 51 
 
 midst of fairy palaces and fairy beings, whose origi- CHAP. 
 nals this earth has never witnessed. > J. - 
 
 The reigns of the later Roman kings contain three Three points 
 
 ... . connected 
 
 points which require to be treated historically. 1st, with the 
 The foreign dominion and greatness of the monarchy, reigns must 
 2nd, The change introduced in the religion of Rome, historically. 
 And 3rd, the changes effected in the constitution, 
 especially the famous system of the classes and cen- 
 turies, usually ascribed to Servius Tullius. 
 
 1st. The dominion and greatness of the monarchy i. The 
 
 . . . * greatness of 
 
 are attested by two sufficient witnesses; the great the mon- 
 
 urcbv 
 
 works completed at this period, and still existing ; its ^-eat 
 
 works. 
 
 and the famous treaty with Carthage, concluded The walls of 
 under the first consuls of the Commonwealth, and Tuiiius. 
 preserved to us by Polybius. Under the last kings 
 the city of Rome reached the limits which it retained 
 through the whole period of the Commonwealth, and 
 the most flourishing times of the empire. What are 
 called the walls of Servius Tullius continued to be 
 the vralls of Rome for nearly eight hundred years, 
 down to the emperor Aurelian. They enclosed all 
 those well-known seven hills, whose fame has so ut- 
 terly eclipsed the seven hills already described of the 
 smaller and more ancient city. They followed 2 the 
 outside edge of the Quirinal, Capitoline, Aventine, 
 and Cselian Hills, passing directly across the low 
 grounds between the hills, and thus running parallel 
 to the Tiber between the Capitoline and the Aven- 
 
 2 See the account of the walls accompanying map, plate I. in the 
 of Servius in Bunsen's Rome, volume of plates, 
 vol. i. p. 623, et seqq. with the 
 
 E .2 
 
52 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, tine, without going 3 down to the very banks. From 
 ^ ' the outer or southern side of the Cselian they passed 
 round by the eastern side of the hill to the southern 
 side of the Esquiline ; and here, upon some of the 
 highest ground in Rome, was raised a great rampart 
 or mound of earth with towers on the top of it, 
 stretching across from the southern side of the Esqui- 
 line to the northern side of the Quirinal. For the 
 Esquiline and Quirinal Hills, as well as the Viminal, 
 which lies between them, are not isolated like the 
 four others, but are like so many promontories run- 
 ning out parallel to one another from one common 
 base 4 , and the rampart passing along the highest part 
 
 3 It is on this point that the 
 German topographers of Rome 
 differ from Nibby, and from all 
 the common plans of ancient 
 Rome, which make the walls go 
 quite down to the river. Their 
 reasons are, 1st, the description 
 of the departure of the 300 Fabii, 
 who are made to leave the city by 
 the Porta Carmentalis ; but if the 
 walls came close down to the river, 
 they must have re-entered the city 
 again to cross by the Pons Subli- 
 cius : and 2nd, Varro's statement, 
 that one end of the Circus Maxi- 
 mus abutted upon the city wall ; 
 and that the fish-market was just 
 on the outside of the wall. The 
 first argument seems to me valid ; 
 the second cannot be insisted on, 
 because the text of Varro in both 
 places is extremely doubtful. See 
 Varro de L. L , V. 146. 153. 
 Ed. M filler. 
 
 4 The back of a man's hand 
 when slightly bent, and held with 
 the fingers open, presents an ex- 
 act image of this part of Rome. 
 
 The fingers represent the Esqui- 
 line, Viminal, and Quirinal, and a 
 line drawn across the hand just 
 upon the knuckles would show 
 the rampart of Servius Tullius. 
 The ground on the outside of the 
 rampart falls for some way like 
 the surface of the hand down to 
 the wrist, and the later wall of 
 Aurelian passed over the wrist in- 
 stead of over the knuckles, at the 
 bottom of the slope instead of the 
 top of it. 
 
 This comparison was suggested 
 to me merely by a view of the 
 ground. It is a strong presump- 
 tion in favour of its exactness, 
 that the same resemblance struck 
 Brocchi also. Speaking of the 
 Pincian, Quirinal, Viminal, and 
 Esquiline Hills, he adds ; " Per 
 darne una sensibile imagine non 
 saprei meglio paragonarle che alle 
 dita di una mano raffigurando la 
 palma il mentovato piano a cui 
 tutte si attaccano." 
 
 Suolo di Roma, p. 84. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 53 
 
 of this base formed an artificial boundary, where none CHAP. 
 was marked out by nature. The circuit of these *- - 
 walls is estimated at about seven Roman miles. 
 
 The line of the mound or rampart may still be 
 distinctly traced, and the course and extent of the 
 walls can be sufficiently ascertained ; but very few 
 remains are left of the actual building. But the 
 masonry with which the bank of the Tiber was built 
 up, a work ascribed to the elder Tarquinius, and re- 
 sembling the works of the Babylonian kings along 
 the banks of the Euphrates, is still visible. So also 
 are the massy substructions of the Capitoline temple, 
 which were made in order to form a level surface for 
 the building to stand on, upon one of the two sum- 
 mits of the Capitoline Hill. Above all, enough is The cioan 
 
 . ,, , .~^, . Maxima. 
 
 still to be seen of the great Cloaca or dram, to as- 
 sure us that the accounts left us of it are not ex- 
 aggerated. The foundations of this work were laid 
 about forty feet under ground, its branches were 
 carried under a great part of the city, and brought 
 at last into one grand trunk which ran down into 
 the Tiber exactly to the west of the Palatine Hill. 
 It thus drained the waters of the low grounds on 
 both sides of the Palatine ; of the Velabrum, between 
 the Palatine and the Aventine ; and of the site of the 
 forum between the Palatine and the Capitoliue. The 
 stone employed in the Cloaca is in itself a mark of 
 the great antiquity of the work ; it is 5 not the 
 
 5 It is the "Tufa litoide" of many places in Rome. Brocclu 
 Brocchi; one of the volcanic is positive that this is the stone 
 formations which is found in employed in the Cloaca ; and the 
 
54 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, peperino of Gabii and the Alban hills, which was 
 * ^ the common building stone in the time of the Com- 
 monwealth ; much less the travertine, or limestone 
 of the neighbourhood of Tibur, the material used 
 in the great works of the early emperors ; but it 
 is the stone found in Rome itself, a mass of volcanic 
 materials coarsely cemented together, which after- 
 wards was supplanted by the finer quality of the 
 peperino. Such a work as the Cloaca proves the 
 greatness of the power which effected it, as well as 
 the character of its government. It was wrought by 
 taskwork, like the great works of Egypt ; and stories 
 were long current of the misery and degradation 
 which it brought upon the people during its pro- 
 gress. But this taskwork for these vast objects 
 shows a strong and despotic government, which had 
 at its command the whole resources of the people ; 
 and such a government could hardly have existed, 
 unless it had been based upon some considerable 
 extent of dominion. 
 Treaty with What the Cloaca seems to imply, we find conveyed 
 
 Carthage. l J J 
 
 in express terms in the treaty with Carthage 6 . As 
 this treaty was concluded in the very first year of the 
 Commonwealth, the state of things to which it re- 
 fers must clearly be that of the latest period of the 
 monarchy. It appears then that the whole coast 7 
 
 masses of it, he adds, taken from 6 Polybius, III. 22. See Nie- 
 
 the older walls of Servius, are buhr, Vol. I. p 556, ed. 2nd. 
 
 still to be seen in the present ' Niebuhr supposes that the 
 
 walls not far from the Porta S. coast eastward of Terracina was 
 
 Lorenzo. also included at this time under 
 
 Suolo di Roma, p. 112. the name of Latium, because the 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 
 
 55 
 
 of Latium was at this time subject to the Roman 
 dominion: Ardea, Antium, Circeii. and Terracina 8 , 
 are expressly mentioned as the subject allies (UTT^KOOI) 
 of Rome. Of these, Circeii is said in the common 
 story to have been a Roman colony founded by the 
 last Tarquinius ; but we read of it no less than of 
 the others as independent, and making peace or war 
 with Rome, during the Commonwealth down to a 
 much later period. Now it is scarcely conceivable 
 that the Romans could thus have been masters of 
 the whole coast of Latium, without some corre- 
 sponding dominion in the interior ; and we may well 
 
 treaty speaks of a part of Latium 
 which was not subject to Rome, 
 and because the name of Campa- 
 nia was not yet in existence. But 
 if Polybius has translated his ori- 
 ginal correctly, the expression 
 edv rives IJ.TJ wcni/ v7rr]Kooi would 
 rather seem to provide for the 
 case of a Latin city's revolting 
 from Rome and becoming inde- 
 pendent, and for an uncertain 
 state of relations between Rome 
 and Latium, such as may well be 
 supposed to have followed the ex- 
 pulsion of Tarquinius; a state in 
 which the Romans could not know 
 what Latin cities would remain 
 faithful to the new government, 
 and what would take part with 
 the exiled king. On the other 
 hand there is no authority for ex- 
 tending the limits of Latium be- 
 yond Terracina The name Cam- 
 pania, it is true, did not exist so 
 early, but Thucydides calls Cuma 
 a city of Opicia, not of Latium ; 
 and the Volscians or Auruncans 
 must have already occupied the 
 country on the Liris, and between 
 that river and Terracina, although 
 
 their conquests of Terracina itself 
 as well as of Antium took place 
 some years later. For the annals 
 speak of Cora and Fometia re- 
 volting to the Aurunci as early as 
 the year 251, which shows that 
 they must at that time have been 
 powerful in the neighbourhood of 
 Latium ; not to mention the al- 
 leged Volscian conquests of the 
 last king Tarquinius in the low- 
 lands even of Latium proper. 
 
 8 A fourth name is added in the 
 MSS. of Polybius, 'Apei/ru/cop. The 
 editors have generally adopted 
 Ursini's correction, A.avpfvriv<ov : 
 Niebuhr proposes 'ApiKrjvav, ob- 
 serving that Aricia was a much 
 more important place than Lau- 
 ren turn, and that Arician mer- 
 chant vessels are mentioned by 
 Dionysius, VII. 6. Yet Lau- 
 rentum appears as one of the 
 thirty Latin states which con- 
 cluded the treaty with Sp. Cas- 
 sius; and Larentum and Laurentum 
 are but different forms of the same 
 word, as appears in the name of the 
 wife of Faustulus, who is called 
 both Larentia and Laurentia. 
 
56 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, believe that Rome was at this time the acknowledged 
 ^ ' head of the Latin cities, and exercised a power over 
 them more resembling the sovereignty of Athens over 
 her allies than the moderate supremacy of Lacedse- 
 mon. On the right bank of the Tiber the Romans 
 seem to have possessed nothing on the coast ; but 
 the stories of Etruscan conquests which we find in 
 the common accounts of Servius Tullius, are so far 
 justified by better testimony as to make it probable 
 that in the direction of Veii the Roman dominion 9 
 had reached beyond the Tiber, and that the territory 
 thus gained from the Etruscans formed a very consi- 
 
 9 Miiller in his very able work 
 on the Etruscans believes rather 
 that the later reigns of the Roman 
 kings represent a period in which 
 an Etruscan dynasty from Tar- 
 quinii ruled in Rome, and ex- 
 tended its power far over Latium ; 
 so that it was a dominion of 
 Etruscans over Latins rather than 
 the contrary. He considers this 
 dominion to have been interrupted 
 by the reign of Ser. Tullius, or 
 Mastarna, an Etruscan chief from 
 Volsinii, of a party wholly opposed 
 to that of the princes or Lucu- 
 mones of Tarquinii; and then to 
 have been restored and exercised 
 more tyrannically than ever, in 
 the time described by the Roman 
 writers as the reign of Tarquinius 
 the tyrant. Finally, the expulsion 
 of the Tarquinii he regards as the 
 decline of the power of the city 
 Tarquinii, and the restoration of 
 the independence of the Latin 
 states, Rome being one of this 
 number, which had been hitherto 
 in subjection to it. Etrusker, 
 Vol. I. p. 115, et seqq. 
 
 I need not say that this is con- 
 trary to the opinion of Niebuhr, 
 who believes the Tarquinii to have 
 been Latins, and not Etruscans. 
 But I should agree with Miiller, 
 in regarding the reigns of the 
 two Tarquinii as a period during 
 which an Etruscan dynasty ruled 
 in Rome, introducing Etruscan 
 rites, arts, and institutions. It 
 is wholly another question whe- 
 ther these princes regarded Rome 
 as their capital or Tarquinii ; but 
 the probability is, that they were 
 kings of Rome, and they may 
 very possibly have used the help 
 of their Latin subjects even to 
 make conquests for them in Etru- 
 ria ; just as the Norman kings of 
 England soon found that Eng- 
 land was more than Normandy, 
 and Henry I. conquered Nor- 
 mandy from his brother, chiefly 
 by the help of English men and 
 money. And yet we retain the 
 marks of the Norman conquest 
 impressed on every part of -our 
 institutions down to this very 
 hour. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 57 
 
 derable part of the whole territory of Rome. It is CHAP. 
 well known that the number of local tribes esta- .^ 
 Wished by the later kings was thirty ; whereas a few 
 years after the beginning of the Commonwealth we 
 find them reduced to twenty. Now, as even the 
 common account of the war with Porsenna describes 
 the Romans as giving up to the Veientians a portion 
 of territory formerly conquered from them, it becomes 
 a very probable conjecture that the Etruscans, soon 
 after the expulsion of the kings, recovered all the 
 country which the kings had taken from them ; and 
 that this was so considerable in extent, that by its 
 loss the actual territory of the Roman people was 
 reduced by one-third from what it had been before. 
 
 It may thus be considered certain that Rome under Probable 
 
 ..-,.,. ,, /. T connexio 
 
 its last kings was the seat or a great monarchy, ex- O f Rome 
 tending over the whole of Latium on the one side? 
 and possessing some considerable territory in Etruria 
 on the other. But how this dominion was gained it is 
 vain to inquire. There are accounts which represent 
 all the three last kings of Rome, Servius Tullius no 
 less than the two Tarquins, as of Etruscan origin. 
 Without attempting to make out their history as 
 individuals, it is probable that the later kings w T ere 
 either by birth or long intercourse closely connected 
 with Etruria, inasmuch as at some early period of the 
 Roman history the religion and usages of the Etrus- 
 cans gave a deep and lasting colouring to those of 
 Rome; and yet it could not have been at the 
 very origin of the Roman people, as the Etruscan 
 language has left no traces of itself in the Latin; 
 
58 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, whereas if the Romans had been in part of Etruscan 
 
 v. 
 J- ' origin, their language, no less than their institutions, 
 
 would have contained some Etruscan elements. The 
 Etruscan influence, however introduced, produced 
 some effects that were lasting, and others that were 
 only temporary; it affected the religion of Rome, 
 down to the very final extinction of paganism ; and 
 the state of the Roman magistrates il) , their lictors, 
 their ivory chairs, and their triumphal robes, are all 
 said to have been derived from Etruria. A tempo- 
 rary effect of Etruscan influence may perhaps be 
 traced in the overthrow of the free constitution as- 
 cribed to Servius Tullius, in the degradation of the 
 Roman commons under the last king, and in the 
 endeavours of the patricians to keep them so de- 
 graded during all the first periods of the Common- 
 wealth. It is well known that the government in 
 the cities of Etruria was an exclusive aristocracy, 
 and that the commons, if in so wretched a condition 
 they may be called by that honourable name, were 
 like the mass of the people amongst the Sclavonic 
 nations, the mere serfs or slaves of the nobility. This 
 is a marked distinction between the Etruscans, and 
 the Sabine and Latin nations of Italy ; and, as in the 
 constitution of Servius Tullius a Latin spirit is dis- 
 cernible, so the tyranny which, whether in the shape 
 of a monarchy or an aristocracy, suspended that con- 
 stitution for nearly two centuries, tended certainly 
 to make Rome resemble the cities of Etruria, and 
 
 10 Livy, 1. 8. Dionysius, III. 62. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 59 
 
 may possibly be traced originally to that same revo- CHAP. 
 lution which expelled the Sabine gods from the ' * ' 
 capitol, and changed for ever the simple religion of 
 the infancy of Rome. 
 
 II. It is a remarkable story " that towards the end .H- changes 
 
 in religion 
 
 of the sixth century of Rome, the religious books of intr ? du ? ed 
 
 J in the time 
 
 Numa were accidentally brought to light by the dis-?[ thelater 
 covery of his tomb under the Janiculum. They were 
 read by A. Petillius, the Praetor Urbanus, and by 
 him ordered to be burnt in the comitium, because 
 their contents tended to overthrow the religious rites 
 then observed in Rome. We cannot but connect 
 with this story what is told of Tarquinius the elder, 
 how he cleared away the holy places of the Sabine 
 gods from the Capitoline Hill, to make room for his 
 new temple ; and the statement which Augustine 
 quotes from Varro r -, and which is found also in 
 Plutarch, that during the first hundred and seventy 
 years after the foundation of the city, the Romans 
 had no images of their gods. All these accounts 
 represent a change effected in the Roman religion ; 
 and the term of 170 years, given by Varro and 
 Plutarch, fixes this change to the reigns of the later 
 kings. It is said 13 also that Jupiter, Juno, and Mi- 
 nerva, the three deities to whom the Capitoline tem- 
 ple was dedicated, were the very powers whose wor- 
 
 11 Livy, XL. 29. dictum volunt, quoniam prudentes 
 
 12 Varro, Fragments, p. 46. Etruscse disciplines aiunt, apud 
 Edit. Dordrecht. Plutarch, Numa, conditores Etruscarum urbium 
 c. 8. non putatas justas urbes, in qui- 
 
 13 Servius, on Virgil, ./En. I. bus non tres portae essent dedi- 
 v. 422. Miratur moletn J^neas, catae et votiva?, et tot templa, 
 &c. "Miratur" non simpliciter Jovis, Junonis, Minervae. 
 
60 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, ship, according to the Etruscan religion, was essential 
 v- ' to every city; there could be no city without three 
 gates duly consecrated, and three temples to these 
 divinities. But here again we gain a glimpse of 
 something real, but cannot make it out distinctly. 
 Images of the gods belong rather to the religion of 
 the Greeks than of the Etruscans ; and the Greek 
 mythology, as well as Grecian art, had been fa- 
 miliar in the southern Etruscan cities from a very 
 early period, whether derived from the Tyrrhenians, 
 or borrowed directly from Hellas or the Hellenic 
 colonies. Grecian deities and Greek ceremonies may 
 have been introduced, in part, along with such as 
 were purely Etruscan. But the science of the Ha- 
 ruspices, and especially the attention to signs in the 
 sky, to thunder and lightning, seems to have been 
 conducted according to the Etruscan ritual ; perhaps 
 also from the same source came that belief in the 
 punishment of the wicked after death, to which 
 Polybius ascribes so strong a moral influence over 
 the minds of the Romans, even in his own days. And 
 Etruscan rites and ordinances must have been widely 
 prevalent in the Roman Commonwealth, when, as 
 some writers asserted, the Roman nobility H were 
 
 14 Livy, IX. 36. Habeo aucto- through the Ciminian Forest, and 
 
 res, vulgo turn, (in the middle of exploring Etruria. But the story 
 
 the fifth century of Rome,) Roma- of this enterprize comes evidently 
 
 nos pueros sicut nunc Grsecis ita from the Fabian Family Memoirs, 
 
 Etruscis literis erudiri eolitos. and its authenticity is most suspi- 
 
 Livy rather believes that a know- cious. Whereas the statement of 
 
 ledge of the Etruscan language the writers whom Livy refers to, 
 
 was a peculiar accomplishment of is extremely unsuspicious and pro- 
 
 the Fabius who went on the enter- bable. 
 prize, namely, that of penetrating 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 61 
 
 taught habitually the Etruscan language, and when CHAP. 
 the senate 15 provided by a special decree for the v ^ ' 
 perpetual cultivation of the Etruscan discipline by 
 young men of the highest nobility in Etruria ; lest a 
 science so important to the Commonwealth should 
 be corrupted by falling into the hands of low and 
 mercenary persons. 
 
 III. Nothing is more familiar to our ears than the m - 
 
 Changes in 
 
 name of the classes and centuries of Servius Tullius ; the con - 
 
 stitution 
 
 nothing is more difficult, even after the immortal introduced 
 
 by the later 
 
 labour of Niebuhr, than to answer all the questions kin s s - 
 which naturally arise connected with this part of the 
 Roman history. But first of all, in considering the 
 changes effected in the Roman constitution during 
 the later period of the monarchy, we find another 
 threefold division of them presenting itself. We have, 
 1st, the enlargement of the older constitution, on 
 the same principles, in the addition to the number of 
 senators and of the centuries of the knights, com- 
 monly ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus. 2nd, we have 
 the establishment of a new constitution on different 
 principles, in the famous classes and centuries of 
 
 15 See the famous passage of monwealth, not an order ; besides, 
 
 Cicero, de Divinatione, I. 41, the passage in the treatise de 
 
 92. I agree with Miiller that the Legibus seems to decide the 
 
 " Principum filii" here spoken of question, II. 9, 21. " Etru- 
 
 are Etruscans, and not Romans riaeque principes disciplinam do- 
 
 The term " Principes " to express cento;" that is, "Let them in- 
 
 the Lucurnones of Etruria is com- struct the government in their dis- 
 
 mon enough : I doubt whether it cipline, when any occasion arises 
 
 is ever used to express the Roman for consulting them." Valerius 
 
 patricians, or any class of men in Maximus, I. 1, 2, has I believe 
 
 Rome. " Principes civitatis " is borrowed his story from Cicero, 
 
 used to express the most distin- and misunderstood his meaning, 
 guished individuals of the Com- 
 
62 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Servius Tullius. And, 3rd, we have the overthrow, 
 ' * ' to speak generally, of this new constitution, and the 
 return to the older state of things, modified by the 
 great increase of the king's power, in the revolution 
 effected by Tarquinius Superbus, and in his subse- 
 quent despotism. 
 The I. The old constitution was enlarged upon the 
 
 alterations 
 
 effected by same principles, in the increase of the number of 
 
 the elder l 
 
 Tarquinius. senators, and of the centuries of the knights. It 
 has been already shown that the older constitution 
 was an oligarchy, as far as the clients and commons 
 were concerned ; it is no less true, that it was de- 
 mocratical, as far as regarded the relations of the 
 citizens, or members of the houses, to each other. 
 Both these characters, with a slight modification, 
 were preserved in the changes made by Tarquinius 
 Priscus. He doubled i6 , it is said, the actual number 
 of senators, or rather of patrician houses ; which 
 involved a corresponding increase in the numbers 
 of the senate ; but the houses thus ennobled, to 
 use a modern term, were distinguished from the old 
 ones by the titles of the lesser houses ; and their 
 senators did not vote till after the senators of the 
 greater houses. According to the same system, the 
 king proposed to double the number of the tribes, 
 that is, to divide his newly created houses into three 
 tribes, to stand beside the three tribes of the old 
 houses, the Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres. 
 
 16 Duplicavit ilium pristinum lavit, quos priores sententiam ro- 
 Patrum numerum : et antiquos gabat, a se adscitos " minorum." 
 Patres " majorum gentium " appel- Cicero, de Republica, II. 20. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 63 
 
 Now as the military divisions of the old Common- CHAP. 
 
 wealths went along with the civil divisions, the tribes * / 
 
 of the Commonwealth were the centuries of the 
 army ; and if three new tribes were added, it in- 
 volved also the addition of three new centuries of 
 knights or horsemen ; and it is in this form that 
 the proposed change is represented in the common 
 stories. But here it is said that the interest of the 
 old citizens, taking the shape of a religious objec- 
 tion, was strong enough to force the king to modify 
 his project. No new tribes were created, and con- 
 sequently no new centuries 17 ; but the new houses 
 were enrolled in the three old centuries, so as to 
 form a second division in each, and thus to continue 
 inferior in dignity to the old houses in every rela- 
 tion of the Commonwealth. It may be fairly sup- 
 posed, that these second centuries in the army 
 were also second tribes and second curise in the 
 civil divisions of the state ; and that the members 
 of the new houses voted after those of the old ones 
 no less in the great council, the comitia of the curise, 
 than in the smaller council of the senate. 
 
 The causes which led to this enlargement of the Their 
 
 ^ object. 
 
 old constitution may be readily conceived. Whether 
 Tarquinius was a Latin or an Etruscan, all the stories 
 agree in representing him as a foreigner, who gained 
 the throne by his wealth and personal reputation. 
 The mere growth of the Roman state would, in the 
 
 17 Neque turn Tarquinius de jecit. . . . " Posteriores "modo sub 
 equitum centuriis quidquam mu- iisdem nominibus qui additi erant 
 tavit : numero alterum tantum ad- appellati sunt. Livy, I. 36. 
 
64 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, natural course of things, have multiplied new fami- 
 v^ ' lies, which had risen to wealth, and were in their 
 former country of noble blood ; but which were ex- 
 cluded from the curiae, that is, from the rights of 
 citizenship at Rome ; the time was come to open 
 to them the doors of the Commonwealth; and a 
 foreign king, ambitious of adding to the strength 
 of his kingdom, if it were but for the sake of his 
 own greatness, was not likely to refuse or put off 
 the opportunity. Beyond this we are involved in 
 endless disputes and difficulties ; who the Luceres 
 were, and whether Tarquinius had any particular 
 reasons for raising them to a level with the old 
 tribes, we never can determine. That there were 
 only four vestal virgins before 18 , and that Tarquinius 
 made them six, would certainly seem to show, that 
 a third part of the state had hitherto been below 
 the other two-thirds, at least in matters of religion ; 
 for it was always acknowledged that the six vestal 
 virgins represented the three tribes of the Ram- 
 nenses, Titienses, and Luceres, two for each tribe. 
 But in the additions made to the senate and to the 
 centuries, the new citizens must have been more 
 than a third of the old ones ; and indeed here the 
 story supposes that in military matters, at any rate, 
 the Luceres were already on an equality with the 
 Ramnenses and Titienses. It is enough therefore to 
 say, that there had arisen at Rome so great a num- 
 ber of distinguished families, of whatever origin, or 
 
 18 See Dionysius, III. 67 ; and compare Livy, X. 6. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 65 
 
 from whatever causes, that an extension of the rights CHAP. 
 
 of citizenship became natural and almost necessary : v J- ' 
 
 but as these were still only a small part of the whole 
 population, the change went no further than to admit 
 them into the aristocracy ; leaving the character and 
 privileges of the aristocracy itself, with regard to the 
 mass of the population, precisely the same as they 
 had been before. 
 
 II. But a far greater change was effected soon Constitution 
 
 i i i t i> i / of Servius 
 
 afterwards ; no less than the establishment of a new Tuiims. 
 constitution, on totally different principles. This 
 constitution is no doubt historical, however un- 
 certain may be the accounts which relate to its 
 reputed author. "The good king Servius and his 
 just laws," were the objects of the same fond regret 
 amongst the Roman commons, when suffering under 
 the tyranny of the aristocracy, as the laws of the 
 good king Edward the Confessor amongst the Eng- 
 lish after the Norman conquest ; and imagination 
 magnified, perhaps, the merit of the one no less than 
 of the other : yet the constitution of Servius was 
 a great work, and well deserves to be examined and 
 explained. 
 
 Servius, like Tarquinius, is represented as a fo- Hisobjectm 
 reigner, and is said also, like him, to have ascended 
 the throne to the exclusion of the sons of the late 
 king. According to the account which Livy fol- 
 lowed, he was acknowledged 19 by the senate, but not 
 
 ' 19 Primus injussu Populi, vo- tbe curise and the commons, and 
 
 luntate Patrum regnavit. Livy, I. supposing that the most aristo- 
 
 41. Dionysius, confusing as usual cratical body in the state must 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, by the people ; and this, which seemed contradictory 
 v - ' so long as the people, populus, and the commons, 
 plebs, were confounded together, is in itself consis- 
 tent and probable, when it is understood that the 
 people, who would not acknowledge Servius, were 
 the houses assembled in their great council of the 
 curise, and that these were likely to be far less 
 manageable by the king whom they disliked, than the 
 smaller council of their representatives assembled 
 in the senate. Now supposing that the king, who- 
 ever he may have been, was unwelcome to what was 
 then the people, that is, to the only body of men 
 who enjoyed civil rights; it was absolutely neces- 
 
 needs be the senate, represents 
 him as chosen by the people in 
 their curiae, but not confirmed by 
 the senate. Cicero says, " Non 
 commisit se Patribus, sed, Tarqui- 
 nio sepulto, Populum de se ipse 
 consuluit, jussusque regnare, le- 
 gem de imperio suo curiatamtulit." 
 De Republica, II. 21. If indeed 
 there existed a genuine " Lex 
 Regia curiata de imperio " of the 
 reign of Servius Tullius, then it 
 must belong to a later period of 
 his reign, when having established 
 his power by means of his new 
 constitution, the curise would have 
 had no choice but to acknowledge 
 him ; and this according to Livy's 
 narrative was the case ; for he 
 says that after the institution of 
 the Comitia Centuriata, Servius 
 " ausus est ferre ad populum, 
 ' vellent juberentne se regnare ? ' 
 tantoque oonsensu quanto baud 
 quisquam all us ante, rex est de- 
 claratus," I. 46. On the other 
 hand Livy, or the annalist whom 
 he followed, may have added the 
 
 circumstance " voluntate Patrum 
 regnavit," because he could not 
 conceive how Servius could have 
 reigned without the consent of 
 either senate or curise. But if we 
 adopt the Etruscan story, and sup- 
 pose that the king whom the Ro- 
 mans called Servius Tullius had 
 gained his power in the first in- 
 stance as the leader of an army, 
 which after various adventures in 
 Etruria had been driven out from 
 thence, and had taken possession 
 of the Cselian hill in Rome, it is 
 very conceivable that he may have 
 reigned at first independently of 
 the consent of any part of the old 
 Roman people, whether senate or 
 burghers ; and that he may only 
 have asked for that consent after 
 his creation of a new Roman peo- 
 ple, formed perhaps in part out 
 of his own old soldiers, when he 
 would wish to reign according to 
 all the old legal forms, and to be 
 no longer king by the choice of a 
 part of his subjects only, but with 
 the approbation of all. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 67 
 
 sary for him, unless he would maintain his power CHAP. 
 as a mere tyrant, through the help of a foreign paid -.- 
 guard, to create a new and different people out of 
 the large mass of inhabitants of Rome who had no 
 political existence, but who were free, and in many 
 instances wealthy and of noble origin ; who there- 
 fore, although now without rights, were in every 
 respect well fitted to receive them. 
 
 The principle of an aristocracy is equality within He 
 its own body, ascendancy over all the rest of the thirty tribe 
 community. Opposed to this is the system, which, mons. 
 rejecting these extremes of equality and inequality, 
 subjects no part of the community to another, but 
 gives a portion of power to all ; not an equal portion 
 however, but one graduated according to a certain 
 standard, which standard has generally been pro- 
 perty. Accordingly, this system has both to do 
 away with distinctions and to create them; to do 
 away, as it has generally happened, with distinctions 
 of birth, and to create distinctions of property. Thus 
 at Rome, in the first instance, the tribes or divisions 
 of the people took a different form. The old three 
 tribes of Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres, had 
 been divisions of birth, real or supposed ; each was 
 made up of the houses of the curiae, and no man 
 could belong to the tribe without first belonging 
 to a curia, and to a house ; nor could any stranger 
 become a member of a house except by the rite 
 of adoption, by which he was made as one of the 
 same race, and therefore a lawful worshipper of the 
 same gods. Each of these tribes had its portion 
 
G8 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, of the Ager Romanus, the old territory of Rome. 
 
 v^ ' But now, as many others had become Romans in 
 the course of time, without belonging to either of 
 these three tribes, that is, had come to live under 
 the Roman kings, many in Rome itself, and had 
 received grants of land from the kings beyond the 
 limits of the old Ager Romanus, a new division was 
 made including all these ; and the whole city and 
 territory 20 of Rome, except the Capitol, were divided 
 
 20 Every reader who is ac- 
 quainted with the subject knows 
 the difficulties which beset the 
 whole question respecting the ori- 
 ginal number of the tribes. On 
 the whole I agree with Niebuhr in 
 preferring the statement of Fabius, 
 preserved by Dionysius, IV. 15, 
 that the country tribes in the Ser- 
 vian constitution were six-and- 
 twenty. But the great difficulty re- 
 lates to three points : the Capitol, 
 the Aventine, and the Ager Ro- 
 manus. The four city tribes or 
 regions, for tribe as a local divi- 
 sion is synonymous with region, 
 included neither the Capitol, nor 
 the Aventine. This we know from 
 that curious account preserved by 
 Varro of the situation of the 
 twenty-four Argean chapels in 
 these regions ; a passage which 
 has been considered and corrected 
 both by Miiller and Bunsen, and 
 may be now read in an intelligible 
 form either in Miiller's edition of 
 Varro, I. 45 54 ; or in Bun- 
 sen's and Platner's Beschreibung 
 Roms, Vol. I. pp. 688702. But 
 there is this farther perplexity, 
 that the chapels of the Argei are 
 said by Varro to have been distri- 
 buted through twenty-seven parts 
 of the city; and yet the wooden 
 figures called Argei, which were 
 
 every year thrown by the Pontifices 
 into the Tiber, are by Varro him- 
 self, according to the MSS. said 
 to have been twenty-four, and by 
 Dionysius thirty. [Antiqq. Rom. 
 I. 38.] Bunsen adopts this latter 
 number, and supposes that the 
 three cellee of the Capitoline Tem- 
 ple, and the three of the old Capitol 
 on the Quirinal, were included in 
 the reckoning. This appears to 
 me unsatisfactory, but I can offer 
 nothing better. However, the 
 exclusion of the Capitol from 
 the four city tribes is consistent 
 enough ; for the Capitol, as the 
 citadel of Rome, and the seat of the 
 three protecting gods of the city, 
 was reserved exclusively for the 
 patricians, or old citizens, and no 
 plebeian might dwell on it : where- 
 as in the other parts of the city 
 both orders dwelt promiscuously 
 till the famous Icilian law appro- 
 priated the Aventine to the ple- 
 beians alone, as the Capitol was 
 appropriated to the patricians. It 
 will be remembered that the Eu- 
 patridse at Athens were distin- 
 guished in the old state of things 
 by the title ol KUT' aarv OIKOVVTIG, 
 and the aarv in the earliest times 
 would be the Acropolis of a later 
 age. With regard to the Aventine, 
 it must I conceive have been in- 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 69 
 
 into thirty tribes, four for the city, and twenty-six CHAP. 
 for the country, containing all the Romans who ' ^ ' 
 were not members of the houses, and classing them 
 according to the local situation of their property. 
 These thirty tribes corresponded to the thirty curise 
 of the houses ; for the houses w r ere used to assem- 
 ble, not in a threefold division, according to their 
 tribes, but divided into thirty, according to their 
 curise : and the commons were to meet and settle 
 all their own affairs in the assembly of their tribes, 
 as the houses met and settled theirs in the assembly 
 of their curise. 
 
 Thus then there were two bodies existing along- The cen- 
 
 turies, a 
 
 side of each other, analogous to the house of lords military 
 
 division, to 
 
 and the house of commons of our own ancient con- include both 
 
 the burghers 
 
 stitution, two estates distinct from and independent and the 
 
 commons. 
 
 of each other, but with no means as yet provided for 
 
 eluded in one of the country that the patricians must have been 
 
 tribes ; nor is this to be wondered members of this tribe, and so the 
 
 at, as the Aventine was still con- tribes would cease to be an exclu- 
 
 sidered properly as a suburb, sively plebeian body, which Nie- 
 
 although it was included within buhr rightly, as I think, supposes 
 
 the walls. It is not to be sup- them to have been in the outset. It 
 
 posed that the whole of the land is possible however that the whole 
 
 in the country tribes was the pro- territory, not excepting even the 
 
 perty of the plebeians ; much of it Ager Romanus, might locally have 
 
 undoubtedly remained as domain- been included within the tribes, 
 
 land, and as such became "pos- inasmuch as no district would be 
 
 sessed," in the Roman sense of wholly without plebeian lands ; 
 
 the term, by the patricians ; as and yet the patricians themselves, 
 
 appears in the account of the state as belonging to a different political 
 
 of the Aventine hill, before the body, might have had nothing to 
 
 passing of the Lex Icilia. But as do with the tribe politically : just 
 
 such possession or occupation was as the estates of our peers are 
 
 not property, the patricians might geographically included within 
 
 possess land in a tribe without be- some county, and yet no peer 
 
 coming members of it. But if the may be elected as knight of the 
 
 Ager Romanus had formed a tribe, shire, nor even vote at any elec- 
 
 then we might be led to suppose tion. 
 
70 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, converting them into states-general or a parliament. 
 
 v^ ; Nor could they have acted together as jointly legis- 
 lating for the whole nation ; for the curias still re- 
 garded themselves as forming exclusively the Roman 
 people, and would not allow the commons, as such, 
 to claim any part in the highest acts of national 
 sovereignty. There was one relation, however, in 
 which the people and the commons felt that they 
 belonged to one common country, in which they 
 were accustomed to act together, and in which there- 
 fore it was practicable to unite them into one great 
 body. This was when they marched out to war 
 against a foreign enemy ; then, arrayed in the same 
 army, and fighting under the same standard, in the 
 same cause, the houses and the commons, if not 
 equally citizens of Rome, felt that they were alike 
 Romans. It has ever been the case, that the dis- 
 tinctions of peace 21 vanish amidst the dangers of 
 war; arms and courage, and brotherhood in perils, 
 confer of necessity power and dignity. Thus we 
 hear of armies 22 on their return home from war 
 stopping before they entered the city walls to try, in 
 their military character, all offences or cases of mis- 
 conduct which had occurred since they had taken 
 the field : whereas when once they had entered the 
 walls, civil relations were reassumed, and all trials 
 
 21 " For he to day who sheds 22 This was the case at Argos. 
 
 his blood with me TOV QpdcrvX\ov dvaxaprjcravTfs tv 
 
 Shall be my brother ; be he ne'er r<5 Xapddpat ovirtp ras OTTO 
 
 SO vile, diKas irpiv ecrteVai Kpivov&iv, 
 
 This day shall gentle his condi- \(veiv. Thucyd. V. 60. 
 
 tion." HENRY V. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 71 
 
 were conducted according to other forms, and before CHAP. 
 other judges. This will explain the peculiar consti- v ^ ' 
 tution of the comitia of centuries, which was a device 
 for uniting the people and the commons into a na- 
 tional and sovereign assembly in their capacity of 
 soldiers, without shocking those prejudices which as 
 yet placed a barrier between them as soon as they 
 returned to the relations of peace. 
 
 But in order to do this with effect, and to secure Change 
 
 . i . -, i -, i in the or- 
 
 m this great assembly a preponderance to the com- ganization 
 
 V, of the army. 
 
 mons, a change in the military organization and 
 tactic of the army became indispensable. In all 
 aristocracies in an early stage of society, the ruling 
 order or class has fought on horseback 2S or in cha- 
 riots, their subjects or dependents have fought on foot. 
 The cavalry service under these circumstances has 
 been cultivated, that of the infantry neglected ; the 
 mounted noble has been well armed and carefully 
 trained in warlike exercises, whilst his followers on 
 foot have been ill armed and ill disciplined, and quite 
 incapable of acting with equal effect. The first great 
 step then towards raising the importance of the in- 
 fantry, or in other words, of the commons of a state, 
 was to train them to resist cavalry, to form them 
 
 23 Homer's battles are a suffi- f/ fiev eg apxys (iroXireia fyevero) 
 cient example of this : it explains e< T>V 'nrneow. TTJV yap io-xvv KOI 
 also the name of 'nnrrjs applied to TTJV inrepox^v ev rols Imrevcriv 6 
 the three hundred Spartans of the TrdXe/xoy flx ev ' avev p.tv -yap as- 
 king's guard, and retained long rdf-eas a^pj/o-roj/ TO oTrAtriKoi/, at 
 after the reality had ceased, and 8e irtpl r>v TOIOVT&V tfjarfipiat KOI 
 the guard no longer consisted of ra|ety tv rols dpxaiois ov% virfip 
 cavalry or chariots, but of in- wcrr' tv TO'IS limeva-iv ^elvai 
 fantry. See Thucydides, V. 72. 
 See also Aristotle, Politics, IV. 13. 
 
72 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, into thick masses instead of a thin extended line, to 
 ^ ' arm them with the pike instead of the sword or the 
 javelin. Thus the phalanx order of battle was one 
 of the earliest improvements in the art of war ; and 
 at the time we are now speaking of, this order was 
 in general use in Greece, and must have been well 
 known, if only through the Greek colonies, in Italy 
 also 24 . Its introduction into the Roman army would 
 be sure to make the infantry from henceforward 
 more important than the cavalry; that is, it would 
 enable the commons to assert a greater right in 
 Rome than could be claimed by the houses, inas- 
 much as they could render better service. Again, 
 the phalanx order of battle furnished a ready means 
 for giving importance to a great number of the less 
 wealthy commons, who could not supply themselves 
 with complete armour; while on the other hand it 
 suggested a natural distinction between them and 
 their richer fellows, and thus established property as 
 the standard of political power, the only one which 
 can in the outset compete effectually with the more 
 aristocratical standard of birth ; although in a later 
 stage of society it becomes itself aristocratical, unless 
 it be duly tempered by the mixture of a third 
 standard, education and intelligence. In a deep 
 phalanx, the foremost ranks needed to be completely 
 armed, but those in the rear could neither reach or 
 
 24 Again, if Ser. Tullius was an for these were the weapons used 
 
 Etruscan, he would have intro- by the Etruscans as well as by the 
 
 duced the tactic of his own coun- Greeks. See Diodorus Siculus, 
 
 try, in arming the Roman infantry XXIII. 1, Fragm. Mai. 
 with the long spear and shield; 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 73 
 
 be reached by the enemy, and only served to add CHAP. 
 weight to the charge of the whole body. These v -^ ' 
 points being remembered, we may now proceed to 
 the details of the great comitia of Servius. 
 
 He found the houses, that is to say, the nobility Details of 
 
 * the institn- 
 
 or citizens of Rome, for I cannot too often remind tion of the 
 
 centuries. 
 
 the reader that in this early period of Roman history The six 
 
 suffragiaand 
 
 these three terms were synonymous, divided into plebeian 
 
 centuries of 
 
 three centuries of knights or horsemen, each of knights. 
 which, in consequence of the accession to its numbers 
 made by the last king, contained within itself two 
 centuries, a first and a second. The old citizens, 
 anxious in all things to keep up the old form of the 
 state, had then prevented what were really six cen- 
 turies from being acknowledged as such in name; 
 but the present change extended to the name as well 
 as the reality ; and the three double centuries of the 
 Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres, became now 25 
 the six votes (sex suffragia) of the new united 
 assembly. To these, which contained all the mem- 
 bers of the houses, there were now added twelve 
 new centuries 26 of knights, formed, as usual in the 
 Greek states, from the richest members of the com- 
 munity, continuing, like the centuries below them, 
 to belong to the thirty tribes of the commons. 
 
 It remained to organize the foot soldiers of the The <*n- 
 
 turies of 
 
 state. Accordingly, all those of the commons whose infantry. 
 
 The five 
 
 property was sufficient to qualify them for serving classes. 
 even in the hindmost ranks of the phalanx, were 
 
 25 Festus in Sex Suffragia. 
 
 26 Livy, I. 43. Cicero, de Repub. II. 22. 
 
74 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 .CHAP, divided 27 into four classes. Of these the first class 
 v^ ' contained all whose property amounted to or ex- 
 ceeded one hundred thousand pounds weight of 
 copper. The soldiers of this class were required to 
 provide themselves with the complete arms used in 
 the front ranks of the phalanx ; the greaves, the coat 
 of mail, the helmet, and the round shield, all of 
 brass ; the sword, and the peculiar weapon of the 
 heavy-armed infantry, the long pike. And as these 
 were to bear the brunt of every battle, and were the 
 flower of the state's soldiers, so their weight in the 
 great military assembly was to be in proportion ; 
 they formed eighty centuries ; forty of younger men, 
 between the ages of fifteen and forty-five years 28 
 complete; and forty of elders, between forty-five 
 and sixty : the first to serve in the field, the second 
 to defend the city. The second class contained those 
 whose property fell short of one hundred thousand 
 pounds of copper, and exceeded or amounted to 
 seventy-five thousand. They formed twenty cen- 
 turies, ten of younger men, and ten of elders; and 
 they were allowed to dispense with the coat of mail, 
 and to bear the large oblong wooden shield called 
 scutum, instead of the round brazen shield, clipeus, 
 of the first ranks of the phalanx. The third class 
 contained a like number of centuries, equally divided 
 into those of the younger men and elders ; its quali- 
 fication was property between fifty thousand pounds 
 
 27 See for all this account of the 28 See Niebuhr, Vol. I. p. 459. 
 census, Livy, I. 43, and Dionysius, Ed. 2. 
 IV. 1619. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 75 
 
 of copper, and seventy-five thousand ; and the sol- CHAP. 
 diers of this class were allowed to lay aside the v ^ ' 
 greaves as well as the coat of mail. The fourth 
 class again contained twenty centuries; the lowest 
 point of its qualification was twenty-five thousand 
 pounds of copper, and its soldiers were required to 
 provide no defensive armour, but to go to battle 
 merely with the pike and a javelin. These four 
 classes composed the phalanx ; but a fifth class, di- 
 vided into thirty centuries, and consisting of those 
 whose property was between twenty-five thousand 
 pounds of copper and twelve thousand five hundred, 
 formed the regular light-armed infantry of the army, 
 and were required to provide themselves with darts 
 and slings. 
 
 The poorest citizens 29 , whose property fell short The Accens 
 
 J and Velati, 
 
 of twelve thousand five hundred pounds, were con- and the 
 
 Proletarii. 
 
 sidered in a manner as supernumeraries in this 
 division. Those who had more than one thousand 
 five hundred pounds of copper, were still reckoned 
 amongst the tax-payers, Assidui, and were formed 
 into two centuries, called the Accensi and Velati. 
 They followed the army, but without bearing arms, 
 being only required to step into the places of those 
 who fell ; and in the mean time acting as orderlies 
 to the centurions and decurions. Below these came 
 
 29 See Niebuhr, p. 465, and the fully satisfied with his results, I 
 
 authorities there quoted. I have have thought it best to refer to his 
 
 gone over the ground myself, and work, rather than to the original 
 
 have verified the accuracy of Nie- writers, as the combined view of 
 
 buhr's quotations, if indeed any the several facts belongs to him 
 
 could suspect it; and having been and not to them. 
 
76 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, one century of the Proletarii, whose property was 
 ^ ' between one thousand five hundred pounds and 
 three hundred and seventy-five. These paid no 
 taxes, and in ordinary times had no military duty; 
 but on great emergencies arms were furnished them 
 by the government, and they were called out as an 
 extraordinary levy. One century more included all 
 whose property was less than three hundred and 
 seventy-five pounds, and who were called Capite 
 Censi ; and from these last no military service was at 
 any time required, as we are told, till a late period of 
 the republic. 
 
 heFabri, Three centuries of a different character from 
 "rrubt 8 ' all the rest remain to be described, centuries de- 
 fined not by the amount of their property, but by 
 the nature of their occupation ; those of carpenters 
 and smiths, Fabrorum ; of hornblowers, Cornicines ; 
 and of trumpeters, Tubicines, or, as Cicero calls them, 
 Liticines. The first of these was attached to the 
 centuries of the first class, the other two to the fourth. 
 The nature of their callings so connected them with 
 the service of the army, that this peculiar distinction 
 was granted to them. 
 
 The position held in the comitia by the patri- 
 cians' clients is involved in great obscurity. We 
 know that they had votes, and probably they must 
 have been enrolled in the classes according to the 
 amount of their property, without reference to its 
 nature : at the same time Niebuhr thinks that they 
 did not serve in the regular infantry along with 
 the plebeians. It would seem from the story of the 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 77 
 
 three hundred Fabii, and from the adventures re- CHAP. 
 
 y_ 
 
 lated of Caius Marcius 30 , that the clients followed v ^ ' 
 their lords to the field at their bidding, and formed a 
 sort of feudal force quite distinct from the national 
 army of the commons, like the retainers of the nobles 
 in the middle ages, as distinguished from the free 
 burghers of the cities. 
 
 Such is the account transmitted to us of the con- 
 stitution of the comitia of centuries. As their whole 
 organization was military, so they were accustomed 
 to meet 31 without the city, in the Field of Mars ; 
 they were called together not by lictors, like the 
 comitia of the curise, but by the blast of the horn : 
 and their very name was "the Army of the City," 
 " Exercitus Urbanus 3 '." 
 
 It is quite plain that this constitution tended to The con- 
 stitution was 
 give the chief power in the state to the body of the soon de- 
 
 * stroyed, and 
 
 commons, and especially to the richer class among never en- 
 them, who fought in the first ranks of the phalanx, stored. 
 For wherever there is a well-armed and well-disci- 
 plined infantry, it constitutes the main force of an 
 army ; and it is a true observation of Aristotle 33 , that 
 in the ancient commonwealths the chief power was 
 apt to be possessed by that class of the people whose 
 military services were most important : thus when 
 the navy of Athens became its great support and 
 strength, the government became democratical ; be- 
 cause the ships were chiefly manned by citizens of 
 
 30 Dionysius, VII. 19, 20. 32 Varro, de L. L. VI. 93. 
 
 31 A. Gellius, XV. 27, quoted 33 Politics, V. 4. VI. 7. Ed. 
 from Leelius Felix. Bekker. 
 
78 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the poorer classes. But we know that for a very long 
 v v^ ' period after the time of Servius, the commons at 
 Rome, far from being the dominant part of the nation, 
 were excluded from the highest offices in the state, 
 and were grievously oppressed both individually and 
 as a body. Nay, further, whenever we find any de- 
 tails given of the proceedings of the comitia, or of 
 the construction of the army, we perceive a state of 
 things very different from that prescribed by the 
 constitution of Servius. Hence have arisen the dif- 
 ficulties connected with it ; for as it was never fully 
 carried into effect, but overthrown within a very few 
 years after its formation, and only gradually and in 
 part restored ; as thus the constitution with which 
 the oldest annalists, and even the law-books which 
 they copied were familiar, was not the original con- 
 stitution of Servius, but one bearing its name, while 
 in reality it greatly differed from it ; there is a con- 
 stant confusion between the two, and what is ascribed 
 to the one may often be true only when understood 
 of the other. 
 
 Servius Other good and popular institutions were ascribed 
 
 judges for to the reign of Servius. As he had made the com- 
 
 the com- 
 
 mons out of mons an order in the state, so he gave them judges 
 
 their own J 6 
 
 order. out of their own body to try all civil fA causes ; whereas 
 before they had no jurisdiction, but referred all their 
 
 34 Dionysius calls these causes from being wronged by the patri- 
 
 iSicBTiKa, as opposed to ra e'y TO cians as formerly, irepl TO. avpfio- 
 
 KOIVOV (frepovra, IV. 25 ; but after- Xaia, IV. 43. The Ephori in like 
 
 wards he expresses himself more manner, at Sparta, were judges in 
 
 clearly, when he calls these laws, ras ra>v o-u/i/SoXauui/ 8iKas. Aristot. 
 
 laws which hindered the commons Polit. III. 1. Ed. Bekker. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 79 
 
 suits either to the king or to the houses. These 
 judges were, as Niebuhr thinks, the centumviri, the 
 hundred men, of a later period, elected three from 
 each tribe, so that in the time of Servius their num- 
 ber would probably have been ninety. 
 
 To give a further organization to the commons, The festivals 
 
 of the Pa- 
 he is said also to have instituted the festivals called ganaiia and 
 
 Compitalia. 
 
 Paganalia and Compitalia. In the tribes in the 
 country, many strongholds on high ground, pagi 35 , 
 had been fixed upon as a general refuge for the in- 
 habitants and their cattle in case of invasion. Here 
 they all met once a year, to keep festival, and every 
 man, woman, and child, paid on these occasions a 
 certain sum, which being collected by the priests 
 gave the amount of the whole population. And for 
 the same purpose 3G , every one living in the city paid 
 
 35 It does not appear from pagani were montani : for the 
 Dionysius' account, whether there whole passage, when rightly stop- 
 were one or more pagi in every ped, and as Miiller has now printed 
 tribe. It would be most natural it, runs thus : " Dies Septimon- 
 to suppose that there was but one, tium, nominatus ab his septem 
 as otherwise the numbers of the montibus in queis sita urbs est, 
 people would have been taken ac- feriae non populi sed montanorurn 
 cording to a different division than modo : ut Paganalibus, qui sunt 
 that into tribes ; which does not alicujus pagi." " Montani," re- 
 seem probable. The pagus was fers to the inhabitants of the 
 in a manner the town of the tribe, seven hills ; (the seven hills of old 
 or rather would have become so, Rome, existing before the time of 
 had this state of things continued. Servius ;) and Varro says that the 
 Dionysius connects pagus with Septimontium was a festival kept 
 the Greek nayos, which is likely not by the whole people, but by 
 enough ; although afterwards the the inhabitants of those hills only ; 
 word merely signified a district or just as at the Paganalia, the in- 
 canton, whether in a plain country, habitants of the pagus alone 
 or in a hilly. Nor do Varro's words, shared in the festival. See Festus, 
 (L. L. V. p. 49. Edit. Dordr. 1619.) in Septimontio, " Septimontio ut 
 " Feriae non populi sed montano- ait Antistius Labeo, hisce monti- 
 rum modo, ut Paganalibus, qui bus Feria?," &c. 
 sunt alicujus pagi," imply that the 36 Dionysius, IV. 15. 
 
80 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, a certain sum at the temple of Juno Lucina for every 
 ^ ' birth in his family, another sum at the temple of 
 Venus Libitina for every death, and a third at the 
 temple of Youth for every son who came to the age 
 of military service. The Compitalia 37 in the city 
 answered to the Paganalia in the country, and were 
 a yearly festival in honour of the Lares or guardian 
 spirits, celebrated at all the compita, or places where 
 several streets met. 
 
 Other laws and measures are ascribed to Servius, 
 which seem to be the fond invention of a later 
 period, when the commons, suffering under a cruel 
 and unjust system, and wishing its overthrow, gladly 
 believed that the deliverance which they longed 
 for had been once given them by their good king, 
 and that they were only reclaiming old rights, not 
 demanding new ones. Servius, it is said 38 , drove out 
 the patricians from their unjust occupation of the 
 public land, and ordered that the property only, 
 
 Other laws 
 ascribed to 
 Servius. 
 
 v Dionysius, IV. 14. What 
 Dionysius here calls the Compita- 
 lia, and which he says were kept 
 a few days after the Saturnalia, 
 are not marked in the calendars, 
 because, though the season at 
 which they fell was fixed, the day 
 was not so ; they were amongst 
 the " conceptivae Feriee," or festi- 
 vals announced every year by the 
 magistrates, of which the precise 
 day in some instances varied. (Ma- 
 crobius, Saturnal. I. 16.) They 
 must not be confounded with the 
 festival of the Lares Prsestites on 
 the first of May. The Lares were 
 the spirits of the dead, Saipoves, 
 who watched over their living 
 
 posterity; thence Dionysius calls 
 them rjpues, because the heroes 
 were deified men, like Hesiod's 
 Satpoves, whom he calls (fivXaKts 
 6vt]Tu>v dv6pd>7rcL>v. The name of 
 Lares is Etruscan, Lar is prince or 
 mighty one. Yet as spirits, and 
 belonging to the invisible world, 
 they were called also the children 
 of Mania (Macrobius, Saturnal. 
 I. 7), a horrible goddess, whose 
 name was given to frightful 
 masks, the terror of children. 
 Mania is clearly connected with 
 the Dii Manes, who were also 
 the spirits of a man's departed 
 ancestors. 
 
 38 Dionysius, IV. 9 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 81 
 
 and not the person, of a debtor should be liable for CHAP. 
 the payment of his debt. 
 
 Further, to complete the notion of a patriot king, 
 it was said that he had drawn out a scheme of popu- 
 lar government, by which two magistrates, chosen 
 every year, were to exercise the supreme power, and 
 that he himself proposed to lay down his kingly 
 rule to make way for them. It can hardly be 
 doubted that these two magistrates were intended 
 to be chosen the one from the houses and the other 
 from the commons, to be the representatives of their 
 respective orders. 
 
 III. But the following tyranny swept away the The con- 
 
 ,,..-; *: stitutionof 
 
 institutions of Servms, and much more prevented Semus suc- 
 
 i i n i iiii ceeded by a 
 
 the growth or that society for which alone his tyranny. 
 institutions were fitted. No man can tell how much 
 of the story of the murder of the old king and of 
 the impiety of the wicked Tullia is historical; but 
 it is certain that the houses, or rather a strong 
 faction among them, supported Tarquinius in his 
 usurpation : nor can we doubt the statement that the 
 aristocratical brotherhoods or societies served him 
 more zealously than the legal assembly of the curia? ; 
 because these societies are ever to be met with in the 
 history of the ancient Commonwealths, as pledged 
 to one another for the interests of their order, and 
 ready to support those interests by any crime. Like 
 Sylla, in after-times, he crushed the liberties of the 
 commons, doing away with the laws 39 of Servius, 
 
 39 Dionysius, IV. 43. 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, and, as we are told, destroying the tables on which 
 J they were written; abolishing the whole system of 
 the census, and consequently the arrangement of 
 the classes, and with them the organization of the 
 phalanx; and forbidding even the religious meet- 
 ings of the Paganalia and Compitalia, in order to 
 undo all that had been done to give the commons 
 strength and union. Further it is expressly said 40 , 
 that he formed his military force out of a small 
 portion of the people, and employed the great bulk 
 of them in servile works, in the building of the 
 circus and the capitoline temple, and the comple- 
 tion of the great drain or cloaca ; so that in his 
 wars, his army consisted of his allies, the Latins 
 and Hernicans, in a much greater proportion than 
 of Romans. His enmity to the commons was all 
 in the spirit of Sylla; and the members of the 
 aristocratical societies, who were his ready tools 
 in every act of confiscation, or legal murder, or 
 mere assassination, were faithfully represented by 
 the agents of Sylla's proscription, by L. Catilina 
 and his patrician associates. But in what followed, 
 Tarquinius showed himself, like Critias or Appius 
 Claudius, a mere vulgar tyrant, who preferred him- 
 self to his order, when the two came into competi- 
 tion, and far inferior to Sylla, the most sincere of 
 aristocrats, who having secured the ascendancy of 
 his order, was content to resign his own personal 
 power, who was followed therefore by the noblest 
 
 40 Dionysius, IV. 44. 
 
HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 83 
 
 as well as by the vilest of his countrymen, by Pom- CHAP. 
 peius and Catulus no less than by Catilina. Thus * ,- 
 Tarquinius became hated by all that was good and 
 noble amongst the houses, as well as by the com- 
 mons ; and both orders cordially joined to effect his 
 overthrow. But the evil of his tyranny survived him ; 
 it was not so easy to restore what he had destroyed 
 as to expel him and his family: the commons no 
 longer stood beside the patricians as an equal order, 
 free, wealthy, well armed, and well organized ; they 
 were now poor, ill armed,' and with no bonds of 
 union; they therefore naturally sank beneath the 
 power of the nobility, and the revolution which drove 
 out the Tarquins established at Rome not a free 
 commonwealth, but an exclusive and tyrannical aris- 
 tocracy. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES OF THE STATE OF THE 
 ROMANS UNDER THEIR KINGS. 
 
 Ad nos vix tenuis famse perlabitur aura. 
 
 VIRGIL, /En. vu. 
 
 CHAP. THE last chapter was long, yet the view which can 
 -r- ' be derived from it is imperfect. Questions must 
 suggest themselves, as I said before, to which it 
 contains no answers. Yet it seemed better to draw 
 the attention first to one main point, and to state 
 that point as fully as possible, reserving to another 
 place much that was needed to complete the pic- 
 ture. For instance, the account of the classes of 
 Servius leads naturally to questions as to the wealth 
 of the Romans, its sources, its distribution, and its 
 amount: the division of the people into centuries 
 excites a curiosity as to their numbers : the mention 
 of the change of the Roman worship, and the intro- 
 duction of Etruscan rites, dispose us to ask, how these 
 rites affected the moral character of the people ; what 
 that character was, and from whence derived. Again, 
 when we read of the great works of the later kings, 
 we think what advance or what style of the arts 
 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 85 
 
 was displayed in them; and the laws of king Ser- CHAP. 
 vius written on tables, with the poetical and un- v -^ ' 
 certain nature of the story of his reign, make us 
 consider what was the state of the human mind, 
 and what use had as yet been made of the great 
 invention of letters. It is to these points, so far as 
 I am able, that the following chapter will be de- 
 voted. 
 
 I. Niebuhr has almost exhausted the subject of or the 
 
 wealth of 
 
 the Roman copper money. He has l shown its ori- the Romans 
 
 rl under the 
 
 finally low value, owing to the great abundance of la ter kings. 
 
 J Their copper 
 
 the metal ; that as it afterwards became scarce, a money, 
 reduction in the weight of the coin followed natu- 
 rally, not as a fraudulent depreciation of it, but be- 
 cause a small portion of it was now as valuable as a 
 large mass had been before. The plenty of copper in 
 early times is owing to this, that where it is found, it 
 exists often in immense quantities, and even in large 
 masses of pure metal on the surface of the soil. Thus 
 the Copper Indians of North America found it in 
 such abundance on their hills that they used it for 
 all domestic purposes; but the supply thus easily 
 obtained soon became exhausted : and as the Indians 
 have no knowledge of mining, the metal is now 
 comparatively scarce. The small value of copper at 
 Rome is shown not only by the size of the coins, the 
 as having been at first a full pound in weight, but 
 also by the price of the war-horse, according to the 
 
 1 Vol. I. p. 474, et seqq. Ed. 2. See also Miiller, Etrusker, I. 4. 13. 
 
86 
 
 HISTORY OF EOME. 
 
 VI. 
 
 CHAP, regulation of Servius Tullius, namely ten thousand ' 
 pounds of copper. This statement, connected as it is 
 with the other details of the census, seems original 
 and authentic ; nor considering the great abundance 
 of cattle, and other circumstances, is it inconsistent 
 with the account in Plutarch's life of Publicola, that an 
 ox in the beginning of the Commonwealth, was worth 
 one hundred oboli, and a sheep worth ten; nor with the 
 provisions of the Aternian law, which fixed the price 
 of the one at one hundred ases and the other at ten. 
 
 2 " Ad equos emendos dena 
 millia aeris ex publico data," 
 Livy, I. 43. It has been doubted 
 whether this sum be meant as the 
 price of one horse or two : Nie- 
 buhr supposes that it includes the 
 purchase of a slave to act as 
 groom, and also of a horse for 
 him. And this seems confirmed in 
 some degree by Festus, who says 
 that the Romans used two horses 
 in battle, to have a fresh one to 
 mount when the first one was 
 tired ; and that the money given 
 to furnish these two horses was 
 called Pararium. Festus in " Pa- 
 rarium," and " Paribus equis." 
 Yet I find in Von Raumer's Ac- 
 count of the Prices of Things in 
 the Middle-ages, (Geschichte der 
 Hohenstaufen, V. p 436, et seqq.) 
 that in the year 1097 at the siege 
 of Antioch an ox was sold cheap 
 at five shillings; and in 1225 at 
 Verona, the average price of a 
 horse was twenty- five pounds. 
 This is reckoning by the Italian 
 lira or pound, divided into twenty 
 solidi or shillings ; but the value 
 of both the pound and the shilling 
 differed so much in different times 
 
 and places, that the comparison 
 cannot be depended on without 
 further examination. We should 
 like to know from what Greek 
 writer Plutarch borrowed his state- 
 ment of the price of an ox in the 
 time of Publicola. Was it from 
 Timaeus, from whom Pliny learnt 
 that Servius Tullius was the first 
 person who stamped money at 
 Rome ? And if so, at what did 
 he reckon the as ? Polybius 
 reckoned the light as of his time 
 at half an obolus, which would 
 make the denarius, as it was 
 already equivalent to sixteen ases, 
 equal to eight oboli, or a drachm, 
 and one-third. (II. 15.) By a com- 
 parison with the Aternian law, one 
 would suppose that the obolus 
 was meant to be equivalent to the 
 as ; if so, copper had so risen in 
 value, that although the as of half 
 an ounce weight was equal to 
 half an obolus, the as when 
 it weighed twenty-four times as 
 much, that is a full pound, had 
 only been worth twice as much ; 
 a diminution in value of twelve 
 hundred per cent. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 87 
 
 The sources of wealth amongst the Romans, un- CHAP. 
 der their later kings, were agriculture, and also, in v .^-> 
 
 Their pvin- 
 
 a large proportion, foreign commerce. Agriculture, cipai sources 
 indeed, strictly speaking, could scarcely be called a 
 source of wealth ; for the portions of land assigned 
 to each man, even if from the beginning they were 
 as much as seven jugera, were not large enough to 
 allow of the growth of much superfluous produce. 
 The ager publicus, or undivided public land, was 
 indeed of considerable extent, and this as being en- 
 joyed exclusively by the patricians might have been 
 a source of great profit. But in the earliest times 
 it seems probable that the greatest part of this land 
 w r as kept as pasture 3 ; and only the small portions of 
 two jugera, allotted by the houses to their clients, 
 to be held during pleasure, were appropriated to 
 tillage. The low prices of sheep and oxen show 
 that cattle must have been abundant ; the earliest 
 revenue according to Pliny was derived from pas- 
 ture ; that is, the patricians paid so much to the 
 state for their enjoyment of the ager publicus, 
 which was left unenclosed as pasture ground ; and 
 all accounts speak of the great quantities of cattle 
 reared in Italy from time immemorial. Cattle then 
 may have been a source of wealth ; but commerce 
 
 3 "Diu," says Pliny, XVIII. 3. ers well know, is the proper 
 
 " pascua solum vectigal fuerant." term for the occupation of the 
 
 Varro says, " Quos agros non public land. And the Scholiast 
 
 colebant propter silvas, aut id on Thucydides, I. 139, rightly 
 
 genus ubi pecus posset pasci, et considers yijs dopia-rov to be equi- 
 
 possidebant, ab usu suo Saltus valent to ov (nrfipofj.evrjs, because 
 
 nominarunt." De L. L. V. 36. undivided land was commonly left 
 
 " Possidere/' as Niebuhr's read- in pasture. 
 
88 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, must have been so in a still greater degree. The 
 ^ ' early foundation of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, 
 ascribed to Ancus Marcius, could have had no ob- 
 ject, unless the Romans had been engaged in foreign 
 trade ; and the treaty with Carthage, already alluded 
 to, proves the same thing directly and undeniably. 
 In this treaty the Romans are allowed to trade with 
 Sardinia, with Sicily, and with Africa westward of 
 the Fair Headland, that is, with Carthage itself, and 
 all the coast westward to the pillars of Hercules ; 
 and it is much more according to the common 
 course of things, that this treaty should have been 
 made to regulate a trade already in activity, than to 
 call it for the first time into existence. By this 
 commerce great fortunes were sure to be made, 
 because there were as yet so many new markets 4 
 open to the enterprizing trader, and none perhaps 
 where the demand for his goods had been so steadily 
 and abundantly supplied as to destroy the profit of 
 his traffic. But although much wealth must thus 
 have been brought into Rome, it is another question 
 how widely it was distributed. Was foreign trade 
 open to every Roman, or was it confined to the 
 patricians and their clients, and in a still larger 
 proportion to the king? The king had large do- 
 mains of his own ', partly arable, partly pasture, 
 
 4 Thus Herodotus speaks of the * Cicero, de Republica, V. 2. 
 
 enormous profits made by a Sa- These were the Greek refjifinj, 
 
 mian ship which accidentally found which the kings always had as- 
 
 its way to Tartessus ; observing TO signed to them. See Herodot. 
 
 fit (fjoropiov TOVTO rjv aKTjpaTOv TOV- IV. 161. 
 TOV TOV xpovov. IV. 152. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 89 
 
 and partly planted with vines and olives ; hence he CHAP. 
 
 was in a condition to traffic with foreign countries, v ~^ 
 
 and much of the Roman commerce was probably car- 
 ried on by the government for its own direct benefit, 
 as was the case in Judeea in the reign of Solomon. The 
 patricians also, we may be sure, exported, like the 
 Russian nobility, the skins and wool of the numerous 
 herds and flocks which they fed upon their public 
 land, and were the owners of trading ships, as it was 
 not till three centuries afterwards that a law 6 was 
 passed with the avowed object of restraining senators, 
 a term then become equivalent with patricians, from 
 possessing ships of large burden. Nor can we sup- 
 pose that the new plebeian centuries of knights, 
 who had been chosen from the richest of the com- 
 mons, were excluded from those commercial dealings 
 which their order in later times almost monopolized. 
 All these classes then might and probably did be- 
 come wealthy; but it may be doubted whether the 
 plebeian landholders had the same opportunities open 
 to them. Agriculture was to them the business of 
 their lives ; if their estates were ill cultivated, they 
 were liable to be degraded from their order ; nor had 
 they the capital which could enable them to enter 
 with advantage upon foreign trade. It is possible 
 indeed that foreign trade may have been one of the 
 privileges of the higher classes, as it is at this day in 
 Russia 7 ; but surely Niebuhr is not warranted by the 
 
 6 By Caius Flaminius, a short 7 Of the " Merchants of the 
 time before the second Punic war. three Guilds," only those of the 
 See Livy, XXI. 63. first guild, possessing a capital of 
 
90 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, passage which he quotes from Dionysius, in asserting 
 -.- ' that the plebeians were excluded from commerce as 
 well as from handicraft occupations ; retail trade 8 , 
 which is all that Dionysius speaks of, was considered 
 by the ancients in a very different light from the 
 wholesale dealings of the merchant with foreign 
 countries. 
 
 Beyond this we have scarcely the means of pro- 
 ceeding. Setting aside the tyranny ascribed to 
 Tarquinius, and remembering that it was his policy 
 to deprive the commons of their lately-acquired 
 citizenship, and to treat them like subjects rather 
 than members of the state, the picture given of the 
 wealth and greatness of Judaea under Solomon, may 
 
 at least fifty thousand francs, 
 (something more than two thou- 
 sand pounds,) are allowed to own 
 merchant ships, and to carry on 
 foreign trade. Those of the se- 
 cond guild may only trade within 
 the Russian empire ; those of the 
 third guild may only carry on 
 retail trades. See Schnitzler, Sta- 
 tistique de 1'Empire de Russie, 
 p. 117. 
 
 8 OvTt KanrjKov ovre \fipoTf \vijv 
 fiiov *x flv > IX. 25. It is true that 
 Dionysius had just before used 
 the term t^aropatv, but I think that 
 it is (p.ir6pa>v which he uses in an 
 improper sense, and not xaTnjXoj/. 
 Cicero distinguishes between them 
 in a well-known passage. " Sordidi 
 etiam putandi qui mercantur a 
 mercatoribus quod statim ven- 
 dant : (KarrijAot) opificesque om- 
 nes (xfipoT(xvai) in sordida arte 
 versantur. * * * Mercatura autem, 
 si tenuis est, sordida putanda est : 
 sin inagna et copiosa rnulta un- 
 
 dique apportans, multisque sine 
 vanitate impertiens, non est ad- 
 modum vituperanda." De Officiis, 
 II. prope finem. Cicero wrote at 
 a time when all trade was con- 
 sidered degrading to a senator, 
 and his language breathes the 
 spirit of modern aristocracy. Yet 
 even he distinguishes between the 
 merchant and the petty trader or 
 shopkeeper. The plebeians were 
 excluded from following the latter 
 callings by positive institution ; 
 from the former they might have 
 been virtually excluded by their 
 poverty. 
 
 Since writing the above note, I 
 see that Niebuhr has himself ta- 
 citly corrected his mistake in the 
 second volume, p. 450, 2nd Ed. 
 by translating KaTrrf\ov in this 
 same passage of Dionysius, " wer 
 Kramhandel erwahlte," instead of 
 "Handel." "Kramhandel" is 
 " retail trade." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 91 
 
 convey some idea of the state of Rome under its CHAP. 
 
 later kings. Powerful amongst surrounding nations, ' ^ ' 
 
 exposed to no hostile invasions, with a flourishing 
 agriculture, and an active commerce, the country 
 was great and prosperous ; and the king was enabled 
 to execute public works of the highest magnificence, 
 and to invest himself with a splendour unknown in 
 the earlier times of the monarchy. The last Tar- 
 quinius was guilty of individual acts of oppression, 
 we may be sure, towards the patricians no less than 
 the plebeians ; but it was these last whom he la- 
 boured on system to depress and degrade, and whom 
 he employed, as Solomon did the Canaanites 9 , in all 
 the servile and laborious part of his undertakings. 
 Still the citizens or patricians themselves found that 
 the splendour of his government had its burdens for 
 them also; as the great majority of the Israelites, 
 amid all the peace and prosperity of Solomon's reign, 
 and although exempted from all servile labour, and 
 serving only in honourable offices 10 , yet complained 
 that they had endured a grievous yoke, and took the 
 first opportunity to relieve themselves from it by 
 banishing the house of Solomon from among them 
 for ever. 
 
 Of the population of Rome under its later kings Population, 
 nothing can be known with certainty, unless we 
 consider as historical the pretended return of the 
 census taken by Servius Tullius, eighty-four thou- 
 sand seven hundred. Nor is it possible to estimate 
 
 9 1 Kings ix. 20, 21. 10 1 Kings v. 22. Compare xii 416. 
 
92 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the numbers of the army from the account of the 
 
 VI 
 
 v v^ ' centuries. We are expressly told that the cen- 
 turies were very unequal in the number of men 
 contained in them ; and even with regard to the 
 centuries of the first class, we know not whether 
 they consisted of any fixed number. It is possible 
 that the century in the Roman army, like the ratg 
 in the Athenian, bore two different senses ; the 
 Athenian heavy-armed infantry were divided into 
 ten raZtiQ, but the number contained in each of these 
 must necessarily have been indefinite. We read 
 however of TOHC and Ta&ap-^oi in particular expe- 
 ditions, by which apparently we are to understand 
 certain drafts from the larger ra&ie with their com- 
 manders, and the numbers here would be fixed ac- 
 cording to the force required for the expedition. So 
 the centurise u of the different classes must have 
 each furnished their contingents for actual service 
 on a certain fixed proportion, and these contingents 
 from the centuries would be called centuries them- 
 selves ; but we do not know either their actual force 
 or their force comparatively with one another : a 
 century of the fifth class, consisting of light-armed 
 soldiers, must have contained many more men than 
 a century of heavy-armed soldiers of the first class. 
 
 Moral and j j j^ j g difficult to form a clear idea of the moral 
 
 political 
 
 character of c h arac ter of the Roman people under its kings, be- 
 
 the Romans. ~ 
 
 11 I propose to reserve all con- we shall for the first time have 
 
 sideration of the numbers and any historical accounts in detail 
 
 constitution of the early Roman of the military operations of the 
 
 legion for the next volume, when Roman armies. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 93 
 
 cause we cannot be sure that the pictures handed CHAP. 
 
 VI. 
 
 down to us of that period were not copied from the ' 
 manners of a later time, and thus represent in fact 
 the state of the Commonwealth rather than that of 
 the Monarchy. Thus the simple habits of Lucretia 
 seem copied from the matrons of the republic in the 
 time of its early poverty, and cannot safely be 
 ascribed to the princesses of the magnificent house 
 of the Tarquinii. Again, we can scarcely tell how 
 far we may carry back the origin of those charac- 
 teristic points in the later Roman manners, the ab- 
 solute authority possessed by the head of a family 
 over his wife and children. But it is probable that 
 they are of great antiquity ; for the absolute power 
 of a father over his sons extended only to those who 
 were born in that peculiar form of marriage called 
 Connubium, a connexion which anciently could only 
 subsist between persons of the same order, and which 
 was solemnized by a peculiar ceremony called Con- 
 farreatio ; a ceremony so sacred, that a marriage thus 
 contracted could only be dissolved by certain un- 
 wonted and horrible rites, purposely ordered as it 
 seems to discourage the practice of divorce. All 
 these usages point to a very great antiquity, and 
 indicate the early severity of the Roman domestic 
 manners, and the habits of obedience which every 
 citizen learned under his father's roof. This severity 
 however did not imply an equal purity ; connubium 
 could only be contracted with one wife, but the 
 practice of concubinage was tolerated, although the 
 condition of a concubine is marked as disreputable 
 
94 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, by a law so old as to be ascribed to Numa 12 . And 
 
 VI. 
 
 v -^ ; the indecency of some parts of the ancient religious 
 worship, and the licence allowed at particular fes- 
 tivals, at marriages, and in the festal meetings of 
 men amongst themselves, belong so much to an agri- 
 cultural people, as well as to human nature in gene- 
 ral, that these too may be safely presumed to be 
 coeval with the very origin of the Roman nation. 
 
 Theirioveof But the most striking point in the character of 
 
 institutions 
 
 and law. the Romans, and that which has so permanently in- 
 fluenced the condition of mankind, was their love of 
 institutions and of order, their reverence for law, 
 their habit of considering the individual as living 
 only for that society of which he was a member. 
 This character, the very opposite to that of the bar- 
 barian and the savage, belongs apparently to that 
 race to which the Greeks and Romans both belong, 
 by whatever name, Pelasgian, Tyrrhenian, or Sikelian, 
 we choose to distinguish it. It has indeed marked 
 the Teutonic race, but in a less degree : the Kelts 
 have been strangers to it, nor do we find it developed 
 amongst the nations of Asia : but it strongly charac- 
 terizes the Dorians in Greece, and the Romans ; nor 
 is it wanting among the lonians, although in these 
 last it was modified by that individual freedom which 
 arose naturally from the surpassing vigour of their 
 intellect, the destined well-spring of wisdom to the 
 whole world. But in Rome, as at Lacedsemon, as 
 there was much less activity of reason, so the ten- 
 
 18 Pellex aram Junonis ne tan- demiesis agnum fceminam caedito. 
 gito ... si tanget, Junoni crinibus Festus in " Pellex." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 95 
 
 dency to regulate and to organize was much more CHAP. 
 
 predominant. Accordingly we find traces of this ' -^ ' 
 
 character in the very earliest traditions of Roman 
 story. Even in Romulus, his institutions go hand 
 in hand with his deeds in arms ; and the wrath of the 
 gods darkened the last years of the warlike Tullus, 
 because he had neglected the rites and ordinances 
 established by Numa. Numa and Servius, whose 
 memory was cherished most fondly, were known 
 only as lawgivers ; Ancus, like Romulus, is the 
 founder of institutions as well as the conqueror, and 
 one particular branch of law is ascribed to him as its 
 author, the ceremonial to be observed before going 
 to war. The two Tarquinii are represented as of 
 foreign origin, and the character of their reigns is 
 foreign also. They are great warriors and great 
 kings; they extend the dominion of Rome; they 
 enlarge the city and embellish it with great and 
 magnificent works ; but they add nothing to its insti- 
 tutions ; and it was the crime of the last Tarquinius 
 to undo those good regulations which his predecessor 
 had appointed. 
 
 It is allowed, on all hands, that the works of art or the state 
 
 1 i f ^ ie arts - 
 executed in Rome under the later kings, whether 
 
 architecture 1;J or sculpture H , were of Etruscan origin ; 
 
 13 Intentus perficiendo templo, sculpture, according to Varro, had 
 fabris undique ex Etruria accitis, been Etruscan. (Pliny, XXXV. 
 &c. Livy, I. 56. 12.) Micali supposes the temple 
 
 14 Before the ornamenting of here meant to have been the one 
 the temple of Ceres, at Rome, vowed by A. Postumius, dictator 
 near the Circus Maximus, by two at the battle of the Lake Regillus, 
 Greeks, Damophilus and Gorga- (Tacitus, Annal. II. 49 ) described 
 sus, all works of painting or as a temple, " Libero, Lib3reeque 
 
96 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, but what is meant by " Etruscan," and how far 
 v- ' Etruscan art was itself derived from Greece, is a 
 question which has been warmly disputed. The 
 statue of Jupiter 15 in the capitol, and the four- 
 horsed chariot on the summit of the temple, together 
 with most of the statues of the gods, were at this 
 period wrought in clay; bronze was not generally 
 employed till a later age. There is no mention of any 
 
 et Cereri, juxta Circum Maxi- 
 mum." At any rate the two Greek 
 artists must belong to a period later 
 than the foundation of the capitol. 
 15 Pliny, XXXV. 12, quotes 
 Varro, as saying " Turrianum a 
 Fregellis accitum, cui locaret Tar- 
 quinius Priscus effigiem Jovis in 
 capitolio dicandam." He had just 
 before said that all the images of 
 this period were Etruscan ; how 
 then do we find the statue of 
 Jupiter himself ascribed to an 
 artist of Fregellae, a Volscian town 
 on the Livis, with which the Ro- 
 mans in Tarquinius' reign are 
 not known to have had any con- 
 nexion ? Besides, " Turrianus " is 
 apparently only another form of 
 " Tyrrhenus," and seems to mark 
 the artist as an Etruscan. Are we 
 then to read Fregenae instead of 
 Fregellae, or are we to suppose the 
 artist's fame to have been so emi- 
 nent that the people of Fregellae 
 had first invited him thither from 
 his own country, and the Roman 
 king afterwards brought him from 
 Fregellae to Rome ? In this man- 
 ner Polycrates of Samos sent for 
 Democedes the physician from 
 Athens ; and the Athenians had 
 invited him from JEgima, where he 
 had first settled after leaving his 
 own country, Croton. Herodotus, 
 III. 131. 
 
 But the question still returns, 
 what is meant by Etruscan art ? 
 Are we to understand this term of 
 the Etruscans properly so called, 
 the conquerors of the Tyrrhenian 
 Pelasgians, or of these Tyrrheno- 
 Pelasgians themselves, who must 
 have held Agylla at least, if not 
 other places on the coast, down 
 to the time of the last kings of 
 Rome ; or, again, how much of 
 Etruscan art was introduced di- 
 rectly into Italy from Greece itself, 
 as is indicated in the story of 
 Demaratus coming from Corinth 
 to Tarquinii, with the artists Eu- 
 chir and Eugrammus, "Cunning 
 hand " and " Cunning carver ?" 
 The paintings at Ardea and Caere 
 mentioned by Pliny both occur in 
 towns of Pelasgian origin ; and the 
 arts may have thus been cultivated 
 to a certain degree in Italy, even 
 before the beginning of any com- 
 munication with Greece. But the 
 vases and other monuments now 
 found in Etruscan towns, in the 
 ruins of Tarquinii for instance, and 
 of Vulci, belong to a later period, 
 and are either actually of Greek 
 workmanship, or were executed 
 by Etruscans to whom Greek art 
 was familiar. See M. Bunsen's 
 " Discours," in the 6th volume 
 of the Annals of the Antiquarian 
 Institute of Rome, p. 40, &c. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 97 
 
 paintings in Rome itself earlier than the time of the CHAP. 
 Commonwealth ; but Pliny speaks of some frescoes ^ 
 at Ardea and at Caere, which he considered to be 
 older than the very foundation of the city, and which 
 in his own age preserved the freshness of their co- 
 louring, and in his judgment were works of remark- 
 able merit. The Capitoline temple 16 itself was built 
 nearly in the form of a square, each side being about 
 two hundred feet in length ; its front faced south- 
 wards, towards the forum and the Palatine, and had 
 a triple row of pillars before it, while a double row 
 inclosed the sides of the temple. These, it is pro- 
 bable, were not of marble, but made either of the 
 stone of Rome itself, like the cloaca, or possibly from 
 the quarries of Gabii or Alba. 
 
 The end of the reign of the last king of Rome Language 
 falls less than twenty years before the battle of lectuai cha- 
 Marathon. The age of the Greek heroic poetry was Romans, 
 long since past; the evils of the iron-age, of that 
 imperfect civilization, when legal oppression has suc- 
 ceeded to the mere violence of the plunderer and the 
 conqueror, had been bewailed by Hesiod three cen- 
 turies earlier ; Theognis had mourned over the sink- 
 ing importance of noble birth, and the growing in- 
 fluence of riches; the old aristocracies had been 
 overthrown by single tyrants, and these again had 
 everywhere yielded to the power of aristocracies 
 under a mitigated form, which in some instances ad- 
 mitted a mixture of popular freedom. Alcseus and 
 
 16 Dionysius, IV. 61 
 VOL. I II 
 
98 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Sappho had been dead for more than half a century; 
 
 ^ ' Simonides was in the vigour of life ; and prose his- 
 tory had already been attempted by Hecatacus of 
 Miletus. Of the works of these last indeed only 
 fragments have descended to us; but their entire 
 writings, together with those of many other earlier 
 poets, scattered up and down through a period of 
 more than two hundred years, existed till the general 
 wreck of ancient literature, and furnished abundant 
 monuments of the vigour of the Greek mind, long 
 before the period when history began faithfully to 
 record particular events. But of the Roman mind 
 under the kings, Cicero knew no more than we do. 
 He had seen no works of that period, whether of 
 historians or of poets ; he had never heard the name 
 of a single individual whose genius had made it 
 famous, and had preserved its memory together with 
 his own. A certain number of laws ascribed to the 
 kings, and preserved, whether on tables of wood or 
 brass in the Capitol, or in the collection of the jurist 
 Papirius, were almost the sole monuments which 
 could illustrate the spirit of the early ages of the 
 Roman people. But even these, to judge from the 
 few extracts with which we are acquainted, must 
 have been modernized in their language ; for the 
 Latin of a law ascribed to Servius Tullius is perfectly 
 intelligible, and not more ancient in its forms than 
 that of the fifth century of Rome ; whereas the few 
 genuine monuments of the earliest times, the Hymns 
 of the Salii, and of the Brotherhood of Husbandry, 
 Fratres Arvales, required to be interpreted to the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 99 
 
 Romans of Cicero's time like a foreign language; CHAP. 
 and of the Hymn of the Fratres Arvales we can our- v v 
 selves judge, for it has been accidentally preserved 
 to our days, and the meaning of nearly half of it 
 is only to be guessed at. This agrees with what 
 Polybius says of the language of the treaty between 
 Rome and Carthage, concluded in the first year of 
 the Commonwealth ; it was so unlike the Latin of his 
 own time, the end of the sixth and beginning of the 
 seventh century of Rome, that even those who un- 
 derstood it best found some things in it which with 
 their best attention they could scarcely explain. 
 Thus, although verses were undoubtedly made and 
 sung in the times of the kings, at funerals and at 
 feasts, in commemoration of the worthy deeds of the 
 noblest of the Romans; and although some of the 
 actual stories of the kings may perhaps have come 
 down from this source, yet it does not appear that 
 they were ever written ; and thus they were altered 
 from one generation to another, nor can any one tell 
 at what time they attained to their present shape. 
 Traces of a period much later than that of the kings 
 may be discerned in them ; and I see no reason to 
 differ from the opinion of Niebuhr, who thinks that 
 as we now have them they are not earlier than the 
 restoration of the city after the invasion of the 
 Gauls. 
 
 If this be so, there rests a veil not to be removed, 
 not only on the particular history of the early Romans, 
 but on that which we should much more desire 
 to know, and which in the case of Greece stands 
 
 H 2 
 
100 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, forth in such full light, the nature and power of 
 v ' their genius ; what they thought, what they hated, 
 and what they loved. Yet although the legends 
 of the early Roman story are neither historical, nor 
 yet coeval with the subjects which they celebrate, 
 still their fame is so great, and their beauty and 
 interest so surpassing, that it would be unpardonable 
 to sacrifice them altogether to the spirit of inquiry 
 and of fact, and to exclude them from the place 
 which they have so long held in Roman history. 
 Nor shall I complain of my readers, if they pass 
 over with indifference these attempts of mine to 
 put together the meagre fragments of our know- 
 ledge, and to present them with an outline of the 
 times of the kings, at once incomplete and without 
 spirit ; while they read with eager interest the im- 
 mortal story of the fall of Tarquinius, and the wars 
 with Porsenna and the Latins, as it has been handed 
 down to us in the rich colouring of the old heroic 
 lays of Rome. 
 
CHAPTER V T II. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS 
 AND HIS HOUSE, AND OF THEIR ATTEMPTS TO GET 
 THEMSELVES BROUGHT BACK AGAIN. 
 
 " Vis et Tarquinios reges, animainque superbam 
 Ultoris Bruti, fascesque videre receptos ?" 
 
 VIRGIL, JEn. vi. 
 
 WHILE king Tarquinius was at the height of his CHAP. 
 greatness, it chanced upon a time, that from the v ^ ' 
 
 How king 
 
 altar l in the court of his palace there crawled out a Tavquinius, 
 
 * t affrighted by 
 
 snake, which devoured the offerings laid on the f prodigy in 
 
 his palace, 
 
 altar. So the king thought it not enough to con- sent two of 
 
 his sons with 
 
 suit the soothsayers of the Etruscans whom he had Lucius Bru- 
 tus to con- 
 
 with him, but he sent two of his own sons to Del- suit the 
 
 oracle of 
 
 phi, to ask counsel of the oracle of the Greeks ; for Delphi, 
 the oracle of Delphi 2 was famous in all lands. So 
 his sons Titus and Aruns went to Delphi, and they 
 
 1 Ovid, Fasti, II. 711. probable. We read of the Agyl- 
 Ecce, nefas visu, mediis altaribus laeans of Agylla or Caere doing 
 
 anguis the same thing at an earlier pe- 
 
 Exit, et extinctis ignibus exta riod. Herodotus, I. 167- These 
 
 rapit. were Tyrrhenians, or Pelasgians ; 
 
 2 Livy, I. 56, maxime inclitum and there was a sufficient mixture 
 in terris oraculum. The story of the same race in the Roman 
 of the last of the Roman kings people, to give them a natural 
 sending to consult the oracle at connexion with the religion of 
 Delphi, is in itself nothing im- Greece. 
 
102 HISTORY OF ROME. > 
 
 CHAP, took with them their cousin Lucius Junius, whom men 
 
 VII 
 
 ^ ' called Brutus, that is, the Dullard ; for he seemed 
 to be wholly without wit, and he would eat wild 
 figs with honey 3 . This Lucius was not really dull, 
 but very subtle ; and it was for fear of his uncle's 
 cruelty, that he made himself as one without sense ; 
 for he was very rich, and he feared lest king Tar- 
 quinius should kill him for the sake of his inheritance. 
 So when he went to Delphi he carried with him a 
 staff of horn, and the staff was hollow, and it was 
 filled within with gold, and he gave the staff to 
 the oracle 4 as a likeness of himself; for though he 
 seemed dull, and of no account to look upon, yet 
 he had a golden wit within. When the three young 
 men had performed the king's bidding, they asked 
 the oracle for themselves, and they said, " O Lord 
 Apollo, tell us, which of us shall be king in Rome?" 
 Then there came a voice from the sanctuary and 
 said, " Whichever of you shall first kiss his mother." 
 So the sons of Tarquinius agreed to draw lots be- 
 tween themselves, which of them should first kiss 
 their mother, when they should have returned to 
 Rome ; and they said they would keep the oracle 
 secret from their brother Sextus, lest he should be 
 
 3 A. Postumius Albinus, co- where the sense of the preposition 
 
 temporary with Cato the censor, can hardly be distinguished from 
 
 quoted by Macrobius, Saturnalia, that of " cum." Grossi and gros- 
 
 II. 16. Grossulos ex melle ede- suli are imperfect and unripe figs ; 
 
 bat. " Ex melle," dipping them either those of the wild fig which 
 
 into the honey, and eating them never come to perfection, or the 
 
 when just taken out of it, i. e. with young fruit of the cultivated fig, 
 
 the honey clinging all about them, gathered before its time. 
 Compare Plautus, Merc. I. 2. 28. 4 Per ambages effigiem ingenii 
 
 " Resinam ex melle devorato," sui. Livy, I. 56. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 103 
 
 king 1 rather than they. But Lucius understood the CHAP. 
 
 V 7 II. 
 
 mind of the oracle better; so as they all went down * ' 
 from the temple, he stumbled as if by chance, and 
 fell with his face to the earth, and kissed the earth ; 
 for he said, "The earth is the true mother of us 
 all." 
 
 Now when they came back to Rome, king Tar- HOW at 
 
 the siege of 
 
 quinius was at war with the people of Ardea*: and Ardeathe 
 
 Roman 
 
 as the city was strong, his army lay a loner while princes dis- 
 
 J J J pute( j a b ol ,t 
 
 before it, till it should be forced to yield through the worth of 
 
 J their wives, 
 
 famine. So the Romans had leisure for feasting a n<i i>ow 
 
 Lucretiawas 
 
 and for diverting themselves : ' and once Titus and .Hg ed the 
 
 worthiest. 
 
 Aruns 6 were supping with their brother Sextus, 
 and their cousin Tarquinius of Collatia was supping 
 with them. And they disputed about their wives, 
 whose wife of them all was the worthiest lady. 
 Then said Tarquinius of Collatia, " Let us go, and 
 see with our own eyes what our wives are doing, 
 so shall we know which is the worthiest." Upon 
 this they all mounted their horses, and rode first 
 to Rome ; and there they found the wives of Titus, 
 and of Aruns, and of Sextus, feasting and making 
 merry. They then rode on to Collatia, and it was 
 late in the night, but they found Lucretia, the wife 
 of Tarquinius of Collatia, neither feasting, nor yet 
 sleeping, but she was sitting with all her handmaids 
 around her, and all were working at the loom. So 
 when they saw this, they all said, " Lucretia is the 
 
 5 Livy, I. 57- This is one of the dependent allies of Rome. See the 
 
 incongruities of the story. Ardea, famous treaty with Carthage, as 
 
 in the first year of the Common- given by Polybius, III. 22. 
 wealth, is mentioned as one of the 6 Livy, I. 57. 
 
104 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, worthiest lady." And she entertained her husband 
 
 VII. * 
 
 v v ' and his kinsmen, and after that they rode back to 
 
 the camp before Ardea. 
 or the But a spirit of wicked passion 7 seized upon Sextus, 
 
 wicked deed 
 
 of Sextus and a few days afterwards he went alone to Collatia, 
 
 Tarquinius 
 
 against and Lucretia received him hospitably, for he was 
 
 Lucretia. 
 
 her husband's kinsman. At midnight he arose and 
 went to her chamber, and he said that if she yielded 
 not to him, he would slay her and one of her slaves 
 with her, and would say to her husband that he had 
 slain her in her adultery. So when Sextus had 
 accomplished his wicked purpose, he went back 
 again to the camp. 
 HOW Lucre- Then Lucretia 8 sent in haste to Rome, to pray 
 
 tia, having 
 
 told the that her father Spurms Lucretius would come to 
 to her her : and she sent to Ardea to summon her husband. 
 
 husband 
 
 and her Her father brought along with him Publius Vale- 
 father, Slew . 111! 1 T 1 T 
 
 rius, and her husband brought with him Lucius 
 Junius, whom men call Brutus. When they 
 arrived, they asked earnestly, "Is all well?" Then 
 she told them of the wicked deed of Sextus, and 
 she said, " If ye be men, avenge it." And they all 
 swore to her, that they would avenge it. Then she 
 said again, " I am not guilty ; yet must I too share 
 in the punishment of this deed, lest any should 
 think that they may be false to their husbands and 
 live." And she drew a knife from her bosom, and 
 stabbed herself to the heart. 
 
 At that si S ht 9 her husband and her father cried 
 
 7 Livy, I. 58. s Livy, I. 58. Livy, I. 59. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 105 
 
 aloud; but Lucius drew the knife from the wound, CHAP. 
 
 VII. 
 
 and held it up, and said, " By this blood I swear, ;- 
 
 her husband 
 
 that I will visit this deed upon king Tarquinius, !ind Lucius 
 
 Brutus ex- 
 
 and all his accursed race ; neither shall any man cited the 
 
 people to 
 
 hereafter be king in Rome, lest he do the like Jrive out 
 
 king Tar- 
 wickedness." And he gave the knife to her hus- qumius and 
 
 his house. 
 
 band, and to her father, and to Publius Valerius. 
 They marvelled to hear such words from him whom 
 men called dull ; but they swore also, and they took 
 up the body of Lucretia, and carried it down into 
 the forum ; and they said, " Behold the deeds of 
 the wicked family of Tarquinius." All the people of 
 Collatia were moved, and the men took up arms, 
 and they set a guard at the gates, that none might 
 go out to carry the tidings to Tarquinius, and they 
 followed Lucius to Rome. There, too, all the peo- 
 ple came together, and the crier summoned them 
 to assemble before the tribune of the Celeres, for 
 Lucius held that office 10 . And Lucius spoke to them 
 of all the tyranny of Tarquinius and his sons, and 
 of the wicked deed of Sextus. And the people in 
 their curia? took back from Tarquinius the sovereign 
 power, which they had given him, and they banished 
 
 10 The tribune of the Celeres was connexion between the word and 
 
 to the king, what the master of the Greek papvs. It is very possi- 
 
 the horse was afterwards to the ble that its early signification, as a 
 
 dictator. It is hardly necessary to cognomen, may have differed very 
 
 point out the extravagance of the little from that of Severus. When 
 
 story, in representing Brutus, the signification of " dulness " 
 
 though a reputed idiot, yet in- came to be more confirmed, the 
 
 vested with such an important story of Brutus' pretended idiotcy 
 
 office. Festus says that Brutus, would be invented to explain the 
 
 in old Latin, was synonymous fact of so wise a man being called 
 
 with Gravis ; this would show a by such a name. 
 
106 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, him and all his family. Then the younger men fol- 
 v v ' lowed Lucius to Ardea, to win over the army there 
 to join them; and the city was left in the charge 
 of Spurius Lucretius. But the wicked Tullia fled in 
 haste from her house, and all, both men and women, 
 cursed her as she passed, and prayed that the fu- 
 ries of her father's blood might visit her with 
 vengeance, 
 of the Meanwhile 11 king Tarquinius set out with speed 
 
 driving out . _ 
 
 of king to Rome to put down the tumult. J3ut Lucius 
 
 Tarquinius, 111 
 
 and how two turned aside from the road, that he might not 
 
 yearly ma- 
 
 gistrates meet him, and came to the camp; and the soldiers 
 pointed in joyfully received him, and they drove out the sons of 
 
 his room. , . " 
 
 Tarquinius. King Tarquinius came to Rome, but 
 the gates were shut, and they declared to him, from 
 the walls, the sentence of banishment which had 
 been passed against him and his family. So he 
 yielded to his fortune, and went to live at Caere 
 with his sons Titus and Aruns. His other son, Sex- 
 tus 12 , went to Gabii, and the people there, remember- 
 ing how he had betrayed them to his father, slew 
 him. Then the army left the camp before Ardea, 
 and went back to Rome. And all men said, "Let us 
 follow the good laws of the good king Servius ; and let 
 us meet in our centuries, according as he directed l3 , 
 and let us choose two men year by year to govern 
 
 11 Livy. I. 60. Livy, as the writer of the best 
 
 12 Livy, I. 60. Dionysius makes taste, and likely to give the oldest 
 Sextus live till the battle by the and most poetical version of them, 
 lake Regillus, and describes him 13 Consules inde comitiis cen- 
 as killed there. When the stories turiatis ex commentariis Ser. 
 differ, I have generally followed Tullii creati sunt. Livy, I. 60. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 107 
 
 us, instead of a king." Then the people met in their CHAP. 
 centuries in the field of Mars, and they chose two v ^ ' 
 men to rule over them, Lucius Junius, whom men 
 called Brutus, and Lucius Tarquinius of Collatia. 
 
 But the people H were afraid of Lucius Tarquinius HOW Lucius 
 
 Tarquinius, 
 
 for his name's sake, for it seemed as though a Tar- the husband 
 
 of Lucretia, 
 
 quinius were still king over them. So they prayed was driven 
 
 \ > r J out also for 
 
 him to depart from Rome, and he went and took all his name ' s 
 
 sake. 
 
 his goods with him, and settled himself at Lavinium. 
 Then the senate and the people decreed that all the 
 house of the Tarquinii should be banished, even 
 though they were not of the king's family. And the 
 people met again in their centuries, and chose Pub- 
 lius Valerius to rule over them together with Brutus, 
 in the room of Lucius Tarquinius of Collatia. 
 
 Now at this time l ' many of the laws of the good The laws of 
 
 i . o , , the good 
 
 king bervms were restored, which Tarquinius the king Servius 
 
 . restored. 
 
 tyrant had overthrown, lor the commons again 
 chose their own judges, to try all causes between a 
 man and his neighbour; and they had again their 
 meetings and their sacrifices in the city and in the 
 country, every man in his own tribe and in his own 
 district. And lest there should seem to be two kings 
 instead of one, it was ordered that one only of the 
 two should bear rule at one time, and that the 
 lictors with their rods and axes should walk before 
 him alone. And the two were to bear rule month 
 by mouth. 
 
 Then king Tarquinius 16 sent to Rome, to ask for HOW certain 
 
 of the young 
 
 14 Livy, 11.2. 16 Livy, II. 3, 4. 
 
 15 Dionysius, V. 2. 
 
108 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, all the goods that had belonged to him; and the 
 
 VII 
 
 1 v- ' senate after a while decreed that the goods should 
 
 Romans 
 
 plotted to be given back. But those whom he had sent to 
 
 bring back 
 
 king Tar- Rome to ask for his goods, had meetings with many 
 
 quinius. 
 
 young men of noble birth, and a plot was laid to 
 bring back king Tarquinius. So the young men 
 wrote letters to Tarquinius, pledging to him their 
 faith, and among them were Titus and Tiberius, 
 the sons of Brutus. But a slave happened to 
 overhear them talking together, and when he knew 
 that the letters were to be given to the messengers 
 of Tarquinius, he went and told all that he had 
 heard to Brutus and to Publius Valerius. Then 
 they came and seized the young men and their 
 letters, and so the plot was broken up. 
 HOW Lucius After this there was a strange and piteous sight 
 
 Brutus sat -i-i-ii T- s -W. . n 
 
 in judgment to behold. Brutus and Publius sat on their judg- 
 ment-scats in the forum, and the young men were 
 brought before them. Then Brutus bade the lictors 
 to bind his own two sons, Titus and Tiberius, to- 
 gether with the others, and to scourge them with 
 rods, according to the law. And after they had been 
 scourged, the lictors struck off their heads with their 
 axes, before the eyes of their father ; and Brutus 
 neither stirred from his seat, nor turned away his 
 eyes from the sight, yet men saw as they looked on 
 him that his heart was grieving inwardly 1S over his 
 children. Then they marvelled at him, because he 
 had loved justice more than his own blood, and had 
 
 17 Livy, II. 5. publicae poense ministerium. Livy, 
 
 18 Eminente ammo patrio inter II. 5. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 109 
 
 not spared his own children when they had been CHAP. 
 false to their country, and had offended against the ^ ' 
 law. 
 
 When 19 king Tarquinius found that the plot was HOW the 
 broken up, he persuaded the people of Veii and the veii and 
 
 . _ Tarquinii 
 
 people or larqumn, cities or the Etruscans, to try to made war 
 
 i upon the 
 
 bring him back to Rome by force of arms. So they Romans, 
 
 and how 
 
 assembled their armies, and Tarquinius led them Lucius 
 
 . Brutus was 
 
 within the Roman border. Brutus and Publius led slam. 
 the Romans out to meet them, and it chanced that 
 Brutus, with the Roman horsemen, and Aruns, the 
 son of king Tarquinius, with the Etruscan horse, met 
 each other in advance of the main battles. Aruns, 
 seeing Brutus in his kingly robe, and with the 
 lictors of a king around him, levelled his spear, and 
 spurred his horse against him. Brutus met him, 
 and each ran his spear through the body of the 
 other, and they both fell dead. Then the horsemen 
 on both parts fought, and afterwards the main bat- 
 tles, and the Veientians were beaten, but the Tar- 
 quinians beat the Romans, and the battle was 
 neither won nor lost ; but in the night there came 
 a voice out of the wood that was hard by, and it 
 said, " One man more 20 has fallen on the part of the 
 Etruscans than on the part of the Romans ; the 
 Romans are to conquer in the war." At this the 
 Etruscans were afraid, and believing the voice, they 
 immediately marched home to their own country, 
 while the Romans took up Brutus, and carried him 
 
 19 Livy, II. 6. disse in acie; vincere bello Ro- 
 
 20 Uno plus Etruscorum ceci- manum. Livy, II. 7- 
 
110 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 vn P ' nome an ^ buried him ; and Publius made an oration 
 v ' in his praise, and all the matrons of Rome mourned 
 
 for him for a whole year, because he had avenged 
 
 Lucretia well. 
 HOW Pub- When Brutus was dead 21 , Publius ruled over the 
 
 lius Valerius 
 
 was sus- people himself ; and he began to build a great and 
 
 pected by 
 
 the people, strong house on the top of the hill Velia, which 
 
 and how he 
 
 cleared looks down upon the forum 22 . This made the 
 
 himself. 
 
 people say, " Publius wants to become a king, and is 
 building a house in a strong place, as if for a citadel 
 where he may live with his guards, and oppress us." 
 But he called the people together, and when he 
 went down to them, the lictors who walked before 
 him lowered the rods and the axes which they bore, 
 to show that he owned the people to be greater 
 than himself. He complained that they had mis- 
 trusted him, and he said that he would not build his 
 house on the top of the hill Velia, but at the bottom 
 of it, and his house should be no stronghold. And 
 he called on them to make a law 23 , that whoever 
 should try to make himself king should be accursed, 
 and whosoever would might slay him. Also, that 
 if a magistrate were going to scourge or kill any 
 citizen, he might carry his cause before the people, 
 and they should judge him. When these laws were 
 passed, all men said, " Publius is a lover of the peo- 
 ple, and seeks their good :" and he was called Pop- 
 licola, which means, " the people's friend," from that 
 day forward. 
 
 n Livy, II. 7. Via Sacra passes. The arch of 
 
 22 It is the rising ground just Titus is on the Velian Hill. 
 under the Palatine, up which the 23 Livy, II. 8. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. Ill 
 
 Then Publius called the people together 24 in their CHAP. 
 
 centuries, and they chose Spurius Lucretius, the > ^ ' 
 
 father of Lucretia, to be their magistrate for the 
 year, in the room of Brutus. But he was an old 
 man, and his strength was so much gone, that after 
 a few days he died. They then chose in his room 
 Marcus Horatius 25 . 
 
 Now Publius and Marcus cast lots which should of the 
 
 IT i i T i -i "ii / i dedicating of 
 
 dedicate the temple to Jupiter on the hill of the the temple 
 Capitol, which king Tarquini us had built ; and the Capitol by 
 
 i , n 11 - - i -i. ft Marcus Ho- 
 
 lot tell to Marcus, to the great discontent of the ratius. 
 friends of Publius ' 6 . So when Marcus was going to 
 begin the dedication, and had his hand on the door- 
 post of the temple, and was speaking the set words 
 of prayer, there came a man running to tell him 
 that his son was dead. But he said, " Then let them 
 carry him out and bury him ; " and he neither wept, 
 nor lamented, for the words of lamentation ought 
 not to be spoken when men are praying to the 
 blessed gods, and dedicating a temple to their honour. 
 So Marcus honoured the gods above his son, and 
 dedicated the temple on the hill of the Capitol ; and 
 his name was recorded on the front of the temple. 
 
 But when king Tarquinius found that the Veien- HOW king 
 
 Porsenna 
 
 tians and Tarqumians were not able to restore mm made war 
 
 i i y~ii ? upon the 
 
 to his kingdom, he went to Clusmm , a city in the Romans, to 
 
 ... make them 
 
 farthest part of Etruria, beyond the Ciminian forest, take back 
 
 J king Tar- 
 
 quinius. 
 
 24 Livy, II. 8. story with the real but lost his- 
 
 28 The treaty with Carthage tory. 
 makes M. Horatius the colleague 26 Livy, II. 8. 
 of Brutus : another proof of the - 7 Livy, II. 9. 
 irreconcileableness of the common 
 
112 HISTORY OF ROME, 
 
 CHAP, and besought Lars Porsenna 28 , the king of Clusiimi, 
 
 " v ' to aid him. So Porsenna raised a great army, and 
 
 marched against Rome, and attacked the Romans 
 on the hill Janiculum, the hill on the outside of the 
 city beyond the Tiber ; and he drove them down from 
 the hill into the city. There was a wooden bridge 
 over the Tiber at the bottom of the hill, and the 
 Etruscans followed close upon the Romans to win 
 the bridge, but a single man, named Horatius Codes, 
 of the stood fast upon the bridge, and faced the Etruscans 29 ; 
 
 worthy deed , , ,.. . , , . 
 
 of Horatius two others then resolved to stay with him, Spurms 
 Lartius and Titus Herminius ; and these three men 
 stopped the Etruscans, while the Romans, who had 
 fled over the river, were busy in cutting away the 
 bridge. When it was nearly all cut away, Horatius 
 made his two companions leave him, and pass over 
 the bridge into the city. Then he stood alone on 
 the bridge, and defied all the army of the Etruscans ; 
 and they showered their javelins upon him, and he 
 caught them on his shield, and stood yet unhurt. 
 But just as they were rushing on him, to drive him 
 from his post by main force, the last beams of the 
 bridge were cut away, and it all fell with a mighty 
 crash into the river; and while the Etruscans won- 
 dered, and stopped in their course, Horatius turned 
 and prayed to the god of the river, " O father 30 
 Tiber, I pray thee to receive these arms, and me 
 
 28 " Lars," like "lucumo," is 29 Livy. II. 10. 
 
 not an individual name, but ex- 30 "Tiberine pater, te sancte 
 
 presses the rank of the person, precor, haec arma et hunc militem 
 
 like ava. Micali connects it with propitio flumine accipias." Livy, 
 
 the Teutonic word " Lord." II. 10. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 113 
 
 who bear them, and to let thy waters befriend and CHAP. 
 
 VII. 
 
 save me." Then he leapt into the river ; and though ^ ' 
 the darts fell thick around him, yet they did not hit 
 him, and he swam across to the city safe and sound 3I . 
 For this the Romans set up his statue in the comi- 
 tium, and gave him as much land as he could drive 
 the plough round in the space of a whole day. 
 
 But the Etruscans still lay before the city, and HOW Cams 
 the Romans suffered much from hunger. Then a sought the 
 young man of noble blood, Caius Mucius 32 by name, Porsenna; 
 
 and how he 
 
 went to the senate, and offered to go to the camp of tmmed his 
 
 own hand in 
 
 the Etruscans, and to slay king Porsenna. So he the fire, 
 crossed the river and made his way into the camp, 
 and there he saw a man sitting on a high place, and 
 wearing a scarlet robe, and many coming and going 
 about him ; and, saying to himself, " This must be 
 king Porsenna," he went up to his seat amidst the 
 crowd, and when he came near to the man he drew 
 a dagger from under his garment, and stabbed him. 
 But it was the king's scribe whom he had slain, who 
 was the king's chief officer ; so he was seized and 
 brought before the king, and the guards threatened 33 
 him with sharp torments, unless he would answer 
 
 31 Polybius says that he was because the Mucii had the same 
 
 killed, VI. 55. it is vain to at- cognomen of Scaevola; and he 
 
 tempt to write a history of these considers it inconsistent, because 
 
 events ; and none can doubt that the Mucii were plebeians, 
 
 the poetical story, which alone I 33 Here I have followed Diony- 
 
 am wishing to preserve, was that sius rather than Livy, because in 
 
 given by Livy. Livy's story Mucius tells Porsenna 
 
 3a " Adolescens nobilis," Livy, in reward of his generosity no 
 
 II. 12. Niebuhr doubts whether more than he had told him at 
 
 the old story called him by any first as a mere vaunt to frighten 
 
 other name than Caius. Mucius, him. 
 he thinks, was a later addition; 
 
 VOL. I I 
 
114 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, all their questions. But he said, "See now, how 
 
 VII 
 
 ,- ' little I care for your torments;" and he thrust his 
 right hand into the fire that was burning there on 
 the altar, and he did not move it till it was quite 
 consumed. Then king Porsenna marvelled at his 
 courage, and said, " Go thy way, for thou hast harmed 
 thyself more than me; and thou art a brave man, 
 and I send thee back to Rome unhurt and free." 
 But Caius answered, " For this thou shalt get more 
 of my secret than thy tortures could have forced from 
 me. Three hundred noble youths of Rome have 
 bound themselves by oath to take thy life. Mine 
 was the first adventure ; but the others will each in 
 his turn lie in wait for thee. I warn thee therefore 
 to look to thyself well." Then Caius was let go, 
 and went back again into the city. 
 
 of the peace But king Porsenna was greatly moved 34 , and 
 
 made be- * 
 
 tweenking made the Romans offers of peace, to which they 
 
 Porsenna / * * 
 
 and the listened gladly, and gave up the land beyond the 
 and of the Tiber which had been won in former times from the 
 
 great spirit 
 
 of the Veientians ; and he gave back to them the hill Jani- 
 
 m aid en 
 
 ciceiia. culum. Besides this the Romans gave hostages to 
 the king, ten youths and ten maidens, children of 
 noble fathers, as a pledge that they would truly keep 
 the peace which they had made. But it chanced 
 as the camp of the Etruscans was near the Tiber, 
 that Cloelia, one of the maidens, escaped with her 
 fellows and fled to the brink of the river, and as the 
 Etruscans pursued them, Cloelia spoke to the other 
 
 34 Livy, II. 13. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 115 
 
 maidens, and persuaded them, and they rushed all CHAP. 
 into the water, and swam across the river, and got ' v- ; 
 safely over. At this king Porsenna marvelled more 
 than ever, and when the Romans sent back Cloelia 
 and her fellows to him, for they kept their faith 
 truly, he bade her go home free, and he gave her 
 some of the youths also who were hostages, to choose 
 whom she would ; and she chose those who were 
 of tenderest age, and king Porsenna set them free. 
 Then the Romans gave lands to Caius, and set up 
 a statue of Cloelia in the highest part of the Sacred 
 Way ; and king Porsenna led away his army home in 
 peace. 
 
 After this king Porsenna 35 made war against the HOW 
 Latins, and his army was beaten, and fled to Rome ; sought for" 
 and the Romans received them kindly, and took care Latins. m 
 of those who were wounded, and sent them back safe 
 to king Porsenna. For this the king gave back to 
 the Romans all the rest of their hostages whom he 
 had still with him, and also the land which they had 
 w r on from the Veientians. So Tarquinius, seeing that 
 there \vas no more hope of aid from king Porsenna, 
 left Clusium and went to Tusculum of the Latins ; 
 for Mamilius Octavius, the chief of the Tusculans, 
 had married his daughter, and he hoped that the 
 Latins would restore him to Rome, for their cities 
 were many, and when he had been king he had 
 favoured them rather than the Romans. 
 
 So after a time thirty cities of the Latins joined of the war 
 
 between the 
 
 35 Livy, II. 14, 15. 
 I 2 
 
116 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, together and made Octavius Mamilius their general, 
 * * , and declared war against the Romans. Now Publius 
 
 Romans and 
 
 Latins on Valerius was dead, and the Romans so loved and 
 
 account of 
 
 Tarquinius. honoured him that they buried him within the city 36 , 
 near the hill Velia, and all the matrons of Rome had 
 mourned for him for a whole year : also because the 
 Romans 37 had the Sabines for their enemies as well 
 as the Latins, they had made one man to be their 
 ruler for a time instead of two ; and he was called 
 the Master of the people, or the commander, and he 
 had all the power which the kings of Rome had in 
 times past. So Aulus Postumius was appointed 
 Master of the people at this time, and Titus jEbutius 
 was the chief or Master of the horsemen ; and they 
 led out the whole force of the Romans, and met the 
 Latins by the lake Regillus, in the country of Tus- 
 culum: and Tarquinius himself was with the army 
 of the Latins, and his son and all the houses of the 
 Tarquinii ; for this was their last hope, and fate was 
 now to determine whether the Romans should be 
 ruled over by king Tarquinius, or whether they should 
 be free for ever. 
 
 HOW the There were many Romans who had married Latin 
 
 Roman wo- 
 men who wives 38 , and many Latins who had married wives 
 
 were mar- 
 
 ned to Latin f rO m among the Romans. So before the war began, 
 
 husbands 
 
 came home it was resolved that the women on both sides might 
 
 to Rome. 
 
 leave their husbands if they chose, and take their 
 virgin daughters with them, and return to their own 
 country. And all the Latin women, except two, 
 
 36 Plutarch in Publicola, 23. 37 Livy, II. 18. 
 Livy, II. 16. 38 Dionysius, VI. 1. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 117 
 
 remained in Rome with their husbands : but the Ro- 
 man women loved Rome more than their husbands, 
 and took their young daughters with them, and came 
 home to the houses of their fathers. 
 
 Then the Romans and the Latins joined battle by or the 
 
 great battle 
 
 the lake Reerillus . There might you see king Tar- by the lake 
 
 J Regillus. 
 
 qumms, though far advanced in years, yet mounted 
 on his horse and bearing his lance in his hand, as 
 bravely as though he were still young. There was 
 his son Tarquinius, leading on to battle all the band 
 of the house of the Tarquinii, whom the Romans 
 had banished for their name's sake, and who thought 
 it a proud thing to win back their country by their 
 swords, and to become again the royal house, to give 
 a king to the Romans. There was Octavius Mamilius, 
 of Tusculum, the leader of all the Latins, who said, 
 that he would make Tarquinius his father king once 
 more in Rome, and the Romans should help the 
 Latins in all their wars, and Tusculum should be 
 the greatest of all the cities whose people went up 
 together to sacrifice to Jupiter of the Latins, at his 
 temple on the high top of the mountain of Alba. 
 And on the side of the Romans might be seen Aulus 
 Postumius, the Master of the people, and Titus 
 ^Ebutius, the Master of the horsemen. There also 
 was Titus Herminius, who had fought on the bridge 
 by the side of Horatius Codes, on the day when they 
 saved Rome from king Porsenna. There was Marcus 
 Valerius, the brother of Publius, who said he would 
 
 39 Livy, II. 19. 
 
118 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, finish by the lake Regillus 40 the glorious work which 
 v v ' Publius had begun in Rome ; for Publius had driven 
 out Tarquinius and his house, and had made them 
 live as banished men, and now they should lose their 
 lives as they had lost their country. So at the first 
 onset king Tarquinius levelled his lance, and rode 
 against Aulus ; and on the left of the battle, Titus 
 ^Ebutius spurred his horse against Octavius Mami- 
 lius. But king Tarquinius, before he reached Aulus, 
 received a wound into his side, and his followers 
 gathered around him, and bore him out of the bat- 
 tle. And Titus and Octavius met lance to lance, 
 and Titus struck Octavius on the breast, and Octa- 
 vius ran his lance through the arm of Titus. So 
 Titus withdrew from the battle, for his arm could no 
 longer wield its weapon; but Octavius heeded not 
 his hurt, but when he saw his Latins giving ground, 
 he called to the banished Romans of the house 
 of the Tarquinii, and sent them into the thick of 
 the fight. On they rushed so fiercely that neither 
 man nor horse could stand before them ; for they 
 thought how they had been driven from their coun- 
 try, and spoiled of their goods, and they said that 
 they would win back both that day through the 
 blood of their enemies. 
 HOW two Then Marcus Valerius, the brother of Publius, 
 
 horsemen, , n -i i i n -in 
 
 on white levelled his lance and rode fiercely against Titus Tar- 
 peared'inthe quinius, who was the leader of the band of the Tar- 
 
 hattle, and 
 
 fought for quinii. But Titus drew back, and sheltered himself 
 
 the Romans. 
 
 40 Domestica etiam gloria ac- ejecti reges erant, ejusdem inter- 
 census, ut cujus familiae decus fecti forent. Livy, II. 20. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 119 
 
 amidst his band ; and Marcus rode after him in CHAP. 
 his fury, and plunged into the midst of the enemy, * 
 and a Latin ran his lance into his side as he was 
 rushing on ; but his horse stayed not in his career, 
 till Marcus dropped from him dead upon the ground. 
 Then the Romans feared yet more, and the Tarquinii 
 charged yet more vehemently, till Aulus, the leader 
 of the Romans, rode up with his own chosen band ; 
 and he bade them level their lances, and slay all 
 whose faces were towards them, whether they were 
 friends or foes. So the Romans turned from their 
 flight, and Aulus and his chosen band fell upon the 
 Tarquinii ; and Aulus prayed, and vowed that he 
 would raise a temple to Castor and to Pollux 41 , the 
 twin heroes, if they would aid him to win the battle ; 
 and he promised to his soldiers that the two who 
 should be the first to break into the camp of the ene- 
 my should receive a rich reward. When behold there 
 rode two horsemen at the head of his chosen band 4 ', 
 and they were taller and fairer than after the stature 
 and beauty of men, and they were in the first bloom 
 of youth, and their horses were white as snow. Then 
 there was a fierce battle, when Octavius, the leader 
 of the Latins, came up with aid to rescue the Tar- 
 quinii ; for Titus Herminius rode against him, and 
 ran his spear through his body, and slew him at one 
 blow ; but as he was spoiling him of his arms, he 
 himself was struck by a javelin, and he was borne 
 out of the fight and died. And the two horsemen 
 
 41 Livy, II. 20. 4 - Dionysius, VI. 13. 
 
120 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, on white horses rode before the Romans ; and the 
 v ' enemy fled before them, and the Tarquinii were 
 beaten down and slain, and Titus Tarquinius was 
 slain among them ; and the Latins fled, and the 
 Romans followed them to their camp, and the two 
 horsemen on white horses were the first who broke 
 into the camp. But when the camp was taken, and 
 the battle was fully won, Aulus sought for the two 
 horsemen to give them the rewards which he had 
 promised ; and they were not found either amongst 
 the living or amongst the dead, only there was seen 
 imprinted 4:i on the hard black rock 4i , the mark of 
 a horse's hoof, which no earthly horse had ever 
 made ; and the mark was there to be seen in after- 
 ages. And the battle was ended, and the sun went 
 down. 
 
 HOW the Now they knew at Rome 45 that the armies had 
 men ap- joined battle, and as the day wore away all men 
 Rome in the longed for tidings. And the sun went down, and sucl- 
 
 evening, and . , _ 
 
 told that demy there were seen in the forum two horsemen, 
 
 was won. taller and fairer than the tallest and fairest of men, 
 
 and they rode on white horses, and they were as men 
 
 just come from the battle, and their horses were all 
 
 bathed in foam. They alighted by the temple of 
 
 4a Cicero, de Natura Deorum, 
 III. 5. 
 
 44 The lake of Regillus is now a 
 small and weedy pool surrounded 
 by crater- like banks, and with 
 much lava or basalt about it, 
 situated at some height above the 
 plain, on the right hand of the 
 road as you descend from the 
 
 high ground under La Colonnn, 
 Labicum, to the ordinary level of 
 the Campagna, in going to Rome. 
 Cicero speaks of the mark being 
 visible " in silice ;" and silex is 
 the name given by the Roman 
 writers to the lava and basalt of 
 the neighbourhood of Rome. 
 45 Dionysius, VI. 13. 
 
THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 121 
 
 Vesta, where a spring of water bubbles up from the CHAP. 
 ground and fills a small deep pool. There they * , 
 washed away the stains of the battle, and when men 
 crowded round them, and asked for tidings, they 
 told them how the battle had been fought, and how 
 it was won. And they mounted their horses, and 
 rode from the forum, and were seen no more ; and 
 men sought for them in every place, but they were 
 not found. 
 
 Then Aulus and all the Romans knew how Castor The two 
 
 . i-ii -it- horsemen 
 
 and Pollux, the twin heroes, had heard his prayer, were the 
 and had fought for the Romans, and had vanquished Castor and ' 
 their enemies, and had been the first to break into 
 the enemies' camp, and had themselves, with more 
 than mortal speed, borne the tidings of their victory 
 to Rome. So Aulus built a temple according to his 
 vow to Castor and Pollux, and gave rich offerings, 
 for he said, " These are the rewards which I promised 
 to the two who should first break into the enemies' 
 camp ; and the twin heroes have won them, and they 
 and no mortal men have won the battle for Rome 
 this day." 
 
 So perished the house of the Tarquinii, in the HOW Tar- 
 
 great battle by the lake Regillus, and all the sons afte 
 of king Tarquinius, and his son-in-law Octavius house, went 
 Mamilius, were slain on that battle-field. Thus king and died!' 
 Tarquinius saw the ruin of all his family and of all 
 his house, and he was left alone, utterly without 
 hope. So he went to Cumae 4G , a city of the Greeks, 
 
 46 Livy, II. 21. 
 
122 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, and there he died. And thus the deeds of Tarqui- 
 
 vii. 
 ^ ' nius and of the wicked Tullia, and of Sextus their 
 
 son, were visited upon their own heads; and the 
 Romans lived in peace, and none threatened their 
 freedom any more. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY THE DIC- 
 TATORSHIP THE TRIBUNES OF THE COMMONS. 
 
 >v T>V p<TTa>v t7rieavres p.irjv TOVTOKTI nep 
 TO Kpdros' fi> yap 8r) TOVTOKTL KOI avrot fcropfda. HEHUDOT. III. 81. 
 
 MEN love to complete what is imperfect, and to CHAP. 
 
 VIII 
 
 realize what is imaginary. The portraits of king v ' * 
 
 -n , , . . TT , & The Roman 
 
 Jbergus and his successors in Holyrood palace were history is 
 
 . .. still meagre 
 
 an attempt to give substance to the phantom names and u 
 of the early Scotch story ; those of the founders of 
 the oldest colleges in the gallery of the Bodleian 
 library betray the tendency to make much out of 
 little, to labour after a full idea of those who are 
 only known to us by one particular action of their 
 lives. So it has fared with the early history of 
 Rome : Romulus and Numa are like king Fergus ; 
 John of Balliol, and Walter of Merton, are the coun- 
 terparts of Servius Tullius, and Brutus, and Popli- 
 cola. Their names were known, and their works 
 were living ; and men, longing to image them to 
 their minds more completely, made up by invention 
 for the want of knowledge, and composed in one 
 
124 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP case a pretended portrait, in the other a pretended 
 vm. , . , 
 * v history. 
 
 There have been hundreds, doubtless, who have 
 looked on the portrait of John of Balliol, and, im- 
 posed upon by the name of portrait, and by its 
 being the first in a series of pictures, of which the 
 greater part were undoubtedly copied from the life, 
 have never suspected that the painter knew no 
 more of the real features of his subject than they 
 did themselves. So it is that we are deceived by 
 the early history of the Roman Commonwealth. It 
 wears the form of annals, it professes to mark accu- 
 rately the events of successive years, and to distin- 
 guish them by the names of the successive consuls, 
 and it begins a history, which going on with these 
 same forms and pretensions to accuracy, becomes 
 after a time in a very large proportion really accu- 
 rate, and ends with being as authentic as any history 
 in the world. Yet the earliest annals are as un- 
 real as John of Balliol's portrait ; there is in both 
 cases the same deception. I cannot as yet give a 
 regular history of the Roman people ; all that can be 
 done with the first years of the Commonwealth, as 
 with the last of the Monarchy, is to notice the origin 
 and character of institutions, and for the rest, to be 
 contented with that faint outline which alone can be 
 relied upon as real. 
 
 The com- The particulars of the expulsion of the last king 
 
 some\Mng e of Rome, and his family and house, can only be 
 
 puision e f given as they already have been, in their poetical 
 
 form. It by no means follows that none of them 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 125 
 
 are historical, but we cannot distinguish what are CHAP. 
 
 VIII 
 
 so. But we may be certain, whether Brutus be- v 
 longed to the commons, as Niebuhr thinks, or not, 
 that the commons immediately after the revolution 
 recovered some of the rights of which the last king 
 had deprived them ; and these rights were such as 
 did not interfere with the political ascendancy of the 
 patricians, but yet restored to the commons their 
 character of an order, that is, a distinct body with an 
 internal organization of its own. The commons again 
 chose their judges to decide ordinary civil causes l 
 when both parties belonged to their own order, and 
 they again met in their Compitalia and Paganalia, 
 the common festivals of the inhabitants of the same 
 neighbourhood in the city and in the country. They 
 also gained the important privilege of being, even in 
 criminal matters, judges of their own members, in case 
 of an appeal from the sentence of the magistrate. As 
 a burgher might appeal to the people or great coun- 
 cil of the burghers, so a commoner might appeal to 
 the commons assembled in their tribes, and thus in 
 this respect the two orders of the nation were 
 placed on a footing of equality. It is said also that 
 a great many of the richest families of the commons 
 who belonged to the centuries of knights, or horse- 
 men, were admitted as new patrician houses into the 
 order of the patricians, or burghers, or people of 
 Rome ; for T must again observe, that the Roman 
 people or burghers, and the Roman commons, will 
 
 ! AI'KOS Trepl TU>V cru|u/3oA(u'a)z', Dionysius, V. 2. 
 
126 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, still for a long period require to be carefully distin- 
 -v-^ guished from each other. 
 
 Foreign re- 
 lations of , - . . 111- 
 
 Rome. mans still possessed the dominion enjoyed by their 
 
 Rupture of -I-IT / p -r 
 
 the alliance kings ; all the cities or the coast or Latmm, as we 
 Latins. have already seen, were subjected to them as far as 
 
 Theterri- ;__ 
 
 torvonthe Terracma. Within twelve years, we cannot certainly 
 
 right bank . 
 
 of the Tiber say how much sooner, these were all become mdepen- 
 
 is conquered . 
 
 by the dent. This is easily intelligible, if we only take into 
 
 Etruscans. J ITT 
 
 account the loss to Rome or an able and absolute 
 king, the natural weakness of an unsettled govern- 
 ment, and the distractions produced by the king's 
 attempts to recover his throne. The Latins may 
 have held, as we are told of the Sabines 2 in this 
 very time, that their dependent alliance with Rome 
 had been concluded with king Tarquinius, and that 
 as he was king no longer, and as his sons had been 
 driven out with him, all covenants between Latium 
 and Rome had become null and void. But it is 
 possible also, if the chronology of the common story 
 of these times can be at all depended on, that the 
 Latin cities owed their independence to the Etrus- 
 can conquest of Rome. For that war, which has 
 been given in its poetical version as the war with 
 Porsenna, was really a great outbreak of the Etrus- 
 can power upon the nations southward of Etruria, 
 in the very front of whom lay the Romans. In the 
 very next year after the expulsion of the king, ac- 
 cording to the common story, and certainly at some 
 
 2 Dionysius, V. 40. 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 127 
 
 time within the period with which we are now con- CHAP. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 cerned, the Etruscans fell upon Rome. The result ' 
 of the war is, indeed, as strangely disguised in the 
 poetical story as Charlemagne's invasion of Spain 
 is in the romances. Rome was completely con- 
 quered; all the territory which the kings had won 
 on the right bank of the Tiber was now lost 3 . 
 Rome itself was surrendered to the Etruscan con- 
 queror 4 ; his sovereignty was fully acknowledged 5 , 
 the Romans gave up their arms, and recovered their 
 city and territory on condition of renouncing the 
 use of iron 6 except for implements of agriculture. 
 But this bondage did not last long, the Etruscan 
 power was broken by a great defeat sustained before 
 Aricia ; for after the fall of Rome the conquerors 
 attacked Latium, and while besieging Aricia, the 
 
 3 This is confessed in the poet- Livy, I. 38. 
 
 ical story : only it is added that 8 The senate, says Diony- 
 
 Porsenna, out of admiration for sius, V. 34, voted him an ivory 
 
 the Romans, gave the conquered throne, a sceptre, a golden crown, 
 
 land back again to them after the and triumphal robe. These very 
 
 war. But Niebuhr has well ob- same honours had been voted, 
 
 served, that the Roman local tribes, according to the same writer, to 
 
 which were thirty in number in the Roman king Tarquinius Pris- 
 
 the days of Ser. Tullius, appear cus by the Etruscans, as an ac- 
 
 reduced to twenty in the earliest knowledgment of his supremacy, 
 
 mention of them after the expul- III. 62. 
 
 sion of Tarquinius ; and it appears 6 Pliny, XXXIV. 14. In foadere 
 
 from the account of the Veientian quod expulsis regibus populo Ro- 
 
 warof 271 that the Roman terri- mano dedit Porsenna, nominatim 
 
 tory could not then have extended comprehensum invenimus, ne fer- 
 
 much beyond the hill Janiculum. ro nisi in agriculture, uterentur. 
 
 4 Tacitus, Histor. III. 72. Se- Compare 1 Samuel xiii. 19, 20. 
 dem Jovis optimi maximi, quam These passages from Tacitus and 
 non Porsenna dedita urbe, neque Pliny were first noticed by Beau- 
 Galli capta, temerare potuissent. fort in his Essay on the Uncer- 
 What "Deditio" meant may be tainty of the Early Roman His- 
 seen by the form preserved by tory. 
 
128 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, united force of the Latin cities, aided by the Greeks 7 
 ^_I!il_, of Cumse, succeeded in destroying their army, and 
 in confining their power to their own side of the 
 Tiber. Still, however, the Romans did not recover 
 their territory on the right bank of that river, and 
 the number of their tribes, as has been already no- 
 ticed, was consequently lessened by one-third, being 
 reduced from thirty to twenty. 
 Relations of Thus within a short time after the banishment of 
 
 Rome with 
 
 the Sabines. the last king, the Romans lost all their territory 
 on the Etruscan side of the Tiber, and all their 
 dominion over Latium. A third people were their 
 immediate neighbours on the north-east, the Sa- 
 bines. The cities of the Sabines reached, says Varro, 
 from Reate, to the distance of half a day's journey 
 from Rome, that is, according to the varying estimate 
 of a day's journey 8 , either seventy-five or an hundred 
 stadia, about ten or twelve miles. But with the 
 more distant Sabines of Reate, and the high valley of 
 the Velinus, our history has yet no concern. The 
 line of mountains which stretches from Tiber to the 
 neighbourhood of Narnia was a natural division be- 
 tween those Sabines who lived within it, and those 
 who had settled without it, in the lower country 
 nearer Rome. These last were the Sabines of 
 Cures 9 , twenty-four miles from Rome, of Eretum, 
 
 7 Dionysius, V. 36, et VII. 2 fifty stadia, V. 53. 
 
 11. 9 Bunsen, " Antichi Stabili- 
 
 8 Herodotus reckons the day's menti Italici," in the " Annali 
 journey in one place at two hun- dell' Institute di Corrispondenza 
 dred stadia, IV. 801, and in Archeologica," Vol. VI. p. 133. 
 another place at one hundred and 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 1 29 
 
 five miles nearer to it, of Nomentum, about the 
 same distance, of Collatia and Regillus, southward of 
 the Anio, and in the midst of Latium ; and at a more 
 ancient period, these same Sabines possessed Crustu- 
 merium, Csenina, Antemnse, and as we have seen, 
 two of the very hills which afterwards made up the 
 city of Rome. But living so near to or even in the 
 midst of the Latins, these more lowland Sabines had 
 become in some degree Latinized, and some of their 
 cities partook in the worship of Diana on the Aven- 
 tine 10 together with the Romans and the Latins, 
 during the reign of the last king of Rome. Perhaps 
 they also were his dependent allies, and, like the 
 Latins, renounced their alliance with Rome imme- 
 diately after his expulsion. At any rate, we read of 
 a renewal of wars between them and the Romans 
 four years after the beginning of the Commonwealth, 
 and it is said, that at this time Attus Clausus u , a 
 citizen of Regillus, as he strongly opposed the war, 
 was banished by his countrymen, and went over to 
 the Romans with so large a train of followers, that he 
 was himself received immediately as a burgher, gave 
 his name to a new tribe, which was formed out of 
 those who went over with him, and obtained an 
 assignment of lands beyond the Anio, between 
 Fidense and Ficulea. But when we read of the 
 lake Regillus as belonging to the territory of 
 Tusculum 12 , and when we also find Nomentum in- 
 
 10 As appears from the story in 12 Livy, II. 19. "ad lacum Re- 
 Livy, I. 45. gillum in agro Tusculano." 
 
 11 Livy, II. 16. Dionysius,V. 40. 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, eluded amongst the thirty cities of the Latins, which 
 v ' concluded the great alliance with Rome, in the con- 
 sulship of Spurius Cassius, we are inclined to suspect 
 that the lowland Sabines about this time were 
 forced to join themselves some with the Romans 
 and some with the Latins, being pressed by both on 
 different quarters, when the alliance between the 
 three nations was broken up. Thus Collatia, Re- 
 gillus, and Momentum fell to the Latins ; and then 
 it may well have happened that the Claudii and 
 Postumii, with their followers, may have preferred 
 the Roman franchise to the Latin, and thus removed 
 themselves to Rome ; while if Niebuhr's conjecture 
 be true, that the Crustuminian tribe as well as the 
 Claudian was created at this time, we might sup- 
 pose that Crustumeria, and other Sabine cities in 
 its neighbourhood, whose very names have perished, 
 united themselves rather with the Romans : certain 
 it is that from this time forward we hear of no 
 Sabine city nearer to Rome than Eretum, which as 
 I have already said was nineteen miles distant from 
 it. It is certain also that the first enlargement of 
 the Roman territory, after its great diminution in 
 the Etruscan war, took place towards the north-east, 
 between the Tiber and the Anio ; and here were the 
 lands of the only new tribes that were added to the 
 Roman nation, for the space of more than one hun- 
 dred and twenty years I3 after the establishment of 
 the Commonwealth. 
 
 13 T 116 number of tribes con- Gauls : when four new ones were 
 tmued to be twenty-one till three added. Livy VI 5 
 years after the invasion of the 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 131 
 
 The chronology of this period is confessed by CHAP. 
 Livy n to be one mass of confusion ; it was neither i v * 
 
 Of the pre- 
 
 areed when the pretended battle at the lake Regil- tended re- 
 turns of the 
 lus was fought, nor when the first dictator was census 
 
 during this 
 
 created ; and accordingly Dionysius sets both events P eriod - 
 three years later than they are placed by Livy. But 
 a far more surprising disorder is indicated by the 
 returns of the census, if we may rely on them as 
 authentic; for these make the number of Roman 
 citizens between fifteen and sixteen years of age to 
 have been one hundred and thirty thousand 15 , in the 
 year following the expulsion of the Tarquinii ; to 
 have risen to one hundred and fifty thousand seven 
 hundred 16 at the end of the next ten years, and 
 again five years later to have sunk to one hundred 
 and ten thousand 17 . It should be added that these 
 same returns gave eighty-four thousand seven hun- 
 dred, as the number of citizens, at the first census of 
 Servius Tullius; and for this amount, Dionysius 
 quotes expressly the tables of the census. Now 
 Niebuhr rejects the census of Servius Tullius as un- 
 historical, but is disposed to admit the authenticity 
 of the others. Yet surely if the censor's tables are 
 to be believed in one case, they may be in the other ; 
 a genuine record of the census of Servius Tullius 
 might just as well have been preserved as that of 
 Sp. Lucretius and P. Valerius Poplicola. And it 
 
 14 II. 21. Tanti errores impli- tantavetustatenonrerummodosed 
 
 cant temporum, aliter apud alios etiam auctorum digerere possis. 
 
 ordinatis magistratibus, ut nee Dionysius, V. 20. 
 
 qui consules secundum quosdam, IG Dionysius, V. 75. 
 
 nee quid quoque anno actum sit, in 17 Dionysius, V. 96. 
 
 K2 
 
132 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, is to be noted, that although Dionysius gives the 
 v ' return of the census taken by the dictator T. Lar- 
 tius, as one hundred and fifty thousand seven hun- 
 dred, yet he makes Appius Claudius, five years after- 
 wards, give the number at one hundred and thirty 
 thousand 18 ; and then, although Appius quotes this 
 number as applying to the actual state of things, yet 
 the return of the census, at the end of that same 
 year, gives only one hundred and ten thousand. I 
 am inclined to suspect that the actual tables of the 
 censors, before the invasion of the Gauls, perished 
 in the destruction of the city ; and that they were 
 afterwards restored from the annalists, and from the 
 records of different families, as was the case with the 
 Fasti Capitolini. If this were so, different annalists 
 might give different numbers, as they also give the 
 names of consuls differently ; and exaggeration might 
 creep in here, as in the list of triumphs, and with 
 much less difficulty. For although Niebuhr's opinion 
 is no less probable than ingenious, that the returns 
 of the census include the citizens of all those foreign 
 states which enjoyed, reciprocally with Rome, each 
 other's franchise, still the numbers in the period 
 under review seem inconsistent, not only with the 
 common arrangement of the events of these years, 
 but with any probable arrangement that can be 
 devised. For if the Latins and other foreigners are 
 not included in the census of Poplicola, the number 
 of one hundred and thirty thousand is incredibly 
 
 18 Dionysius, V. 6. 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 133 
 
 lar^e ; if they are included, with what other states CHAP. 
 * vin. 
 
 can we conceive the interchange of citizenship to ' -, 
 
 have been contracted in the ten following years, so 
 as to have added twenty thousand names to the 
 return made at the end of that period ? I am in- 
 clined, therefore, to think that the second pretended 
 census of the Commonwealth, taken by the dictator 
 T. Lartius, which gives an amount of one hundred 
 and fifty thousand seven hundred citizens within 
 the military age, is a mere exaggeration of the an- 
 nalist or poet, whoever he was, who recorded the acts 
 of the first dictator. 
 
 But the really important part of the history of Progress of 
 the first years of the Commonwealth is the tracing, if amongst the 
 
 111 111 / i commons. 
 
 possible, the gradual depression or the commons to 
 that extreme point of misery which led to the insti- 
 tution of the tribuneship. We have seen that, 
 immediately after the expulsion of the king, the 
 commons shared in the advantages of the revolution ; 
 but within a few years we find them so oppressed 
 and powerless, that their utmost hopes aspired, not 
 to the assertion of political equality with the bur- 
 ghers, but merely to the obtaining protection from 
 personal injuries. 
 
 The specific character of their degradation is stated its particu- 
 
 lar charac- 
 
 to have been this; that there prevailed 19 among ter, that they 
 
 became in- 
 
 them severe distress, amounting in many cases to voived in 
 actual ruin ; that to relieve themselves from their 
 
 19 See the story of the old centurion, in Livv, II 23. 
 
134 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, poverty, they were in the habit of borrowing money 
 v_ !^!!_, of the burghers ; that, the distress continuing, they 
 became generally insolvent ; and that as the law of 
 debtor and creditor was exceedingly severe, they 
 became liable in their persons to the cruelty of 
 the burghers, were treated by them as slaves, con- 
 fined as such in their workhouses, kept to task- 
 work, and often beaten at the discretion of their 
 taskmasters. 
 
 In reading this statement, a multitude of questions 
 suggest themselves. Explanations and discussions 
 must occupy a large space in this part of our history, 
 for when the poetical stories have been once given, 
 there are no materials left for narrative or painting ; 
 and general views of the state of a people, where our 
 means of information are so scanty, are little suscep- 
 tible of liveliness, and require at every step to be 
 defended and developed. The perfect character of 
 history in all its freshness and fulness is incompatible 
 with imperfect knowledge ; no man can step boldly or 
 gracefully while he is groping his way in the dark. 
 The causes A population of free landowners naturally en- 
 
 which led to ..., 
 
 this state of gages the imagination ; but such a state of society 
 
 debt. . . 
 
 The phm- requires either an ample territory or an uninterrupted 
 
 dering inva- 
 
 sionsofthe state of peace, if it be dependent on agriculture 
 
 neighbour- 1 
 
 ing nations, alone. The Roman territory might be marched 
 through in a day; and after the overthrow of the 
 powerful government of Tarquinius, which by the 
 extent of its dominion kept war at a distance, the 
 lands of the Roman commons were continually 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 135 
 
 wasted by the incursions of their neighbours, and CHAP. 
 were actually to a large extent torn away by the * v -' 
 Etruscan conquest. The burghers suffered less, be- 
 cause their resources were greater : the public undi- 
 vided land, which they alone enjoyed, was of a very 
 different extent from the little lots assigned to each 
 commoner, and besides, as being chiefly left in pas- 
 ture, it suffered much less from the incursions of an 
 enemy ; a burgher's cattle might often be driven off 
 in time to one of the neighbouring strongholds, 
 while a commoner's corn and fruit-trees were totally 
 destroyed. Again, if commerce were forbidden to a 
 commoner, it certainly was not to a burgher ; and 
 those whose trade with Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, 
 was sufficiently important to be made the subject 
 of a special treaty, were not, like the commoners, 
 wholly dependent on a favourable season, or on 
 escaping the plundering incursions of the neighbour- 
 ing people. Thus it is easy to conceive how on the one 
 hand the commoner would be driven to borrow, and 
 on the other how the burgher would be able to lend. 
 
 The next step is also plain. Interest was as yet The high 
 wholly arbitrary ; and where so many were anxious terest. 
 to borrow, it was sure to be high. Thus again the 
 commons became constantly more and more involved 
 and distressed, while the burghers engrossed more 
 and more all the wealth of the community. 
 
 Such a state of things the law of the Israelites The severity 
 
 of the law of 
 
 had endeavoured by every means to prevent or to debtor and 
 
 creditor 
 
 mitigate. If a small proprietor found himself ruined 
 
136 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, by a succession of unfavourable seasons, or by an in- 
 . ' road of the Philistines or Midianites, and was obliged 
 to borrow of his richer neighbour, the law absolutely 
 forbade his creditor to take any interest at all. If 
 he were obliged to pledge his person for payment, 
 he was not to serve his creditor without hope, for at 
 the end of seven years, at the farthest, he was re- 
 stored to his freedom, and the whole of his debt 
 cancelled. Or if he had pledged his land to his 
 creditor, not only was the right secured to him and 
 to his relations of redeeming it at any time, but even 
 if not redeemed it was necessarily to return to him 
 or to his heirs in the year of jubilee, that no Israelite 
 might by any distress be degraded for ever from the 
 rank of a freeman and a landowner. A far different 
 fate awaited the plebeian landowner at Rome. When 
 he found himself involved in a debt which he could 
 not pay, his best resource was to sell himself to 
 his creditor, on the condition that, unless the debt 
 were previously discharged, the creditor, at the ex- 
 piration of a stated term, should enter into pos- 
 session of his purchase. This was called, in the 
 language of the Roman law, the entering into a 
 nexum , and the person who had thus conditionally 
 sold himself was said to be " nexus." When the day 
 came, the creditor claimed possession, and the magis- 
 trate awarded it ; and the debtor, thus given over to 
 
 !0 For this explanation of the I. p. 601, et seqq. Ed. 2. 
 term " Nexus," see Niebuhr, 'Vol. 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 137 
 
 his purchaser, addictus, passed with all that belonged CHAP. 
 to him into his power ; and as the sons were consi- ' v 
 dered their father's property, they also, unless pre- 
 viously emancipated, were included in the sale, 
 and went into slavery together with their father. 
 Or if a man, resolved not by his own act to sa- 
 crifice his own and his children's liberty, refused 
 thus to sell himself, or, in the Roman language, to 
 enter into a nexum, and determined to abide in his 
 own person the consequences of his own debt, then 
 he lisked a fate still more fearful. If within thirty 
 days after the justice of the claim had been allowed, 
 he was unable to discharge it, his creditor might 
 arrest him, and bring him before the court ; if no one 
 then offered to be his security, he was given over to 
 his creditor, and kept by him in private custody, 
 bound with a chain of fifteen pounds weight, and fed 
 with a pound of corn daily. If he still could not, or 
 would not, come to any terms with his creditor, he 
 was thus confined during sixty days, and during this 
 period- was brought before the court in the comitium, 
 on three successive market-days, and the amount of 
 his debt declared, in order to see whether any one 
 w r ould yet come forward in his behalf. On the third 
 market-day, if no friend appeared, he was either to 
 be put to death, or sold as a slave into a foreign 
 land beyond the Tiber; that is, into Etruria, where 
 there was as yet no interchange of franchise with 
 Rome, amidst a people of a different language. Or 
 if there were several creditors, they might actually 
 
138 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, hew his body in pieces, and whether a creditor cut off 
 vnL ^ a greater or smaller piece than in proportion to his 
 debt 21 , he incurred no penalty. 
 
 Aulus Gellius, who wrote in the age of the 
 Antonines, declares that he had never heard or read 
 of a single instance in which this concluding pro- 
 vision had been acted upon. But who was there 
 to record the particular cruelties of the Roman 
 burghers in the third century of Rome? and when 
 we are told generally that they enforced the law 
 against their debtors with merciless severity, can we 
 doubt that there were individual monsters, like the 
 Shylock and Front de Boeuf of fiction, or the Earl 
 of Cassilis of real history, who would gratify their 
 malice against an obnoxious or obstinate debtor, even 
 to the extremest letter of the law ? It is more im- 
 portant to observe that this horrible law was con- 
 tinued in the twelve tables, for we cannot suppose 
 it to have been introduced there for the first time ; 
 that is to say, that it made part of a code sanc- 
 tioned by the commons, when they were triumphant 
 
 21 See the Extracts from the " Si plus minusve secuerunt, se 
 
 law of the XII. tables in A. Gellius, fraude esto " (" se " is the old form 
 
 XX. 1. 45, etseqq. Some modern for "sine"). Besides, the last 
 
 writers have imagined that the penalty, reserved for him who 
 
 words "partes secanto," were to continued obstinate, was likely 
 
 be understood of a division of to be atrocious in its severity, 
 
 the debtor's property, and not of What do we think of the " peine 
 
 his person. But Niebuhr well forte et dure " denounced by the 
 
 observes, that the following pro- English law against a prisoner who 
 
 vision alone refutes such a notion ; refused to plead ? a penalty not 
 
 a provision giving to the creditor repealed till the middle of the last 
 
 that very security in the infliction century, and quite as cruel as that 
 
 of his cruelty which Shylock had of the law of the XII. tables, and 
 
 in his bond omitted to insert, not less unjust. 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 139 
 
 over their adversaries. This shows, that the extre- CHAP. 
 mest cruelty against an insolvent debtor was not * ' 
 repugnant, in all cases, to the general feeling of the 
 commons themselves, and confirms the remark of 
 Gellius, that the Romans had the greatest abhor- 
 rence of breach of faith, or a failure in performing 
 engagements, whether in private matters, or in public. 
 It explains also the long patience of the commons 
 under their distress, and, when at last it became too 
 grievous to endure, their extraordinary moderation in 
 remedying it. Severity against a careless or fraudu- 
 lent debtor seemed to them perfectly just ; they only 
 desired protection in cases of unavoidable misfortune 
 or wanton cruelty, and this object appeared to be ful- 
 filled by the institution of the tribuneship, for the 
 tribune's power of protection enabled him to inter- 
 pose in defence of the unfortunate, while he suffered 
 the law to take its course against the obstinate and 
 the dishonest. 
 
 Such a state of things, however, naturally ac- The distress 
 
 i i i { " 
 
 counts for the political degradation or the commons, mons led to 
 
 . . their weak- 
 
 and the neglect of the constitution of Servms Tullius. css poiui- 
 The Etruscan conquest had deprived the Romans 
 of their arms : how amidst such general distress 
 could the commons again provide themselves with 
 the full arms of the phalanx; or how could they 
 afford leisure for that frecment training and practice 
 in warlike exercises, which were essential to the 
 efficiency of the heavy-armed infantry ? It may be 
 going too far to say that the tactic of the phalanx 
 was never in use after the establishment of the 
 
140 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Commonwealth ; but it clearly never existed in any 
 v_ L_L_/ perfection. It is quite manifest, that if the heavy- 
 armed infantry had constituted the chief force of 
 the nation, and if that infantry, according to the 
 constitution of Servius Tullius, had consisted ex- 
 clusively of the commons, the commons and not 
 the burghers would soon have been the masters of 
 Rome ; the comitia of the centuries would have drawn 
 all power to itself, the comitia of curias would have 
 been abolished as incompatible with the sovereignty 
 of the true Roman people. The comitia of the tribes 
 would have been wholly superfluous, for where could 
 the commons have had greater weight than in an 
 assembly where they formed exclusively every cen- 
 tury except six? whereas the very contrary to all 
 this actually happened ; the commons remained for 
 more than a century excluded from the government ; 
 the curiae retained all their power; the comitia of 
 tribes were earnestly desired by the commons as 
 the only assembly in which they were predominant ; 
 and when, after many years, we can trace any details 
 of the comitia of centuries, we find them in great 
 measure assimilated to those of the tribes, and 
 the peculiarity of their original constitution almost 
 vanished. 
 influence But the comitia of centuries were not an assemblv 
 
 exercised by . . * 
 
 the burghers m which the commons were all-powerful. We are 
 
 through 
 
 their clients, expressly told 22 that the burghers' clients voted in 
 
 on thecomi- 
 
 tia of centu- these centuries ; and these were probably become a 
 
 nes. 
 
 52 Livy, II. 64. Irata plebs in- luit. Per patres, clientesque pa- 
 teresse consularibus coinitiis no- trum consoles creati. 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 141 
 
 more wealthy and a more numerous body, in pro- CHAP. 
 portion as the commons became more and more dis- v >/ 
 tressed and miserable. If a third part of the commons 
 had lost their lands by the event of the Etruscan 
 war, if a large proportion of the rest were so involved 
 in debts that their property was scarcely more than 
 nominally their own, w T e may feel quite sure that 
 there would be many who would voluntarily become 
 clients, in order to escape from their actual misery. 
 What they lost indeed by so doing, was but little in 
 comparison of what they gained ; they gave up their 
 order, they ceased to belong to a tribe, and became 
 personally dependent on their patron ; but on the 
 other hand, they might follow any retail trade or 
 manufacture ; they retained their votes in the comitia 
 of centuries, and were saved by the protection of 
 their patron from all the sufferings which were the 
 lot of the insolvent commoner. For as the patron 
 owed his client protection, he was accounted infamous 
 if he allowed him to be reduced to beggary; and 
 thus we read of patrons granting lands to their 
 clients, which although held by them only at will, 
 were yet under present circumstances a far more 
 enviable possession than the freeholds of the com- 
 mons. And whilst the clients had thus become more 
 numerous, so they would also, from the same causes, 
 become more wealthy, and a greater number of them 
 would thus be enrolled in the higher classes, whilst 
 the commons on the other hand were continually 
 sinking to the lower. 
 
 Yet amidst the general distress of the commons, 
 
142 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, we meet with an extraordinary statement in one of 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ^ /-; ' the speeches 23 in Dionysius, that more than four 
 
 Separation * 
 
 of the richer hundred persons had been raised in one year from 
 
 commons 
 
 from the . the infantry to the cavalry service, on account of 
 
 mass of their 
 
 order. their wealth. This, strange as it seems at first, is 
 probable and full of instruction. When money bore 
 so high a rate of interest, capital was sure to increase 
 itself rapidly, and in a time of distress, whilst many 
 become poorer, there are always some also who 
 from that very circumstance become richer. The 
 rich commons were thus likely to increase their for- 
 tunes, whilst the poorer members of their order were 
 losing every thing. It was then the interest of the 
 burghers to separate these from the mass of the 
 commons, and to place them in a class which already 
 seems to have acquired its character of a moneyed 
 and commercial interest; a class which resigned 
 the troubles and the honours of political contests 
 for the pursuit and safe enjoyment of riches. Fur- 
 ther, the removal of the richest commoners from the 
 infantry service rendered the organization of the 
 phalanx more and more impracticable, and thus pre- 
 served to the burghers, whether serving as cavalry or 
 heavy-armed infantry, their old superiority ; for that 
 the burghers in these times did sometimes serve on 
 foot 24 , although generally they fought on horseback, 
 is proved not only by the story of L. Tarquitius, 
 
 2a That of M. Valerius on re- the cavalry, when they had left 
 
 signing his dictatorship in the their horses and fought on foot, 
 
 year 260. See Dionysius, VI. 43 are given by Dionysius, VI. 33. 
 
 45 - and VIII. 67, and by Livy, II. 65. 
 
 i4 Instances of battles won by III. 62. IV. 38. 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 143 
 
 whose poverty it is said had forced him to do so, but CHAP. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 by the legend of the valiant deeds of Caius Marcius, v v ' 
 and of the three hundred Fabii who established them- 
 selves on the Cremera. It is probable that, when 
 occasion required it, they were the principes in rich 
 armour who fought in the van of the infantry, al- 
 though in ordinary circumstances they fought on 
 horseback ; and as the infantry of the neighbouring 
 nations was not better organized than their own, the 
 horsemen in these early times are constantly described 
 as deciding the issue of a battle. 
 
 Thus the monarchy was exchanged for an exclu- The govem- 
 sive aristocracy, in which the burghers or patricians comes an 
 possessed the whole dominion of the state. For 
 mixed as was the influence in the assembly of the 
 centuries, and although the burghers through their 
 clients exercised no small control over it, still they 
 did not think it safe to entrust it with much power. 
 In the election of consuls, the centuries could only 
 choose out of a number of patrician or burgher can- 
 didates; and even after this election it remained 
 for the burghers in their great council in the curiae 
 to ratify it or to annul it, by conferring upon, or re- 
 fusing to the persons so elected " the Imperium," in 
 other words, that sovereign power which belonged to 
 the consuls as the successors of the kings, and which, 
 except so far as it was limited within the walls of 
 the city, and a circle of one mile without them, by 
 the right of appeal, was absolute over life and death. 
 As for any legislative power, in this period of the 
 
144 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Commonwealth, the consuls were their own law. No 
 
 1 * ' doubt the burghers had their customs, which in all 
 
 great points the consuls would duly observe, because 
 otherwise on the. expiration of their office they would 
 be liable to arraignment before the curias, and to such 
 punishment as that sovereign assembly might please 
 to inflict ; but the commons had no such security, and 
 the uncertainty of the consuls' judgments was the 
 particular grievance which afterwards led to the 
 formation of the code of the twelve tables. 
 A - u - c - 253. \Ve are told however that within ten years of the 
 
 -\ . * . 4yy. 
 
 institution fj rs t institution of the consuls, the burghers found it 
 
 of the dic- 
 tatorship, necessary to create a single magistrate with powers 
 
 still more absolute, who was to exercise the full sove- 
 reignty of a king, and even without that single 
 check to which the kings of Rome had been sub- 
 jected. The Master of the people ", that is, of the 
 burghers, or, as he was otherwise called, the Dictator, 
 was appointed, it is true, for six months only; and 
 therefore liable, like the consuls, to be arraigned, after 
 the expiration of his office, for any acts of tyranny 
 which he might have committed during its continu- 
 ance. But whilst he retained his office he was as 
 absolute within the walls of the city, as the consuls 
 were without them; neither commoners nor burghers 
 had any right to appeal from his sentence, although 
 the latter had enjoyed this protection in the times of 
 the Monarchy. This last circumstance seems to prove 
 
 25 " Magister populi." SeeVar- ler, et Festus in "optima lex." 
 ro de Ling. Lat. V. 82. Ed. Mill- 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 145 
 
 that the original appointment of the dictator was a CHAP. 
 measure of precaution against a party amongst the v -, 
 burghers themselves, rather than against the com- 
 mons ; and gives a probability to that tradition :6 
 which Livy slighted, namely, that the consuls, who 
 were for the first time superseded by " the Master of 
 the burghers," were inclined to favour the return of 
 the exiled king. It is not likely that they were the 
 only Romans so disposed : and if a strong minority 
 amongst the burghers themselves, and probably a 
 large portion of the commons, were known to favour 
 the restoration of the old government, it is very in- 
 telligible that the majority of the burghers should 
 have resolved to strengthen the actual government, 
 and to appoint an officer who might summarily 
 punish all conspirators of whatever rank, whether 
 belonging to the commons or to the burghers. 
 
 If the consuls were superseded by the dictator be- 
 cause they could not be relied upon, we may be quite 
 sure that the appointment was not left to their free 
 choice 27 . One of the consuls received the name of 
 the person to be declared dictator from the senate ; 
 he then declared him dictator, and he was confirmed 
 and received the imperium by a vote of the great 
 council of the curiae. The dictator must previously 
 have held the highest magistracy in the state 28 , that 
 is, he must have been prsetor, the old title of the 
 
 26 Ex factions Tarquinia essent Vol. I. p. 591, et seqq. 
 (consules), id quoque enim tradi- 28 "Consulares legere." Livy, 
 
 tur, parum creditum sit. Livy, II. 18. This in the language of 
 
 II. 81. the time would have been "prse- 
 
 - 1 See on this point Niebuhr, torios legere." 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 consuls. Thus afterwards, when the powers of the 
 original praetors were divided between the consuls 
 and praetors of the later constitution, any man who 
 had been praetor was eligible to the dictatorship, no 
 less than one who had been consul. 
 
 The Master Together with the Master of the burghers, or die- 
 knights or tator, there was always appointed the Master of the 
 
 horsemen. . i n* 
 
 knights or horsemen. In later times this omcer 
 was always named by the dictator himself, but at 
 first it seems as if both alike were chosen by the 
 senate. The Master of the knights was subject, like 
 every other citizen, to the Master of the burghers ; 
 but his own authority was equally absolute within 
 his own jurisdiction, that is, over the knights and 
 the rest of the commons. Lydus expressly says that 
 from his sentence there was no appeal ; Varro says 
 that his power was supreme 29 over the knights and 
 over the accensi; but who are meant by this last 
 term it is difficult to determine. 
 Secession of Fifteen years after the expulsion of Tarquinius, 
 
 the the commons, driven to despair by their distress, and 
 
 Sacred Hill, ' . . 
 
 and first ap- exposed without protection to the capricious cruelty 
 of the burghers, resolved to endure their degraded 
 state no longer. The particulars of this second re- 
 volution are as uncertain as those of the overthrow 
 of the Monarchy ; but thus much is certain, and is 
 remarkable, that the commons sought safety, not 
 victory; they desired to escape from Rome, not to 
 govern it. It may be true that the commons who 
 
 29 "Magister equitum, quod et accensos." Varro, de L. L , V. 
 Bumma potestas hujus in equites 82. Ed. Miiller. 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 147 
 
 were left in Rome gathered together on the Aven- 
 tine, the quarter appropriated to their order, and 
 occupied the hill as a fortress ; but it is universally 
 agreed that the most efficient part of their body, who 
 were at that time in the field as soldiers, deserted 
 their generals, and marched off to an hill 3I beyond 
 the Anio ; that is, to a spot beyond the limits of the 
 Ager Romanus, the proper territory of the burghers, 
 but within the district which had been assigned to 
 one of the newly-created tribes of the commons, the 
 Crustuminian 32 . Here they established themselves, 
 and here they proposed to found a new city of their 
 own, to which they would have gathered their fami- 
 lies, and the rest of their order who were left behind 
 in Rome, and have given up their old city to its 
 original possessors, the burghers, and their clients. 
 
 But the burghers were as unwilling to lose the ser- 
 vices of the commons, as the Egyptians in the like 
 case to let the Israelites go, and they endeavoured by 
 every means to persuade them to return. To show 
 how little the commons thought of gaining political 
 power, we have only to notice their demands. They 
 required ;3 a general cancelling of the obligations of 
 insolvent debtors, and the release of all those whose 
 persons, in default of payment, had been assigned 
 over i;o the power of their creditors : and further they 
 
 30 " Piso auctor est in Aven- est." Livy, II. 32. 
 
 tinum secessionem factam." Livy, 32 Hence Varro calls it "seces- 
 
 11.32. So also Cicero, de Republi- sio Crustumerina," de L. L, V. 
 
 ca, II. 33, and Sallust, Fragm. 81. Ed. Muller. 
 
 Histor. I. 2. ffl Dionysius, VI. 8389. 
 
 31 " Trans Anienem aranem 
 
 L2 
 
148 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, insisted on having two 34 of their own body acknow- 
 
 VIII 
 
 / > ledged by the burghers as their protectors ; and to 
 make this protection effectual, the persons of those 
 who afforded it were to be as inviolable as those of 
 the heralds, the sacred messengers of the gods ; who- 
 soever harmed them was to be held accursed, and 
 might be slain by any one with impunity. To these 
 terms the burghers agreed ; a solemn treaty was con- 
 cluded between them and the commons, as between 
 two distinct nations ; and the burghers swore for 
 themselves, and for their posterity, that they would 
 hold inviolable the persons of two officers, to be 
 chosen by the centuries on the field of Mars, whose 
 business it should be to extend full protection to any 
 commoner against a sentence of the consul ; that is to 
 say, who might rescue any debtor from the power of 
 his creditor, if they conceived it to be capriciously 
 
 34 "Two" is the number given ditions of these times. Possibly, 
 
 by Piso, (Livy, II. 58.) and by however, the number really was 
 
 Cicero, Fragm. pro Cornelio, 23. altered backwards and forwards; 
 
 Ed. Nobb., et de Republica, II. 34. and it may have been raised to ten 
 
 "Two," according to Livy and in the year 261, when Sp. Cassius 
 
 Dionysius, were originally created, was consul, and afterwards reduced 
 
 and then three more were added to its original number, when his 
 
 to the number immediately. Ac- popular measures were repealed 
 
 cording to Piso, there were only or set aside by the opposite party. 
 
 two for the first twenty-three With regard to the curiae, I agree 
 
 years, and by the Publilian law with Niebuhr, that their share in 
 
 they became five. Fourteen years the appointment of the tribunes 
 
 after this, in 297, the number, ac- must have been rather a confirm- 
 
 cording to Livy and Dionysius, ation or rejection of the choice of 
 
 was raised to ten. (Livy, III. 30. the centuries, than an original 
 
 Dionys. X. 30.) But Cicero, in election. This the curiae would 
 
 his speech for the tribune Come- claim at every election made by the 
 
 lius, says that ten were chosen in centuries ; and it was the object of 
 
 the very next year after the first the Publilian law to get rid of this 
 
 institution of the office, and cho- claim, amongst other advantages, 
 
 sen by the comitia curiata. So by transferring the appointment 
 
 great are the varieties in the tra- to the comitia of the tribes. 
 
ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY, ETC. 149 
 
 or cruelly exerted. The two officers thus chosen CHAP. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 retained the name which the chief officers of the v v 
 
 commons had borne before, they were called Tribuni, 
 or tribe masters; but instead of being merely the 
 officers of one particular tribe, and exercising an 
 authority only over the members of their own order, 
 they were named tribunes of the commons at large, 
 and their power, as protectors in stopping any exer- 
 cise of oppression towards their own body, extended 
 over the burghers, and was by them solemnly ac- 
 knowledged. The number of the tribunes was pro- 
 bably suggested by that of the consuls ;5 ; there were 
 to be two chief officers of the commons as there were 
 of the burghers. 
 
 When these conditions had been formally agreed 
 to, the commons returned to Rome. The spot on 
 which this great deliverance had been achieved be- 
 came to the Romans what Runnymede is to English- 
 men : the top of the hill 3G was left for ever un- 
 enclosed and consecrated, and an altar was built on 
 it, and sacrifices offered to Jupiter, who strikes men 
 with terror and again delivers them from their fear ; 
 because the commons had fled thither in fear, and 
 were now returning in safety. So the hill was known 
 for ever by the name of the Sacred Hill. 
 
 Thus the dissolution of the Roman nation was 
 prevented: the commons had gained protection; 
 
 35 Or, as Niebuhr supposes, by But the odd number, twenty-one, 
 
 the number of tribes, at this time may seem to make against this 
 
 reduced to twenty-one, so that supposition, 
 
 each decury of tribes should 36 Dionysius, VI. 90. 
 have one tribune of its own. 
 
150 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, their rights as an order were again and more fully 
 *-^- J recognised ; their oppressions were abated ; better 
 times came to relieve their distress, and they be- 
 came gradually more and more fitted for a higher 
 condition, to become citizens and burghers of Rome 
 in the fullest sense, sharing equally with the old 
 burghers in all the benefits and honours of their 
 common country. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SPURIUS CASSIUS THE LEAGUE WITH THE LATINS AND 
 
 HERNICANS THE AGRARIAN LAW. A.U.C. 261-269. 
 
 " The noble Brutus 
 Hath told you, Caesar was ambitious. 
 If it were so, it was a grievous fault, 
 And grievously hath Caesar answered it." 
 
 Ot TrpooTaTdi TOW 8r)p.ov, ore rroXepiKol yevoivro, rvpavvidi 
 
 TTUVTfS 8f TOVTO (&p(i)V V1TO TOll SlJ/LlOU TTKTTfvdfVTfS, Tj Se TTlCTTtS 1 T)V f) 
 
 TrXovtriovs, ARISTOT. Politic. V. 5. 
 
 BRUTUS and Poplicola were no doubt real characters, CHAP. 
 yet fiction has been so busy with their actions, that * ^~ 
 history cannot venture to admit them within her 
 own proper domain. By a strange compensation of 
 fortune, the first Roman whose greatness is really 
 historical is the man whose deeds no poet sang, and 
 whose memory the early annalists, repeating the lan- 
 guage of the party who destroyed him, have branded 
 with the charge of treason, and attempted tyranny. 
 This was Spurius Cassius. Amidst the silence and 
 the calumnies of his enemies, he is known as the 
 author of three works to which Rome owed all 
 her future greatness ; he concluded the league with 
 the Latins in his second consulship, in his third he 
 
152 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, concluded the league with the Hernicans, and pro- 
 N ,_! . cured, although with the price of his own life, the 
 
 enactment of the first agrarian law. 
 League with I. We know that the Latins were in the first year 
 
 the Latins. 
 
 of the Commonwealth subject to Rome. We know 
 that almost immediately afterwards they must have 
 become independent ; and it is probable that they 
 may have aided the Tarquinii in some of their at- 
 tempts to effect their restoration. But the real 
 details of this period cannot be discovered : this only 
 is certain, that in the year of Rome 261, the Latin 
 confederacy, consisting of the old national number of 
 thirty cities, concluded a league with Rome on terms 
 of perfect equality ; and the record of this treaty, 
 which existed at Rome on a brazen pillar ' down to 
 the time of Cicero, contained the name of Spurius 
 Cassius, as the consul who concluded it, and took 
 the oaths to the Latin deputies on behalf of the 
 Romans. It may be that the Roman burghers de- 
 sired to obtain the aid of the Latins against their 
 own commons, and that the fear of this union led 
 the commons at the Sacred Hill to be content with 
 the smallest possible concessions from their adver- 
 saries ; but there was another cause for the alliance, 
 no less natural, in the common danger which threat- 
 ened both Rome and Latium from the growing 
 power of their neighbours on the south, the Oscan, 
 or Ausonian, nations of the ^Equians and the Vol- 
 scians. 
 
 1 Cicero pro Balbo, 23. Livy, II. 33. 
 
SPURIUS CASSIUS LEAGUE WITH THE LATINS, ETC. 153 
 
 The thirty cities which at this time formed the CHAP. 
 
 TX 
 
 Latin state, and concluded the league with Rome, - .J 
 
 ^ 2 A J A T3 Ml T> 1. A.U.C. 261. 
 
 were these * : Ardea, Ancia, Bovillae, Bubentum, The thirty 
 Corniculum, Carventum, Circeii, Corioli, Corbio, tium. con- 
 
 f-i -n -n f^ i . T T ditions of 
 
 Cora, .bortuna or Jboretn, Gabn, Laurentum, Lanu- the league. 
 vium, Lavinium, Lavici, Nomentum, Norba, Prae- 
 neste, Peclum, Querquetulum, Satricum, Scaptia, 
 Setia, Tellena, Tibur, Tusculum, Toleria, Tricrinum, 
 Velitras. The situation of several of these places is 
 unknown ; still the list clearly shows to how short a 
 distance from the Tiber the Roman territory at this 
 time extended, and how little was retained of the 
 great dominion enjoyed by the last kings of Rome. 
 Between this Latin confederacy and the Romans 
 there was concluded a perpetual league 3 : " There 
 shall be peace between them so long as the heaven 
 shall keep its place above the earth, and the earth 
 its place below the heaven ; they shall neither bring 
 nor cause to be brought any war against each other, 
 nor give to each other's enemies a passage through 
 their land ; they shall aid each other when attacked 
 with all their might, and all spoils and plunder won 
 by their joint arms shall be shared equally between 
 them. Private causes shall be decided within ten 
 days, in the courts of that city where the business 
 which gave occasion to the dispute may have taken 
 place." Further it was agreed, that the command 
 
 2 Dionysius, V. 61. I have fol- buhr's corrections, Vol. II. p. 19. 
 
 lowed the readings of the Vatican 2nd Ed. 
 MS. given in the various readings 3 Dionysius, VI. 95. 
 in Reiske's Edition, with Nie- 
 
154 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, of the Roman and Latin armies, on their joint expe- 
 
 IX 
 
 ^ i ditions, should one year 4 be given to the Roman 
 general, and another to the Latin : and to this league 
 nothing was to be added, and nothing taken away, 
 without the mutual consent of the Romans and the 
 confederate cities of the Latins. 
 
 A.u.c.268. II. Seven years afterwards the same Spurius Cas- 
 sius, in his third consulship 5 , concluded a similar 
 league with the cities of the Hernicans. The Her- 
 nicans were a Sabine, not a Latin people, and their 
 
 League 
 with the 
 
 Hernicans. 
 
 4 Cincius de Consulum Potestate, 
 quoted by Festus in " Praetor ad 
 Portam." The whole passage is 
 remarkable. " Cincius ait, Alba- 
 nos rerum potitos usque ad Tullum 
 regem : Alba deinde diruta usque 
 ad P. Decium Murem cos. popu- 
 los Latinos ad caput Ferentina?, 
 quod est sub Monte Albano, con- 
 sulere solitos, et imperium com- 
 innni consilio administrare. Itaque 
 quo anno Romanes imperatores ad 
 exercitum mittere oporteret jussu 
 nominis Latini, complures nos- 
 tros in Capitolio a sole oriente 
 auspiciis operam dare solitos. Ubi 
 aves addixissent, mill tern ilium 
 qui a communi Latio missus esset, 
 ilium quern aves addixerant prae- 
 torem salutare solitum, qui earn 
 provinciam obtineret praetoris no- 
 mine." Cincius lived in the time 
 of the second Punic war, and his 
 works on various points of Roman 
 law and antiquities were of high 
 value. His statement, which bears 
 on the face of it a character of 
 authenticity, is quite in agree- 
 ment with what Dionysius re- 
 ports of the treaty itself, and 
 only gives an additional proof of 
 the systematic falsehood of the 
 Roman annals in their accounts 
 
 of the relations of Rome with fo- 
 reigners. It is true that the words 
 of Cincius, " quo anno," do not 
 expressly assert that the command 
 was held by a Roman every other 
 year ; and it may be that after the 
 Hernicans joined the alliance, the 
 Romans had the command only 
 once in three years. But as the 
 Latin states were considered as 
 forming one people, and the Ro- 
 mans another, it is most likely 
 that so long as the alliance sub- 
 sisted between these two parties 
 only, the command shifted from 
 the one to the other year by year. 
 5 Dionysius, VIII. 69- TasTrpbs 
 "EpviKas (^TjveyKfv 6p.o\oyias' avrat 
 8" rjcrav avriypafpoi T>V irpos Aari- 
 vovs ytvopevcav. Amongst other 
 clauses therefore of the treaty was 
 one which secured to the Herni- 
 cans their equal share of all lands 
 conquered by the confederates ; 
 namely one third part. This is 
 disfigured by the annalist, whom 
 Livy copied, in a most extraordi- 
 nary manner ; he represented the 
 Hernicans as being deprived by 
 the treaty of two thirds of their 
 own land. " Cum Hernicis foedus 
 ictum, agri partes duae ademtae." 
 Livy, II. 41. 
 
LEAGUE WITH THE HERNICANS. 155 
 
 country lay chiefly in that high valley which breaks CHAP. 
 the line of the Apennines at Prseneste, and running ' ^ ' 
 towards the south-east, falls at last into the valley of 
 the Liris. The number of their cities was probably 
 sixteen ; but with the exception of Anagnia, Verulae, 
 Alatrium, and Ferentinum, the names of all are un- 
 known to us. They, like the Latins, had been the 
 dependent allies of Rome under the last Tarquinius, 
 they too had broken off this connexion after the 
 establishment of the Commonwealth, and now re- 
 newed it on more equal terms for mutual protection 
 against the ^Equians and Volscians. The situation 
 of their country indeed rendered their condition one 
 of peculiar danger ; it lay interposed in the very 
 midst of the country of these enemies, having the 
 ^Equians on the north, and the Volscians on the 
 south, and communicating with the Latin cities and 
 with Rome only by the opening in the Apennines 
 already noticed under the citadel of Prseneste. On 
 the other hand, the Romans were glad to obtain the 
 willing aid of a brave and numerous people, whose 
 position enabled them to threaten the rear of the 
 Volscians, so soon as they should break out from 
 their mountains upon the plain of Latium or the 
 hills of Alba. 
 
 Thus by these two treaties with the Latins and importance 
 Hernicans, Spurius Cassius had, so far as was pos- treaties. 
 sible, repaired the losses occasioned to the Roman 
 power by the expulsion of Tarquinius, and had re- 
 organized that confederacy to which under her last 
 kings Rome had been indebted for her greatness. 
 
156 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. The wound was healed at the very critical moment, 
 
 IX 
 
 v ^ before the storm of the great Volscian invasions 
 burst upon Latium. It happened of necessity that 
 the Latins, from their position, bore the first brunt 
 of these attacks ; Rome could only be reached when 
 they were conquered : whereas, had it not been for 
 the treaty concluded by Spurius Cassius, the Vol- 
 scians, on their first appearance in Latium, might 
 have been joined by the Latins; or the surviving 
 cities of the confederacy, after the conquest of some 
 of their number, might have taken refuge under the 
 protection of the conquerors. 
 
 Sp. Cassius But in restoring the league with the Latins and 
 
 agrarian law. Hernicans, Spurius Cassius had only adopted a part 
 of the system of the Roman kings. Another, and a 
 far more difficult part, yet remained ; to strengthen 
 the state within ; to increase the number of those 
 who, as citizens, claimed their share of the public 
 land, and out of this public land to relieve the poverty 
 of those who united the two inconsistent characters 
 of citizenship and beggary. Spurius Cassius proposed, 
 what tradition ascribed to almost every one of the 
 kings as amongst his noblest acts, an agrarian law. 
 But he was not a king; and it is but too often a 
 thankless act in the eyes of an aristocracy, when one of 
 their own members endeavours to benefit and to raise 
 the condition of those who are not of his own order. 
 
 The true If, amongst Niebuhr's countless services to Roman 
 
 character of , . . 
 
 the agrarian history, any single one may claim our gratitude be- 
 
 laws was first jr. 
 
 explained by vond the rest, it is his explanation of the true nature 
 
 Niebuhr. 
 
 and character of the agrarian laws. Twenty-four 
 
ancient com- 
 
 monweaiths, 
 
 and its occu- 
 
 THE AGRARIAN LAW. 157 
 
 years have not yet elapsed since he first published it, CHAP. 
 but it has already overthrown the deeply-rooted false ^ 
 impressions which prevailed universally on the sub- 
 ject ; and its truth, like Newton's discoveries in na- 
 tural science, is not now to be proved, but to be taken 
 as the very corner-stone of all our researches into the 
 internal state of the Roman people. I am now to 
 copy so much of it as may be necessary to the right 
 understanding of the views and merits of Spurius 
 Cassius. 
 
 It seems to have been a notion generally enter- of the public 
 . . 111 / or <i emesne 
 
 tamed m the ancient world, that every citizen of land in the 
 
 
 
 a country should be a landholder, and that the tern- 
 
 . 
 
 tory or a state, so far as it was not left unenclosed or 
 reserved for public purposes, should be divided in 
 equal portions amongst the citizens. But it would 
 almost always happen that a large part of it was left 
 unenclosed ; the complete cultivation of a whole 
 country, without distinction of soil, being only the 
 result of an excess of population, and therefore not 
 taking place till a late period. The part thus left 
 out of cultivation was mostly kept as pasture, and a 
 revenue was raised from it, not only from every 
 citizen who had turned out sheep or cattle upon it, 
 but also from strangers, who, although incapable of 
 buying land, might yet rent a right of pasture for 
 their flocks and herds. But when a new territory 
 was gained in war, the richer parts of it already in 
 cultivation were too valuable to be given up to pas- 
 ture, while, on the other hand, if they were divided, 
 the division could only follow the general rule, and 
 
158 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, allot an equal portion to every citizen. In these 
 ^ circumstances it was the practice at Rome, and 
 doubtless in other states of Italy, to allow individuals 
 to occupy such lands, and to enjoy all the benefits of 
 them, on condition of paying to the state the tithe 
 of the produce as an acknowledgment that the state 
 was the proprietor of the land, and the individual 
 merely the occupier. With regard to the state, the 
 occupier was merely a tenant at will ; but with re- 
 spect to other citizens, he was like the owner of the 
 soil, and could alienate the land which he occupied 
 either for a term of years, or for ever, as much as if 
 he had been its actual proprietor. 
 
 Portions of This public land thus occupied was naturally 
 granted to looked to as a resource on every admission of new 
 
 new citizens. 
 
 citizens. They were to receive their portion of free- 
 hold land, according to the general notion of a citi- 
 zen's condition ; but this land could only be found 
 by a division of that which belonged to the public, 
 and by the consequent ejectment of its tenants at 
 will. Hence in the Greek states, every large ac- 
 cession to the number of citizens 6 was followed by 
 a call for a division of the public land ; and as 
 this division involved the sacrifice of many existing 
 interests, it was regarded with horror by the old 
 citizens 7 as an act of revolutionary violence. For 
 
 6 Aeojrru/oi iroKiras re eW- to come, holding out the tempta- 
 
 ypa^ravro TroXXovr, KOL 6 77/10? rr)i/ tion of an allotment of land. He- 
 
 yfjv (TTfvoti dvaSda-aa-Qai. Thucyd. rodotus, IV. 15Q. 
 V. 4. So again when the Cyre- 7 Hence it was a clause of the 
 
 naeans in Africa wished to increase oath taken hy every member of 
 
 the number of their citizens, they the court of Heliaea at Athens, 
 
 invited over any Greek that chose that he would allow no division 
 
THE AGRARIAN LAW. 159 
 
 although the land was undoubtedly the property of CHAP. 
 the state, and although the occupiers of it were in v ^ ' 
 relation to the state mere tenants at will, yet it is in 
 human nature that a long undisturbed possession 
 should give a feeling of ownership, the more so, as 
 while the state's claim lay dormant, the possessor 
 was in fact the proprietor; and the land would thus 
 be repeatedly passing by regular sale from one occu- 
 pier to another. And if there was no near prospect 
 of the state's claiming its right, it is manifest that the 
 price of land thus occupied would, after some years 
 of undisturbed possession, be nearly equal to that of 
 an actual freehold. 
 
 Under such circumstances the English law, with The occu- 
 
 . , . . .,..,., piers of the 
 
 its characteristic partiality to individual and existing public land 
 
 t.i.i i-ii T -i could always 
 
 interests, would no doubt have decided, as it did m be ejected at 
 the somewhat similar case of copyholds, that the oc- of the state. 
 cupier could not be ejected so long as he continued 
 to pay his tithe to the state. The Roman law, on 
 the other hand, in a spirit no less characteristic, con- 
 stantly asserted the utterly precarious tenure of the 
 occupier 8 , whenever the state might choose to take 
 
 of the land of the Athenians 8 I have used the words " oc- 
 (Demosthen. Timocrat. p. 746) ; by cupation " and " occupier," rather 
 which it was not meant that there than " possession " and "posses- 
 was any dream of a division of the sor," to express the Latin terms 
 private property of Athenian citi- " possessio " and " possessor," be- 
 zens, but of the public land of cause the English word " posses- 
 the Commonwealth, which being sion " is often used to denote 
 beneficially enjoyed by the existing what is a man's own property, 
 citizens, could not without loss to whereas it was an essential part of 
 them be allotted out to furnish the definition of " possessio," that 
 freehold properties, xX^pot, for any it could relate only to what was not 
 citizens newly admitted to the a man's own property. Hence the 
 franchise. clause in the Licinian law, "Ne 
 
160 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, its property into its own hands. And accordingly, 
 V most of the kings of Rome are said to have carried 
 an agrarian law, that is, to have divided a por- 
 tion, more or less, of the public land amongst 
 those whom they admitted to the rights of citizen- 
 ship. Yet it was understood that these new citi- 
 zens, the Roman commons, although they received 
 their portion of land as freehold, whenever the public 
 land was divided, had still no right to occupy it 9 
 while it lay in the mass unallotted ; while the old 
 burghers, who enjoyed exclusively the right of occupa- 
 tion with regard to the undivided public land, had 
 no share in it whatever when it was divided, because 
 they already enjoyed from ancient allotment a free- 
 hold property of their own. Thus the public land 
 was wholly unprofitable to the commons, so long as 
 
 quis plus quingenta jugera agri ever benefits arise out of the ad- 
 
 possideret," was understood by ministration of the college pro- 
 
 every Roman without the addition perty belong exclusively to the 
 
 of the word " publici " to "agri," ruling part of the society; the 
 
 because the word " possidere " fellows engross the fines to them- 
 
 could not in a legal sense apply selves, just as the burghers at 
 
 to private property, although there Rome enjoyed the exclusive right 
 
 is no doubt that in common Ian- of occupying the public land. But 
 
 guage it is often found in that the rents of college lands are 
 
 signification. divided in certain fixed propor- 
 
 9 This was because the plebs was tions amongst the fellows and 
 
 not yet considered to be a part of scholars, the populus and plebs 
 
 the populus : 8ij/j.os and iroXis were of the society. And a law which 
 
 still carefully distinguished, and should prohibit the practice of 
 
 the state, or people, or burghers, taking a fine on the renewal of a 
 
 claimed the exclusive administra- lease of college property, and 
 
 turn of what may be called the should order the land to be let 
 
 corporate property of the state, at its full value, in order to se- 
 
 Those who are acquainted with cure to the scholars their due share 
 
 the affairs of the colleges of the in all the benefits arising out of 
 
 English universities will recollect the college property, would give 
 
 the somewhat similar practice no bad idea of the nature and ob- 
 
 there with regard to fines. What- jects of an agrarian law at Rome. 
 
THE AGRARIAN LAW. 161 
 
 it was undivided, and became wholly lost to the CHAP. 
 burghers whenever it was divided. 
 
 Now twenty-four years after the expulsion of Tar- An agrarian 
 
 . . , , , 
 
 quimus, there must have been at least as great need greatly 
 
 . needed at 
 
 of an agrarian law as at any former period of the this period 
 
 of Roman 
 
 Roman history. The loss of territory on the right history. 
 bank of the Tiber, and all those causes which had 
 brought on the general distress of the commons, and 
 overwhelmed them hopelessly in debts, called aloud 
 for a remedy; and this remedy was to be found, 
 according to precedent no less than abstract justice, 
 in an allotment of the public land. For as the 
 burghers who occupied this land had even grown rich 
 amidst the distress of the commons, so they could 
 well afford to make some sacrifice ; while the reser- 
 vation to them of the exclusive right of occupying 
 the public land till it was divided, held out to them 
 the hope of acquiring fresh possessions, so soon 
 as the nation, united and invigorated by the pro- 
 posed relief, should be in a condition to make new 
 conquests. 
 
 Spurius Cassius accordingly proposed an agrarian SpimusCas- 
 
 . sius proposes 
 
 law !0 for the division of a certain proportion of the his law, 
 
 which is vio- 
 
 public land, while from the occupiers of the re- lentiy op- 
 
 posed by the 
 mainder he intended to require the regular payment burghers. 
 
 of the tithe, which had been greatly neglected, and 
 to apply the revenue thus gained, to paying the 
 
 10 I have here followed Niebuhr Dionysius as the proposal of A. 
 
 (Vol. II. p. 188, 2nd Ed.) in as- Sempronius Atratinus, to which 
 
 suming as the original proposal the senate assented. Dionysius, 
 
 of Cassius, what is represented in VIII. 75, 76. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, commons whenever they were called out to serve as 
 
 IX 
 
 .^ ' soldiers. Had he been king, he could have carried 
 the measure without difficulty, and would have gone 
 down to posterity invested with the same glory 
 which rendered sacred the memory of the good king 
 Servius. But his colleague, Proculus Virginius 1! , 
 headed the aristocracy in resisting his law, and in 
 maligning the motives of its author. His treaties 
 with the Latins and Hernicans were represented as 
 derogating from the old supremacy of Rome ; and 
 this cry roused the national pride even of the com- 
 mons against him, as, four centuries afterwards, a 
 similar charge of sacrificing the rights of Rome to 
 the Italian allies ruined the popularity of M. Drusus. 
 Still it is probable that the popular feeling in favour 
 of his law was so strong, that the burghers yielded 
 to the storm for the moment, and consented to pass 
 it 12 . They followed the constant policy of an aristo- 
 cracy, to separate the people from' their leaders, to 
 
 11 Livy, 11.41. This was the Fursten und Volker von Siid- 
 
 great quarrel between the nobles Europa. Vol. I. p. 218. 
 
 and the commons in Castile. The 12 See Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 196. 
 
 commons complained that the He argues, that as the tribunes 
 
 crown domains had been so before the Publilian laws had no 
 
 granted away to the nobles, that power of originating any legis- 
 
 now, as the nobles were exempt lative measure, and as we hear of 
 
 from taxation, the commons were their agitating the question of the 
 
 obliged to defray all the expenses agrarian law, "year after year from 
 
 of the public service at their own the death of Cassius, the fact 
 
 private cost. And it was the com- must have been that the law was 
 
 mons' insisting that the nobles passed, and its execution fraudu- 
 
 shpuld give up the domains as lently evaded; and that the tri- 
 
 being strictly public property, bunes demanded no more than 
 
 which determined the nobles to the due execution of an existing 
 
 take part with the crown, in the law. And he supposes that the 
 
 famous war of the commons in the words of Dionysius, TOVTO TO 
 
 reign of Charles V. See Ranke, ooy/xa els TOV Sfjf 
 
DEATH OF SPURIUS CASSIUS. 163 
 
 pacify the former by a momentary resignation of the CHAP. 
 point in dispute, and then to watch their time for -.- 
 destroying the latter, that so, when the popular party 
 is deprived of its defenders, they may wrest from its 
 hands that concession which it is then unable to 
 retain. 
 
 When therefore the year was over, and Spurius 
 
 S1US IS 1111- 
 
 Cassius was no longer consul, the burghers knew peached be- 
 that their hour of vengeance had arrived. Ser. burghers, 
 Cornelius and Quintus Fabius I3 were the new con- and exe - 
 suls : Kaeso Fabius, the consul's brother, and Lucius 
 Valerius were the inquisitors of blood, qusestores 
 parricidii, who, as they tried all capital offences sub- 
 ject to an appeal to the burghers or commons, were 
 also empowered to bring any offender at once before 
 those supreme tribunals, instead of taking cognizance 
 of his case themselves. Cassius was charged with 
 a treasonable attempt to make himself king, and 
 the burghers, assembled in their curise, found him 
 
 re Kdwiov Travcrf rrjs 8r)p.aya>yias ratification; and this "people" 
 
 KOI TTJV dvappiTn^op.fvr]v fK rS>v Tvevrj- must have been the burghers in 
 
 rmv (TTCKTIV OVK fiacrf Trepairepco their curiae, and by its being 
 
 irpot\6tlv, VIII. 76, are taken from stated that the bringing the mea- 
 
 some Roman annalist, who by the sure before the people put an 
 
 words "ad populum latum" meant end to the agitation, it must 
 
 the old populus, the assembly surely be conceived that the mea- 
 
 of the burghers in their curise. sure was not rejected but passed. 
 
 At any rate, the words els TOV For the words eo-(pfpeiv els TOV 
 
 8jjfMov flaevfxdev seem to imply 8fjp.ov as signifying " to submit a 
 
 more than the mere communi- measure to the people for their 
 
 eating to the people the know- confirmation of it," it can hardly 
 
 ledge of a decree of the senate, be necessary to quote instances, 
 
 They must apparently signify that TOVS gvyypa<peas f-vyypityavras 
 
 the decree of the senate, as a yv<ap,r]v fo-eveyKelv es TOV dfjfj.ov. 
 
 7rpo/3ovAeu/ia, was submitted to Thucyd. VIII. 67. 
 
 the people for its acceptance and 13 Livy, II. 41. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, guilty. He shared the fate of Agis and of Marino 
 
 v^ ' Falieri ; he was sentenced to die as a traitor, and 
 
 was, according to the usage of the Roman law, 
 
 scourged and beheaded, and his house razed to the 
 
 ground. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ASCENDANCY OF THE ARISTOCRACY THE FABII AND 
 
 THEIR SEVEN CONSULSHIPS THE PUBLILIAN LAW. 
 
 u.c. 269-283. 
 
 n fiiaiov, fl KOI (riytpT), tv6fuf. TBUCYD. VIII. 66. 
 
 " Les abus r^cens avaient brave la force et depasse la prevoyance 
 des anciennes lois : il fallait des garanties nouvelles, explicites, revetues 
 de la sanction du parlement tout entier. C'etait ne rien faire que de 
 renouveler vaguement des promesses tant de fois violees, des statuts si 
 long-temps oublies." GUIZOT, Revolution d'Angleterre, Livre I. p. 45. 
 
 THE release of all existing debts by the covenant CHAP. 
 concluded at the Sacred Hill, and the appointment of v ^ ' 
 
 The burgh- 
 
 the tribunes to prevent any tyrannical enforcement ers claim 
 
 of the law of debtor and creditor for the time to elusive ap- 
 pointment 
 come, had relieved the Roman commons from the of the con- 
 
 suls. 
 
 extreme of personal degradation and misery. But 
 their political condition had made no perceptible 
 advances ; their election of their own tribunes was 
 subject to the approval of the burghers; and their 
 choice of consuls, subject also to the same approval, 
 was further limited to such candidates as belonged 
 to the burghers' order. Even this, however, did not 
 satisfy the burghers ; the death of Spurius Cassius 
 
166 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, enabled them to dare any usurpation ; while on the 
 v ^ ' other hand they needed a more absolute power than 
 ever, in order to evade their own concession in con- 
 senting to his agrarian law. Accordingly, they pro- 
 posed to elect l the consuls themselves, and only to 
 require the confirmation of them by the centuries ; 
 a form which would be as unessential as the crowd's 
 acceptance of the king at an English coronation, in- 
 asmuch as it was always by the vote of the burghers 
 in their curias that the imperium or sovereignty was 
 conferred ; and when a consul was already in pos- 
 session of this, it mattered little whether the cen- 
 turies acknowledged this title or not. In this manner 
 A.U.C. 270. were Lucius ^Emilius, and Kseso Fabius, the pro- 
 secutor of Spurius Cassius, chosen consuls by the 
 burghers ; and it was in vain that the commons de- 
 manded the execution of the agrarian law ; the 
 consuls satisfied the object of those who had elected 
 A.U.C. 271. them, and the law remained a dead letter. The 
 same spirit was manifested in the elections of the 
 following year, and was attended with the same re- 
 sult ; the other prosecutor of Cassius, L. Valerius, 
 
 1 See Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 202, who copies Dion Cassius, says 
 
 et seqq. Dionysius and Livy both expressly that the commons, in 
 
 ascribe the election of ^Emilius the year 273, insisted on electing 
 
 and Fabius to the influence of the one of the consuls, for at that 
 
 patricians; but Dionysius (VIII. time both were chosen by the pa- 
 
 83) further notices their coming tricians. It seems therefore pro- 
 
 into office as a marked period in bable, that the period from 270 to 
 
 the Roman history, and mentions 273 was marked by a decided 
 
 the date, and the name of the usurpation on the part of the 
 
 archon at Athens for that year; burghers, and that during that 
 
 as if there had been some im- time they alone elected both 
 
 portant alteration then made in consuls, 
 the constitution. And Zonaras, 
 
ASCENDANCY OF THE ARISTOCRACY. 167 
 
 was now chosen by the burghers, and with him CHAP. 
 another member of the Fabian house, Marcus, the v ^ ' 
 brother of Kseso and of Quintus. 
 
 But the complete usurpation of the consulship by The tribunes 
 
 .111 protect the 
 
 the burghers served to call into action the hitherto commons in 
 
 their refusal 
 
 untried powers of the tribuneship. In the year 271, to serve as 
 
 soldiers. 
 
 the tribune Caius Mamius 2 set the first example of 
 extending the protection of his sacred office to those 
 of the commons who on public grounds resisted the 
 sovereignty of the consuls, by refusing to serve as 
 soldiers. This was the weapon so often used from 
 this time forwards in defence of the popular cause : 
 the Roman commons, like those of England, sought 
 to obtain a redress of grievances by refusing to aid 
 the government in its wars ; they refused to furnish 
 men, as our fathers refused to furnish money. But 
 the first exercise of this privilege was overborne with 
 a high hand; the consuls held their enlistment of 
 soldiers without the city ; there the tribunes' pro- 
 tection had no force ; and if any man refused to 
 appear, and kept his person safe within the range of 
 the tribunes' aid, the consuls proceeded to lay waste 
 his land, and to burn and destroy his stock and 
 buildings, by virtue of that sovereign power which, 
 except within the walls of the city, was altogether 
 unlimited. Accordingly the tribunes' opposition to- 
 tally failed, and the consuls obtained the army which 
 they wanted. 
 
 But there is an undying power in justice which The centu- 
 
 nes recover 
 
 Dionysius, VIII. 87- 
 
168 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, no oppression can altogether put down. Caius 
 v '- ' Maenius had failed, but his attempt was not entirely 
 
 the power of 
 
 appointing fruitless ; a spirit was excited amongst the commons 
 
 one out of 
 
 the two which induced the burghers the next year, after long 
 
 consuls. 
 
 disputes and delays, to choose for one of the consuls 
 A.U.C. 272. a man w r ell affected to the cause of the commons ; 
 and the year afterwards it was agreed by both orders 
 that the election should be divided between them ; 
 that one consul should be chosen by the burghers in 
 their curiae, and the other by the whole people in 
 their centuries. Still however it must not be for- 
 gotten that the votes of the burghers' clients were 
 at this time so numerous in the centuries, as to give 
 to their patrons no small influence even in the 
 election of that consul who was particularly to be 
 the representative of the commons. Yet the com- 
 mons regarded the change as a triumph, and it was 
 marked as a memorable event 3 in the annals, that in 
 the year 273, KJESO Fabius was again chosen consul 
 by the burghers, and that Spurius Furius was elected 
 as his colleague by the people in their centuries. 
 A.U.C. 273. The refusal of the burghers to execute the agra- 
 
 The Roman 
 
 soldiers suf- rian law still rankled in the minds of the commons ; 
 
 fer them- 
 selves to be and when men were again wanted to serve against 
 
 beaten in 
 
 battle, the ^Equians and Veientians, Spurius Licinius 4 , one 
 
 rather than 
 
 110 ^ ^ e tribunes, again offered his protection to those 
 who refused to enlist. But his colleagues betrayed 
 him, and either as being a majority of the college 
 overruled the opposition of Licinius, or by an abuse 
 
 * Zonaras, VII. 17. Dionysius, 4 Livy, II. 43. 
 IX. 1. 
 
THE FABII. 169 
 
 of their peculiar power offered their protection to CHAP. 
 the consuls in enforcing their orders against the re- v -^ ' 
 fractory. Thus an army was raised ; but the soldiers 
 who followed Kseso Fabius into the field, regarded 
 him and the burghers as more their enemies than the 
 Veientians, and according to the Roman annalists, 
 they refused to conquer, and retreated before an 
 enemy whom they could have vanquished if they 
 would. This is merely the habitual style of Roman 
 arrogance ; but that brave men may be found capable 
 of allowing themselves to be slaughtered by the 
 enemy rather than risk the possibility of winning a 
 victory for a commander whom they detest, we know, 
 not merely from the suspicious accounts of the 
 Roman writers, but from the experience of our own 
 naval service in the last war, in one memorable in- 
 stance as melancholy as it was notorious. 
 
 Marcus Fabius was again chosen as the burghers' A.u.c.274. 
 
 if -i /-N -m /r -i The house 
 
 consul for the next year, and Cn. Manlms 5 WaS oftheFabii 
 1 . supports the 
 
 elected by the centuries. Another attempt to stop cause of the 
 
 ... 1 .. commons. 
 
 the raising of an army was made by the tribune 
 Tiberius Pontificius 6 , and was again baffled by the 
 opposition of his colleagues. But this year witnessed 
 an accession to the cause of the commons, of import- 
 ance more than enough to compensate for the 
 defection of the majority of the tribunes. The 
 Fabian house had now been in possession of one 
 place in the consulship for six years without inter- 
 ruption, a clear proof that no other house among the 
 
 5 Patres M. Fabium consulem lius datur. Livy, II. 43. 
 creant : Fabio collega Cn. Man- 6 Livy, II. 44. 
 
170 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, burghers could compare with them in credit and in 
 ' ^ ' power. Standing at the head of their order, they 
 had been most zealous in its cause, and had incurred 
 proportionably the hatred of the commons. But they 
 had men amongst them of a noble spirit, who could 
 not bear to be so hated by their countrymen, as that 
 their own soldiers should rather allow themselves to 
 be slaughtered by the enemy than conquer under the 
 command of a Fabius. Thus the new consul, Marcus 
 Fabius, was resolved to conciliate the commons 7 ; he 
 succeeded so far as to venture to give battle to the 
 Veientians ; in the battle 8 he and his brothers fought 
 as men who cared for nothing else than to recover 
 their countrymen's love ; Quintus Fabius, the consul 
 of the year 272, was killed ; but the Romans gained 
 the victory. Then the Fabii, to show that they were 
 in earnest, persuaded the burghers to divide amongst 
 their houses the care of the wounded soldiers ; they 
 themselves took charge of a greater number than 
 any other house, and discharged the duty which they 
 had undertaken with all kindness and liberality. 
 Thus, when the burghers named Kseso Fabius to be 
 again their consul, he was as acceptable to the centu- 
 ries as his colleague whom they themselves appointed, 
 Titus Virginius. 
 A.u.c.275. Koeso did not delay an instant in showing that 
 
 Migration of , . 
 
 the Fabii to his sense or the wrongs of the commons was sincere ; 
 
 the Cre- . 
 
 mera, where he immediately required that the agrarian law of 
 
 they are cut 
 off by the 
 Veientians. - XT 
 
 JNeque immemor ejus, quod Livy, II. 47. ad fin. 
 
 initto consulates imbiberat, re- 8 Livy, II. 45 47. 
 
 conciliandi animos plebis, &c. 9 Livy, II. 48. 
 
THE FABII. 171 
 
 Spurius Cassius should be duly carried into effect. CHAP. 
 But the burghers treated him with scorn ; the consul, v ^ 
 they said, had forgotten himself, and the applauses 
 of the commons had intoxicated him. Then Kseso 
 and all his house, finding themselves reproached for 
 having deserted their former cause, resolved to quit 
 Rome altogether. The war with the Veientians 
 showed them how they might still be useful to their 
 old country: they established themselves on the 
 Cremera, a little stream that runs into the Tiber 
 from the west, a few miles above Rome. Here they 
 settled with their wives and families 10 , with a large 
 train of clients ", and with some of the burghers also 
 who were connected with them by personal ties, and 
 who resolved to share their fortune. The Fabii left 
 Rome as the Claudii had left Regillus a few years 
 before ; they wished to establish themselves as a 
 Latin colony in Etruria, serving the cause of Rome 
 even while they had renounced her. But two years 
 afterwards they fell victims to the Veientians, who 
 surprised them, put them all to the sword, and de- A.u.c.277. 
 stroyed their settlement. 
 
 The commons had gained strength and confidence Th e com- 
 
 mons im- 
 
 from the coming over of the Fabii to their cause ; peach the 
 
 consuls for 
 
 they gratefully honoured the spirit which had made allowing the 
 
 J & J Fabii to be 
 
 them leave Rome, and when they heard of their cut off. 
 overthrow, they at once accused the burghers of 
 
 10 See Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 219. yopfvoi KCU (f)i\ovs' and again a 
 Aulus Gellius says, Sex et trecenti little below, TO ^ev Tr\e1ov TrfXarwi/ 
 Fabii cum familiis suis circutn- re KOI fTaipvv rjv. Dionysius, IX. 
 venti perierunt. 15. 
 
 11 neAcrras re TOVS tavrmv C'TTO- 
 
172 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, having treacherously betrayed them. Titus Me- 
 
 v ^ ' nenius, one of the consuls, had been quietly lying- 
 
 encamped u near the Cremera when the Fabii were 
 
 cut off. He was accused therefore in the following 
 
 A.u.c.278. year of treason, and was condemned ; but the tribunes 
 
 themselves pressed for no heavier sentence than a 
 
 fine, although he actually died from vexation and 
 
 shame at having been subjected to such a sentence. 
 
 A.u.c.279. In the next year 13 another consul was accused by the 
 
 tribunes because he had been defeated in battle by 
 
 the Veientians, but he defended himself manfully, 
 
 and was acquitted. 
 
 This habit of actin on the offensive for two suc- 
 
 impeaches . . . 1,1 
 
 the consuls cessive years emboldened the commons, and they 
 
 tbeexecu- now began again to call for the execution of the 
 
 agrananiaw. agrarian law of Cassius. The consuls L. Furius and 
 
 C. Manlius resisted this demand during their year 
 
 A.u.c.280. of office, but as soon as that was expired, Cn. 
 
 Genucius 14 , one of the tribunes, impeached them 
 
 both before the commons for the wrong done to that 
 
 order. 
 
 A.u.c.281. The burghers were now alarmed, for they saw that 
 
 deadinhis the commons were learning their own strength, and 
 
 the trial* 6 putting it in practice. They desired, at any risk, 
 
 to produce a reaction, and they acted at Rome as 
 
 the Spartans some years afterwards treated their 
 
 Helots, or as the Venetian nobles in modern times 
 
 silenced those bold spirits whom they dreaded. On 
 
 the night before the day fixed for the trial of the 
 
 12 Livy, II. 52. Livy, II. 54. 
 
 13 Livy, II. 52. 
 
THE PUBLILIAN LAW. 173 
 
 consuls, Genucius the tribune was found dead in his 
 bed 15 . 
 
 The secrecy and treachery of assassination are other a&- 
 
 sassinations; 
 
 always terrifying to a popular party, who have nei- the tribune 
 ther the organization among themselves to be able miu comes 
 
 3 forward. 
 
 to concert reprisals, nor wealth enough to bribe an 
 assassin, even if no better feeling restrained them 
 from seeking such aid. Besides, the burghers were 
 not satisfied with a single murder ; others whom they 
 dreaded were put out of the way by the same means 
 as Genucius ; and like the Athenian aristocratical 
 conspirators in the Peloponnesian war, they freely 
 used the assassin's dagger to secure their ascend- 
 ancy 16 . Thus the tribunes for awhile were silenced, 
 and the consuls proceeded to enlist soldiers to serve 
 against the jEquians and Volscians. Amongst the 
 rest was one Volero Publilius 17 , who had served be- 
 fore as a centurion, and who was now called on to 
 serve as a common soldier ; he refused to obey, and 
 being a man of great vigour and activity, he excited 
 the commons to support him, and the consuls and 
 their lictors were driven from the forum. Here the 
 disturbance rested for the time, but Volero was 
 chosen to be one of the tribunes for the year en- 
 suing. 
 
 Volero was a man equal to the need. The tribu- A.U.C. 282. 
 nitian power might be crippled by the influence of lianiaw. ' 
 the burghers at the elections ; the burghers' clients 
 were so numerous in the centuries, that they could 
 
 15 Livy, II. 54. Fragm. Vatic. XXII. 
 
 16 Zonaras, VII. 17- Dion Cass. 17 Livy, II. 55. 
 
174 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 elect whom they would ; and thus, in ordinary times, 
 the college of tribunes might perhaps contain a 
 majority who were the mere tools of the burghers, 
 and who could utterly baffle the efforts of their col- 
 leagues. This Volero was impatient to prevent, and 
 taking advantage of the excitement of the moment, 
 when the commons were enraged by the murder of 
 Genucius, he proposed a law that the tribunes for 
 the time to come 18 should be chosen by the votes of 
 the commons in their tribes, and not by those of the 
 whole people in their centuries. 
 
 it is vio- No tribune could be persuaded to betray the cause 
 poled bftiie of his order and of public freedom by opposing Vo- 
 lero on this occasion ; but the year passed away, and 
 the burghers were thus long successful in obstruct- 
 ing the further progress of the law. It should be 
 remembered that Volero could but propose his mea- 
 sure to the commons assembled in their tribes, and 
 that even if accepted by them, it did not therefore 
 become a law, but rather resembled the old petitions 
 of the house of commons, which required the sanc- 
 tion of the king and the house of lords before they 
 could become the law of the land. So any resolu- 
 tion of the tribes was no more than a petition 
 addressed to the senate and burghers ; but there is 
 a moral power in such petitions which is generally 
 irresistible, and the burghers well understood the 
 policy of an aristocracy, to fight its battle in the 
 assembly of the commons themselves, rather than to 
 
 18 Livy, II. 56. 
 
THE PUBLILIAN LAW. 175 
 
 commit their order in an open contest with the CHAP. 
 
 .A.. 
 
 whole order of the commons. Accordingly the v 
 burghers laboured to prevent Volero from carrying 
 his petition in the assembly of the tribes. With 
 this view their method was delay: the tribes met to 
 transact business only once in eight days, once, that 
 is, in a Roman week 19 ; and no measure could be 
 proposed unless notice had been given of it two full 
 weeks beforehand, while any measure that was not 
 carried on the day when it was brought forward, was 
 held to be lost, and could not be again put to the 
 vote till after the lapse of two full weeks more. 
 The object, therefore, of the burghers was so to 
 obstruct the course of business whenever the tribes 
 met, as to spin it out to sunset without a division ; 
 then the measure was lost, and could not be brought 
 on again till after a fortnight's interval. And 
 they interrupted and delayed the business of the 
 tribes, by appearing with their clients in the forum, 
 and purposely exciting a disturbance with the com- 
 mons. Besides, we are told that Rome was this 
 year visited with a severe epidemic disorder, which, 
 though it lasted only a little while, was exceedingly 
 fatal. This was an interruption to ordinary business, 
 and this, together with the arts of the burghers, pre- 
 vented the commons from coming to a resolution in 
 
 19 In the Roman Kalendars the term nonae, like that of nun- 
 which have been preserved to us, dinse to express the weekly mar- 
 eight letters are used to mark the ket-day, having reference to the 
 several days of the month, just as inclusive manner of reckoning, 
 seven are used by us. Thus the common to all the nations of an- 
 nones of the month fell always tiquity. 
 one Roman week before the ides ; 
 
176 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, favour of their measure throughout the whole course 
 v^ ' of the year. 
 
 A.U.C. 283. Volero was re-elected tribune 20 ; Appius Claudius 
 can-led. Mt was chosen consul by the burghers, and T. Quintius 
 was elected as his colleague by the centuries. With 
 Volero there was chosen also another tribune more 
 active than himself, Caius Laetorius 21 ; the oldest of 
 all the tribunes, but a man endowed with a resolute 
 spirit, and well aware of the duty of maintaining the 
 contest vigorously. Fresh demands were added to 
 those contained in Volero's first law : the sediles 
 were to be chosen by the tribes as well as the 
 tribunes, and the tribes were to be competent 22 to 
 consider all questions affecting the whole nation, and 
 not such only as might concern the commons. Thus 
 the proposed law was rendered more unwelcome to 
 the burghers than ever, and Appius determined to 
 resist it by force. Laetorius was provoked by the 
 insulting language of the consul, and he swore that 
 on the next day on which the law could be brought 
 forward, he would either get it passed by the com- 
 mons before evening, or would lay down his life 
 upon the place 23 . Accordingly when the tribes as- 
 sembled, Appius stationed himself in the forum, sur- 
 rounded by a multitude of the younger burghers 
 and of his own clients, ready to interrupt the pro- 
 ceedings of the commons. Lsotorius called the tribes 
 to vote, and gave the usual order that all strangers, 
 
 20 Livy II. 56. 23 Livy IL 56 
 
 !1 Dionysius, IX. 46. 
 
 22 Dionysius, IX. 43. Zunaras, VII. 17. 
 
THE PUBLILIAN LAW. 177 
 
 that is, all who did not belong to any tribe, should CHAP. 
 withdraw from the forum. Appius refused to stir 24 ; N -.^ 
 the tribune sent his officer to enforce obedience, 
 but the consul's lictors beat off the officer, and a 
 general fray ensued, in which Lsetorius received 
 some blows ; and matters would have come to ex- 
 tremity, it is said, had not T. Quintius interposed, 
 and with great difficulty parted the combatants. This, 
 however, appears to be one of the usual softenings 
 of the annals, which delighted to invest these early 
 times with a character of romantic forbearance and 
 innocence. Both parties were thoroughly in earnest : 
 Lsetorius had received such injuries as to rouse the 
 fury of the commons to the utmost ; again had the 
 sacred persons of the tribunes been profaned by vio- 
 lence, and Lsetorius might soon share the fate of 
 Genucius. Accordingly the commons acted this 
 time on the offensive ; they neither withdrew to the 
 Sacred Hill, nor shut themselves up in their own 
 quarter on the Aventine, but they attacked and 
 occupied - 5 the Capitol, and held it for some time as 
 a fortress, keeping regular guard, under the com- 
 mand of their tribunes, both night and day. The 
 occupation of the citadel in the ancient Common- 
 wealths implied an attempt to effect a revolution ; 
 and a popular tribune thus holding the Capitol with 
 his partizans might, at any instant, make himself ab- 
 solute, and establish his tyranny, like so many of the 
 popular leaders in Greece, upon the ruins of the old 
 
 24 Livy, II. 56. 25 Dionysius, IX. 48. 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 aristocracy. The senate, therefore, and the wiser 
 consul, T. Quintius, resisted the violent counsels of 
 Appius and the mass of the burghers ; it was resolved 
 that the law, which we must suppose had been passed 
 by the commons immediately before they took pos- 
 session of the Capitol, should be immediately laid be- 
 fore the senate, to receive the assent of that body. It 
 received the senate's sanction 26 , and with this double 
 authority it was brought before the burghers in their 
 curiae, to receive their consent also ; the only form 
 wanting to give it the force of a law. But the 
 decision of the wisest and most illustrious members 
 of their own body overcame the obstinacy of the 
 burghers ; they yielded to necessity ; and the second 
 great charter of Roman liberties, the Publilian Law, 
 was finally carried, and became the law of the land. 
 Some said that even the number of tribunes was 
 now for the first time raised to five, having consisted 
 hitherto of two only. At any rate the names of 
 the first five tribunes, freely chosen by their own 
 order, were handed down to posterity; they were 
 C. Siccius 27 , L. Numitorius, M. Duilius, Sp. Icilius, 
 and L. Ma;cilius. 
 
 In this list we meet with neither Volero nor La> 
 torius. Volero, as having been already tribune for 
 two years together, and having been less prominent 
 in the final struggle, may naturally have been passed 
 over; but Lsetorius, like Sextius at a later period, 
 would surely have been the first choice of the com- 
 
 26 Dionysius, IX. 49. 
 
 27 Livy, II. 58. He borrows the names from the annals of Piso. 
 
THE PUBLILIAN LAW. 179 
 
 mons, when they came to exercise a power which 
 they owed mainly to his exertions. Was it then 
 that his own words had been prophetic ; that he had 
 in fact given up his life in the forum on the day 
 when he brought forward the law ; that the blows 
 of Appius' burghers were as deadly as those of Kseso 
 Quinctius, or of the murderers of Genucius, and that 
 Lsetorius was not only the founder of the greatness 
 of his order, but its martyr also ? 
 
 Thus after a period of extreme depression and 
 danger, the commons had again begun to advance, 
 and the Publilian Law, going beyond any former 
 charter, was a sure warrant for a more complete 
 enfranchisement yet to come. The commons could 
 now elect their tribunes freely, and they had formally 
 obtained the right of discussing all national questions 
 in their own assembly. Thus their power spread 
 itself out on every side, and tried its strength, against 
 that time when from being independent, it aspired to 
 become sovereign, and swallowed up in itself all the 
 powers of the rest of the community. 
 
 N2 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 WARS WITH THE ^IQUIANS AND VOLSCIANS LEGENDS 
 
 CONNECTED WITH THESE WARS STORIES OF CORIO- 
 
 LANUS, AND OF CINCINNATUS. 
 
 " Pandite nunc Helicona Dese, cantusque movete : 
 Qui bello exciti reges; quae quemque secutse 
 Complerint campos acies ; quibus Itala jam turn 
 Floruerit terra alma viris, quibus arserit armis." 
 
 VIRGIL, JEn. VII. 641. 
 
 CHAP. NOTHING conveys a juster notion of the greatness of 
 v -- ' Roman history than those chapters in Gibbon's work, 
 
 Introduc- J r 
 
 tiontotbe i n which he brings before us the state of the east 
 
 foreign his- 
 
 tory of and of the north, of Persia and of Germany, and is 
 
 Rome. 
 
 led unavoidably to write an universal history, be- 
 cause all nations were mixed up with the greatness 
 and the decline of Rome. This indeed is the peculiar 
 magnificence of our subject, that the history of Rome 
 must be in some sort the history of the world ; no 
 nation, no language, no country of the ancient world, 
 can altogether escape our researches, if we follow on 
 steadily the progress of the Roman dominion till it 
 reached its greatest extent. On this vast field we 
 are now beginning to enter ; our view must be car- 
 
WARS WITH THE ^EQUIANS AND VOLSCIANS. 181 
 
 ried a little beyond the valley of the Tiber, and the CHAP. 
 plain of the Campagna ; we must go as far as the v ^ ' 
 mountains which divide Latium from Campania, 
 which look down upon the level of the Pontine 
 marshes, and even command the island summits of 
 the Alban hills : we must cross the Tiber, and enter 
 upon a people of foreign extraction and language, a 
 mighty people, whose southern cities were almost 
 within sight of Rome, while their most northern 
 settlements were planted beyond the Apennines, 
 and, from the great plain of the Eridanus, looked up 
 to that enormous Alpine barrier which divided them 
 from the unknown wildernesses watered by the Ister 
 and his thousand tributary rivers. 
 
 In the days of Thucydides, the Greek city of TheOpi- 
 
 * . . can8 or 
 
 Cuma ! is described as situated in the land of the Ausonians, 
 
 and the two 
 
 Opicans. The Opicans, Oscans, or Ausonians, for the Opican na- 
 tions, the 
 three names all express the same people, occupied -ffiqmans 
 
 and Vol- 
 
 all the country between CEnotria and Tyrrhenia, 
 that is to say, between the Silarus and the Tiber; 
 but the sea-coast of this district was full of towns 
 belonging to people of other nations, such as the 
 Greek cities of Cuma and Neapolis, and those be- 
 longing to the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians, such as Tarra- 
 cina, Circeii, Antium, and Ardea. The Opicans 
 were an inland people, and it was only by conquest 
 that they at last came down to the sea-coast, and 
 established themselves in some of the Tyrrhenian 
 towns. They had various subdivisions ; but the two 
 
 1 Thucyd. VI. 4. 
 
182 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 nations of them with whom the Romans had most to 
 do, and whose encroachments on Latium we are now 
 to notice, are known to us under the name of the 
 JEquians and Volscians. 
 
 It is absolutely impossible to offer any thing like 
 a connected history of the Volscian and J^quian wars 
 with Rome during the first half century from the be- 
 ginning of the Commonwealth. But in order to give 
 some clearness to the following sketch, I must first 
 describe the position of the two nations, and class 
 their contests with Rome, whether carried on singly 
 or jointly, under the names respectively of the ^Equian 
 and Volscian wars, according to the quarter which 
 was the principal field of action. 
 Their The Volscians, when they first appear in Roman 
 
 geographical 
 
 position, history, are found partly settled on the line of high- 
 lands overlooking the plain of Latium, from near 
 Praeneste to Tarracina, and partly at the foot of the 
 hills in the plain itself. It has been already noticed, 
 that just to the south of Prseneste a remarkable break 
 occurs in this mountain wall, so that only its mere 
 base has been left standing, a tract of ground 2 barely 
 of sufficient elevation to turn the waters in different 
 directions, and to separate the source of the Trerus, 
 which feeds the Liris, from the streams of the Cam- 
 
 2 Taking a parallel case from this point, overlooking the lias 
 
 English geography, the gap in the plain of Warwickshire, may repre- 
 
 oolitic limestone chain of hills sent "respectively the countries of 
 
 which occurs in Warwickshire, the ^Equians and Volscians; 
 
 between Farnborough and Edge whilst Banbury and the valley of 
 
 Hill, may be compared to the gap the Cherwell answer to the coun- 
 
 at Prseneste; the line of hills try of the Hernicans. 
 northward and southward from 
 
WARS WITH THE ^QUIANS AND VOLSCIANS. 183 
 
 pagna of Rome. This breach or gap in the mountains CHAP. 
 forms the head of the country of the Hernicans, who ^ t ,_ 
 occupied the higher part of the valley of the Trerus, 
 and the hills on its left bank downward as far as its 
 confluence with the Liris. But at Prseneste the 
 mountain wall rises again to its full height, and con- 
 tinues stretching to the northward in an unbroken 
 line, till it is again interrupted at Tibur or Tivoli by 
 the deep valley of the Anio. Thus from the Anio 
 to the sea at Tarracina, the line of hills is interrupted 
 only at a single point, immediately to the south of 
 Prseneste, and is by this breach divided into two parts 
 of unequal length, the shorter one extending from 
 Tibur to Praeneste, the longer one reaching from the 
 point where the hills again rise opposite to Prseneste 
 as far as Tarracina and the sea. Of this mountain 
 wall the longer portion was held by the Volscians, 
 the shorter by the JEquians. 
 
 But it is not to be understood that the whole of Scat of 
 
 the wars 
 
 this highland country was possessed by these two with the 
 
 J J jEquians; 
 
 Opican nations. Latin towns were scattered along 
 the edge of it overlooking the plain of Latium, such 
 as Tibur and Prseneste in the ^Equian portion of it, 
 and in the Volscian, Ortona, Cora, Norba, and Setia. 
 The ./Equians dwelt rather in the interior of the 
 mountain country ; their oldest seats were in the 
 heart of the Apennines, on the lake of Fucinus, from 
 whence they had advanced towards the west, till 
 they had reached the edge overhanging the plain. 
 Nor is it possible to state at what time the several 
 Latin cities of the Apennines were first conquered, 
 
184 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, or how often they recovered their independence. 
 vJ ' Tibur and Prseneste never fell into the hands of the 
 
 their natural strength helping probably to 
 secure them from the invaders. The jEquians seem 
 rather to have directed their efforts in another di- 
 rection against the Latin towns of the Alban hills, 
 pouring out readily through the breach in the moun- 
 tain line already noticed, and gaining thus an ad- 
 vanced position from which to command the plain 
 of Rome itself. 
 with the The Volscian conquests, on the other hand, were 
 
 Volscians. . , . , . _ , 
 
 Volscian effected either in their own portion or the mountain 
 
 conquests in ii- f* -n i 
 
 Latium. line, or in the plain nearer the sea, or finally, on the 
 southern and western parts of the cluster of the 
 Alban hills, as the J^quians attacked their eastern 
 and northern parts. Tarracina 3 appears to have 
 fallen into their hands very soon after the overthrow 
 of the Roman monarchy ; and Antium 4 was also an 
 early conquest. In the year 261, Bovillse, Circeii, 
 Corioli, Lavinium, Satricum, and Velitrse, were still 
 Latin cities ; but all 5 these were conquered at one 
 
 3 It is mentioned as a Volscian the Roman league with the Latins 
 town under the name of Anxur in was concluded, Livy, II. 33. 
 
 the year 349. (Livy, IV. 59.) Its 5 The present text of Diony- 
 
 capture by the Volscians is no sius has BoXar or BwXas, (VIII. 
 
 where recorded ; but in the ear- 20.) Plutarch has Bo'XXa?, (Corio- 
 
 liest Volscian wars, after the ex- lanus, 29) but it appears that 
 
 pulsion of the Tarquins, the seat Bovilte and not Bola is meant, 
 
 of war lies always on the Roman because the conquest of Bola is 
 side of it. It seems therefore to , mentioned separately by both 
 
 have fallen soon after the date of writers, and because Plutarch gives 
 
 the treaty with Carthage, in which the distance of BdXXat from Rome 
 
 it is spoken of as a Latin city. at one hundred stadia, which 
 
 4 It belonged to the Volscians suits Bovillaa, but is too little for 
 in the year 261, the year in which Bola. The conquest of Circeii, 
 
WARS WITH THE ^IQUIANS AND VOLSCIANS. 185 
 
 time or other by the Volscians, so that at the period CHAP. 
 of their greatest success they must have advanced v v 
 within twelve miles of the gates of Rome. The 
 legend of Coriolanus represents these towns, with the 
 exception of Velitrse, as having been taken between 
 the years 263 and 266, in the great invasion con- 
 ducted jointly by Coriolanus and by Attius Tullius. 
 But Niebuhr has given reasons for believing that 
 these conquests were not made till some years later, 
 and that they were effected not all at once, but in 
 the course of several years. Be this as it may, it is 
 certain that some of the towns thus taken, Satricum, 
 for instance, Circeii, and Velitrse, remained for many 
 years in possession of the Volscians. Corioli was 
 destroyed, and is no more heard of in history, while 
 Bovillae and Lavinium were in all probability soon 
 recovered either by the Romans or by the Latins. 
 
 Whilst the Volscians were thus tearing Latium to ^s q ui an 
 
 . , , , TP, .,. ., conquests. 
 
 pieces on one side, the /Lquians were assailing it 
 with equal success on the other. Their conquests 
 also are all assigned by the legend of Coriolanus to 
 
 Corioli, Lavinium, and Satricum, there, known by the name of " La 
 is noticed by Livy, II. 39- Veli- Lamina Volsca" or "Borgiana," 
 tree was taken by the Romans is written in the Oscan language, 
 from the Volscians in the year and contains the Oscan title ' Me- 
 260, but it must afterwards have dix." See Lanzi, Saggio di Lin- 
 been lost again; for we find it in gua Etrusca, Vol. III. p. 616. I 
 arms with the Volscians against believe Niebuhr is right in con- 
 Rome, and afterwards with the sidering such pretended revolts of 
 Latins ; and though this is spoken Roman colonies to have been pro- 
 of as the revolt of a Roman colo- perly a revolt of the old inhabit- 
 ny, as if the descendants of the ants, in which the Roman colo- 
 colonists sent there after its first nists as a matter of course were 
 conquest in 26:', had always con- expelled or massacred. See Vol. 
 tinued in possession of it, yet II. p. 44, 45. Eng. Transl. 
 the well-known inscription found 
 
186 HISTORY OF EOME. 
 
 CHAP, his famous invasion, when he is said to have taken 
 
 XI 
 
 v ^- ; Corbio 6 , Vitellia, Trebia, Lavici, and Pedum. All 
 these places, with the exception of Trebia, stood 
 either on the Alban hills, or close to them, and three 
 of them, Corbio, Lavici, and Pedum, are amongst the 
 thirty Latin cities which concluded the treaty with 
 Spurius Cassius in the year 261. They were retained 
 for many years 7 by their conquerors ; and thus Tibur 
 and Prseneste were isolated from the rest of Latium, 
 and the ^Equians had established themselves on the 
 Alban hills above and around Tusculum, which re- 
 mained the only unconquered Latin city in that 
 quarter, and was so thrown more than ever into the 
 arms of Rome. 
 
 These con- Now, had all these conquests been indeed achieved 
 
 quests were 
 
 effected as early as the year 266, and within the space of one 
 
 gradually, 
 
 during a or two years, what could have prevented the ^Equians 
 
 period of J 
 
 several and Volscians from effecting the total conquest of 
 
 years, at the 
 
 "dose of the Rome, or what could their armies have been doing 
 
 third cen- 
 tury of in the years from 273 to 278, when the Romans 
 
 Rome. J 
 
 were struggling so hardly against the Veientians ? 
 Or how comes it, as Niebuhr well observes, if the 
 jEquians had taken Pedum, and Corbio, and Lavici, 
 in 266, that their armies are mentioned as encamping 
 on Algidus for the first time in the year 289 ; a spot 
 which from that time forwards they continued to 
 
 | Livy, II. 39. Latin confederacy again, when it 
 
 7 Lavici was conquered by the shook off the Volscian yoke ; it is 
 
 Romans in 336. (Livy, IV. 47.) mentioned in the time of the great 
 
 Corbio in 297. (Livy. III. 30.) No Latin war as taking an active part 
 
 recapture of Pedum is mentioned ; on the Latin side, 
 but the town probably joined the 
 
WARS WITH THE .EQUIANS AND VOLSCIANS. 187 
 
 occupy year after year till Rome regained the as- CHAP. 
 cendancy ? It is much more probable that the first v v 
 years of the war after 263 were marked by no de- 
 cisive events ; that the league with the Hernicans in 
 268 opposed an additional obstacle to the progress 
 of the Opican nations ; but that subsequently, the 
 wars with the Veientians, and the domestic disputes 
 which raged with more or less violence from the 
 death of Spurius Cassius, to the passing of the Pub- 
 lilian law, distracted the attention of the Romans, 
 and enabled the ^Equians and Volscians to press 
 with more effect upon the Latins and Hernicans. 
 But Antium was wrested from the Volscians by the 
 three confederate nations in 286, and the great 
 period of the Roman disasters is to be placed in the 
 ten years following that event ; unless we choose to 
 separate the date of the Volscian conquests from 
 those of the J^quians. We must then suppose that 
 Corioli, Satricum, Lavinium, and the towns in that 
 quarter, had been taken by the Volscians between 
 266 and 286, that some of these were afterwards re- 
 covered, and that the Romans during the latter part 
 of the period had been regaining their lost ground, 
 till in 286 they became, in their turn, the assailants, 
 and conquered Antium. Then the ^Equians united 
 their arms more zealously with the Volscians ; the 
 seat of the war was removed to the frontier of La- 
 tium, bordering on the ^Equians, and then followed 
 the invasion of that frontier, the establishment of 
 the ^quians on Algidus, and the repeated ravages of 
 the Roman territory between Tusculum and Rome. 
 
188 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. The period between the year 286 and the end of 
 * .^> the century, was marked by the visitations of pesti- 
 
 That period 
 
 was also lencc as well as by those of war. A short but most 
 the visita- severe epidemic had raged in the year 282 8 ; it 
 pestilence, broke out again in 288 9 , and then in 291 10 , when 
 its ravages were most fearful. It carried off both 
 the consuls, two out of the four augurs, the Curio 
 Maximus, with a great number of other persons of 
 all ages and conditions : and this sickness, like the 
 plague of Athens, was aggravated by the inroads of 
 the J^quians and Volscians, which had driven the 
 country people to fly with their cattle into Rome, 
 and thus crowded a large population into a narrow 
 space with deficient accommodations, while the state 
 of the atmosphere was in itself pestilential, even had 
 it been met under circumstances the most favour- 
 able. It is manifest that at this time the Romans 
 were in possession of no fortified towns between 
 Rome and the ^Equian frontier; when the Roman 
 armies could not keep the field, the enemy might 
 march without obstacle up to the very walls of 
 Rome itself; and there was nothing for them to win 
 except the plunder of the Roman territory, and the 
 possession of the capital. 
 And by Perhaps, too, these disastrous times were further 
 
 internal dis- , , 
 
 sensions, aggravated by another evil, which the Roman annals 
 
 which drove 
 
 were unwilling openly to avow. When matters 
 
 mans m 
 
 exile, who came to such a crisis that the commons occupied the 
 
 8 Dionysius, IX. 42. 10 Livy, III. 6, 7. Dionysius, 
 
 9 Livy, III. 2. Dionysius, IX. IX. 67. 
 60. 
 
scians. 
 
 WARS WITH THE JEQUIANS AND VOLSCIANS. 189 
 
 Capitol in arms, as was the case immediately before CHAP. 
 the passing of the Publilian law, when we read of dis- ' v ' 
 
 joined the 
 
 sensions so violent, that the consuls of three succes- armies of the 
 
 ./Equians 
 
 sive years were impeached by the tribunes, and a an . d Vo1 - 
 tribune was on the other hand murdered by the 
 aristocracy ; when again, at a somewhat later period, 
 we read of the disputes about the Terentilian law, 
 and hear of the banishment of Kseso Quinctius for 
 his violences towards the commons on that occasion, 
 we may suspect that the whole truth has not been 
 revealed to us, and that the factions of Rome, like 
 those of Greece, were attended by the banishment of 
 a considerable number of the vanquished party, so 
 that Roman exiles were often to be found in the 
 neighbouring cities, as eager to return as the Tar- 
 quinii had been formerly, and as little scrupulous as 
 they of effecting that return through foreign aid. 
 That this was actually the case, is shown by the 
 surprise of the Capitol, in the year 294, when a body 
 of men, consisting, as it is expressly said, of exiles 
 and slaves n , and headed by Appius Herdonius, a 
 
 11 It is not indeed expressly ma tentaturum et concitaturum." 
 said that the exiles were Roman Still even these words, especially 
 exiles ; and Livy, who in his whole the expression " in patriam," in- 
 narrative of the transaction says stead of " in patrias," are most 
 nothing of Kseso, or of his con- naturally to be understood of 
 nexion with the conspiracy, uses Roman exiles ; if they had been 
 language which might be applica- all Sabines, or ^Equians, or Vol- 
 ble to the case of exiles of other scians, the attempt would have 
 countries. He makes Herdonius been made on the citadel of 
 say (III. 15), " Se miserrimi cu- Cures, or Lavici, or Anxur; not 
 jusque suscepisse causam, ut ex- on the Capitol at Rome. But 
 ules injuria pulsos in patriam re- Dionysius' words (X. 14) admit 
 duceret ; id malle populo Romano of no doubt. "Hv 8e avrov yvu>fj.rj 
 auctore fieri : si ibi spes non sit, /nera TO Kparr^aai, rtav fTTiKaipordrtov 
 Volscos et jEquos, et omnia extre- TOTTCOJ/ (of Rome, namely) rovs re 
 
190 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Sabine, made themselves masters of the citadel of 
 *- ' Rome. There is, therefore, in all probability, a 
 foundation in truth for the famous story of Corio- 
 lanus, but it must be referred to a period much later 
 than the year 263, the date assigned to it in the com- 
 mon annals ; and the circumstances are so disguised 
 that it is impossible to guess from what reality 
 they have been corrupted. It would be a beautiful 
 story, could we believe that Coriolanus joined the 
 conquering Jquians and Volscians with a" body of 
 Roman exiles ; that the victories of foreigners put it 
 in his power to procure his own recall and that of his 
 companions, but that overcome by the prayers of his 
 mother, he refrained from doing such violence to the 
 laws of his country; and contented with the con- 
 quests of his protectors, he refused to turn them to 
 his own personal benefit, and chose rather to live 
 and die an exile than to owe his restoration to the 
 
 elff8exf<rdat, KOI TOVS 8ov- continued to live in their new 
 els fXtvdepiav KaXelv. These countries. See Dionys. VII. 18. 
 can certainly be no other than the This undoubtedly must mean, 
 exiles and the slaves of Rome. that many Romans were obliged 
 The supposition in the text re- to go into banishment, and these 
 ceives further confirmation from availed themselves of the treaty 
 a remarkable statement in Dio- with the Latins, which established 
 nysius, that in the year 262, just an interchange of citizenship be- 
 before the banishment of Corio- tween Rome and Latium, and 
 lanus, many Roman citizens were became citizens of some Latin 
 invited by the neighbouring cities city. And this is the simplest 
 to leave their country, and to way of accounting for the name 
 come and live with them, and Coriolanus, to suppose that he 
 enjoy their franchise of citizen- settled at Corioli, and became a 
 ship. And a great many TroXXot citizen there ; and afterwards when 
 Trdw left Rome with their families, Corioli was conquered by the 
 he says, on these terms ; some of Volscians, joined their army in 
 whom returned afterwards, when order to prosecute his revenge 
 better times arrived, but others against Rome. 
 
STORY OF CORIOLANUS. 191 
 
 swords of strangers. Be this as it may, the common CHAP. 
 
 story is so famous and so striking that it must not v ^ ' 
 
 be suppressed ; and the life and death of Coriolanus 
 are no unworthy sequel to the story of the life and 
 death of the last king Tarquinius. 
 
 CAIUS MARCIUS 12 was a noble Roman, of the race STORY OF 
 of that worthy king, Ancus Marcius 13 ; his father LANUS. 
 died when he was a child, but his mother, whose prowess at 
 
 the battle 
 
 name was Volumma, performed to him the part by the lake 
 both of father and of mother ; and Caius loved her 
 exceedingly, and when he gained glory by his feats 
 of arms, it was his greatest joy that his mother 
 should hear his praises ; and when he was rewarded 
 for his noble deeds, it was his greatest joy that his 
 mother should see him receive his crown. And he 
 fought at the battle by the lake Regillus u , against 
 king Tarquinius and the Latins, and he was then a 
 youth of seventeen years of age ; and in the heat of 
 the battle he saw a Roman beaten to the ground, 
 and his foe was rushing on him to slay him, but 
 Caius stepped before him, and covered him, and 
 slew the enemy, and saved the life of his fellow 
 soldier. So Aulus the general rewarded him with 
 an oaken wreath, for such was the reward given to 
 
 l - Zonaras, copying Dion Cas- secrated the name of Caius ; and 
 
 sius, and most of the MSS. of in this respect, as well as in calling 
 
 Livy, give the prsenomen of Co- the mother of the hero, Volumnia, 
 
 riolanus as Cnoeus, and not Caius. and his wife Virgilia, I have re- 
 
 Historically the point is of no con- garded Shakspeare's authority as 
 
 sequence ; but the richest poetry decisive. 
 
 in which the story of Coriolanus 13 Plutarch, Coriolanus, 1. 4. 
 was ever recorded, Shakspeare's u Plutarch, Coriolanus, 3. 
 tragedy on that subject, has con- 
 
192 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, those who saved the life of a comrade in battle. And 
 
 XI 
 
 ^ ' this was his first crown, but after this he won many 
 
 in many battles, for he was strong and valiant, and 
 none of the Romans could compare with him. 
 
 HOW he After this there was a war betweeen the Romans 
 
 took the 
 
 Si ty ., f . , and the Volscians ; and the Romans attacked the 
 
 Conoli, and 
 
 won the c fty o f Corioli 15 . The citizens of Corioli opened 
 
 name of t 
 
 Corioianus. their gates, and made a sally, and drove the Romans 
 back to their camp. Then Caius ran forwards with 
 a few brave men, and called back the runaways, and 
 he stayed the enemy, and turned the tide of the 
 battle, so that the Volscians fled back into the city. 
 But Caius followed them, and when he saw the gates 
 still open, for the Volscians were flying into the 
 city, then he called to the Romans, and said, " For 
 us are yon gates set wide rather than for the Vol- 
 scians : why are we afraid to rush in ?" He himself 
 followed the fugitives into the town, and the enemy 
 fled before him ; but when they saw that he was but 
 one man they turned against him ; but Caius held his 
 ground, for he was strong of hand, and light of foot, 
 and stout of heart, and he drove the Volscians to the 
 farthest side of the town, and all was clear behind 
 him ; so that the Romans came in after him without 
 any trouble, and took the city. Then all men said, 
 " Caius and none else has won Corioli ;" and Comi- 
 
 15 Plutarch, Corioianus, 8. The Romans and Latins concluded in 
 
 story represents Corioli as a this very same year, shows that 
 
 Volscian town, and as taken by Corioli was then not a Volscian 
 
 the Romans in the consulship of but a Latin town, and one of the 
 
 Postumus Cominius, A.U.C. 261. thirty states which made the al- 
 
 The authentic monument of these liance with Rome, 
 times, the treaty between the 
 
STORY OF CORIOLANUS. 193 
 
 nius the general said, " Let him be called after the CHAP. 
 
 XI 
 
 name of the city." So they called him Caius Marcius v-I 
 Coriolanus 16 . 
 
 After this there was a great scarcity of corn, and Cams of- 
 the commons were much distressed for want, and the common's, 
 king I7 of the Greeks in Sicily sent ships laden with banished. 
 corn to Rome : so the senate resolved to sell the corn 
 to the poor commons, lest they should die of hunger. 
 But Caius hated the commons, and he was angry that 
 they had got tribunes to be their leaders, and he said, 
 " If they want corn, let them show themselves obe- 
 dient to the burghers as their fathers did, and let them 
 give up their tribunes; and then will we let them 
 have corn to eat, and will take care of them." The 
 commons, when they heard this, were quite furious, 
 and they would have set upon Caius as he came out 
 of the senate-house and torn him to pieces, but the 
 tribunes said, " Nay, ye shall judge him yourselves 
 in your comitia, and we will be his accusers." So 
 
 16 The story of the taking of that the corn came from Sicily ; 
 Corioli was an attempt to explain Dionysius calls Gelon " the most 
 the name of Coriolanus, which in distinguished of the tyrants of Si- 
 reality merely showed that Mar- cily at that time," without speci- 
 cius had been settled at Corioli, fying whether, at the time of the 
 and had become a citizen of that famine at Rome, he was tyrant of 
 place after his banishment from Gela or of Syracuse. The old Ro- 
 Rome. The same explanation will man annalists, Licinius Macer and 
 serve perhaps for some other Latin Cn. Gellius, cared about Greek 
 surnames, such as Medullinus, chronology as little as Shakspeare 
 Rigillensis, Malventanus, and did about that of Rome ; and as he 
 others, recording the connexion of makes Titus Lartius talk of Cato 
 Roman families at some period or the censor, so they made Diony- 
 other with the towns from which sius the tyrant cotemporary with 
 they took their names. See note the battle of Marathon, and said 
 1 1 . that it was he who relieved the 
 
 17 Plutarch names Gelon, tyrant scarcity at Rome in the year 262. 
 of Syracuse. Livy merely says 
 
 VOL. I. O 
 
194 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, they accused Caius before the commons ; and Cains 
 
 XI 
 
 - v^ ' knew that they would show him no mercy, therefore 
 he stayed not for the day of his trial 18 but fled from 
 
 He goes Rome, and took refuge among the Volscians. They 
 and Attius Tullius their chief received him kindly, 
 
 and he lived among them a banished man. 
 Attius Tui- Attius said to himself, "Caius, who used to fight 
 
 lius stirs up . . , . , , , 
 
 war between against us, is now on our side ; we will make war 
 and vo ans again upon the Romans." But the Volscians were 
 
 scians. How , A , . ,, , 
 
 he con- afraid; so that Attius was forced to practise 
 bring this craftily, to make them do what he wished, whether 
 they would or no. Now the manner of his practice 
 was as follows 19 : The great games at Rome were 
 finished, but they were going to be celebrated over 
 again with great pomp and cost, to appease the wrath 
 of Jupiter. For Jupiter had spoken in a dream to 
 Titus Latinius, a man of the commons, and said, 
 " Go and bid the consuls to celebrate the games 
 over again with great pomp, for one danced at the 
 opening of the games - but now, whom I liked not ; 
 and vengeance is coming therefore upon this city." 
 But Titus feared to go to the consuls, for he thought 
 that every one would laugh at him, and so he did 
 not obey the god. A few days after, his son fell 
 
 18 Livy, II. 35. Ipse quum ingly. Dionysius and Plutarch 
 
 die dictfi. non adesset, persevera- seem to have forgotten that exile 
 
 turn in ira est. Dionysius, whom as a punishment was unknown to 
 
 Plutarch follows, says that the the Roman law till a much later 
 
 tribunes fixed perpetual banish- period. 
 ment as the penalty which the 19 Livy, II. 36. 
 accused should suffer if found 20 Visus Jupiter dicere, " Sibi 
 
 guilty; that he was found guilty ludis prsesultatorem displicuisse." 
 
 by the votes of twelve tribes out of Livy, II. 36. 
 twenty- one, and banished accord- 
 
STORY OF CORIOLANUS. 195 
 
 sick and died ; and again the vision appeared to him CHAP. 
 in his sleep, and said, " Wilt thou still despise ' -, 
 what I tell thee? Thy son is dead, but if thou go 
 not quickly, and do my bidding, it shall be yet worse 
 for thee." But Titus still lingered, so he was him- 
 self stricken with a palsy ; and he could not walk, 
 but they carried him in a litter. Then he delayed 
 no longer, but said to his kinsmen, " Carry me into 
 the forum, to the consuls." And they carried him 
 in his litter, and he told the consuls the bidding of 
 the god, and all that had befallen himself. When 
 he had finished his story, the consuls remembered 
 how that on the morning of the first day of the 
 games, a burgher had taken his slave and scourged 
 him in the midst of the circus where the games 
 were to be held ; and the burgher regarded it not, 
 but Jupiter saw it and was wroth: for it was a 
 holy day, and a day for mirth and gladness, and 
 not for crying and for torment. So the consuls 
 believed what Titus said, and brought him into the 
 senate, and he told the story again to the senators. 
 When lo ! so soon as he had ended his story, the 
 palsy left him, and his limbs became strong as before, 
 and he needed no more to be carried in his litter, 
 but walked home on his feet. 
 
 Thus the great games 21 were celebrated over again The Voi- 
 
 scians are 
 
 at Rome, and many of the Volscians went to Rome driven out 
 to see the sight. Then Attius went to the consuls tiic cc- a 
 privately, and said to them : " A great multitude of the gmt 
 
 games. 
 
 21 Livy, II. 37. 
 02 
 
196 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Volscians are now in Rome. I remember now on a 
 
 v ^ , like occasion, not many years since, the Sabines 
 
 made a riot in this city, and great mischief was like 
 to come of it ; loth were I that my people should do 
 aught of the same kind : but it becomes your wisdom 
 rather to hinder evil than to mend it." When the 
 consuls told this to the senate, the senate was afraid ; 
 and it was thought best to send the criers round the 
 city, to give notice that every Volscian should be 
 gone from Rome before the setting of the sun. The 
 Volscians were very angry at this, for they said to 
 one another, " Do these men then hold us to be so 
 profane and unholy, that our presence is an offence 
 to the blessed gods?" So they left Rome in haste, 
 and went home towards their own country, full 
 of indignation at the shame which was put upon 
 them. 
 
 Attiusmeets Their way home was over the hills of Alba 22 , by 
 excites them the well-head of the water of Ferentina, where the 
 with the councils of the Latins had been used to meet of old. 
 Attius knew that the Volscians would be driven 
 from Rome, and would pass that way, so he waited 
 there to meet them. At last they came up in a long 
 train, each as he could go, and Attius spoke to them, 
 and asked them what was the matter, that they had 
 so suddenly left Rome. When they told him, he 
 called them to follow him from the road, down to 
 the grass which was by the side of the stream, and 
 there they gathered round him, and he made a 
 
 22 Livy, II. 38. 
 
STORY OF CORIOLANUS. 197 
 
 speech to them, and said, "What is it that these CHAP. 
 men have done to you ? They have made a show of v v 
 you at their games before all the neighbouring na- 
 tions. Ye, and your wives, and your children, were 
 cast out at the voice of the crier, as though ye were 
 profane and unholy, and as if your presence before 
 the sight of the gods were a sacrilege. Do ye not 
 count them for your enemies already, seeing if ye 
 had not made such good haste in coming away ye 
 would have been all dead men ere now ? They have 
 made war upon us : see to it, if ye be men, that ye 
 make them rue their deed." So the Volscians 
 eagerly listened to his words, and all their tribes 
 made it a common quarrel, and they raised a great 
 army, and chose Attius and Caius Marcius the Ro- 
 man to command it. 
 
 When this great host took the field, the Romans HOW Caius 
 feared to go out to battle against it. So Caius and marched 
 Attius attacked the cities of the Latins, and they Rome. 
 first took Circeii 23 , and afterwards Satricum, and 
 Longula, and Polusca, and Corioli; and then they 
 took Lavinium, which was to the Romans a sacred 
 city, because JEneas was its founder, and because the 
 holy things of the gods of their fathers were kept 
 there. After this Caius and Attius took Corbio, and 
 Vitellia, and Trebia, and Lavici, and Pedum ; and 
 from Pedum they went towards Rome, and they en- 
 camped by the Cluilian dyke, which was no more 
 than five miles from the city ; and they laid waste 
 
 - 3 Livy, II. 39. 
 
198 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the lands of the commons of Rome, but they spared 
 * -^ ' those of the burghers ; Caius, for his part, thinking 
 that his quarrel was with the commons only, and 
 that the burghers were his friends; and Attius 
 thinking that it would cause the Romans to be jea- 
 lous of each other, and so make Rome the easier 
 to be conquered. So the host of the Volscians lay 
 encamped near Rome. 
 
 TheRo- Within the city meanwhile there was a great 
 peace, 8 but r tumult ; the women ran to the temples of the gods 
 granted. to pray for mercy, the poorer people cried out in the 
 streets that they would have peace, and that the 
 senate should send deputies to Caius and to Attius. 
 So deputies were sent 24 , five men of the chief of the 
 burghers ; but Caius answered them, " We will give 
 you no peace, till ye restore to the Volscians all the 
 land and all the cities which ye or your fathers have 
 ever taken from them ; and till 25 ye make them your 
 citizens, and give them all the rights which ye have 
 yourselves, as ye have done to the Latins." The de- 
 puties could not accept such hard conditions, so they 
 went back to Rome. And when the senate sent them 
 again to ask for gentler terms, Caius would not suffer 
 them to enter the camp. 
 The priests After this * 6 the senate sent all the priests of the 
 
 of the gods nii-i.i 
 
 go to sue for gods, and the augurs, all clothed in their sacred gar- 
 
 mercy to 
 
 Caius, but ments, and bearing in their hands the tokens of the 
 
 he will not 
 
 hear them, gods whom they served. But neither would Caius 
 
 24 Dionysius, VIII. 22. 2 Livy, II. 39. Plutarch, Co- 
 
 :5 Dionysius, VIII. 35. Plu- riolan. 32. 
 tarch, Coriolan. 30. 
 
STORY OF CORIOLANUS. 199 
 
 listen to these; so they too went back again to CHAP. 
 
 XI 
 
 Rome. 
 
 Yet, when the help of man had failed the Romans, A noble 
 the help of the gods delivered them; for among the VaieVia,per- 
 
 . i . -. suades the 
 
 women who were sitting as supplicants in the temple mother and 
 of Jupiter in the Capitol, was Valeria 27 , the sister of Cams to go 
 that Publius Valerius who had been called Poplicola, him for 
 a virtuous and noble lady, whom all held in honour. 
 As she was sitting in the temple as a suppliant be- 
 fore the image of Jupiter, Jupiter seemed to inspire 
 her with a sudden thought, and she immediately 
 rose, and called upon all the other noble ladies who 
 were with her to arise also, and she led them to the 
 house of Volumnia, the mother of Caius. There she 
 found Virgilia, the wife of Caius, with his mother, 
 and also his little children. Valeria then addressed 
 Volumnia and Virgilia, and said, " Our coming here 
 to you is our own doing ; neither the senate nor any 
 other mortal man have sent us ; but the god in whose 
 temple we were sitting as suppliants put it into our 
 hearts, that we should come and ask you to join with 
 us, women with women without any aid of men, to 
 win for our country a great deliverance, and for our- 
 selves a name glorious above all women, even above 
 those Sabine wives in the old time, who stopped the 
 battle between their husbands and their fathers. 
 Come then with us to the camp of Caius, and let us 
 pray to him to show us mercy." Volumnia said, 
 " We will go with you :" and Virgilia took her 
 
 -" Plutarch, Coriolan. 32, 33. 
 
200 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, young children with her, and they all went to the 
 * ^ ' camp of the enemy. 
 HOW his It was a sad and solemn sight 28 to see this train 
 
 wife and 
 
 mother pre- of noble ladies, and the very Volscian soldiers stood 
 
 vailed with 
 
 him, and i n silence as they passed by, and pitied them and 
 
 how he led J t J 
 
 away his honoured them. They found Caius sitting on the 
 
 army. 
 
 general's seat in the midst of the camp, and the 
 Volscian chiefs were standing round him. When 
 he first saw them he wondered what it could be ; 
 but presently he knew his mother, who was walking 
 at the head of the train ; and then he could not con- 
 tain himself, but leapt down from his seat and ran 
 to meet her, and was going to kiss her. But she 
 stopped him and said 29 , " Ere thou kiss me, let me 
 know whether I am speaking to an enemy or to my 
 son ; whether I stand in thy camp as thy prisoner or 
 as thy mother." Caius could not answer her, and then 
 she went on and said, " Must it be then, that had I 
 never borne a son, Rome never should have seen the 
 camp of an enemy ; that had I remained childless, I 
 should have died a free woman in a free city? But 
 I am too old to bear much longer either thy shame 
 or my misery. Rather look to thy wife and children, 
 whom if thou persistest thou art dooming to an un- 
 timely death, or a long life of bondage." Then Vir- 
 gilia and his children came up to him and kissed 
 him, and all the noble ladies wept and bemoaned 
 their own fate and the fate of their country. At 
 last Caius cried out, " O mother, what hast thou 
 
 28 Plutarch, Coriolan. 34. Livy, II. 40. 
 
STORY OF CORIOLANUS. 201 
 
 done to me ?" and he wrung her hand vehemently, CHAP. 
 
 XT 
 
 and said, " Mother, thine is the victory ; a happy * .^ 
 
 victory for thee and for Rome, but shame and ruin 
 to thy son." Then he fell on her neck and em- 
 braced her, and he embraced his wife and his 
 children, and sent them back to Rome; and led 
 away the army of the Volscians, and never after- 
 wards attacked Rome any more ; but he lived on a 
 banished man amongst the Volscians, and when he 
 was very old, and had neither wife nor children 
 around him, he was wont to say, " That now in old 
 age 3e he knew the full bitterness of banishment." 
 So Caius lived and died amongst the Volscians. 
 
 The Romans, as was right, honoured Volumnia HOW the 
 and Valeria for their deed, and a temple was built honoured 
 and dedicated to " Woman's Fortune 31 ," just on the ladies for 
 spot where Caius had yielded to his mother's words ; 
 and the first priestess of the temple was Valeria, into 
 whose heart Jupiter had first put the thought to go 
 to Volumnia, and to call upon her to go out to the 
 enemy's camp and entreat her son. 
 
 Such is the famous story which has rendered the 
 Volscian wars with Rome so memorable ; the wars 
 
 30 " Multo miserius seni exi- suggester of the step which saved 
 lium esse." Fabius, quoted by Rome. Niebuhr observes that 
 Livy, II. 40. Fortuna Muliebris had nothing to 
 
 31 Livy, II. 40. Dionysius, do with the successful embassy of 
 VIII. 55. It is one of Niebuhr's Volumnia and Valeria, but cor- 
 most ingenious conjectures that responded to Fortuna Virilis ; and 
 the foundation of this temple, and that both were anciently worship- 
 the fact that Valeria was the first ped ; the one as influencing the 
 priestess of it, gave occasion to fortunes of men, the other those 
 the date assigned to the story of of women. Vol. II. p. 115. 2nd 
 Coriolanus, and to the introduc- edit. 
 
 tion of Valeria into it, as the first 
 
202 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, with the ^Equians are marked by a name and a story 
 ' V ' not less celebrated, those of L. Quinctius Cincin- 
 
 natus. 
 
 STORY OF There had been peace between the Romans and 
 NAT us. the JEquians : but the ^Equians and Gracchus Clce- 
 jEquians lius 3 \ their chief, broke the peace, and plundered 
 
 break the i , -, n -, -r i e -L i 
 
 peace with the lands of the people or Lavici and or the people 
 
 Rome, and .111- i 
 
 scom the of Tusculum. They then pitched their camp on the 
 
 complaints . 
 
 of the top of Algidus; and the Romans sent deputies to 
 them to complain of the wrong which they had done. 
 It happened that the tent of Gracchus was pitched 
 under the shade of a great evergreen oak, and he was 
 sitting in his tent when the deputies came to him. 
 His answer was full of mockery ; "I, for my part," 
 said he, " am busy with other matters ; I cannot hear 
 you ; you had better tell your message to the oak 
 yonder." Immediately one of the deputies answered, 
 " Yea, let this sacred oak hear, and let all the gods 
 hear likewise, how treacherously you have broken 
 the peace ! They shall hear it now, and shall soon 
 avenge it ; for you have scorned alike the laws of the 
 gods and of men." Then they went back to Rome, 
 and the senate resolved upon war : and Lucius Mi- 
 nucius, the consul, led his legions towards Algidus, 
 to fight with the proud enemy. 
 
 HOW the But Gracchus was a skilful soldier 33 , and he pre- 
 
 army of the 
 
 consul tended to be afraid of the Romans, and retreated 
 
 Minucius 
 
 fell into an before them, and they followed him, \vithout heeding 
 where they were going. So they came into a narrow 
 
 32 Livy, III. 25. Dionysius, X. 23. 
 
STORY OF CINCINNATUS. 203 
 
 valley, with hills on either side, high, and steep, and CHAP. 
 bare ; and then Gracchus sent men secretly, who ' -^ ' 
 closed up the way by which they had entered into 
 the valley, so that they could not get back ; and the 
 hills 34 closed round the valley in front of them, and 
 on the right and left, and on the top of these hills 
 Gracchus lay with his army, while the Romans were 
 shut up in the valley below. In this valley there 
 was neither grass for the horses, nor food for the 
 men : but five horsemen had broken out, before the 
 road in the rear of the Romans was quite closed up, 
 and these rode to Rome, and told the senate of the 
 great danger of the consul and of the army. 
 
 Upon this Quintus Fabius 35 , the warden of the The RO- 
 city, sent in haste for Caius Nautius, the other Rome were 
 consul, who was with his army in the country of the alarm? 
 Sabines. When he came, they consulted together, 
 and the senate said, "There is only one man who 
 can deliver us ; we must make Lucius Quinctius 
 Master of the people." So Caius, as the manner They 
 was, named Lucius to be Master of the people ; and ifudus 
 then he hastened back to his army before the sun be Master of 
 
 . the people. 
 
 was risen. 
 
 34 This is just the description of take their description from that 
 the famous Furcse Caudina?, in of the Caudine Forks, and that it 
 which the Romans were blockaded made no part of the old legend, 
 by C. Pontius. It suits the cha- Livy's account says nothing of 
 racter of the Apennine valleys, any natural disadvantages of posi- 
 but 1 never saw any such spots tion : he merely says that the 
 on the Alban hills, where the Romans kept within their camp 
 scene of Cincinnatus' victory is through fear, and that this en- 
 laid. It is likely enough, however, couraged the ^Equians to blockade 
 that Dionysius, or the annalist them, 
 whom he followed, did actually K Dionysius, X. 23. 
 
204 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 This Lucius Quinctius let his hair grow" 6 , and 
 tended it carefully : and was so famous for his curled 
 and crisped locks, that men called him Cincinnatus, 
 or the " crisp-haired." He was a frugal man 3 \ and 
 did not care to be rich; and his land was on the 
 other side of the Tiber, a plot of four jugera, where 
 he dwelt with his wife Racilia, and busied himself in 
 the tilling of his ground. So in the morning early 
 the senate sent deputies to Lucius to tell him that 
 he was chosen to be Master of the people. The de- 
 puties went over the river, and came to his house, 
 and found him in his field at work, without his toga 
 or cloak, and digging with his spade in his ground. 
 They saluted him and said, " We bring thee a mes- 
 sage from the senate, so thou must put on thy cloak 
 that thou mayest receive it as is fitting." Then he 
 said, "Hath aught of evil befallen the state?" and 
 he bade his wife to bring his cloak, and when he had 
 put it on he went out to meet the deputies. Then 
 they said, "Hail to thee, Lucius Quinctius, the 
 senate declares thee Master of the people, and calls 
 thee to the city ; for the consul and the army in the 
 country of the JEquians are in great danger." There 
 was then a boat made ready to carry him over the 
 Tiber, and when he stepped out of the boat his three 
 sons came to meet him, and his kinsmen and his 
 friends; and the greater part of the senators. He 
 was thus led home in great state to his house, and 
 the four-and-twenty lictors, with their rods and axes, 
 
 36 Zonaras, VII. p. 346. Ed. 3 ? Livy, III. 26. 
 Paris, p. 260. Ed. Venet. 
 
STORY OF CINCINNATUS. 205 
 
 walked before him. As for the multitude, they CHAP. 
 crowded round to see him, but they feared his four- l -^ ' 
 and-twenty lictors; for they were a sign that the 
 power of the Master of the people was as sovereign 
 as that of the kings of old. 
 
 Lucius chose Lucius Tarquitius 38 to be Master of Luci " s 
 
 marches out 
 
 the horse, a brave man, and of a burgher's house ; *? deliver 
 
 the consul s 
 
 but so poor withal that he had been used to serve arm y- 
 among the foot soldiers instead of among the horse. 
 Then the Master of the people and the Master of the 
 horse went together into the forum, and bade every 
 man to shut up his booth, and stopped all causes at 
 law, and gave an order that none should look to his 
 own affairs till the consul and his army were de- 
 livered from the enemy. They ordered also that 
 every man who was of an age to go out to battle, 
 should be ready in the Field of Mars before sunset, 
 and should have with him victuals for five days, and 
 twelve stakes ; and the older men dressed the victuals 
 for the soldiers, whilst the soldiers went about every- 
 where to get their stakes ; and they cut them where 
 they would, without any hindrance. So the army 
 was ready in the Field of Mars at the time appointed, 
 and they set forth from the city, and made such 
 haste, that ere the night was half spent they came to 
 Algidus; and when they perceived that they were 
 near the enemy, they made a halt. 
 
 Then Lucius rode on, and saw 39 how the camp of He con- 
 quers the 
 
 TEquians. 
 
 38 Livy, III. 27. the story; but the original legend 
 
 39 " Quantum nocte prospici in all probability regarded dark- 
 poterat " is Livy's qualification of ness no more than distance : and 
 
206 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the enemy lay; and he ordered his soldiers to throw 
 ^ ' down all their baggage into one place, but to keep 
 each man his arms and his twelve stakes. Then they 
 set out again in their order of march as they had 
 come from Rome, and they spread themselves round 
 the camp of the enemy on every side. When this was 
 done, upon a signal given they raised a great shout, 
 and directly every man began to dig a ditch just where 
 he stood, and to set in his stakes. The shout rang 
 through the camp of the enemy, and filled them with 
 fear ; and it sounded even to the camp of the Romans 
 who were shut up in the valley, and the consul's 
 men said one to another, " Rescue is surely at hand, 
 for that is the shout of Romans." They themselves 
 shouted in answer, and sallied to attack the camp of 
 the enemy : and they fought so fiercely that they 
 hindered the enemy from interrupting the work of 
 the Romans without their camp : and this went on 
 all the night, till when it was morning, the Romans 
 who were without had drawn a ditch all round the 
 enemy, and had fenced it with their stakes ; and now 
 they left their work, and began to take part in the 
 battle. Then the ^Equians saw that there was no 
 hope, and they began to ask for mercy. Lucius an- 
 swered, "Give me Gracchus and your other chiefs 
 bound, and then I will set two spears upright in the 
 
 as it had brought the Roman connoitre the enemy as soon as 
 
 army from Rome to Algidus he arrived in their neighbourhood, 
 
 between sunset and midnight, without considering that on its 
 
 though each soldier had to carry own showing his arrival took 
 
 his baggage and twelve stakes be- place at midnight, 
 sides, so it made Cincinnatus re- 
 
STORY OF CINCINNATUS. 207 
 
 ground, and I will put a third spear across, and you CHAP. 
 shall give up your arms, and your cloaks, and shall v ~^ 
 pass every man of you under the spear bound across, 
 as under a yoke, and then you may go away free." 
 This was done accordingly ; Gracchus and the other 
 chiefs were bound, and the jEquians left their camp 
 to the Romans, with all its spoil, and put off their 
 cloaks, and passed each man under the yoke, and 
 then went home full of shame. 
 
 But Lucius would not suffer 40 the consul's army to 
 have any share of the spoil, nor did he let the consul 
 keep his power, but made him his own under-officer, 
 and then marched back to Rome. Nor did the con- 
 sul's soldiers complain, but they were rather full of 
 thankfulness to Lucius for having rescued them from 
 the enemy, and they agreed to give him a golden 
 crown ; as he returned to Rome, they shouted after 
 him, and called him their protector and their father. 
 
 Great was now the joy in Rome, and the senate Lucius 
 decreed that Lucius should enter the city in triumph, back to 
 
 . -i-ii Rome in 
 
 m the order in which the army was returning from triumph. 
 Algidus, and he rode in his chariot, while Gracchus 
 and the chiefs of the -/Equians were led bound before 
 him ; and the standards were borne before him, and 
 all the soldiers laden with their spoil followed be- 
 hind. And tables were set out at the door of every 
 house with meat and drink for the soldiers, and they 
 and the people feasted together, and followed the 
 chariot of Lucius, with singing and great rejoicings. 
 Thus the gods took vengeance upon Gracchus and 
 
 40 Livy, III. 29. 
 
208 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XI. 
 
 General 
 state of the 
 wars be- 
 tween the 
 Romans and 
 the Opican 
 nations at 
 the end of 
 the third 
 century of 
 Rome. 
 
 the .ZEquians; and thus Lucius delivered the consul 
 and his army : and all was done so quickly, that he 
 went out on one evening, and came home the next 
 day at evening victorious and triumphant. 
 
 This famous story is placed by the annalists in the 
 year of Rome 296, thirteen years after the passing 
 of the Publilian law. In such a warfare as that of 
 the Romans with the ./Equians and Volscians, there 
 are always sufficient alternations of success to furnish 
 the annalists on either side with matter of triumph ; 
 and by exaggerating every victory, and omitting or 
 slightly noticing every defeat, they form a picture 
 such as national vanity most delights in. But we 
 neither can, nor need we desire to correct and supply 
 the omissions of the details of the Roman historians : 
 it is enough to say, that at the close of the third cen- 
 tury of Rome, the warfare which the Romans had to 
 maintain against the Opican nations was generally 
 defensive : that the JEquians and Volscians had ad- 
 vanced from the line of the Apennines and esta- 
 blished themselves on the Alban hills, in the heart of 
 Latium : that of the thirty Latin states which had 
 formed the league with Rome in the year 261, 
 thirteen 41 were now either destroyed or were in the 
 
 41 Carventum, Circeii, Corioli, 
 Corbio, Cora, Fortona, (if it be the 
 same with Or ton a,) Lavici, Norba, 
 Pedum, Satricum, Setia, Tolina, 
 and Velitrse. Carventum seems 
 to have been one of the towns 
 of the Alban hills, and Niebuhr 
 suggests that we should read 
 K-opvfvravol instead of KoptoXavot 
 in Dionysius, VIII. 19, as the 
 
 people conquered by Coriolanus ; 
 for they are placed in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Corbia and Pedum ; 
 whereas the conquest of the real 
 Coriolani is mentioned in another 
 place, (VIII. 16,) and in their pro- 
 per neighbourhood. Sir W. Cell 
 supposes Carventum to have been 
 at Roca Massimi, a high point on 
 the Volscian highlands near Cora. 
 
STORY OF CINCINNATUS. 209 
 
 possession of the Opieans : that on the Alban hills 
 themselves Tusculum alone remained independent ; 
 and that there was no other friendly city to obstruct 
 the irruptions of the enemy into the territory of 
 Rome. Accordingly, that territory was plundered 
 year after year, and whatever defeats the plunderers 
 may at times have sustained, yet they were never 
 deterred from renewing a contest which they found 
 in the main profitable and glorious. So greatly had 
 the power and dominion of Rome fallen since the 
 overthrow of the Monarchy. We have now to notice 
 her wars with another enemy, the Etruscans ; and to 
 trace on this side also an equal decline in glory and 
 greatness since the reigns of the later kings. 
 
 Another supposition, as Mr. Bun- tains of which Monte Cavo is the 
 
 sen informs me, places it on Monte most western point. But nothing 
 
 Ariano : the highest eastern point is really known on the question, 
 of that volcanic range of moun- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WARS WITH THE ETRUSCANS VEII LEGEND OF THE 
 
 SLAUGHTER OF THE FABII AT THE RIVER CREMERA. 
 
 " Our bands alone 
 
 Suffice for this ; take ye no thought for it. 
 While the mole breaks the waves, and bides the tempest, 
 The ship within rides safe : while on the mountain 
 The wind is battling with the adventurous pines, 
 He stirs no leaf in the valley. So your state, 
 We standing thus in guard upon the border, 
 Shall feel no ruffling of the rudest blast 
 That sweeps from Veii." 
 
 CHAP. AFTER the great war of king Porsenna, the Etrus- 
 
 .A. .Li. 
 
 ir^-x: ' cans for several years appear to have lived in peace 
 
 Beginning 
 
 w * tn tne R mans 5 an d in the famine of the year 262, 
 when the enmity of the Volscians would allow no 
 supplies of corn to be sent to Rome from the country 
 on the left bank of the Tiber, the Etruscan cities, we 
 are told ', allowed the Romans to purchase what 
 they wanted, and the corn thus obtained was the 
 principal support of the people. But nine years 
 afterwards, in 271, a war broke out, not with the 
 
 1 Livy, II. 34. 
 
VEIL 211 
 
 Etruscans generally, but with the people of the CHAP. 
 neighbouring city of Veii. The quarrel is said - to - ^1 
 have arisen out of some plundering inroads made by 
 the Veientian borderers upon the Roman territory ; 
 but it suited the Roman aristocracy at this period to 
 involve the nation in foreign contests 3 , in order to 
 prevent the commons from insisting on the due exe- 
 cution of Cassius' agrarian law ; and quarrels which 
 at another time might easily have been settled, were 
 now gladly allowed to end in open war. 
 
 Veii 4 lay about ten miles from Rome, between situation 
 two small streams which meet a little below the veii. 81ze 
 city, and run down into the Tiber, falling into it 
 nearly opposite to Castel Giubileo, the ancient Fi- 
 denae. Insignificant in point of size, these little 
 streams, however, like those of the Campagna gene- 
 rally, are edged by precipitous rocky cliffs, and thus 
 are capable of affording a natural defence to a town 
 built on the table-land above and between them. 
 The space enclosed by the walls of Veii was equal 
 to the extent 5 of Rome itself, so long as the walls of 
 Servius Tullius were the boundary of the city : the 
 citadel stood on a distinct eminence, divided by one 
 of the little streams from the rest of the town, and 
 defended by another similar valley on the other side. 
 In the magnificence of its public and private build- 
 
 2 Dionysius, VIII. 81. 91. of Athens, II. 54. IV. 13. SirW. 
 
 3 Dionysius, VIII. 81. Dion Gell told me that the traces of the 
 Cassius, Fragm. Vatican, XX. walls of Veii, which he had clearly 
 
 4 See Sir W. Gell's Map of the made out, quite justified the com- 
 Campagna. parison of Veii in point of extent 
 
 5 Dionysius compares the size with Rome. And his map shows 
 both of Rome and Veii with that the same thing. 
 
212 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, ings Veil is said to have been preferred by the 
 / - ' Roman commons to Rome 6 : and we know enough 
 of the great works of the Etruscans to render this 
 not impossible ; but the language is too vague to be 
 insisted on ; and the Etruscan Veii was as unknown 
 to the Roman annalists as to us. On the other hand, 
 Rome had itself been embellished by Etruscan art, 
 and had been under its kings the seat of a far 
 mightier power than Veii. 
 
 The government of Veii, like that of the other 
 Etruscan cities, was in the hands of an aristocracy of 
 birth, one or more of whom were elected annually 
 by the whole body to command in war and administer 
 justice. There were no free commons ; but a large 
 population of serfs or vassals, w T ho cultivated the 
 lands of the ruling class. In wars of peculiar im- 
 portance 7 , we read from time to time of the appoint- 
 
 Its govern- 
 ment. 
 
 6 Livy, V. 24. Urbera quoque 
 urbi Romse vel situ vel magnifi- 
 centia publicorum privatorumque 
 tectorum ac locorum preepone- 
 bant. This being no more tban an 
 expression of opinion ascribed to 
 the commons, we cannot be sure 
 that Livy had any authority for it 
 at all, any more than for the lan- 
 guage of his speeches. But sup- 
 posing that he found it in some one 
 of the older annalists, still it can 
 hardly be more than the expres- 
 sion of that annalist's opinion, 
 grounded possibly upon some 
 tradition of the splendour of Veii, 
 but possibly also upon nothing 
 more than the fact that the Roman 
 commons were at one time anxi- 
 ous to remove to Veii. And if the 
 Roman commons had actually said 
 
 that Veii was a finer city than 
 Rome, when they were extolling its 
 advantages, is such an assertion to 
 be taken as an historical fact, to 
 justify us in passing a judgment 
 as to the comparative magnificence 
 of the two cities ? 
 
 ' Livy, V. 1. His words, 
 " Taedio annuae ambitionis regem 
 creavere," imply that the govern- 
 ment was commonly exercised by 
 one or more magistrates annually 
 chosen, like the consuls at Rome. 
 Niebuhr refers to the case of Lars 
 Tolumnius, who had been king of 
 Veii thirty-four years before the 
 time of which Livy is speaking; 
 and he thinks that Livy is mis- 
 taken, in supposing the appoint- 
 ment of a king in the last war 
 with Rome to have been any thing 
 
VEIL 213 
 
 ment of a king, but his office was for life only, and CHAP. 
 was not perpetuated in his family. The hereditary ^ ' 
 principle prevailed, however, in the priesthoods ; none 
 but members of one particular family could be priests 
 of Juno 8 , the goddess especially honoured at Veii. 
 
 The Veientians, like the other Etruscans, fought character of 
 
 its military 
 
 in the close order 9 of the phalanx ; their arms being force. 
 the small round shield, and the long pike. We know 
 not whether they ventured, like the Parthians, to 
 trust their serfs with arms equal to their own, and 
 to enrol them in the phalanx ; but we may more 
 probably suppose that they employed them only as 
 light-armed troops ; and if this were so, their armies 
 must have encountered the Romans at a disadvan- 
 tage, their regular infantry being probably inferior 
 in numbers to the legions, and their light troops, 
 except for desultory warfare, still more inferior in 
 quality. To make up for this, they employed the 
 services of mercenaries, who were generally to be 
 hired from one or other of the states of Etruria, 
 even when their respective countries refused to take 
 part publicly in the quarrel. 
 
 unusual. (Vol. I. p. 128. 2nd ed. a man of commanding character 
 
 note 344.) But we read of no and ability, 
 
 king after Lars Tolumnius till the 8 Livy, V. 22. 
 
 period of the last war, nor of any 9 Diodorus, Fragm. Vatican, 
 
 before him in the earlier wars Lib. XXIII. Tvpfavol x a ^ Ka ' ls 
 
 with Rome. And as the lucumo, fanrim (f)a\ayyop,axovi>T(s, for so 
 
 or chief magistrate of a single we must correct the reading 
 
 Etruscan city, was appointed some- (pdXayya paxovvres, just as a little 
 
 times chief over the whole con- below in the same passage we 
 
 federacy, when any general war read (nrftpais, i. e. cohortibus, or 
 
 broke out ; so the annual lucumo manipulis, instead of irfipals, 
 
 may have been made lucumo for which Mai absurdly renders 
 
 life in times of danger, if he were " cuspidibus." 
 
214 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The war between the Romans and Veientians, 
 which began in the year 271, lasted nine years. It 
 * s difficult to say what portion of the events re- 
 corded of it is deserving of credit ; nor would the 
 details 10 at any rate be worth repeating now. But 
 it seems to have been carried on with equal fortune 
 on both sides, and to have been ended by a perfectly 
 equal treaty. The Romans established themselves 
 on the Cremera, within the Veientian territory, built 
 a sort of town there, and after having maintained 
 their post for some time, to the great annoyance of 
 the enemy, they were at last surprised and their 
 whole force slaughtered, and the post abandoned. 
 Then the Veientians in their turn established them- 
 selves on the hill Janiculum, within the Roman 
 territory ; retaliated, by their plundering excursions 
 across the Tiber, the damage which their own lands 
 had sustained from the post on the Cremera; held 
 their ground for more than a year, and then were in 
 their turn defeated, and obliged to evacuate their 
 conquest. Two years afterwards, in 280, a peace 
 was concluded between the two nations, to last for 
 forty years ; and as the Roman historians name no 
 other stipulations, we may safely believe that the 
 
 10 The Roman accounts of the These were exactly the I 
 
 war may be found in Livy, II. 42 \iara of the Greeks, when exe- 
 
 54, and in Dionysius, VIII. 81. cuted on a larger scale as rival 
 
 91. IX. 1 36. I imagine both cities, and not mere forts. I may 
 
 the post on the Cremera and that perhaps be allowed to refer to my 
 
 on the Janiculum to have been note on Thucydides, I. 142, where 
 
 designed for permanent cities ; the the two kinds of eTrtre/xioyia are 
 
 one probably being as near to distinguished. 
 Veii as the other was to Rome. 
 
LEGEND OF THE FABII. 215 
 
 treaty 11 merely placed matters on the footing on CHAP. 
 which they had been before the war ; the Romans ,-I > 
 gave up all pretensions to the town which they had 
 founded on the Cremera ; the Veientians equally re- 
 signed their claim to the settlement which they had 
 made on the hill Janiculum. 
 
 But whatever may be thought of the history of STORY OF 
 
 * J . . THE FABII. 
 
 this war, it has been the subject of one memorable 
 legend, the story of the self-devotion of the Fabii, 
 and of their slaughter by the river Cremera. The 
 truth of domestic events, no less than of foreign, has 
 been probably disregarded by this legend ; and what 
 seems a more real account of the origin of the set- 
 tlement on the Cremera, has been given in a former 
 chapter. The story itself, however, I shall now, ac- 
 cording to my usual plan, proceed to offer in its own 
 form. 
 
 The Veientians dared not meet the Romans 12 in The Fabian 
 
 ft i 11-11 i i house offers 
 
 the open field, but they troubled them exceedingly to take the 
 ... 111 i war with tn 
 
 with their incursions to plunder the country. And Veientians 
 
 i i TT-I i i IT i wholly upon 
 
 on the other side, the JCquians and the Volscians itself, 
 were making war upon the Romans year after year > 
 and while one consul went to fight with the ^Equians 
 
 11 Niebuhr supposes that the restore out of generosity more 
 
 septem pagi, which the Romans than thirty years before. Is there 
 
 had lost in the war with Porsenna, any reason to believe that the 
 
 were at this time recovered. But Romans advanced their frontier, 
 
 if so, the annalists would surely on the right bank of the Tiber 
 
 have boasted of the cessions of opposite Rome, beyond the hills 
 
 territory made by the Veientians, which bound the valley of the 
 
 even if they had been consistent river, previously to their conquest 
 
 enough not to describe the coun- of Veil ? 
 
 try recovered as the very same 12 Livy, II. 48. et seqq. 
 which they had made Porsenna 
 
216 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, and the other with the Volscians, there was no one 
 
 "Y"i r 
 
 > ,_ to stop the plunderings of the Veientians. So the 
 men of the Fabian house consulted together, and 
 when they were resolved what to do, they all went 
 to the senate-house. And Kseso Fabius, who was 
 consul for that year, went into the senate, and said, 
 " We of the house of the Fabii take upon us to 
 fight with the Veientians. We ask neither men nor 
 money from the Commonwealth, but we will wage 
 the war with our own bodies at our own cost." The 
 senate heard him joyfully : and then he went home, 
 and the other men of his house followed him ; and 
 he told them to come to him the next day, each man 
 in his full arms ; and so they departed. 
 
 The Fabu The house of Kseso was on the Quirinal hill ; and 
 
 establish 
 
 themselves thither all the Fabii came to him the next day, as he 
 
 on the river 
 
 Cremera. had desired them ; and there they stood in array in 
 the outer court of his house. Kaeso then put on his 
 vest, such as the Roman generals were used to wear 
 in battle, and came out to the men of his house, 
 and led them forth on their way. As they went, 
 a great crowd followed after them and blessed them, 
 and prayed the gods for their prosperity. They 
 were in all three hundred and six men, and they 
 went down from the Quirinal hill, and passed along 
 by the Capitol, and went out of the city by the gate 
 Carmentalis, by the right hand passage of the gate. 
 Then they came to the Tiber, and went over the 
 bridge, and entered into the country of the Veien- 
 tians, and pitched their camp by the river Cremera ; 
 for there it was their purpose to dwell, and to make 
 
LEGEND OF THE FABII. 217 
 
 it a stronghold, from which they might lay waste CHAP. 
 the lands of the Veientians, and carry off their cattle. * v - 
 So they built their fortress by the river Cremera, 
 and held it for more than a year ; and the Veientians 
 were greatly distressed, for their cattle and all their 
 goods became the spoil of the Fabians. 
 
 But there was a certain day 13 on which the men The Veien- 
 of the house of the Fabians were accustomed to offer ambush for 
 
 them, and 
 
 sacrifice and to keep festival together to the gods of wii them 
 
 all, 
 
 their race, in the seat of their fathers on the hill 
 Quirinal. So when the day drew near, the Fabians 
 set out from the river Cremera, three hundred and 
 six men in all, and went towards Rome ; for they 
 thought that as they were going to sacrifice to their 
 gods, and as it was a holy time, and a time of peace, 
 no enemy would set upon them. But the Veientians 
 knew of their going, and laid an ambush for them on 
 their -way, and followed them with a great army. So 
 when the Fabians came to the place where the 
 ambush was, behold the enemy attacked them on the 
 right and on the left, and the army of the Veientians 
 that followed them fell upon them from behind ; and 
 they threw their darts and shot their arrows against 
 the Fabians, without daring to come within reach of 
 
 13 This latter part of the story of the Fabians to the sacrifices of 
 
 is one of the versions of it given their house on the Quirinal, was 
 
 by Dionysius, which he rejects as a part of their traditional charac- 
 
 improbable. Of course I am not ter : a similar story was told of 
 
 maintaining its probability, but I C. Fabius Dcrso, who broke out 
 
 agree with Niebuhr in thinking it from the Capitol while the Gauls 
 
 a far more striking story than were besieging it, and made his 
 
 that which Dionysius prefers to it, way to the Quirinal hill to per- 
 
 and which has been adopted by form the appointed sacrifice of his 
 
 Livy and by Ovid. The devotion house. 
 
218 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, spear or sword, till they slew them every man. 
 
 >~ Three hundred and six men of the house of the Fa- 
 bians were there killed, and there was not a grown 
 man of the house left alive : one boy only on ac- 
 count of his youth had been left behind in Rome, 
 and he lived and became a man, and preserved the 
 race of the Fabians ; for it was the pleasure of the 
 gods that great deeds should be done for the Romans 
 by the house of the Fabians in after-times. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 INTERNAL HISTORY THE TERENTILIAN LAW AP- 
 POINTMENT OF THE TEN HIGH COMMISSIONERS TO 
 FRAME A CODE OF WRITTEN LAWS. A.U.C. 284-303. 
 
 rols TroXXois / 
 
 Xi/iwi/ ot> 7rXeoi/e/creI \LOVQV, dXXa nai ^vfj.7rai> d(f)f\ofj.fvr] e%(C a vp.a>v oi 
 re 8vvdp.(voi KOI ol veoi irpodvpouvTat, dSuvara eV fieyaXr] noKfi KaratT^fiv. 
 
 THUCYDIDES, VI. 39. 
 
 Tfraprov tlbos oXiyap^ias, orav TTCUS dvrl jrarpoy flfrlrj, KOI ap^r) /iij 6 
 vofjios dXX' oi apxovTfs. Kai fcrrtv dvricrTpo<pos avrri tv rais oXtyap- 
 ^taty, tocTTrep fj rvpavvis fv TCUQ fj.ovapxia.is, Kal nfpl r/s TfXevrai'as 
 tv rais 8-rjp.oKpaTiais. ARISTOTLE, Politic. IV. 5. 
 
 NOTHING is more unjust than the vague charge some- 
 times brought against Niebuhr, that he has denied 
 the reality of all the early history of Rome. On the 
 contrary, he has rescued from the dominion of scep- 
 ticism much which less profound inquirers had before 
 too hastily given up to it ; he has restored and esta- 
 blished far more than he has overthrown. Ferguson 
 finds no sure ground to rest on till he comes to the 
 second Punic war : in his view, not only the period 
 of the kings and the first years of the Commonwealth, 
 but the whole of two additional centuries, not only 
 the wars with the jEquians and Volscians, but those 
 with the Gauls, the Samnites, and even with Pyrrhus, 
 
220 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. are involved in considerable uncertainty. The 
 
 XIII 
 
 , / _l_^ progress of the constitution he is content to trace in 
 the merest outline ; particular events, and still more 
 particular characters, appear to him to belong- to 
 poetry or romance rather than to history. Whereas 
 Niebuhr maintains that a true history of Rome, 
 with many details of dates, places, events, and cha- 
 racters, may be recovered from the beginning of the 
 Commonwealth. It has been greatly corrupted and 
 disguised by ignorant and uncritical writers, but 
 there exist, he thinks, sufficient materials to enable 
 us, not only to get rid of these corruptions, but to 
 restore that genuine and original edifice which they 
 have so long overgrown and hidden from our view. 
 And accordingly, far from passing over hastily, like 
 Ferguson, the period from the expulsion of Tarqui- 
 nius to the first Punic war, he has devoted to it some- 
 what more than two large volumes ; and from much, 
 that to former writers seemed a hopeless chaos, he 
 has drawn a living picture of events and institutions, 
 as rich in its colouring, as perfect in its composition, 
 as it is faithful to the truth of nature. 
 
 Were I indeed to venture to criticise the work of 
 this great man, I should be inclined to charge him 
 with having overvalued rather than undervalued the 
 possible certainty of the early history of the Roman 
 Commonwealth. He may seem in some instances 
 rather to lean too confidently on the authority of the 
 ancient writers, than to reject it too indiscriminately. 
 But let no man judge him hastily, till by long ex- 
 perience in similar researches, he has learnt to esti- 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY. 221 
 
 mate sufficiently the instinctive power of discerning CHAP. 
 truth, which even ordinary minds acquire by constant ^ 
 practice. In Niebuhr, practice, combined with the 
 natural acuteness of his mind, brought this power to 
 a perfection which has never been surpassed. It is 
 not caprice, but a most sure instinct, which has led 
 him to seize on some particular passage of a careless 
 and ill-informed writer, and to perceive in it the 
 marks of most important truth ; while on other oc- 
 casions he has set aside the statements of this same 
 writer, with no deference to his authority whatever. 
 To say that his instinct is not absolutely infallible, 
 is only to say that he was a man ; but he who follows 
 him most carefully, and thinks over the subject of 
 his researches most deeply, will find the feeling of 
 respect for his judgment continually increasing, and 
 will be more unwilling to believe what Niebuhr 
 doubted, or to doubt what he believed. 
 
 I have said thus much as a preface to the ensuing 
 chapter, in which I am to trace the internal history 
 of Rome, from the passing of the Publilian law to 
 the appointment of the decemvirs. The detail itself 
 will show how little Niebuhr has deserved to be 
 charged with overthrowing the Roman history; while, 
 on the other hand, if I have followed him even on 
 ground on which, had he not pronounced it to be 
 firm, I might myself have feared to venture, I have 
 done it, not in blind or servile imitation, but in the 
 reasonable confidence inspired by experience. For 
 many years I had doubted and disputed Niebuhr's 
 views on several points of importance, but having 
 
222 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, had reason at last to be convinced that they were 
 
 XIII 
 
 , > right, I feel for him now a deference the more un- 
 hesitating, as it was not hastily given, nor without 
 inquiry. 
 
 A.u.c.283. Immediately after the passing of the Publilian 
 Campaign' law ', the consuls took the field against the ^Equians 
 
 of Appius 
 
 Claudius and Volscians. It was now the period when those 
 
 against the 
 
 vEquians two nations were pressing most dangerously upon 
 sdans. Latium, not only overruning the territory both of 
 the Latins and Romans with their plundering incur- 
 sions, but taking or destroying the cities of the 
 Latin confederacy. There was no choice therefore 
 but to oppose them ; and thus the hated Appius Clau- 
 dius, as well as his colleague, T. Quinctius, led out an 
 army from the city. But the mutual suspicion and 
 hatred between him and the commons was so great 
 that they could not act together. He was tyrannical, 
 and his soldiers became discontented and disobe- 
 dient : in this temper they met the Volscians and 
 were beaten ; and Appius, finding it hopeless to con- 
 tinue the campaign, began to retreat towards Rome. 
 On his retreat he was again attacked and again 
 beaten; the soldiers, it is said, throwing away their 
 arms and flying at the first onset. Thus doubly 
 embittered by the shame of his defeats, and having 
 obtained some colour for his vengeance, Appius, as 
 soon as he had rallied his army on ground out of the 
 reach of the enemy, proceeded to indulge his old 
 feelings of hatred to the commons. By the aid of the 
 Latin and Hernican troops who were present in the 
 
 1 Livy, II. 58, 59. Dionysius, IX. 50. 
 
TRIAL OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS. 223 
 
 army, and above all of the Roman burghers, who CHAP. 
 formed the best armed and best trained part of his v -,> 
 own forces, he was enabled to seize and execute 
 every centurion whose century had fled, and every 
 standard-bearer who had lost his standard, and then 
 to put to death one out of every ten men of the 
 whole multitude of legionary soldiers. 
 
 The maintenance of military discipline, by what- Appius is 
 
 brought to 
 
 ever degree of severity it was effected, was regarded trial - 
 
 * Different 
 
 by the Romans, not as a crime, but as a sacred duty ; accounts of 
 
 J his sub- 
 
 nor would even the commons have complained of sequent fate. 
 
 Appius for simply punishing with rigour his cowardly 
 
 or mutinous soldiers. But when new consuls were A.u.c.284. 
 
 A.C. 468. 
 
 come into office, L. Valerius and T. .ZEmilius 2 , and 
 both showed themselves inclined to carry into effect 
 the agrarian law of Sp. Cassius, while Appius still 
 opposed it, and was most forward in defeating the 
 measure, then two of the tribunes, M. Duilius and 
 C. Sicinius 3 , brought him to trial before the commons 
 as the perpetual enemy of their order ; accusing him 
 of giving evil counsels to the senate, of having laid 
 violent hands on the sacred person of a tribune in 
 the disputes about the Publilian law, and lastly, of 
 having brought loss and shame on the Common- 
 wealth, by his ill conduct in his late expedition 
 against the Volscians. His bloody executions were 
 
 2 Livy, II. 61. Dionysius, IX. the year; the consuls at this 
 51 54. period began their year on the 
 
 3 These were two of the tribunes first of August (Livy, III. 6); 
 elected when the Publilian law was when the tribunes began theirs, 
 passed. The tribunes and consuls before the decemvirate, is uncer- 
 came into office, it should be re- tain. See Niebuhr, Vol. ii. p. 227, 
 membered, at different times of and note 492. 2nd edit. 
 
224 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, not charged as a crime against him ; but every friend 
 
 * ., ' ' or relation of his victims would feel, that he who had 
 
 dealt such severe justice to others, could claim no 
 mitigation of justice towards himself; and Appius felt 
 this also, and neither expected mercy from the com- 
 mons, nor would yield to ask it. A most extraordinary 
 difference prevails, however, in the accounts of his 
 subsequent fate. The common story says that he died 
 in prison before his trial, implying that he killed 
 himself to escape his sentence ; but according to the 
 Fasti Capitolini 4 , it was this same Appius who twenty 
 years afterwards became decemvir ; and we must sup- 
 pose, therefore, that he now fled from Rome, and lived 
 for some years in exile at Regillus, till circumstances 
 enabled him to return, and to take part in public 
 affairs once more. 
 A.u.c.285. The two following years were marked 5 by con- 
 
 A.C. 467. ... , , i / f^ 
 
 Antium and tinued contests about the agrarian law of Cassms, 
 taken by which still led to no result. The fortune of war, 
 
 the Romans. . . - , 
 
 however, gave some relief to the necessities of the 
 poorer commons : for in the year 285, the port 6 of 
 
 4 It had been long known that same man who had been consul in 
 
 the Fasti called Appius the de- 283. 
 
 cemvir, " Ap. F. M. N." " Appii 5 Livy, II. 63 65. Dionysius, 
 
 Filius, Marci Nepos;" whereas IX. 56 58. 
 
 the common story makes him the 6 Livy calls this place, Ceno : 
 grandson, as well as the son of an the Antiates it seems already had 
 Appius. But one of the recently- begun the piracies, of which De- 
 discovered fragments of the Fasti metrius Poliorcetes complained 
 calls the decemvir, under the year long afterwards to the Romans ; 
 302, " Appius Claudius, Ap. F. and the merchandize taken by the 
 M. N. Crassin. Regill. Sabinus, Romans was partly, it is said, ob- 
 II." clearly showing that by call- tained in this manner, probably 
 ing the consulship of 302 his se- from the Carthaginians. The si- 
 cond consulship, the author of the tuation of Ceno is unknown : 
 Fasti considered him to be the Strabo speaks of Antium itself as 
 
PERIOD OF PESTILENCE. 225 
 
 Antium was taken, and a quantity of merchandize CHAP. 
 
 XIII 
 
 was found there which was all given up to the > ^> 
 soldiers; and the year following Antium itself fell 
 into the hands of the Romans ; and on this occasion 
 also the soldiers derived some profit from their 
 conquest. 
 
 In the year 287, Ti. ^Emilius, one of the con- A.U.C. 286. 
 
 A C* 4.fiR 
 
 suls, supported the demand of the tribunes for the 
 execution of the agrarian law ; and we are told that 
 the senate 7 , in order to pacify the commons by a 
 partial compliance, proposed to send a colony to 
 Antium, and to allow the commons as well as the 
 burghers to enrol themselves amongst the colonists. 
 But as the colony was to consist equally of Romans 8 , 
 Latins, and Hernicans, and would be placed in a 
 position of great insecurity, being in fact no other 
 than a garrison which would have at once to keep 
 down the old population of the city within, and to 
 defend itself against enemies without, the relief thus 
 offered to the commons was neither very considerable 
 in its amount, nor in its nature very desirable. 
 
 The next year began a period of distress and suf- Se r ere v j. si - 
 
 * tations of 
 
 fering so severe, and arising from such various causes, P estilence - 
 that political disputes were of necessity suspended, 
 and for four years no mention is made of any de- 
 mands for the agrarian law, or of any other proceed- 
 ing of the tribunes. The middle of the fifth century 
 before the Christian aera was one of those periods in 
 the history of mankind which, from causes to us 
 
 being without a harbour, as stand- 7 Livy, III. 1. 
 
 ing high upon cliffs. 8 Dionysius, IX. 59. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, unknown, have been marked by the ravages of pesti- 
 v v-^ ' lence ; when a disease of unusual virulence has in a 
 manner travelled up and down over the habitable 
 world during the space of twenty, thirty, or even 
 fifty years ; returning often to the same place after a 
 certain interval; pausing sometimes in its fury, and 
 appearing to sleep, but again breaking out on some 
 point or other within its range, till, at the end of its 
 appointed period, it disappears altogether. Rome 
 was first visited by one of these pestilences, as has 
 been already mentioned, in the year 282, when it 
 caused a very great mortality ; it now returned again 
 in 288 9 , and crippled the operations of the Roman 
 army against the jiEquians. Whether it continued 
 A.U.C. 289. in the following year is uncertain, but the ^Equians 
 plundered the Roman territory with great success ; 
 and although the Roman annalists pretend that to- 
 wards the end of the year the consul, Q. Fabius, cut 
 off the main body of the plunderers, and then in 
 turn ravaged the lands of the enemy, yet it is mani- 
 fest that the campaign was on the whole unfavour- 
 able to the Romans. So it was the next year also : 
 the united forces of the Romans, Latins, and Her- 
 nicans, could not prevent the total ravaging of the 
 Roman territory ; and the crowding !0 of the fugitives 
 from the country into the city was a cause or an 
 aggravation of the return of the pestilence, which 
 broke out again in the autumn, soon after the ap- 
 pointment of the consuls for the year 291, with 
 
 9 Livy, III. 2. o Livy, III. 6. 
 
THE TERENTILIAN LAW. 227 
 
 unparalleled fury. During the whole of this fatal CHAP. 
 year, the Romans were dying by thousands within ^ ., ' 
 the city, while the ./Equians and Volscians were ra- 
 vaging the whole country without opposition, and 
 defeated with great loss the Latins and Hernicans, 
 who vainly attempted to defend the territory of their 
 allies and their own. At last the pestilence abated, 
 and the new consuls, in the autumn of 292 n , took A.C. 460. 
 the field, and made head against the enemy with 
 some effect. Immediately on this first gleam of 
 better times, the political grievances of the com- 
 mons began again to excite attention and to claim 
 redress. 
 
 We are told that one of the tribunes 12 again F\nt P- 
 
 ppsai *" " ie 
 brought forward the question of the agrarian law ; Terentffian 
 
 but that the commons themselves refused to en- 
 tertain it, and resolved to put it off till a more 
 favourable opportunity. This is ascribed by Diony- 
 sius to the zeal which all orders felt to take venge- 
 ance on their foreign enemies ; but he forgets that 
 another measure, no less obnoxious to the burghers, 
 was brought forward in this year, and readily received 
 by the commons : and the better explanation is, that 
 the leaders of the commons began to see that they 
 must vary their course of proceeding ; that to con- 
 tend for the agrarian law under the actual consti- 
 tution, was expecting fresh and pure water from a 
 defiled spring ; the real evil lay deeper, and the com- 
 
 11 Livy, III. 8. Tt'rov ; Gelenius proposes to read 
 
 12 Dionysius, IX. 69. The name Tm'ou. 
 of the tribune is corrupt, 2erou 
 
 Q2 
 
228 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIII. 
 
 Adhial 
 grievances 
 of the com- 
 
 must obtain equal rights and equal power with 
 the burghers, before they could hope to carry such 
 measures as most concerned their welfare. Accord- 
 ingly, Caius Terentilius 13 Harsa, one of the tribunes, 
 proposed a law for a complete reform of the existing 
 state of things. Its purport was that H ten com- 
 missioners should be chosen, five by the commons 
 and five by the burghers, and that those so chosen 
 should draw up a constitution, which should define 
 all points of constitutional, civil, and criminal law; 
 and should thus determine, on just and fixed princi- 
 ples, all the political, social, and civil relations of all 
 orders of the Roman people. 
 
 Now, as a popular cry for reform has never origi- 
 nated in the love of abstract justice, or in the mere 
 desire of establishing a perfect form of government, 
 but has been always provoked by actual grievances, 
 and has looked especially for some definite and par- 
 ticular relief, so the Roman commons, in supporting 
 
 13 Livy, III. Q. Niebuhr writes 
 the tribune's name " Terentilius," 
 according to some of the best 
 MSS. of Livy. Dionysius calls 
 him " Terentius." 
 
 14 Livy speaks only of five ; 
 Dionysius of ten : Niebuhr re- 
 conciles the two statements in the 
 manner given in the text. 
 
 These " high commissioners," 
 "Decemviri legibus scribendis," 
 were like the Greek vopodfrai, or 
 in the language of Thucydides, 
 (VIII. 67) which exactly expresses 
 the object of the Terentilian law, 
 dfKa avftpas eXttrffat vyypa(peas 
 avroKparopas Kaff o n apiara 
 fj traXis oi/ojererat. We are SO 
 
 accustomed to distinguish between 
 a constitution and a code of laws, 
 that we have no one word which 
 will express both, or convey a full 
 idea of the wide range of the com- 
 missioners' powers : which em- 
 braced at once the work of the 
 French constituent assembly, and 
 that of Napoleon when he drew 
 up his code. But this compre- 
 hensiveness belonged to the cha- 
 racter of the ancient lawgivers; a 
 far higher term than legislators, 
 although etymologically the same ; 
 they provided for the whole life of 
 their citizens in all its relations, 
 social, civil, political, moral, and 
 religious. 
 
THE TERENTILIAN LAW. 
 
 the Terentilian law, were moved by certain practical CHAP. 
 
 XTT F 
 
 evils, which lay so deep in the existing state of* ^> 
 things, that nothing else than a total reform of 
 the constitution could remove them. These were, 
 the extreme separation and unequal rights of the 
 burghers and the commons, the arbitrary powers of 
 the consuls, and the uncertainty and variety of the 
 law ; evils which affected every part of men's daily 
 life : and the first of them in particular was a direct 
 obstacle to that execution of Cassius' agrarian law, 
 on which the actual subsistence of the poorer com- 
 mons after the late times of misery and ruin might 
 be said to depend. 
 
 Society has almost always begun in inequality, and Their ori- 
 
 J J J ginalpoliti- 
 
 its tendency is towards equality. This is a sure pro- caicoudition 
 
 J J l was not 
 
 gress ; but the inequality of its first stage is neither suitable to 
 
 ^ * t their altered 
 
 unnatural nor unjust ; it is only the error of preserv- circum- 
 stances. 
 ing instead of improving which has led to injustice ; 
 
 the folly of thinking that men's institutions can be 
 perpetual when every thing else in the world is con- 
 tinually changing. When the conquered Latins 
 were first brought to Rome by those who were then 
 the only Roman citizens, when they were allowed to 
 retain their personal liberty, to enjoy landed pro- 
 perty, and to become so far a part of the Roman 
 people, it was not required that they should at once 
 pass from the condition of foreigners to that of per- 
 fect citizens ; the condition of commons was a fit 
 state of transition from the one rank to the other. 
 But after years had passed away, and both they and 
 their original conquerors were in fact become one 
 
230 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, people ; above all, when this truth had been already 
 
 XIII 
 
 * ^ * practically acknowledged by the constitution of Ser- 
 vius Tullius ; to continue the old distinctions was 
 but provoking a renewal of the old hostility : if the 
 burghers and the commons were still to be like two 
 nations, the one sovereign and the other subject, the 
 commons must retain the natural right of asserting 
 their independence on the first opportunity, of wholly 
 dissolving their connexion with those who refused to 
 carry it out to its full completion. That their desire 
 was for complete union, rather than for independence, 
 arose, over and above all other particular causes, from 
 that innate fondness for remaining as we are, which 
 nothing but the most intolerable misery can wholly 
 eradicate. 
 
 Means The burghers resolved to resist the Terentilian 
 
 adopted by . 
 
 the burghers law, but they wished apparently, as in the case of 
 the Publilian laws, to prevent its being passed by 
 the commons in their tribes, rather than to throw 
 it out in their own assembly of the curise or in the 
 senate. Accordingly, they again proceeded by an 
 organized system of violence : the younger burghers 
 were accustomed to have their brotherhoods or clubs, 
 like the young men of the aristocratical party in 
 Athens ; the members of these clubs were ready to 
 dare anything for the support of their order, and 
 being far more practised in martial exercises than 
 the commons, were superior in activity if not in ac- 
 tual strength, and, by acting in a body, repeatedly 
 interrupted all business, and drove their antagonists 
 from the forum. At the head of these systematic 
 
 to oppose the 
 
 Terentilia 
 peac 
 
 of KZESO 
 
THE ICILIAN LAW. 231 
 
 rioters was Kaeso Quinctius I5 , the son of the famous CHAP. 
 L. Quinctius Cincinnatus ; and he made himself so v-^ ' 
 conspicuous, that A. Virginius, one of the tribunes, 
 impeached him before the assembly of the tribes, 
 and named a day on which he was to appear to 
 answer to the charge. 
 
 This is the fifth instance of impeachment by the oftheici- 
 
 , . , . lian law, on 
 
 tribunes, which we have met with in the course of which hia 
 fifteen years, besides the famous case of Coriolanus. ment was 
 
 mi i i grounded. 
 
 Ihe right in the present case was grounded on the 
 Icilian law, brought forward by a tribune, Sp. Icilius, 
 which I have not noticed before, because the time at 
 which it passed is doubted. Dionysius, who alone 
 mentions it, places 16 it as early as the year 262, in 
 the year after the first appointment of the tribunes ; 
 while Niebuhr thinks that it could not have been 
 earlier than the year 284, and that it was one of the 
 consequences of the success of the Publilian laws. 
 It established the important point, that if any bur- 
 gher interrupted a tribune when speaking to the 
 commons in their own assembly, the tribune might 
 impeach him before the commons, and might require 
 him to give sureties to such an amount as the 
 accuser should think proper ; if he refused to give 
 security, he was to be put to death and his property 
 confiscated ; if he demurred to the amount of the 
 sum required, this question also was to be tried by 
 the commons. The great object in this law was to 
 assert the jurisdiction of the commons over a bur- 
 
 15 Livy, III. 11. Dionysius, X. 16 Dionysius, VII. 17. 
 
 4,5. 
 
232 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, gher ; hence the severity of the punishment if the 
 .._!__ accused refused to give the required security; he 
 was then to be put to death as an open enemy ; but 
 if he complied, and appeared to answer to the charge, 
 the ordinary sentence for a mere interruption of the 
 business of the assembly of the tribes would proba- 
 bly be no more than a fine ; and this seems to have 
 caused the confusion of Dionysius' statement, for he 
 represents the sureties as required, not for the accused 
 person's appearance at his trial, but for his payment 
 of such a fine as the tribunes might impose, as if the 
 sentence could in no case exceed a fine. Whereas 
 the case of Appius Claudius, as well as that of Ka?so, 
 prove the contrary; and of Kseso, Livy says 17 ex- 
 pressly that the tribune impeached him for a capital 
 offence, before the alleged charge of murder was 
 brought against him. In fact, where there is no 
 fixed criminal law, awarding certain punishments for 
 certain offences, the relation of judge implies a power 
 of deciding not only as to the guilt or innocence of 
 the prisoner, but also as to the degree of his guilt, 
 and the nature of the punishment to be inflicted. 
 And much more would this be the case when the 
 judgment was exercised, not by an individual magis- 
 trate, but by the sovereign society itself. 
 Kaesogoes According to the Icilian law, the tribune called 
 
 into exile 
 
 IriJj 1 * his u P on Kaeso Quinctius to give sureties for his appear- 
 ance, and the amount of the security required was 
 heavy ; he was to find ten sureties 18 at three thou- 
 
 17 "A. Virginias Kaesoni capi- 18 Livy, III. 13. 
 tis diem dicit." III. 11. 
 
KJESO QUINCTIUS. 233 
 
 sand asses each. But in the mean time a witness, CHAP. 
 
 XIII 
 
 M. Volscius Fictor, who had been tribune some years ( / - 
 before, came forward to charge Kseso with another 
 and a totally distinct crime. " During the time of 
 the plague," he said, " he and his brother, a man ad- 
 vanced in years, and not completely recovered from 
 an attack of the pestilence, had fallen in with Kaeso 
 and a party of his club in all the licence of riot in 
 the Suburra. An affray had followed, and his bro- 
 ther had been knocked down by Kseso : the old man 
 had been carried home, and died, as he thought, from 
 the injury ; but the consuls had every year refused 
 to listen to his complaint, and try the offender." 
 Outrages of this sort on the part of the young aris- 
 tocracy were common even at Athens 19 ; in aristo- 
 cratical states they must have been far more fre- 
 quent ; and in all ordinary cases there is a sympathy 
 with youth and birth, even amongst the people them- 
 selves, which is against any severe dealing with such 
 excesses. But Kseso's offence was gross, and seemed 
 to belong to his general character ; the commons 
 were indignant to the highest degree at this new 
 crime, and could scarcely be prevented from tearing 
 the offender to pieces. Even the tribune thought 
 that no money security was sufficient when the 
 charge was so serious ; the body of the accused must 
 be kept safe in prison that he might abide the sen- 
 tence of the law. But some of the other tribunes were 
 
 19 See the well-known speech of See too the stories told in Plu- 
 Demosthenes against Midias, and tarch of the manifold excesses of 
 also the speech against Conon. Alcibiades. 
 
234 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, prevailed on by the powerful friends of the criminal 
 ' v- ' to extend to him their protection ; they forbade the 
 attachment of his person. Being thus left at large, 
 he withdrew from justice, and fled across the Tiber 
 into Etruria before his trial came on 20 . His relations, 
 by whose influence justice had been thus defrauded, 
 paid the poor compensation of their forfeited bail ; 
 and even here the punishment would not fall on the 
 guilty, for when a burgher was fined, his clients were 
 bound to contribute to discharge it for him. 
 Conspiracy Kseso's flight provoked his associates to dare 
 
 to effect his . . . . __ , 
 
 return. the last extremities. Irom mere rioters they be- 
 came conspirators ; and they played their game 
 deeply. Still continuing their riots whenever the 
 assembly of the tribes met, but taking care that no 
 one of their body should be especially conspicuous, 
 they on all other occasions 21 endeavoured to make 
 themselves popular : they would speak civilly to the 
 commons, would talk with them, and ask them to 
 their houses, well knowing how readily the poor and 
 the humble are won by a little attention and libe- 
 rality on the part of the rich and noble. Meanwhile, 
 a darker plot was in agitation : Kseso held frequent 
 communication with them ; he had joined himself to 
 a band of exiles and runaway slaves from various 
 quarters, such as abounded in Italy then no less than 
 in the middle ages : with this aid he would surprise 
 the Capitol by night, his associates would rise and 
 massacre the tribunes and the most obnoxious of the 
 
 20 Livy, III. 13. Z1 Livy, III. 14. 
 
SURPRISE OF THE CAPITOL. 235 
 
 commons, and thus the old ascendancy of the bur- CHAP. 
 
 XIII 
 
 ghers would be restored, such as it had been before * ^ j 
 the fatal concessions made at the Sacred Hill. 
 
 Such was the information which the tribunes, ac- A party of 
 
 t-\ i exiles and 
 
 cording to Dionysius , laid before the senate, soon slaves sur- 
 after Kseso's flight from Rome. From what annalist Capitol by 
 
 . -i 1 . i night ; but 
 
 he copied this statement does not appear ; but Livy, itisrecover- 
 
 * ed the next 
 
 who has followed some author far more partial da y> and the 
 
 party who 
 
 to the Quinctian family, makes no mention of it, nad seized it 
 
 are cut to 
 
 although it is really essential to the right understand- P ieces - 
 ing of his own subsequent narrative. For in the 
 next year, according to the account of both Livy 
 and Dionysius 23 , the Capitol was surprised by night 
 by a body of slaves and exiles, and the leader of the 
 party made it his first demand that all Roman exiles 
 should be restored to their country. The burghers 
 had great difficulty in persuading the commons to 
 take up arms ; till at last the consul P. Valerius pre- 
 vailed with them, and relying on his word that he 
 would not only allow the tribunes to hold their as- 
 sembly for the consideration of the Terentilian law, 
 but would do his best to induce the senate and the 
 curiae to give their consent to it, the commons fol- 
 lowed him to the assault of the Capitol. He himself 
 was killed in the onset ; but the Capitol was carried, 
 and all its defenders either slain on the spot, or 
 afterwards executed. 
 
 The leader of this desperate band is said to have KKSO'S share 
 been a Sabine, Appius Herdonius ; and in the story prise not er 
 
 openly ac- 
 knowledged. 
 
 22 Dionysius, X. 10, 11. 23 Livy, HI. 15. Dionysius, X. 1416. 
 
236 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, of the actual attempt, the name of Kaeso is not men- 
 
 XIII 
 
 > v ' > tioned. But we hear in general terms 24 of Roman 
 exiles, whom it was the especial object of the enter- 
 prize to restore to their country ; and we may be 
 sure that Kseso was one of them. Appius Herdonius 
 was probably a Sabine adventurer in circumstances 
 like his own, whom he persuaded to aid him in his 
 attempt. Had we the real history of these times, 
 we should find in all likelihood that the truth in the 
 stories of Kaeso and Coriolanus has been exactly in- 
 verted; that the share of the Roman exile in the 
 surprise of the Capitol has been as unduly suppressed 
 as that of the Roman exile in the great Volscian 
 war has been unduly magnified ; that Kaeso's treason 
 has been transferred to Appius Herdonius, while the 
 glory of the Volscian leader, Attius Tullius, has been 
 bestowed on Coriolanus. 
 
 L.Quinc- The burghers, as a body, would certainly be op- 
 father of posed, both from patriotic and selfish motives, to the 
 poses the attempt of Kseso ; an exile forcing his return by the 
 
 Terentilian . . 
 
 lawvehe- swords of other exiles, and seizing the citadel, was 
 
 mently. 
 
 likely to set himself up as a tyrant alike over the 
 burghers and the commons ; and even his own father 
 L. Quinctius, would have been the first to resist him. 
 But when he had fallen and this danger was at an 
 end, other feelings returned ; and L. Quinctius would 
 then hate the commons with a deeper hatred, as he 
 would ascribe to them the miserable fate of his son ; 
 Kaeso's guilt, no less than his misfortune, would appear 
 
 24 See chap. XI. note 11. 
 
VIOLENT MEASURES OF L. QUINCTIUS. 237 
 
 the consequence of their persecution. So when he CHAP. 
 was elected consul in the room of P. Valerius, he s * ' 
 seemed to set no bounds to his thirst for vengeance. 
 The promise by which Valerius had prevailed on the 
 commons to follow him to the recovery of the Ca- 
 pitol was utterly disregarded ; L. Quinctius 25 openly 
 set the tribunes at defiance, told them that they 
 should never pass their law while he was consul, and 
 declared that he would instantly lead forth the 
 legions into the field against the .<Equians and Vol- 
 scians. 
 
 The tribunes 26 represented that they would not Hi violent 
 
 measures. 
 
 allow him to enlist any as soldiers : but Quinctius 
 replied, that he needed no enlistment ; " the men 
 who took up arms under P. Valerius swore to as- 
 semble at the consul's bidding, and not to disband 
 without his orders. The consul never disbanded 
 them ; and I the consul," he said, " command you to 
 meet me in arms to-morrow at the lake Regillus." 
 But more was said to be designed than a simple post- A.U.C. 294. 
 ponement of the Terentilian law : the augurs were to 
 attend 27 , in order to inaugurate the ground where 
 the soldiers were to meet, and thus convert it into a 
 lawful place of assembly ; then the army in its cen- 
 turies would be called upon to repeal all the laws 
 which had been passed at Rome under the influence 
 of the tribunes ; and none would dare to oppose the 
 consul's will, for beyond the distance of one mile 
 from the city the tribunes' protection would be of no 
 
 25 Livy, III. 19- 27 Livy, III. 20. 
 
 26 Livy, III. 20. 
 
238 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, avail, nor did there exist any right of appeal. More 
 1 v-^ ' than all, Quinctius repeatedly declared that when 
 his year of office was expired, he would name a dic- 
 tator, that the tribunes might be awed by the power 
 of a magistrate from whom there lay no appeal even 
 within the walls of Rome. 
 He is P re- The Roman annalists who recorded these events 28 
 
 vailed upon 
 
 to abandon loved to believe, that in spite of all their provocations 
 the commons so respected the sacredness of an oath, 
 that they would have kept the letter of it to their 
 own hurt, even when its spirit in no way bound them 
 to obedience. They say that the tribunes and the 
 commons felt that they could not resist as a matter 
 of right ; that they appealed 29 to the mercy of the 
 senate, and that the senate only prevailed with the 
 consuls to abandon their purpose of taking the field, 
 on condition that the tribunes would promise not to 
 bring forward the question of the law again during 
 that year. It may be, however, that the senate 
 knew how far they could safely tempt the patience 
 of the tribunes ; threats might be held out in order 
 to claim a merit in abandoning them ; but an actual 
 attempt to march the legions out of the city, with 
 the avowed purpose of making them the helpless in- 
 struments in the destruction of their own liberties, 
 would be too bold a venture ; at the last excess of 
 insolent tyranny Nemesis would surely awake to 
 vengeance. 
 
 28 Livy, III. 20. Nondum haec, et leges aptas faciebat, sed suos 
 
 quae nunc tenet speculum, negli- potius mores ad ea accommodabat. 
 gentia Deum venerat: nee inter- 29 Livy, III. 21. 
 pretando sibi quisque jusjurandum 
 
CHARGE AGAINST M. VOLSCIUS. 239 
 
 At any rate 30 it appeared that neither the tribunes CHAP. 
 
 .A. 111. 
 
 nor the commons were disposed to let the Teren- VTTTT^' 
 
 A.U.C. 296. 
 
 tilian law be forgotten ; for when the elections came _, A -^- 45 7- 
 
 The law is 
 
 on, the same tribunes who had already been in office 
 for two years, were re-elected for a third year; and 
 again began to bring forward the disputed question. 
 But again they gave way to the pressure of foreign 
 war ; for the danger from the .ZEquians and Volscians 
 was imminent : the former had surprised the citadel 
 of Tusculum : the latter had expelled the Roman 
 colony from Antium, and recovered that important 
 city. After a series of operations which lasted for 
 several months, the ^quians were dislodged from 
 Tusculum, but Antium still remained in the pos- 
 session of the Volscians. 
 
 Thus the Terentilian law was again delayed S1 : but charge 
 
 * against M. 
 
 in the mean time the burghers, who retained a lively 
 
 6 , ' for false wit- 
 
 resentment for the fate of Kseso, were trying to ness in <* 
 
 * trial of 
 
 establish a charge of false witness against M. Vol- Kaso - 
 scius, by whose testimony, as to his brother's murder, 
 the event of Kaeso's trial had been chiefly decided. 
 The two quaestores parricidii, or chief criminal judges, 
 proposed to impeach Volscius before the curise ; but 
 the tribunes refused to allow the trial to come on 
 till the question of the law had been first decided. 
 Thus the year passed away : but the tribunes were 
 again, for the fourth time, re-elected. 
 
 In the following year is placed the story already A.U.C. 296. 
 related of the dictatorship of L. Quinctius Cincin- 
 
 80 Livy, III. 2123. 31 Livy, III. 24. 
 
240 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, natus, and his deliverance of the consul and his 
 
 XIII. 
 
 v -/-^ ' army, when they were blockaded by the ^quians. 
 
 Dictatorship J * 
 
 of L. Quinc- The continued absence 32 of the legions, which kept 
 
 tius. Vol- 
 
 Bcius goes the field nearly the whole year, afforded the burghers 
 
 into exile. * f 
 
 a pretence for opposing the introduction of the law ; 
 but L. Quinctius availed himself of his dictatorial 
 power to hold the comitia for the trial of Volscius in 
 defiance of the tribunes ; and the accused, feeling his 
 condemnation to be certain, left Rome and availed 
 himself of the interchange of citizenship between the 
 Romans and Latins, to become a citizen of Lanu- 
 vium. The tribunes were again re-elected for a 
 fifth time. 
 
 A.u.c.297. The year 297 3S was marked by the same dangers 
 increase in from the jEquians ; and the Sabines are said in this 
 
 the number 
 
 of the and in the former year to have joined them, and to 
 
 tribunes. . 
 
 have carried alarm and devastation into a new part 
 of the Roman territory, that which lay between the 
 Tiber and the Anio. Thus the law made no pro- 
 gress ; but the tribunes obtained an important point, 
 that their number should henceforth be doubled. 
 Ten tribunes were from this time forward annually 
 elected ; two from each of the five classes. 
 The annals There can be no doubt that the annals of this 
 gjven afuii period, as we now have them in Livy and Dionysius, 
 the disorders present a very incomplete picture of these dissensions. 
 times 686 The original source of the details must have been the 
 memorials of the several great families; each suc- 
 cessive version of these, as men's notions of their 
 
 32 Livy, III. 29. M Livy, III. 30. 
 
NUMBER OF TRIBUNES INCREASED TO TEN. 241 
 
 early history became more and more romantic, would 
 omit whatever seemed inconsistent with the sup- 
 posed purity and nobleness of the times of their fore- 
 fathers ; and acts of bloody vengeance, which the 
 actors themselves, and their immediate descendants, 
 regarded with pride rather than compunction, as 
 Sulla gloried in his proscriptions and recorded them 
 on his monument, were carefully suppressed by his- 
 torians of a later age. The burghers of the third 
 and fourth centuries thought it no dishonour that 
 their own daggers 34 , or those of their faithful clients, 
 should have punished with death the insolence and 
 turbulence of the most obstinate of the commons; 
 they would glory in breaking up the assemblies of 
 their adversaries by main force, and in treating 
 them on other occasions with all possible scorn and 
 contumely; ejecting them from their houses ?5 with 
 a strong hand ; insulting them and their families in 
 their nightly revels, or in open day ; abusing them in 
 the streets, or besetting their doors 36 with armed 
 slaves and carrying off their wives and daughters 3r . 
 
 34 Zonaras, VII. 17, who, as we sessam a familia armata nunciaret, 
 now find, borrowed his statement ferendum auxilium putaretis." 
 from Dion Cassius. Dion's words The conduct of Verres at Lamp- 
 are, ot fimarpiftai (pavtpas pev ov sacus illustrates this ; from the 
 irdw, TrXfjv j3pa^eo>i>, fTrideidfrvrcs treatment of the provincials in the 
 nva, dvTefrpaTTov,\ddpa 8e (Tvxvovs later times of the Commonwealth, 
 rmv dpaa-vrdrcov fCpovfvov. Fragm. we may judge of that shown to 
 Vatic. XXII. the commons at an earlier period. 
 
 33 This is implied in the " for- 37 The famous story of Virginia 
 
 cible occupation" noticed in the cannot have been a solitary in- 
 
 law, " de Aventino publicando." stance. Virginia was the daughter 
 
 36 Such outrages must be al- of a centurion, and betrothed to 
 
 luded to in the speech ascribed to no less a man than L. Icilius, the 
 
 L. Quinctius, Livy, III. 19. "Si famous proposer of the law, "de 
 
 quis ex plebe domum suam ob- Aventino publicando." If such 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
242 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Their own houses, built mostly on the hills of Rome, 
 v-l^J' which were so many separate fortresses, and always 
 by their style of building secure at once from public 
 notice and from attack, favoured the perpetration 
 of all acts of violence. Others besides insolvent 
 debtors might be shut up in their dungeons ; and if 
 hatred or fear prompted them to consign their victims 
 to a yet surer keeping, the dungeon might readily 
 become a grave 38 , and who would dare to search 
 for those whom it contained, whether alive or 
 dead ? 
 
 obscure One act in particular, in which its authors doubt- 
 
 story about 
 the burning i egs gloried as in a signal example of public justice, 
 
 of nine men 
 
 as traitors. h as been so concealed by the later annalists, that 
 from the faint and confused notices of it which alone 
 remain to us, we can neither discover its date, nor 
 its cause, nor any of its particulars. We only know 
 that at some time or other during the latter half of 
 the third century of Rome, nine eminent men 39 
 
 an outrage could be ventured 
 against a woman of such birth and 
 so connected, we may conceive 
 what those of humbler condition 
 were exposed to. 
 
 38 The body of a murdered man 
 was discovered to have been bu- 
 ried in the house of P. Sestius, 
 a burgher, in the first year of the 
 decemvirate. Livy, III 33. The 
 discovery of one such case implies 
 that there were many others which 
 were not discovered. 
 
 9 'Ewea nore dr)fj.apxoi irupl VTTO 
 TOV dfjfjiov fbodrfvav. Dion Cassius, 
 Frag. Vatic. XXII. and copied by 
 Zonaras, VII. 17. A confused 
 vestige of the same story may be 
 found in Valerius Maximus (VI. 
 
 3. 2); and the mutilated passage in 
 Festus, beginning in the common 
 editions with " Nauti consulatu," 
 must clearly refer to it. Niebuhr's 
 restoration and explanation of 
 this last fragment may be found 
 in his note 265 to the 2nd volume 
 of his History, p. 144, 2nd edi- 
 tion. Both are highly ingenious, 
 and that the fragment began with 
 the word " novem," and not with 
 " nauti," seems certain ; inas- 
 much as the article before it be- 
 gins with the word " novalis," 
 and that which follows it begins 
 with " novendiales." All the words 
 now to be found in the MS. of 
 Festus, half of the page having 
 been accidentally destroyed by 
 
OMISSIONS AND SOFTENINGS OF THE ANNALISTS. 243 
 
 who advocated the cause of the commons were 
 burned alive in the circus, such being the old 
 punishment of the worst traitors. It appears, how- 
 ever, from the fragment of Festus, which undoubt- 
 
 fire, are the following, and ranged 
 in the following order as to 
 lines : 
 
 T. Sicini Volsci 
 inissent adversus 
 co combusti feruntur 
 ne quae est proxime cir- 
 pide albo constratus. 
 Opiter Verginius 
 Leevinus, Postumus Co- 
 llius Tolerinus, P. Ve- 
 onius Atratinus, Ver- 
 tius Scaevola, Sex : Fu- 
 
 Who can profess to fill up such a 
 fragment with certainty ? But I 
 observe that Mutius Scaevola be- 
 longed to a house which, so far 
 as we know, was never patrician : 
 and the preceding name of which 
 only the first syllable remains, 
 Ver-, may also have denoted a 
 plebeian, as we meet with a Vir- 
 ginius amongst the tribunes as 
 early as the year 293. (Livy, III. 
 11.) But as all the others are 
 patrician names, how can they 
 have been tribunes j or how can 
 there have been nine tribunes 
 earlier than the year 297 ; or how 
 can we find a place for such an 
 event between 297 and the ap- 
 pointment of the decemviri ; after 
 which time it becomes wholly in- 
 conceivable ? The words " adver- 
 sarii" and "adversus eum" seem 
 to me the most unlikely parts of 
 Niebuhr's conjectural addition. The 
 criminals would hardly have been 
 described simply as the adversa- 
 ries of T. Sicinius, nor their crime 
 called a conspiracy against him. 
 
 B2 
 
 The story in Valerius Maximus 
 represents one tribune as being 
 a principal agent in the execution 
 of his nine colleagues. We can 
 thus explain the position of the 
 name of Sicinius, if we read, "no- 
 vem collegae T. Sicinii Volsci," and 
 " cum conjurationem" (or " con- 
 silia") " inissent adversus Remp." 
 But what are we to call the office 
 in which these ten men were col- 
 leagues together ? Can it really 
 have been the tribuneship ? and 
 are we to take Cicero's statement, 
 in the fragments of his speech for 
 Cornelius, that the number of 
 tribunes was increased from two 
 to ten in the very year after the 
 first institution of the office ? and 
 is it possible that the patricians 
 named in Festus' Fragment were 
 the very persons whom Dion 
 Cassius had in his mind, when 
 he said that " many of the highest 
 patricians renounced their nobi- 
 lity from being ambitious of the 
 great power of the office, and 
 became tribunes ? " If this were 
 so, T. Sicinius Volscus would be 
 a member of the house of the 
 plebeian Sicinii, and not the pa- 
 trician who was consul in the 
 year 267. The time of the ex- 
 ecution I should place about the 
 same time as the death of Cassius ; 
 and it is not incredible that even 
 the people in their centuries may 
 have believed that accusation of 
 a conspiracy against the common 
 liberty which was brought against 
 Cassius, and may have sentenced 
 nine of the tribunes to death as 
 his accomplices, especially if one 
 
244 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, edly relates to this event, that some of the victims in 
 
 XIII 
 
 * v ' this execution were of patrician houses ; and there is 
 an obscure and corrupt passage of Dion Cassius in 
 the Vatican fragments, which seems to indicate 
 that some of the burghers did take part with the 
 commons, whether from a sense of justice or from 
 personal ambition. 
 
 A.U.C. 298. The year 298, to return to our annals, was marked 
 
 Law of L.' on the part of the tribunes by an important measure. 
 
 allotting First of all 40 , to prevent their increased number 
 from being a source of weakness, by making differ- 
 ences amongst themselves more likely, they bound 
 themselves to each other by solemn oaths, that no 
 tribune should oppose the decisions of the majority 
 of his colleagues, nor act without their consent. 
 Then Lucius Icilius, one of their number, brought 
 forward his famous law for allotting the whole of the 
 Aventine hill to the commons for ever, to be their 
 exclusive quarter and stronghold. This hill was not, 
 as we have seen, a part of the original city, nor was 
 
 of their own colleagues, and a maining accounts are full of varia- 
 
 genuine plebeian, had denounced tions. Sempronius Atratinus ia 
 
 them as being really enemies to mentioned by Dionysius as speak- 
 
 liberty under the mask of oppo- ing in favour of the appointment 
 
 sing the aristocracy. And such a of a commission of ten men to 
 
 circumstance as the alleged trea- carry into effect the proposed agra- 
 
 eon of nine out of ten of the rian law of Cassius, at least in a 
 
 tribunes would have afforded a modified form ; this was in the 
 
 good pretence for again reducing year 268. (Dionysius, VIII. 74.) I 
 
 their number to two or five, from nave sometimes thought whether 
 
 which it was again finally raised the nine men may not have been 
 
 to ten in the year 297- It must members of this commission, anil 
 
 be remembered that the whole accused by their tenth colleague, 
 
 period between the first institu- T. Sicinius, the patrician, of 
 
 tion of the tribuneship, and the abusing their powers to favour 
 
 death of Cassius, is one of the the tyranny of Cassius. 
 greatest obscurity, and that the re- 40 Dionysius, X. 31. 
 
LAW DE AVENTINO PUBLICANDO. 245 
 
 it even yet included within the pomserium, or re- CHAP. 
 ligious boundary, although it was now within the i . 
 walls ; much of it was public or demesne land, having 
 neither been divided out among the original citizens, 
 the burghers, nor having in later times been as- 
 signed in portions to any of the commons. The 
 ground, which was thus still public, was occupied 
 according to custom by individual burghers ; some 
 had built on it, but parts of it were still in their 
 natural state and overgrown with wood. Yet this 
 hill was the principal quarter in which the commons 
 lived, and large parts of it had doubtless been as- 
 signed to them in the time of the kings, as the free- 
 holds of those to whom they were granted. It appears 
 that encroachments were made on these freeholds by 
 the burghers ; that the landmarks, which, according to 
 Roman usage, always distinguished private property 
 from common, were from time to time forcibly or 
 fraudulently removed ; the ground was then claimed 
 as public, and as such occupied only by burghers ; 
 and in this way the ejectment of the commons, from 
 what they considered as their own hill, seemed likely 
 to be accomplished. Again, the Aventine is one of 
 the steepest and strongest of the hills of Rome ; if 
 wholly in the hands of the commons, it would give 
 them a stronghold of their own, such as the burghers 
 enjoyed in the other hills ; and this, in such stormy 
 times, when the dissensions between the orders might 
 at any instant break out into open war, was a con- 
 sideration of the highest importance. Such were 
 the reasons which induced the tribunes to suspend 
 
246 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, for a time the question of the Terentilian law, and 
 ' v ' to endeavour to obtain at once for their order the 
 
 secure and exclusive property of the Aventine. 
 New mode A new course 41 was also adopted in the conduct 
 i^uTpro- of this measure. Instead of bringing it forward first 
 posing e f before the commons, where its consideration might 
 be indefinitely delayed by the violent interruptions 
 of the burghers, L. Icilius called upon the consuls to 
 bring it in the first instance before the senate, and 
 he claimed himself to speak as counsel in its behalf. 
 This was asserting not merely the right of petition- 
 ing, but the still higher right, that the petition 
 should not be simply laid on the table, but that 
 counsel should be heard in defence of it, and its 
 prayer immediately taken into consideration. A 
 story is told that the consuls' lictor 42 insolently beat 
 away the tribune's officer who was going to carry to 
 them his message ; that immediately Icilius and his 
 colleagues seized the lictor, and dragged him off with 
 their own hands, intending to throw him from the 
 rock for his treason against the sacred laws. They 
 spared his life only at the intercession of some of the 
 oldest of the senators, but they insisted that the 
 consuls should comply with the demands of Icilius ; 
 and accordingly the senate was summoned, Icilius 
 laid before them what may be called his petition of 
 right, and they proceeded to vote whether they 
 should accept or reject it 43 . 
 The law is The majority voted in its favour, moved, it is said, 
 
 passed. 
 
 ?, Dionysius, X. 31. Dionysius, X. 32. 
 
 42 Dionysius, X. 31. 
 
LAW DE AVENTINO PUBLICANDO. 247 
 
 by the hope that this concession would be accepted CHAP. 
 
 XIII 
 
 by the commons instead of the execution of the ^-^. 
 agrarian law. Then the measure thus passed by the 
 senate was submitted by the consuls to the comitia 
 of centuries, which, as representing the whole nation, 
 might supersede the necessity of bringing it sepa- 
 rately before the curise and the tribes. Introduced 
 in a manner by the government, and supported by the 
 influence of many of the burghers as well as by the 
 strong feeling of the commons, the bill became a 
 law : its importance, moreover, led to its being con- 
 firmed with unusual solemnities ; the pontifices and 
 augurs attended; sacrifices were performed, and so- 
 lemn oaths were taken to observe it ; and as a fur- 
 ther security, it was engraved on a pillar of brass, 
 and then set up in the temple of Diana on the Aven- 
 tine, where it remained till the time of Dionysius. 
 
 The provisions of the law were, " that so much 4 * of its pro- 
 the Aventine hill as was public or demesne property, v ' 
 should be allotted out to the commons, to be their 
 freehold for ever. That all occupiers of this land 
 should relinquish their occupation of it ; that those 
 who had occupied it forcibly or fraudulently 45 , should 
 have no compensation, but that other occupiers 
 should be repaid for the money which they might 
 have laid out in building upon it, at a fair estimate, 
 
 44 Dionyeius, X. 32. well-known form of the praetor's 
 
 45 In Dionysius' Greek version, interdict, "eum fundum quern 
 
 (or with the Codex nee vi, nee clam, nee precario 
 
 Vaticanus /3iacra/iei>oi,) ^ K\onfi alter ab altero possidetis, ita pos- 
 \ap6vrts: in the original Ian- sideatis." See Festus in " Pos- 
 guage " vi aut clam," as in the sessio." 
 
248 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, to be fixed by arbitration." Probably also, as Niebuhr 
 * ..-> thinks, there was a clause forbidding any burgher to 
 purchase or inherit property on the hill, that it might 
 be kept exclusively for the commons. It is men- 
 tioned that the commons began instantly to take 
 possession of their grant, and the space not sufficing 
 to give each man a separate plot of ground, an allot- 
 ment was given to two, three, or more persons toge- 
 ther, who then built upon it a house with as many 
 flats or stories 46 as their number required, each man 
 having one floor for himself and family as his free- 
 hold. The work of building sufficiently employed the 
 commons for the rest of the year; the Terentilian 
 law was allowed to rest ; and an unusual rainy season 
 which was very fatal to the crops 47 , may have helped 
 to suspend the usual hostilities with the yEquians and 
 Volscians. 
 Fresh dis- The same tribunes were re-elected for the year 
 
 putes about 
 
 theTeren- following, and the Terentilian law was now ao-ain 
 
 tilian law. 
 
 brought forward, but still as formerly before the 
 
 46 Dionysius, X. 32. Houses nis, circuituque publico aut pri- 
 
 thus divided amongst several vato cinguntur," seems to show 
 
 proprietors, each being the owner that the insula was ordinarily 
 
 of a single floor, were the gwoixiai built like our colleges, or like the 
 
 of the Greeks ; and these were inns of court in London, a com- 
 
 the "insulee" of which we hear plete building in itself, and so 
 
 at Rome, and which are distin- large as to occupy the whole space 
 
 guished by Tacitus from " do- from one street to the next which 
 
 mus," the houses of a single pro- ran parallel to it. 
 
 prietor, just as Thucydides speaks 4? Livy, III. 31. Annona prop- 
 
 of the rich Corcyraeans setting on ter aquarum intemperiem labora- 
 
 fire ras oiKias KOI ras gvvoiicias, turn est. Such notices of the 
 
 III. 74. Compare Tacitus, Annal. weather and seasons come from 
 
 XV. 41. 43. The original sense the oldest and simplest annals, 
 
 of the word "insula" as given by whether of the pontifices or of 
 
 Festus, " quae non junguntur private families, and may safely be 
 
 communibus parietibus cum vici- looked upon as authentic. 
 
DISPUTES ABOUT THE TERENTILIAN LAW. 249 
 
 assembly of the tribes; its rejection by the senate CHAP. 
 being supposed to be certain, if it were proposed l ^~ 
 there in the first instance. The consuls 48 headed 
 the burghers in their opposition, and in their at- 
 tempts to interrupt the assembly of the commons 
 by violence ; the tribunes in return brought some of 
 the offenders to trial for a breach of the sacred laws, 
 .and not wishing to press for the severest punish- 
 ment, enforced, according to Dionysius, only the con- 
 fiscation of the criminal's property to Ceres, whose 
 temple was under the special control of the a3diles 
 of the commons, and was the treasury of their order. 
 But the burghers, it is said, advanced money out of 
 their own treasury to buy the confiscated estates 
 from those who had purchased them, and then gave 
 them back to their original owners. 
 
 The consuls of the year 300, Sp. Tarpeius and 
 
 48 Dionysius, X. 33 42. The violent against the commons, and 
 events of this year are given by most formidable from the strength 
 Dionysius at great length, in of their brotherhoods, or societies, 
 fifteen chapters ; in Livy they do eraipiai, were the Postumii, Sem- 
 not occupy as many lines. The pronii, and Clcelii. The former of 
 story of L. Siccius, under a some- these was an unpopular house, as 
 what different form, is given by may be seen from the story of the 
 the former under this year; al- severity of L. Postumius Tuber- 
 though in its common version it tus to his son, (Livy, IV. 29,) 
 occurs again in his history in its and of the murder of M. Postu- 
 usual place under the decemviri, mius by his soldiers (Livy, IV. 
 Whoever was the writer from 49). The Sempronii also appear 
 whom Dionysius copied, he must as a family of importance during 
 have been one who had no wish the next fifty years ; but the 
 to disguise the injustice of the Cloelii are very little distinguished 
 burghers, but rather perhaps to either in the early or in the later 
 exaggerate it; for they never Roman history, only four mem- 
 appear in a more odious light hers of this house occurring in 
 than in the transactions of this the Fasti, and none of them being 
 year. One statement however is personally remarkable. Their coins 
 curious ; that the houses most however are numerous. 
 
250 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. A. Aternius, appear to have been moderate men ; and 
 j^j^-' not only were the two consuls of the preceding year 
 ianiaw, accused before the commons by the tribunes, and 
 
 de multse 
 
 fined, without any opposition on the part of the 
 burghers, but the new consuls themselves brought 
 forward a law, which was intended probably to meet 
 some of the objects of the Terentilian law, by limit- 
 ing the arbitrary jurisdiction of the patrician magis- 
 trates. The Aternian law 49 , de multae sacramento, 
 fixed the maximum of the fines which the consuls 
 could impose for a contempt of their authority, at 
 two sheep and thirty oxen ; nor could this whole 
 fine be imposed at once 50 , but the magistrate was to 
 begin with one sheep, and if the offender continued 
 obstinate, he might the next day fine him a second 
 sheep, and the third day he might raise the penalty 
 to the value of an ox, and thus go on day by day, till 
 he had reached the utmost extent allowed bv the 
 
 w 
 
 law. It would appear also by the use of the term 
 sacramentum 5I , which was applied to money depo- 
 sited in the judge's hands by two contending parties, 
 to be forfeited or recovered according to the issue of 
 the suit, that this fine was not absolute, but might 
 be recovered by the party who had paid it, either on 
 his subsequent submission, or on his appeal to the 
 
 49 Cicero, de Republica, II. 35. fragments of the Fasti Capito- 
 
 The reading of the consul's name, lini. 
 
 as given in this passage of Cicero, M See Varro, de Ling. Latina, 
 
 Aternius, enables us to account V. 177, and Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 
 
 for and to correct the corrupt 341. 2nd ed. 
 
 reading in Dionysius, Tep^wor. 6l See Varro, de Ling. Lat. V. 
 
 We find it also correctly given 180, and Festus \n voce. 
 in one of the recently-discovered 
 
APPOINTMENT OF TEN COMMISSIONERS. 251 
 
 judgment of his peers, whether burghers or com- CHAP. 
 mons, and on their deciding in his favour. ' v 1_> 
 
 But with regard to the Terentilian law itself, the Three com- 
 
 missioners 
 
 tribunes could make no progress. The burghers ab- are sent to 
 
 Greece. 
 
 solutely refused to allow the commons any share in 
 the proposed revision of the constitution ; but they 
 consented to send three persons beyond the sea 52 
 into Greece, to collect such notices of the laws and 
 constitutions of the Greek states as might be ser- 
 viceable to the Romans. These commissioners were 
 absent for a whole year : and in this year the pesti- A.U.C. 301. 
 lence 5 ' again broke out at Rome, and carried off so 
 many of the citizens, amongst the rest, four out of 
 the ten tribunes, that there was a necessary cessation 
 of political disputes. And as the pestilence spread 
 also amongst the neighbouring nations 54 , they were 
 in no condition to take advantage of the distressed 
 state of the Romans. 
 
 In the next year the pestilence S5 left Rome free ; A.U.C. 302. 
 
 A C 450. 
 
 and on the return of the commissioners from Greece, it is re- 
 the disputes again began. After a long contention, appoint ten 
 the commons conceded the great point at issue ; and vu e the 
 it was agreed that the revision of the laws and con- constitution. 
 stitution should be committed to a body of ten men, 
 all of the order of the burghers, who should super- 
 sede all other patrician magistrates, and each admi- 
 nister the government day by day in succession, as 
 during an interregnum. Two of these were the A : U n C ;<!2 3 ' 
 
 " 
 
 52 Livy, III. 31. * Dionysius, X. 54. Livy, III. 
 
 53 Livy, III. 32. 32. 
 
 54 Dionysius, X. 53. 
 
252 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, consuls of the new year, who had been just elected, 
 
 v , J Appius Claudius and T. Genucius ; the warden of 
 
 the city and the two qusestores parricidii, as Niebuhr 
 
 thinks, were three more ; and the remaining five 
 
 were chosen by the centuries 56 . 
 
 Conclusion Such was the end of a contest which had lasted 
 
 of the 
 
 struggle for ten years ; and all its circumstances, as well as its 
 
 about the ' 
 
 Terentiiian final issue, show the inherent strength of an aristo- 
 cracy in possession of the government, and under 
 what manifold disadvantages a popular party ordi- 
 narily contends against it. Nothing less than some 
 extraordinary excitement can ever set on a level two 
 parties so unequal ; wealth, power, knowledge, leisure, 
 organization, the influence of birth, of rank, and of 
 benefits, the love of quiet, the dread of exertion and 
 of personal sacrifices, the instinctive clinging to what 
 is old and familiar, and the indifference to abstract 
 principles so characteristic of common minds in every 
 rank of life ; all these causes render the triumph of a 
 dominant aristocracy sure, unless some intolerable 
 outrage, or some rare combination of favourable cir- 
 cumstances, exasperate or encourage the people to 
 extraordinary efforts, and so give them a temporary 
 superiority. Otherwise the aristocracy may yield 
 what they will, and retain what they will ; if they are 
 really good and wise, and give freely all that justice 
 and reason require, then the lasting greatness and 
 happiness of a country are best secured ; if they do 
 much less than this, yielding something to the grow- 
 
 56 Vol. II. p. 350. 2nd ed. 
 
APPOINTMENT OF TEN COMMISSIONERS. 253 
 
 ing light of truth, but not frankly and fully following CHAP. 
 it. great good is still done, and great improvements v -^ 
 effected ; but in the evil which was retained there are 
 nursed the seeds of destruction, which falls at last 
 upon them and on their country. The irritation of 
 having reasonable demands refused provokes men to 
 require what is unreasonable ; suspicion and jealousy 
 are fostered beyond remedy ; and these passions, out- 
 living the causes which excited them, render at last 
 even the most complete concessions thankless ; and 
 when experience has done its work with the aristo- 
 cracy, and they are disposed to deal justly with their 
 old adversaries, they are met in their turn with a 
 spirit of insolence and injustice, and a fresh train of 
 evils is the consequence. So true is it that nations, 
 like individuals, have their time of trial ; and if this 
 be wasted or misused, their future course is inevitably 
 evil ; and the efforts of some few good and wise 
 citizens, like the occasional struggles of conscience 
 in the mind of a single man when he has sinned 
 beyond repentance, are powerless to avert their 
 judgment. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE FIRST DECEMVIRS, AND THE LAWS OF THE 
 TWELVE TABLES. 
 
 "The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its 
 history." GIBBON, Chap. XLIV. 
 
 CHAP. THE appointment of a commission invested with such 
 
 ' /- ' extraordinary powers as those committed to the de- 
 Appoint- 
 ment of the cemvirs, implies of itself a suspension of all such 
 
 decemvirs. 
 
 Suspension authorities as could in any degree impede or obstruct 
 
 of all other 
 
 its operations. It was natural therefore that the tri- 
 bunate ' should be suspended as well as the patrician 
 
 magistra- 
 cies. 
 
 1 This is Dionysius' statement 
 in the most express terms, (X. 
 56,) ad finem. Livy's language 
 appears to me to admit of a 
 doubt; for he says, when speak- 
 ing of the wish of the commons 
 to have decemvirs elected for 
 another year, " Jam plehs ne tri- 
 bunicium quidem auxilium, ce- 
 dentibus in vicem appellation! 
 [codd. " appellatione "] decemviris 
 quaerebat," (III. 34, ad finem.) 
 And although when mentioning 
 the appointment of the first de- 
 cemvirs, he had said, " Placet 
 creari decemviros et ne quis eo 
 anno alius magistratus esset" 
 
 (III. 32), yet it was sometimes 
 made a question whether the 
 tribuneship was properly called 
 magistratus or no : and at any 
 rate it wou'd not in these times be 
 called " magistratus populi," but 
 only "plebis:" further, Livy ex- 
 pressly adds that the " sacratse 
 leges" were not to be abolished. 
 Niebuhr believes that the tribune- 
 ship was not given up till the 
 second decemvirate. I think, on 
 the whole, that Livy meant to 
 agree with Dionysius ; and the 
 statement does not appear to me 
 to possess any internal improba- 
 bility. 
 
THE FIRST DECEMVIRS. 255 
 
 magistracies ; besides, the appointment of the decem- CHAP. 
 virs was even in its present form a triumph for the v-^ 
 commons, and they would be glad to show their full 
 confidence in the magistrates whom they had so 
 much desired. Again, the tribunes had been needed 
 to protect the commons against the tyranny of the 
 consuls ; but now that there were no consuls, why 
 should there be tribunes? And who could dread 
 oppression from men specially appointed to promote 
 the interests of freedom and justice ? Yet to show 
 that the tribuneship was not to be permanently sur- 
 rendered, the sacred laws were specially exempted 
 from the decemvirs' power of revision, as was also 
 that other law, scarcely less dear to the commons, or 
 less important, which had secured to them the pro- 
 perty of the Aventine. 
 
 With the ground thus clear before them, and pos- The decem- 
 virs begin 
 
 sessing that full confidence and cheerful expectation their legisla- 
 tion. 
 
 of the people which is a government's great encou- 
 ragement, the ten proceeded to their work. They 
 had before them the unwritten laws and customs of 
 their own country, and the information partly, we 
 may suppose, in writing, which the commissioners 
 had brought back from Greece. In this there would 
 be much which to a Roman would require expla- 
 nation ; but the ten had with them an Ionian sophist 2 , 
 
 2 Pomponius, de origine juris, from mere jealousy of his superior 
 
 4. in the Digest or Pandects, merit. See the story in Strabo, 
 
 1 Tit. ii. Strabo, XIV. 1. 25, as already quoted, and in Cicero, 
 
 p. 642. Hermodcrus was the Tusculan. Disputat. V. 36. Dio- 
 
 friend of Heraclitus the philoso- genes Laertius says that Heracli- 
 
 pher, who reproached the Ephe- tus nourished in the sixty-ninth 
 
 sians for having banished him Olympiad, but Syncellus makes 
 
256 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIV. 
 
 They com- 
 plete ten 
 tables of 
 laws. 
 
 Only frag- 
 ments of 
 them have 
 been pre- 
 served to us, 
 
 Hermodorus of Ephesus, who rendered such impor- 
 tant services in explaining the institutions of his 
 countrymen, above all of the Athenians, the great 
 glory of the Ionian race, that a statue was erected to 
 his honour in the comitium. 
 
 The result of these labours, after a few months, 
 was submitted to the examination of the people 3 . 
 Ten tables were published and set up in a con- 
 spicuous place for all to read them. Every man was 
 then invited to make known to the ten such correc- 
 tions as he might think needed ; these were con- 
 sidered and adopted as far as the ten approved of 
 them : and the ten tables thus amended were then 
 laid before the senate, the centuries, and the curise, 
 and received the sanction of both orders of the na- 
 tion. The laws were then engraved on tablets of 
 brass 4 , and the tablets were set up in the comitium, 
 that all men might know and observe them. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the ten tables were a 
 complete work, and intended to be so by their 
 authors. All the circumstances of their enactment 
 show this; it seems shown also by their number, 
 which had reference to that of the ten commissioners, 
 
 him contemporary with Anaxago- 
 ras, the elder Zenon, and Parme- 
 nides, which would render it very 
 possible for his friend Hermodq- 
 rus to have visited Rome in the 
 time of the decemvirs. Strabo ex- 
 pressly identifies the Hermodorus 
 of whom Heraclitus spoke, with 
 the man of that name who helped 
 the decemvirs in drawing up their 
 laws. And the fact of his having 
 been honoured with a statue in 
 
 the comitium, (Pliny, Hist. Nat. 
 XXXIV. 1 1,) would seem to prove 
 that the story of his having helped 
 the decemvirs was not without 
 foundation. 
 
 3 Livy, III. 34. 
 
 4 So Dionysius, onjAair ^aA/cals 
 eyxapdgavres avrovs. X. 57. 
 Livy's simple expression " tabulae" 
 would lead one to suppose that 
 they were written on wood. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 257 
 
 as if each commissioner had contributed an equal CHAP. 
 
 XIV 
 
 portion to their joint work. It is clear also, that v ~^ J 
 
 they satisfied the expectations of the people, and 
 were drawn up in a spirit of fairness and wisdom : 
 for whatever the Romans found fault with in the 
 laws of the twelve tables, was contained in the two 
 last of them ; and the laws, as a whole, are spoken of 
 with high admiration, and remained for centuries as 
 the foundation of all the Roman law. Unhappily we 
 ourselves know little of them beyond this general 
 character. Some fragments 5 of them have been pre- 
 served by ancient writers; but these are far too 
 scanty to allow us to judge either of the substance or 
 of the order of the whole code. 
 
 Still 6 we may fitly avail ourselves of the occasion STATE OP 
 
 , ... THE ROM AN 
 
 ottered by this great period in Roman legislation, to LAW IN ITS 
 
 EARLIEST 
 
 KNOWN 
 
 FORM. 
 
 5 The authentic remains of the on all, the necessity of the case 
 twelve tables are given by Hau- must excuse the presumption, 
 bold in his " Institutionmn Juris It will be proper here to mention 
 Romani privati Lineamenta," as the works from which the pre- 
 republished after his death by sent chapter has been chiefly 
 Dr. Otto, Leipzig, 1826. They compiled. 1st. The Institutes of 
 are given also by Dirksen, with an Gaius. An epitome of the three 
 elaborate criticism as to the text first books of this great work had 
 and the sources of each fragment, been long known, but the whole 
 " Uebersicht der bisherigen Ver- work in its genuine state was 
 suche zur Kritik und Herstellung first discovered by Niebuhr in 
 des Textes der Zwolf-Tafel-Frag- 1816, in a palimpsest, or rewritten 
 mente." Leipzig, 1824. The earlier manuscript, of some of the works 
 collections of them contain clauses of S. Jerome, in the Chapter 
 ascribed to the twelve tables on in- Library at Verona. I have used 
 sufficient authority. the second edition, published by 
 
 6 I am well aware of the diffi- Goschen at Berlin in 1824 ; and I 
 culty of writing on legal details have derived great assistance from 
 without a professional knowledge Goschen's continued references to 
 of the subject. But history must parallel passages in the other ex- 
 embrace the subject matter of tant works of the Roman lawyers, 
 every profession ; and as no man 2nd. The fragment of Ulpian from 
 can be properly qualified to write a MS. in the Vatican, published 
 
 VOL. I. S 
 
258 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, give something of a view of the Roman law as it was 
 JL 1 !; settled by the twelve tables, or as it existed in the 
 oldest form in which it is now possible to trace it. 
 And I shall adopt that division of constitutional law 
 on the one hand, and civil law on the other, which 
 Livy had in his mind when he called the twelve 
 tables " fons omnis publici, privatique juris." 
 
 To begin then with " Jus privatum," or the civil 
 
 Jus PRI- 
 VATUM 
 divided into 
 the 
 
 by Hugo in his " Jus Civile 
 Antejustinianeum." Berlin, 1815. 
 The Fragments of Ulpian more 
 recently discovered and published 
 by Mai I have not seen. 3rd. I 
 have read the Institutes of Justi- 
 tinian, and referred continually to 
 the Digest or Pandects ; but I 
 cannot pretend to have read 
 through the Digest, or to be 
 deeply acquainted with its con- 
 tents. 4th. Hugo's Geschichte 
 des Romischen Rechts. 9th edit. 
 Berlin, 1824. 5th. Haubold's Insti- 
 tutionum juris Romani lineamen- 
 ta, and Dirksen's work on the 
 Twelve Tables, noticed in a pre- 
 ceding note ; as also Haubold's 
 edition of the well known work 
 of Heineccius, " Antiquitt. Roma- 
 nar. jurisprudentiam illustran- 
 tium syntagma." 6th. Savigny, 
 " Recht des Besitzes," 5th edi- 
 tion ; and some articles by the 
 same great writer in the " Zeit- 
 schrift fiir geschichtliche Rechts- 
 wissenschaft." In point of ex- 
 cellence, I could not, I suppose, 
 have consulted higher authorities 
 than these ; but I am perfectly 
 conscious of the insufficiency of a 
 few months' study, even of the 
 best writers, on a siibject so vast 
 as the Roman law. The other 
 works which I have consulted will 
 be noticed in their several places. 
 "The Fragments of Ulpian 
 
 discovered and published by 
 Mai" are not correctly described, 
 as I had not seen the book when 
 this note was written. I have 
 only been able to procure it since 
 the completion of the present 
 volume, and I find that it contains 
 the remains of several treatises by 
 an unknown lawyer, on various 
 legal subjects ; these treatises con- 
 sisting for the most part of quota- 
 tions from the works of the most 
 eminent lawyers, arranged in order, 
 as in the Pandects. Amongst the 
 rest there are naturally citations 
 from Ulpian, and some of these 
 were not known to us before Mai's 
 discovery; others had been already 
 preserved in the Pandects. The 
 manuscript in which these trea- 
 tises were found was a palimpsest, 
 now in the Vatican Library, 
 and marked in the catalogue 
 VMDCCCLXVI. It was brought 
 to Rome from the library of the 
 monastery at Bobbio, near Placen- 
 tia, and these treatises were first 
 published from it by Mai in 1823 : 
 they have been since reprinted at 
 Bonn, in 1833, unc'er the super- 
 intendence of Bethmann Hollweg; 
 and I know them only in this 
 German edition. They do not 
 give us any additional information 
 as to the laws of the Twelve 
 Tables. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 259 
 
 law of Rome. This, according to the Roman lawyers, CHAP. 
 related either to persons, or to things, or to actions, v -^ J 
 
 I. Law of 
 
 in the legal sense of the term. Let us first examine Persons, 
 
 II. Law of 
 
 some of the principal points in the law as it regarded ng s , an a, 
 
 persons. Actions. 
 
 I. In later times the lawyers had occasion to notice L Law of 
 
 Persons. 
 
 three descriptions of persons ; those born free, those Persons bom 
 
 free, persons 
 
 who had been made free, and slaves. The distinc- made free, 
 
 and slaves. 
 
 tions of burghers and commons, patricians and ple- 
 beians, had long since vanished ; and all free-born 
 Roman citizens were legally regarded as equal. On 
 the other hand, the condition of slaves admits of 
 little variation so long as they remain slaves ; and 
 thus, with regard to these, the lapse of centuries 
 produced little change. But the freedmen of a later 
 age appear to represent the clients of the period of 
 the twelve tables. 
 
 That the relation of the freedman to his former The freed - 
 
 men of a 
 
 master very nearly resembled that of the client to later a s e 
 
 resembled 
 
 his lord, might be conjectured from this, that when a the clie nts 
 
 of the period 
 
 slave obtained his freedom, his former master, "do- ofthetwelvo 
 
 tables. 
 
 minus," became his "patronus," the very same name 
 which expressed his relation to his clients. Pre- 
 viously to the decemvirate, this class of persons 
 voted indeed in the comitia of centuries, which com- 
 prehended the whole Roman people, but they did not 
 belong to any tribe, and therefore had no votes in the 
 separate comitia of the commons. The decemvirs 7 
 
 7 On this point see Niebuhr, his Tabulae Chronologicee as one 
 
 Vol. II. p. 318. Eng. Transl. It of the institutions of the decem- 
 
 is admitted also by Haubold in virs. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, procured their enrolment in the tribes, and thus 
 v v-^ ' added greatly to the influence of the aristocracy 
 over the popular assemblies ; for the tie between a 
 patron and his clients or freedmen seems to have 
 been a very kindly one, and much stronger as yet 
 than any sense of the duty of advancing the cause of 
 the great mass of the nation. Indeed the freedman 
 was held to belong so much to his patron, that if he 
 died intestate, and without direct heirs 8 , his patron 
 inherited all his property ; a law which applied also, 
 as we cannot doubt, though perhaps with some quali- 
 fication, to the client. 
 
 Power of a Looking at the domestic relations of free citizens, 
 iTis children, we find that the absolute power of a father over his 
 children, was in some slight degree qualified by the 
 twelve tables ; inasmuch as they enacted 9 , that if a 
 father had sold his son three times, he should have 
 no further control over him. Formerly, it appears, 
 the independence of a son during his father's life- 
 time, had been regarded as monstrous and impos- 
 
 8 Gaius, Institut. III. 40. A opinion. Hist. Rom. Vol. I. p. 
 man's direct heirs, " sui here- 320. Eng. Transl. The qualifica- 
 des," were according to the tion alluded to is supposed by Reiz 
 Roman law his children " in to have consisted in this, that a 
 potestate," whether male or fe- client's agnati would have in- 
 male, by birth or by adoption : herited before his patron, whereas 
 his son's children ; his son's son's a freedman could have no agnati, 
 children ; his wife in manu ; and his natural relationships in his 
 his daughter in law. See Gaius, state of slavery being reckoned as 
 Institut. III. 2. For the appli- nothing. 
 
 cation of this law to clients, see 9 Si pater filium ter venum 
 
 Nieuport, Ritt. Romanor. Sect. I. duit, films a patre liber esto. 
 
 ch. IV. 3, and the defence of Fragm. duodec. Tabb. 12, apud 
 
 his statement in Reiz's preface to Haubold, Institut. jur. Rom. 
 
 the 5th edit, of Nieuport's work, lineamenta. 
 Niebuhr also is of the same 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 261 
 
 sible ; he never could become sui juris. The father CHAP. 
 
 XIV 
 
 might transfer his right to another by selling his % -.-^ 
 son, but if his new master set him free, the father's 
 right revived, and the son became again in potestate. 
 But by the new law the father's right became ter- 
 minable ; and if after he had thrice sold his son, the 
 last purchaser gave him his freedom, then the son 
 no longer reverted to his father's power, but re- 
 mained his own master. Still, as if to show the 
 peculiar sacredness of the father's power, he could 
 not by any one act of his own make his son inde- 
 pendent ; he could not give him his liberty like a 
 slave, but was obliged, if he wished to emancipate 
 him, to go through the form of thrice selling him ; and 
 it was only when, according to the common practice, 
 the son after the third sale was resold to his father, 
 that then, the fatherly power being extinct, he could 
 give him his freedom by a direct act of manumis- 
 sion. It should be remembered also, that an eman- 
 cipated son lost his relationship to his father, and 
 could no longer inherit from him ; and further, that 
 by having been sold, and so passed into the state of 
 slavery, he incurred 10 that legal degradation which the 
 
 10 Minima capitis diminutio ac- his relations derived " per virilis 
 
 cidit in his qui mancipio dantur, sexus personas ;" such as his 
 
 quique ex mancipatione manu- father's brother, or brother's son, 
 
 mittuntur ; adeo quidem ut quo- or the son of an uncle by the 
 
 tiens quisque mancipetur aut father's side. These inherited in 
 
 manumittatur, totiens capite di- preference to the cognati, or re- 
 
 minuatur. Gaius, Institut. I. lations derived " per fceminei sex- 
 
 162. The disqualifications in- us personas;" and thus an eman- 
 
 curred by a diminutio capitis in- cipated son could not be heir or 
 
 eluded a forfeiture of the jus guardian to his nephew on his 
 
 agnationis. A man's agnati are brother's side, by virtue of the 
 
262 HISTORY OF ROME, 
 
 CHAP. Romans called diminutio capitis, and consequently, 
 < v j remained liable, during the remainder of his life, to 
 
 certain peculiar disqualifications. 
 
 His power of As the father of a family enjoyed absolute power 
 h!s p property over his children in his lifetime, so was he equally 
 y W1 ' absolute in his choice of a guardian for them, and in 
 his disposal of his property after his death 11 . He 
 might bequeath his whole fortune to any one child, 
 to the exclusion of the rest, or to an absolute 
 stranger, to the exclusion of them all. In this re- 
 spect the twelve tables gave probably a legal sanction 
 to a power which was become common in practice, 
 but, strictly speaking, was as yet only a matter of 
 indulgence, not of right. Hitherto, the will of every 
 citizen had been read before the comitia 12 , whether 
 of the curiae or of the centuries ; that the former in 
 the case of a burgher, the latter in the case of a 
 plebeian, might confirm or reject it. The confir- 
 
 jus agnationis, as he had lost that XX. 2. " Calata comitia " are de- 
 right by having gone through the fined by Labeo to be those, 
 state of mancipatio during the pro- " quse pro collegio pontificum 
 cess of his release from his father's habentur aut regis aut flaminum 
 authority. inaugurandorum causa." " lis- 
 
 11 Uti legassit super pecunia dem comitiis," says Gellius, by 
 
 tutelave suss rei, ita jus esto. whom the passage from Labeo has 
 
 Fragm. duodec. Tabb. 13, apud been preserved, " et sacrorum de- 
 
 Haubold. See Gaius, Institut. II. testatio et testamenta fieri sole- 
 
 224. bant." Noct. Att. XV. 27, 1. 3. 
 
 1? Testamentorum autem genera And Labeo tells us that these 
 
 initio duo fuerunt; nam aut cala- calata comitia were either " cu- 
 
 tis comitiis faciebant, qua? comitia riata" or " centuriata ; " so that 
 
 bis in anno testamentis faciendis we may safely conclude that the 
 
 destinata erant, aut in procinctu, will of a patrician was read at the 
 
 id est cum belli causa ad pugnam former, that of a plebeian at the 
 
 ibant : procinctus est enim expe- latter. See Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 
 
 ditus et armatus exercitus. Gaius, 336. Eng. Trans. 
 Institut. II. 101. Ulpian, Fragm. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 263 
 
 mation was generally, as we may suppose, become CHAP. 
 almost a matter of course ; still it is evident that it v v 
 might have been refused. But from this time for- 
 ward it became a mere formality; the right of a 
 father to dispose of his property as he chose was 
 fully acknowledged ; and it was conferred on him 
 with such full sovereignty, that it was only when he 
 died intestate, that the next of kin could take the 
 management of his inheritance out of the hands of 
 his sons if they were squandering it extravagantly ; 
 no degree of waste on the part of a son could justify 
 the interference of his relations ' 3 , if he had succeeded 
 by virtue of his father's will. The principle of this 
 distinction is plain : when the father of a family 
 had waved his right of bequeathing his property, it 
 seemed in some measure to revert to the commu- 
 nity, as a member of which, he or his ancestor had 
 originally received it. This community was the gens 
 in the last resort, and more immediately the family 
 of which he was the representative. As then his 
 property would go to the male representatives of his 
 family in default of his own direct heirs, so they had 
 an interest in preserving it unimpaired, and were 
 allowed to enforce it when the son's title to his 
 inheritance rested like theirs, only on the general 
 award of the law. But where the father had dis- 
 posed of his property by will, then the individual 
 right of ownership passed in full sovereignty to his 
 
 13 A praetore constituitur cura- (scil. XII. Tabularura) curator 
 
 tor ingenuis qui ex testamento dari non poterat. Ulpian, Fragm. 
 
 parentis haeredes facti male dis- XII. 3. 
 sipant bona : his enim ex lege 
 
264 HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 children, and no one might interfere with their 
 management of what was wholly their own. The 
 later law did away with this distinction ; and the 
 prsetor was accustomed to deprive an extravagant 
 son of the administration of his inheritance, even 
 when he had succeeded to it by his father's will. 
 And this is natural, for as society advances in true 
 civilization, its supremacy over all individual rights 
 of property becomes more fully recognized ; and it 
 is understood that w T e are but stewards of our pos- 
 sessions with regard to the commonwealth of which 
 we are members, as well as with respect to God. 
 Law with We shall not be surprised to find that the usages 
 women: of a rude people paid but little respect to women. 
 
 1. as to mar- A ,, . . , , , 
 
 nage; A man could acquire a right over a woman by her 
 having lived with him for a year ; exactly as a year's 
 possession gave him a legal title to a slave, or any other 
 article of moveable property. Here again the twelve 
 tables so far interfered 14 , as to give the power to 
 the woman of barring this prescription, by absenting 
 herself from her husband during three nights in each 
 year. By so doing, she avoided passing under her 
 husband's power, " in manum viri ;" and could not, 
 therefore, like a wife in the fullest sense, inherit 
 from him as his daughter. Still the connexion was 
 recognized as a lawful marriage 15 , " connubium ;" 
 
 14 Gaius, Institut I. 111. woman's guardians might pre- 
 
 15 The formalities of a marriage, vent her from passing in ma- 
 according to the Roman law, seem num viri either by prescription, 
 only to have affected the wife's " usus," or by coemptio, because 
 property, and her power of in- then they lost their control over 
 heriting from her husband, not her property, and their right of 
 the legitimacy of the children. A inheriting from her (See Cicero 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 265 
 
 and the children accordingly followed their father's CHAP. 
 condition, and were subject to his power, which was v ., > 
 the case only with such children as were born in 
 " connubium." 
 
 Again, the old Roman law, confirmed in this in- 2. a > to their 
 stance also by the twelve tables, obliged all women, under* v 
 at all times of their lives, and under all circum- fi"j ' a 
 stances 16 , to be under guardianship. If a father died 
 intestate, his daughters immediately became the 
 wards of their brothers, or of their nearest male 
 relations on their father's side 17 ; nor could they 
 without their guardian's sanction contract any obli- 
 gation 18 , or alienate their land, or make a will. If 
 a woman married, she became in law her husband's 
 daughter ; he could appoint her guardians by his 
 will, or, if he died intestate, her nearest male rela- 
 tions succeeded by law to the office ; so that it was 
 possible, in despite of the laws of nature, that a 
 
 pro Flacco, 34) ; but only her 17 Quibus testamento quidem 
 
 father's refusal of consent bin- tutor datus non sit, iis ex lege 
 
 dered her from forming a connu- XII. agnati sunt tutores. Gaius, 
 
 bium, if her connexion was with I. 155. 
 
 a Roman citizen, and one not re- 18 A woman's agnati by the 
 lated to her in any prohibited de- old law were her tutores legitimi. 
 gree. See Ulpian, Fragm V. 2 7. And it was a well-known rule of 
 16 Gaius, I. 144. The vestal law that she could make no valid 
 virgins were alone excepted by will without their consent. Gaius, 
 the twelve tables, " in honorem II. 118. The whole right of 
 sacerdotii." Afterwards, by the her agnati to become her guar- 
 later law, a woman obtained the dians was done away by the em- 
 same privilege by acquiring the peror Claudius. (Gaius, I. 171.) 
 " jus trium liberorum," which But her father, and if she were a 
 did not however always imply that freed woman her patronus, still 
 she had really borne three children, retained the same power ; and 
 but that by the emperor's favour even in the time of the Antonines 
 she acquired the rights granted by her will was good for nothing if it 
 law to one who had actually been had not their sanction, 
 a mother. 
 
266 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, mother might be under the guardianship of her own 
 
 XIV 
 
 ( / J son. By these institutions, the apparent liberality 
 of the law, which enabled a man's daughters to in- 
 herit on an equal footing with his sons, was in great 
 measure rendered ineffectual 19 . A daughter might 
 indeed claim an equal share with her brother of her 
 father's land ; but as she could neither alienate it 
 during her lifetime, nor bequeath it by will without 
 his consent, and as he was her legal heir, there w r as 
 little probability of its passing out of the family. All 
 this was greatly modified by the later law ; but there 
 were always found persons who regretted the change, 
 and upheld the old system with all its selfishness and 
 injustice, as favourable to a wholesome severity of 
 manners, and a proper check upon the weakness or 
 caprice of a woman's judgment. 
 
 n. Law of II. If from persons we now turn to property, or, 
 importance according to the language of the law, to things, our 
 
 of a know- . . . . . 
 
 ledge of the curiosity as to the provisions or the twelve tables, 
 
 law of real _.' / -i i 
 
 property, as and the state of things which they recognized, can be 
 light on the but imperfectly gratified. Yet there are few points 
 
 history of * * 
 
 every peo- of more importance in the history of a nation : the 
 
 pie. 
 
 law of property, of real property especially, and a 
 knowledge of all the circumstances of its tenure and 
 divisions, would throw light upon more than the phy- 
 sical condition of a people ; it would furnish the key 
 to some of the main principles prevalent in their so- 
 ciety. For instance, the feudal notion that property 
 in land confers jurisdiction, and the derivation of 
 
 19 See Hugo, Geschichte cles Romischen Rechts, p. 209. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 
 
 267 
 
 property, either from the owner's own sword, or from 
 the gift of the stronger chief whose sword he had 
 aided, not from the regular assignment of society, 
 has most deeply affected the political and social state 
 of the nations of modern Europe. At Rome, as 
 elsewhere among the free commonwealths of the 
 ancient world, property was derived from political 
 rights rather than political rights from property ; and 
 the division and assignation of lands to the individual 
 members of the state by the deliberate act of the 
 whole community, was familiarly recognized 20 as the 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 20 This is one of those general 
 statements which I think the reader 
 of an ancient history will readily 
 admit, although it is not possible 
 to bring any particular passage of 
 an ancient writer as the authority 
 for it. Nor is it to be denied, that 
 conquest, and the lapse of years, 
 introduced the greatest inequalities 
 of property, quite as great as those 
 subsisting in modern Europe. But 
 the notion of an equal division of 
 the land of a country amongst its 
 citizens, which in modern Europe 
 is so without example that it is 
 looked upon as one of the wildest 
 of impossible fancies, seems in the 
 ancient world to have been rather 
 the rule in theory, and in the 
 earliest recorded settlement of a 
 people, to have been often actually 
 carried into practice. The division 
 of Canaan amongst the Israelites, 
 is a well-known example. Let any 
 one compare this with the utterly 
 capricious manner in which the 
 Norman chiefs, from duke William 
 downwards, appropriated to them- 
 selves, or granted away to their 
 followers, the lands of England. 
 Again, a similar equal division is 
 said to have existed at one time in 
 
 Egypt (Herodotus, II. 109) ; and 
 even after the period of distress, 
 noticed in Genesis, had brought 
 most of the property into the 
 hands of the kings, yet still we 
 find the principle of regular di- 
 vision recognized ; for even in the 
 last years of the Egyptian mo- 
 narchy, the class of landed pro- 
 prietors who received their land 
 as an hereditary fief, on the tenure 
 of military service, enjoyed each 
 man an equal portion. (Herodotus, 
 II. 164, et seqq ) In all the Greek 
 colonies there was the same sys- 
 tem ; each citizen had his KXfjpos, 
 or portion, and in many states 
 these were not allowed to be 
 alienated. (Aristotle, Politic.VI.4.) 
 Thus the well-known division of 
 Laconia, ascribed to Lycurgus, 
 was nothing unprecedented : the 
 remarkable feature in it was, that 
 it was a return to the principle of 
 regular assignation after a long 
 departure from it it was the 
 bringing back of an old state to a 
 new beginning, as it were, of its 
 social existence. I think then it 
 may be stated, as one of the cha- 
 racteristic points of the ancient 
 world, that landed property was 
 
268 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, manner in which such property was most regularly 
 ^ ' acquired. This act conveyed the property of the 
 land so granted in complete sovereignty ; no seigno- 
 rial rights were reserved on it ; all on the soil and 
 under it was alike made over to the proprietor ; and 
 as he was the absolute owner of it in his lifetime, 
 so he could dispose of it to whom he would after his 
 death. But he must leave it as unfettered as he had 
 himself enjoyed it : he could not control the rights 
 of his successor by depriving him of his power of 
 disposing of it in his turn according to his pleasure ; 
 for this seemed an unjust encroachment on the power 
 of posterity, and an unnatural usurpation on the part 
 of any single generation. And a man's civil rights 
 and duties were derived, not from his possession of 
 property, but from his being a citizen of that society 
 from whose law his property itself had come to him. 
 
 not merely sanctioned and main- calling but agriculture. But this 
 tained by law, but had originally and other such regulations went on 
 been derived from it ; and that the principle, that it was desirable 
 even where the people as a body that a citizen should live by agri- 
 had gained their country by the culture rather than by trade; a 
 sword, yet their individual citizens principle very generally admitted 
 received their separate portion in the ancient world, but founded 
 neither from their own sword, nor on considerations of what was sup- 
 from the capricious bounty of their posed to be for the moral good of 
 chiefs, but from the deliberate act the community ; and very differ- 
 of society, which proceeded on re- ent from the notion that he who 
 gular principles to allot a portion had land ought to have juris- 
 of its common property to each diction and power. Besides, it 
 of its members. With respect to was only a ground of censorian 
 the statement at the end of this interference, if a citizen having 
 paragraph, that land conferred no had land, neglected it and follow - 
 political power, it may be objected ed any other calling ; it certainly 
 that power was connected with did not follow that every citizen 
 landed property, inasmuch as the received a grant of land, much 
 commons it is said were liable to less that his possession of land he- 
 be removed from their tribe by the forehand qualified him to become 
 censors, if they followed any other a citizen. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 269 
 
 He was bound to defend his country, not as the CHAP. 
 
 XIV 
 
 holder of lands, but as a member of the Common- v ^> 
 wealth : as a master he had power over his slaves ; as 
 a father over his children ; as a magistrate over his 
 fellow-citizens ; as a free-born citizen he had a voice 
 in public affairs ; but as a proprietor of land he en- 
 joyed only the direct benefits of property, and no 
 power or privilege, whether social or political. 
 
 Yet the sword had won no small portion of the AH property 
 actual territory of Rome, no less than of the feudal Rome was 
 kingdoms of a later period. The sword won it for ginlify from 
 the state, but not for individuals. Slaves, cattle, the stiue. 
 money, clothing, and all articles of moveable pro- 
 perty, might be won by individuals for themselves : 
 and the law 21 acknowledged this as a natural method 
 of acquiring wealth ; but whatever land 22 was con- 
 quered belonged immediately to the Commonwealth. 
 It could be converted into private property only by 
 purchase or by assignation; and assignation always 
 
 - 1 Gaius, II. 69. Quae ex solum" and expressed the con- 
 
 hostibus capiuntur, natural! ra- dition of land which remained still 
 
 done nostra fiunt ; and in Jus- in the state of a conquest, and 
 
 tinian's Institutes this is expressly had not been incorporated with 
 
 extended to slaves : " adeo qui- the territory, " ager," of the con- 
 
 dem, ut et liberi homines in servi- querors. But, as is well known, 
 
 tutem nostram deducantur." II. all the land in the provinces in 
 
 1, 17. De rerum divisione, the imperial times was not " pro- 
 
 &c. vinciale solum," particular spots 
 
 22 Gaius, II. 7. In provincial! enjoyed the privileges of " Ita- 
 
 solo dominium populi Romani est, licum solum," and this was the 
 
 vel Csesaris ; nos autem posses- famous jus Italia? which was so 
 
 sionem tantum et usumfructum completely misunderstood by all 
 
 habere videmur. Accordingly no writers on the Roman law and 
 
 land, in provincial! solo, could be constitution before Savigny. He 
 
 sold by mancipatio, because it was first showed that it was a privilege 
 
 not res mancipii. " Provinciale attached to land, and not, as had 
 
 solum " was opposed to " Italicura been supposed, to persons. 
 
270 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, proceeded on regular principles, and awarded equal 
 ( V- -> portions of land to every man. But the mass of the 
 conquered territory was left as the demesne of the 
 state ; and it was out of land similarly reserved to the 
 kings in the conquests of the German barbarians that 
 fiefs were first created. This system was prevented 
 among the Romans, by the general law, strength- 
 ened apparently by the sanctions of religion : the law 
 which prescribed to all grants of land made out of 
 the state demesne the one form of common and equal 
 assignation. The land then was not granted away, 
 its property remained in the state ; it was sometimes 
 left as common pasture, sometimes farmed, some- 
 times occupied by individuals, in the same manner 
 and under the same circumstances as in later times 
 it was granted in fiefs, but with this essential differ- 
 ence, that this occupation was an irregular, and, as 
 far as regarded the state, a wholly precarious tenure. 
 The occupiers possessed large tracts of land, and de- 
 rived as much profit from them as if they had been 
 their property ; but they were only tenants at will, 
 and there was nothing to give to these permitted 
 rather than authorized possessions, the dignity and 
 political importance which were attached to the 
 great fiefs of modern Europe. 
 Property This occupation of the public land could by no 
 
 acquired by . , . , . 
 
 prescription, length or prescription be converted into private pro- 
 perty; lapse of time could never bar the rights of 
 the Commonwealth ; and therefore the " possessions " 
 of the Roman patricians in early times, within a few 
 miles of Rome, were on the same footing with all 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 271 
 
 land in the provinces afterwards : in neither case CHAP. 
 
 XIV 
 
 could prescription or usucapio 23 confer a legal title x v 
 on the possessor, because in both instances the pro- 
 perty of the soil lay in the state. But with respect 
 to the lands of private persons, the early Roman 
 law 24 allowed possession to become property after a 
 lapse of only two years, provided that the possession 
 had not been obtained in the first instance 25 either 
 by force or fraud. The object of this enactment was 
 supposed to have been the speedy settlement of all 
 questions of ownership 2G ; one year's possession gave 
 a right of property in a slave, or any other moveable, 
 and twice that time was thought sufficient for the 
 owner of the land to establish his right against the 
 occupier in a territory so small as that of Rome, un- 
 less through his own neglect. Probably, also, it was 
 judged expedient to prevent the risk of any lands 
 lying long uncultivated, by regarding land thus ne- 
 
 " 3 Provincialia praedia usuca- See Justinian's Code, VII. Tit. 
 
 pionem non recipiunt. Gaius, II. 31. De usucapione transform- 
 
 46. It need not be repeated anda. 
 
 that the provinciale solum of 24 Gaius, II. 42. Ulpian, 
 
 Gaius' time, of which the property Fragra. XIX. 8. 
 
 was vested only in the Roman 2S Si modo eas bona fide acce- 
 
 people or the emperor, while in- perimus. Gaius, II. 43. But 
 
 dividuals could only have the even if the actual possessor ac- 
 
 occupation and usufruct of it, was quired the possession of any thing 
 
 exactly in the condition of the bona fide, yet he could not ac- 
 
 ager publicus of the time of the quire the property of it by pre- 
 
 twelve tables. Afterwards the dis- scription or usucapio, if it had 
 
 tinction between provinciale and been originally obtained by force 
 
 Italicum solum was done away by or fraud ; " si quis rem furtivam 
 
 Justinian, and usucapio was ad- aut vi possessam possideat." Gaius, 
 
 mitted alike in each; but it could II. 45. 
 
 be completed not in two years, 26 Ne rerum dominia diutius in 
 
 but according to various circum- incerto essent. Gaius, II. 44. 
 stances, in ten, twenty, or thirty. 
 
272 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, glected as returned in a manner to a state of nature, 
 
 XIV 
 
 ..^ and open to the first occupant. Another reason 
 would sometimes operate strongly ; the duty of keep- 
 ing up the religious rites attached to particular 
 places, which would fall into disuse during the ab- 
 sence of an owner. This feeling was so powerful in 
 the case of the religious rites of particular families 27 , 
 that if the heir neglected to enter upon his inhe- 
 ritance, another person might step in and take pos- 
 session, and after the lapse of a single year, he 
 acquired a legal title to the estate. But it cannot 
 be doubted that the effect of this encouragement 
 given to possession was favourable to the burghers, 
 or patricians as we must now begin to call them, at 
 the expense of the commons. The twelve tables 28 
 utterly denied the right of possession to a foreigner; 
 against such an one the owner's title remained good 
 for ever. And although the commons were no 
 longer regarded as altogether foreigners, yet they 
 were still excluded from the right of occupying the 
 public land ; and we may be certain that they could 
 neither take possession of the inheritance of a patri- 
 cian, nor of any portion of his land on which there 
 was any temple or altar ; for it would have been a 
 direct profanation, had a stranger ventured to per- 
 form the religious rites peculiar to his family and 
 
 27 Gaius, II. 53. 55. Volue- auctoritas." Fragm. XII. Tabular, 
 runt veteres raaturius hereditates ] 9, apud Haubold. "Auctoritas" 
 adiri ut essent qui sacra facerent, is the right of claiming our own 
 quorum illis temporibus summa property, to prevent another from 
 observatio fuit. acquiring it by prescription. 
 
 28 "Adversus hostem aeterna 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 273 
 
 race. Besides, in point of fact, the patricians' lands CHAP. 
 
 "VT V 
 
 were far less likely to be left open to occupation. * ^-L > 
 
 A plebeian, whose land had been laid waste by the 
 enemy, whose house had been burnt, and his sons 
 killed or swept off by the plague, might often be 
 actually unable to cultivate his property again, and 
 might leave it in despair to be possessed by the first 
 person who chose to occupy it. Or if he were de- 
 tained prisoner for debt in some patrician's prison, 
 the same result might happen ; his wife and children 
 might seek protection with some relation or friend, 
 and their home might thus be abandoned. And 
 supposing justice to have been fairly administered, 
 yet the delays of legal business, or the want of 
 friends to undertake the cause, or the fear of pro- 
 voking a powerful enemy, might often hinder the 
 owner from making good his claim within two years, 
 and so the property might be lost for ever. 
 
 As the Roman law attached no political power to Distinctions 
 
 -,-,-, -I -i -i as to varioui 
 
 landed property, so neither did it make a distinction kinds of m-o- 
 between it and all other kinds of property, as to the mancipii 
 
 . . . . and nee 
 
 formalities required in conveying it to another. Yet 
 there was a distinction recognized ; some things 
 might be conveyed by bare delivery, a title to others 
 could only be given by selling them with certain 
 solemn formalities, known by the names of manci- 
 patio and in jure cessio. This latter class 29 included 
 
 29 Mancipi res sunt praedia in mantur, velut boves, muli, equi, 
 
 Italico solo item jura praediorum asini. Cseterae res nee mancipi 
 
 rusticorum, velut via, iter, actus, sunt. Ulpian, Fragm. XIX. 1. 
 
 aquaeductus ; item servi et qua- It has been doubted whether 
 
 drupedes quae dorso collove do- this distinction was as old as 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, not only land and houses, but also slaves, and all 
 
 XIV 
 
 - v ' tame animals of draught or burden, and all these 
 were classed under one common name, as res man- 
 cipii or mancipi ; every other article of property was 
 nee mancipii. The formality of mancipatio was one 
 of the peculiar rights of Roman citizens 30 ; no magis- 
 trate's presence was required, nor was there need of 
 any written instrument : but five Roman citizens 
 of an adult age were to be present as witnesses, and 
 a sixth called the weigher or scalesman, was to 
 produce a pair of scales to weigh the copper, which 
 was at this time the only money in circulation. 
 Then the purchaser laid his hand upon the thing 
 
 the twelve tables ; (see Hugo, 
 Geschichte des Rom. Rechts, p. 
 425 ;) but it is at any rate recog- 
 nized by the Cincian law passed 
 in the year 550, (see Hugo, p. 
 321,) and was in all probability 
 coeval with the earliest state of the 
 Roman law, except as far as re- 
 gards the jura praediorum ; for 
 these, being res incorporales, could 
 not pass by actual bodily seizure, 
 and mancipatio no doubt always 
 in its original meaning implied 
 this. It may be conjectured that 
 mancipatio was at first a matter 
 of usage amongst the plebeian 
 landowners, a method of effecting 
 a purchase in the country before 
 a man's immediate neighbours, 
 without the necessity of his going 
 up to Rome and transacting the 
 business before a magistrate. If 
 the law of the twelve tables gave 
 a legal sanction to this mode of 
 conveyance, and thus gratified 
 the commons by recognizing their 
 custom as law, %ve can understand 
 why there should have been after- 
 
 wards a sort of pride felt in 
 the exercise of this right of man- 
 cipatio, and why it should have 
 been kept as one of the peculiar 
 rights of Roman citizens. And if 
 it were originally the mode of 
 conveyance practised by the ple- 
 beian landowners, we can account 
 for its being restricted to land, 
 and to what constituted the most 
 valuable part of the live stock of 
 land, slaves, horses, mules, asses, 
 and oxen. In particular we can 
 thus understand why ships were 
 res nee mancipii, because foreign 
 commerce was wholly unknown 
 to the agricultural commons, and 
 ships were neither bought nor 
 sold amongst them. I may ob- 
 serve that in the MS. published 
 by Mai, and entitled " De dona- 
 tionibus, ad legem Cinciam," we 
 have the true form " res manci- 
 pii," instead of " mancipi." See 
 Hugo, p. 321, and Niebuhr, Vol. 
 I. p. 447. Note 1044. 
 30 Gaius, I. 119. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 275 
 
 which he was buying and said, " This thing I declare CHAP. 
 
 XIV 
 
 to be mine according to the law of the Quirites ; v v-^- 
 and I have bought it with this money duly weighed 
 in these scales." In later times, when this form was 
 still preserved, only slaves and animals were required 
 to be literally seized by the purchaser ; land might 
 be disposed of at a distance n . But in the days of 
 the decemviri, we cannot doubt that every sale of 
 land by mancipatio was transacted on the spot, and 
 that the purchaser laid his hand upon the house or 
 ground which he was buying, no less than on the 
 slave or the ox. The form called " in jure cessio," 
 took place before a magistrate 3 - : the purchaser 
 claimed, " vindicavit," the purchase as his property ; 
 the seller when asked by the magistrate if he dis- 
 puted the claim, answered " that he did not ;" and 
 then the magistrate awarded the article in question 
 to the purchaser or claimant. These transactions by 
 word of mouth only, without writing, were especially 
 sanctioned by the twelve tables, which declared, that 
 in buying and selling, "even as the tongue had 
 spoken, so should be the law s3 ." 
 
 The principle of the law of descent was that of Law of 
 
 . . . 0,. succession. 
 
 qualified male succession without primogeniture . 
 
 51 Gaius, I. 121. cession," because although a man's 
 
 32 Gaius, II. 24. Ulpian, daughters inherited along with 
 Fragm. XIX. 9. his sons, yet his daughters' sons 
 
 33 Quum nexum faciet man- were altogether excluded, and 
 cipiumque, uti lingua nuncupas- his daughters, being under their 
 sit ita jus esto. Fragm. XII. brothers' guardianship, could not 
 Tabular. 17, apud Haubold. See dispose of or devise their in- 
 Dirksen, p. 397 406. heritance without their consent. 
 
 34 I call it " qualified male sue- By the Athenian law the sons 
 
 T 2 
 
276 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. All children who had not been emancipated 35 in- 
 
 XIV 
 
 ..-^ herited their father's estate in equal portions, with- 
 out distinction of sex or eldership. A man's wife, if 
 she had fully come under his power, (in manum con- 
 venerat,) inherited as a daughter ; and his son's chil- 
 dren, if the son were dead, or had been emanci- 
 pated 86 , succeeded to that son's share, and divided it 
 equally amongst them ; even the children of his 
 son's son inherited on the same condition, if their 
 father had ceased to be in his grandfather's power, 
 either by death or by emancipation ; but daughters' 
 children, as belonging to another family, had no right 
 of succession. All these were called a man's own 
 heirs, " sui heredes ;" and in default of these, his 
 agnati 37 , or relations by the father's side, succeeded ; 
 the nearer excluding the more remote, and those in 
 the same degree of relationship receiving equal shares. 
 In default of agnati 38 , a man's inheritance went to 
 the members of his gens. 
 
 alone inherited, but they were under the title of agnati ; but 
 
 obliged to portion out their sis- afterwards the meaning of the 
 
 ters, and public opinion would not term was more limited, and fe- 
 
 allow this to be done niggardly. male relations were excluded be- 
 
 35 Gaius, III. 2. yond the degree of a sister. A 
 
 36 The reason of this restriction man's mother, if she had passed 
 was, that if the son were in his "in manum mariti" acquired the 
 father's power, he was himself his rights of a daughter as regarded 
 father's heir, and his children her husband, and thus was con- 
 were of course excluded ; if he sidered in the light of a sister to 
 had lost his succession either by her son. See Justinian, Institutes, 
 death or by emancipation, then III. Tit. 2. 3. 
 
 his children succeeded to his share ^ Gaius, III. 17. It is pro- 
 as his representatives. yoking that the part of Gaius' 
 
 37 Gaius, III. 9, 10. By the law work in which he had defined 
 of the twelve tables, all relations who were a man's "gentiles" is 
 by the father's side, whether male wholly illegible in the MS. It 
 or female, were alike included was to be found in his first book, 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 277 
 
 III. The last division of the Roman private law CHAP. 
 
 XIV 
 
 relates to actions. " Legis actio " signifies " the ^rr-jx ^ 
 course of proceeding which the law prescribes to a actions. 
 
 Five sorts 
 
 man, in order to settle a dispute with his neighbour, of actions. 
 or to obtain the redress of an injury." It stands 
 opposed to all those acts of superstition or violence 
 by which the ignorance or passion of man has sought 
 to obtain the same end ; to the lot or the ordeal on 
 the one hand, to the dagger of the assassin or the 
 sword of the duellist on the other. But a proceeding 
 at law, according to the notion of the decemvirs, was 
 bound to follow the law to the very letter; nothing 
 was understood of construction or of deductions, in- 
 somuch that he who brought an action against an- 
 other for cutting down his vines 39 was held to have 
 
 between the 164th and 165th succeeded to the property of an 
 sections of the present division, intestate Caecilius, in default of 
 There is no more difficult question sui hseredes and agnati. Was it, 
 in Roman law than to ascertain as in the Athenian law, that cog- 
 when and to what extent the nati, a term which included rela- 
 plebeians acquired "jura gentili- tions by the mother's side as well 
 tatis." The whole institution of as by the father's, were capable of 
 the gentes seems to have been inheriting ? And if no relations at 
 essentially patrician ; and it was all were to be found, had the 
 the boast of the patricians, " se tribe any claim to the succession, 
 solos gentem habere." Livy, X. or was the property considered to 
 8. Who then in the succession to be wholly without an heir, and 
 the property of an intestate pie- thus capable of being acquired by 
 beian stood in a position ana- a stranger by occupation, posses- 
 logo us to that of the members of sio, and two years' prescription, 
 his gens in the succession to the usucapio ? In this case there 
 property of a patrician ? For the would be a possibility of the pro- 
 noblest of the plebeian families, perty of a plebeian being acquired 
 the Csecilii for instance, or the by a patrician, whereas so long 
 Decii, could have had no connex- as there existed a single member 
 ion with any patrician gens such of his gens, the property of a 
 as subsisted between the plebeian patrician could never be without a 
 and patrician Claudii, so that it patrician heir, 
 does not appear who would have 39 Gaius, IV. 11. 
 
278 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, lost his cause, because the twelve tables forbade only 
 
 XIV 
 
 v v-^ ' the cutting down of fruit trees generally, without 
 any particular mention of vines. The modes of 
 action were five 40 ; 1. Sacramento; 2. Per judicis 
 postulationem ; 3. Per condictionem ; 4. Per manus 
 injectionem ; 5. Per pignoris captionem. 
 
 1st Action; 1. The first' 1 of these was the most generally 
 ' adopted where no other specific action was pre- 
 scribed by law. The contending parties each staked 
 a certain sum of money, " sacramentum," on the issue 
 of their suit, five hundred asses, if the value of 
 the disputed property amounted to one thousand 
 asses or more ; and fifty, if it fell below that sum. 
 Only if the suit related to the establishing of the 
 freedom of any one claimed as a slave 42 , the sacra- 
 mentum was fixed at the lower sum of fifty asses, 
 lest his friends might be deterred from asserting his 
 liberty, by the greatness of the sum they would have 
 to forfeit if they failed in proving it. For the party 
 who lost his cause forfeited his stake besides, and it 
 went not to the other party, but to the state. Ac- 
 cordingly the magistrate having named a judge to try 
 the cause, the parties appeared before him, and first 
 briefly stated to him the nature of their respective 
 claims. Then the object in dispute, if it were any 
 thing capable of moving or being moved, was brought 
 
 40 Gaius, IV. 12. personal interest for him : it was 
 
 41 Gaius, IV. 13 17- the duty, or rather the privilege, 
 
 42 In the case of a slave's li- of every man to save a freeman 
 berty, it was not necessary that from the perpetual loss of his 
 the person who brought the ques- liberty. " In his quae asserantur 
 tion to issue should have any con- in libertatem, quivis lege agere 
 nexion with the slave, or any potest." Livy, III. 45. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 279 
 
 into court also, and the plaintiff, holding a rod or CHAP. 
 wand in one hand r \ and laying hold of the object ^ v 
 which he claimed with the other, asserted that it 
 belonged to him according to the law of the Qui- 
 rites, and then laid his rod upon it. The defendant 
 did the same, and asserted his own right to it in the 
 same form of words. Then the judge bade them 
 both to loose their hold, and this being done, the 
 plaintiff turned to the defendant, and said, "Wilt 
 thou tell me wherefore thou hast claimed this thing 
 as thine ?" The other answered, " I have fulfilled 
 what right requires, even as I have made my claim." 
 Then the plaintiff rejoined, " Since thou hast made 
 thy claim wrongfully, I defy thee at law ; and I stake 
 five hundred asses on the issue." To which the 
 defendant replied, " In like manner, and with a like 
 stake, do I also defy thee." Then the judge awarded 
 possession of the object in dispute to one or other of 
 the parties till the cause should be decided, and 
 called upon him to give security to his adversary, 
 " litis et vindiciarum," that is, that he would make 
 good to him both the thing itself, " litem," and the 
 benefit arising from his temporary possession of it, 
 " vindicias," if the cause were finally decided against 
 him. Both parties also gave security to the judge that 
 their stake, or sacramentum, should be duly paid. 
 But if the dispute related to the personal freedom of 
 
 43 " Festucam tenebat." This 16. It cannot, therefore, signify 
 
 was apparently a rod or wand, as the wisp of straw or chaff which 
 
 Gaius says afterwards. " Festuca Plutarch says was thrown on a 
 
 autem utebantur quasi hastse loco, slave when he received his liberty, 
 
 signo quodam justi dominii," See Facciolati in Festuca. 
 
280 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, any man, whether he were to be adjudged to be 
 
 XIV 
 
 * .^j a slave or a freeman, the twelve tables expressly 
 ordered that the vindicise or temporary possession 14 
 should be awarded in favour of freedom, that the 
 man should remain at liberty till it were proved 
 that he was lawfully a slave. I have given all these 
 details, partly from their affording so curious an 
 illustration of the legal proceedings of the fourth cen- 
 tury of Rome, partly from the light which they throw 
 on the famous story of Virginia, presently to be re- 
 lated, and partly also from their novelty ; our whole 
 knowledge of the old actions at law being derived 
 from the Institutes of Gaius, which in their entire 
 and original form were first discovered by Niebuhr 
 at Verona, in the year 1816. 
 
 2nd and 3rd 2. 3. The account of the second and third modes 
 Peijudi'ds of action has been lost out of the MS. of Gaius, so 
 Enemand that we can neither fully understand their nature, 
 " lc nor how they differed from one another. So far as 
 
 we can judge, the latter, actio per condictionem, ap- 
 pears to have been a sort of serving a notice on the 
 adversary, calling on him to appear at the end of 
 thirty days, to submit his cause to the judge. The 
 former, per postulationem judicis, was an application 
 to the magistrate that he would name a judge to try 
 the matter in dispute. 
 
 4A Action; 4. The summary process, per manus injectionem, 
 was allowed by the twelve tables 45 as a method of 
 enforcing the fulfilment of the judge's sentence. If 
 
 44 Vindicise secundum liberta- Gaius, IV. 21 25. 
 tern. See Livy, III. 44, 45. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 281 
 
 the defendant, after having lost his cause, and having CHAP. 
 
 A.I V. 
 
 been sentenced to pay a certain sum to the plaintiff ' * ' 
 had neglected to do so, the plaintiff might lay actual 
 hands on him, and unless he could find a vindex, or 
 defender, to plead his cause for him, he being himself 
 not allowed to do it, he was dragged to the plaintiff's 
 house, and there kept in chains till he had paid all 
 that was due from him. 
 
 5. Lastly, the action, per pignoris captionem 46 , 5th Action; 
 
 Per pignoris 
 
 was a rude method of distress, in which a man was 
 allowed, in certain cases, to compel his adversary to 
 pay him what he owed him by carrying off articles 
 of his property as a pledge. In some instances it 
 rested solely on old unwritten custom, such as that 
 which allowed the soldier^ 7 , if his pay were withheld, 
 to distrain in this manner upon the goods of the 
 officer whose business it was to give it him. The 
 twelve tables allowed it in cases connected with re- 
 ligious worship; as for instance, it was permitted 
 against him who had bought a sheep or an ox for 
 sacrifice, and had not paid for it ; or against him who 
 had not paid for the hire of a beast which the owner 
 had let for the very purpose of getting money to 
 enable him to offer a sacrifice himself. In the first 
 case, there was an impiety in a man's offering to the 
 gods that which was not his own ; in the second the 
 
 4G Gaius, IV. 26 29. With If the expression be made one 
 
 regard to the orthography of the single word, the form would be 
 
 word, the text of Gaius varies, pignoriscapio. See Cato, as quoted 
 
 exhibiting in one passage the form by Gellius, Noct. Alt. VII. 10. 
 " captionem," 12, and in ano- 4 " Gaius, IV. 27- 
 ther that of "capionem," 26. 
 
282 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, gods themselves were defrauded of their sacrifice, 
 " -^ J inasmuch as their worshipper w T as deprived of the 
 
 means to offer it. 
 
 LAW OF OB- I have purposely postponed my notice of one part 
 of the law, that which relates to obligations, because 
 it affords an easy transition to another branch of the 
 subject, the criminal law of the twelve tables ; inas- 
 much as several offences, which we regard as crimes, 
 or public wrongs, were by the Romans classed 
 under the head of private wrongs, and the compen- 
 sation which the offender was bound to make to 
 the injured party, followed from one species of 
 civil obligation, technically called obligationes ex 
 delicto. 
 
 obligations Over and above our general duties to our fellow- 
 ex contractu 
 
 and ex de- citizens, we put ourselves often, by our own voluntary 
 act, under certain new and specific obligations to- 
 wards them, either from some particular engagement 
 contracted with them, or from our having done 
 them some wrong. In the first case there arises an 
 obligation to fulfil our agreement, in the second an 
 obligation to repair our injustice. Hence the Ro- 
 man law 18 divided all legal obligations into those 
 arising from engagement, ex contractu, and those 
 arising from a wrong committed, ex delicto. 
 i. ouiga- I. It will not be necessary to go minutely into 
 contractu. the subdivisions of the former of these two classes of 
 obligations. To the head of obligationes re con- 
 tractae belonged the law of debtor and creditor : the 
 
 Gaius, III. 88. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 283 
 
 mere fact of having borrowed money 49 constituted CHAP. 
 
 xiv. 
 
 the obligation to pay it, without any promise to that ' * 
 
 effect, verbal or written 50 , on the part of the borrower. 
 But as the remarkable provisions of the law of the 
 twelve tables, with regard to debtors, have been al- 
 ready noticed, it will not be needful to state them 
 again. One part, however, of the engagements of 
 debtors, their being bound to pay the interest as 
 well as the principal of their debt, belonged to obli- 
 gations of another class, those contracted by direct 
 words of covenant ; for whereas the payment of the 
 principal was an obligation re contracta, the pay- 
 ment of interest was a matter of distinct stipulation 
 between the contracting parties S1 . Yet although this 
 may seem to be as much a matter of voluntary bar- 
 gain as any dealing between man and man, still the 
 contracting parties meet often on so unequal a foot- 
 ing, and the weaker is so little in a condition either 
 to gain more favourable terms or to do without the 
 aid of which they are the price, that legislators have 
 
 49 Or any thing else which can which therefore the law presumes 
 he weighed, counted, or measured, that every man undertakes to 
 This was called " mutuum," when perform." Blackstone, Comment, 
 the thing, whatever it be, is given Book II. c. 30. IX. 
 
 to another for his use, with the 51 Gibbon, Vol. VIII chap. xliv. 
 understanding that he shall return p. 85. 8vo. ed. 1807, considers the 
 to us hereafter not that very same payment of interest to follow from 
 thing, but one of the same nature an obligatio ex consensu, and to 
 and quality. " Commodatum " ex- come under the general head of 
 pressed that which is lent to an- letting and hiring, locatio and con- 
 other, with the understanding that ductio, inasmuch as interest may 
 the very same thing shall be re- be considered as the hire paid for 
 stored to us again. the temporary use of money. The 
 
 50 The English law considers an view given in the text is that of 
 obligatio re contracta as an im- Heineccius, III. 15. 6, and of 
 plied contract: such a contract Hugo,GeschichtedesR6m.Rechts, 
 " as reason and justice dictate, and p. 230, ed. 9. 
 
284 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 C xiv P ' g enera Hy interfered either to prohibit such engage- 
 - ' ments altogether, or at any rate to prevent the 
 stronger party from making an exorbitant use of his 
 advantages; they have either made all interest of 
 money illegal, or have fixed a maximum to its 
 amount. Accordingly the decemvirs, while they en- 
 forced the payment of debts with such fearful seve- 
 rity, thought themselves bound to save the debtor, 
 if possible, from the burden of an extravagant in- 
 terest ; they forbade any thing higher than unciarium 
 foenus 52 , an expression w r hich has been variously in- 
 terpreted as meaning in our language either one per 
 cent, or cent, per cent., but which, according to 
 Niebuhr 53 , signifies a yearly interest of one-twelfth, 
 or eight and one-third per cent. ; and this being cal- 
 culated for the old cyclic year of ten months, would 
 give ten per cent, for the common year of twelve 
 months, which was in ordinary use in the time of the 
 decemvirs. This, according to our notions, is suffi- 
 ciently high ; yet the common rate of interest at 
 Athens, at this time, was twelve per cent. 5: : and 
 
 82 Tacitus, Annal. VI. 16. terest of a third and of a sixth part 
 " Duodecim tabulis sanctum, ue of the sum borrowed." And as the 
 quis unciario fcenore ampliue ex- Greek expressions denote the in- 
 erceret." Now the uncia being the rerest for a year, although interest 
 well-known twelfth part of the was in fact paid every month, so 
 Roman as, or pound, and the the unc'arium foenus in like man- 
 heavy copper coinage of the old ner may mean, interest of a twelfth 
 times being still the standard at part, or eight and one-third per 
 Rome, unciarium foenus would be cent, per annum, although a part 
 a very natural expression for " in- of it was at Rome also paid 
 terest of an ounce in the pound," monthly. 
 
 that is of a twelfth part of the sum 53 See his chapter " iiber den 
 
 borrowed. Thus at Athens we Unzialzinsfuss," in the third 
 
 have TOKOS tirirptms, TOKOS ((^CKTOS, volume of his history, p. 61. 
 
 &c. to express respectively " In- 54 See Bockh, " Staatshaushal- 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 285 
 
 Niebuhr observes, that from this period forward for CHAP. 
 sixty years, till the distress which followed the Gaul- " s J 
 ish invasion, we hear no more of the misery of insol- 
 vent debtors. 
 
 A third class of obligations ' 5 , ex contractu, con- Obligations 
 
 . , . arising from 
 
 tamed all promises or covenants expressed in a the force of 
 certain form of words ; and here the Roman law eaBv ** 
 acknowledged such only to be legally binding as 
 were concluded in the form of question and answer. 
 The party with whom the covenant was made asked 
 him who made it, " Dost thou engage to do so and 
 so?" And he answered, "I do engage." It is a 
 curious circumstance, that as the Romans had a 
 peculiar form of sale, mancipatio, which none but 
 Roman citizens might use, so also they had one 
 peculiar word to express an engagement which was 
 binding only on Roman citizens, and lost its force 
 even on them if translated into another language. 
 This favourite word was spowrfeo 56 . A Roman might 
 make a binding covenant with a foreigner in any 
 language which both parties understood ; if it were 
 drawn up in Latin, the words promitto, dabo, faciam, 
 or any others to the like effect, retained their na- 
 tural and reasonable force, and constituted an agree- 
 ment recognized by law ; but if he used the word 
 spondeo, or its supposed equivalent in any other 
 language, the engagement was null and void. This 
 
 tung der Athener," Vol. I. p. 143. 55 " Obligationes verbis con- 
 In Demosthenes' time twelve per tracts." Gaius, III. 92. 
 cent, at Athens was considered 56 Gaius, III. 93. 
 low. 
 
286 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, undoubtedly is to be referred to the religious origin 
 
 XIV 
 
 v -/ > of the term ; it is clearly connected with (nrevSu, 
 and denoted probably an oath taken with the sanc- 
 tion of certain peculiar rites, such as a stranger could 
 not witness without profanation. We may be sure 
 that spondeo was a word as peculiar to the patricians 
 originally as it was afterwards to the united Roman 
 people of patricians and commoners: there was a 
 time when it could have been no more used in a cove- 
 nant with a plebeian, than it was afterwards allowed 
 to be addressed to a Greek or an Egyptian. 
 
 ii. owiga- II. The second division of obligations included 
 
 tiones ex . . 
 
 deiicto. those which arise from our having wronged our 
 
 Law of theft . 
 
 and law of neighbour, the obligation or making good, or making 
 reparation for, the injury which we have done. We 
 may injure either the person, or the property, or 
 thirdly, the feelings and character of another. 1. In- 
 juries " to the person were divided by the twelve 
 tables into three classes, a. If a limb or any mem- 
 ber were irreparably injured, the law ordered retali- 
 ation, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth," unless the 
 injured party chose to accept of any other satisfac- 
 tion. /3. If a bone were broken or crushed, the 
 offender was to pay three hundred asses, y. And all 
 other bodily injuries were compensated by the pay- 
 ment of twenty-five asses. The poverty of the times, 
 says Gaius, made these money penalties seem suffici- 
 ently heavy ; but twenty-five asses could never have 
 been a very heavy penalty to the majority of the 
 
 57 Gaius, III 223. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 287 
 
 patricians ; and such a law was well calculated to en- CHAP. 
 courage the outrages which Kseso and his associates < - Lv-l- 
 and imitators were in the habit of committing against 
 the poorer citizens. 2. Injuries 58 against property, 
 on the other hand, were visited severely. A thief in 
 the night 59 might be lawfully slain ; or by day 60 , if 
 he defended himself with a weapon. If a thief was 
 caught in the fact, he was to be scourged and given 
 over cl , addicebatur, to the man whom he had robbed ; 
 and the lawyers doubted whether he was only to be 
 kept in chains by the injured party till he had made 
 restitution, probably fourfold, or whether he was to 
 be his slave for ever. Theft not caught in the fact 
 was punished with twofold restitution 62 . If a man 
 wanted to search a neighbour's house for stolen 
 goods, he was to search naked r ' 3 , with only a girdle 
 round his loins, and holding a large dish or platter 
 upon his head with both his hands ; and if he found 
 his goods, then the thief was to be punished as one 
 
 s8 Gaius, III. 189. leave secretly in his neighbour's 
 
 59 " Sei nox furtum factum esit, house, and then charge him with 
 sei im occisit joure caisus esto." theft. It is curious that this ex- 
 Fragm. XII. Tabular. 10, apud traordinary custom seems to have 
 Haubold. existed also at Athens. See the 
 
 60 Gaius, ad edictum provin- following passage from the Clouds 
 ciale, quoted in the Digest, XLVII. of Aristophanes, v. 497, ed. Din- 
 De furtis, 1. 54, 2. dorf. 
 
 61 Gaius, III. 189. 
 
 62 Gaius, III. 190. 2QKPATH2. "Wi wv, Karddov 
 
 63 Gaius, III. 192, 193. The OolpdTiov 
 
 notion of this strange law was, 2TPE^IAAH2. ^'iKrjKu ri ; 
 
 that the man who searched, by 2QKP OVK, dXXu yvpvovs elaievai 
 being naked and having his hands vo^frai. 
 
 occupied, could not conceal any 2TPE^. oXX' oi^i <pa>pda-a>v eyny 
 thing about him, which he might da-fpxopai. 
 
288 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, caught in the fact. 3. But in no provision of the 
 -^> twelve tables does the aristocratical spirit of their 
 authors appear more manifest than in the extreme 
 severity with which they visited attacks upon cha- 
 racter, and in the large extent of their definition of 
 a punishable libel. They declared it an offence for 
 which 64 a man should be visited with one of their 
 
 64 There have been various opi- 
 nions as to the precise penalty 
 awarded to libels in the twelve 
 tables. The foundation of our 
 knowledge on this subject is the 
 passage quoted by Augustine, (de 
 Civit. Dei, II. 9,) from the fourth 
 book of Cicero's treatise, De Re- 
 publica. " Duodecim tabulae cum 
 perpaucas res capite sanxissent, 
 in his hanc quoque sanciendam 
 putaverunt, si quis occentavisset, 
 sive carmen condidisset, quod in- 
 famiam faceret flagitiumve alteri." 
 And Augustine, in another place, 
 II. 12, referring to this passage, 
 expresses what he supposed to be 
 its meaning in his own words 
 thus : " Capite plectendum san- 
 cientes tale carmen condere si quis 
 auderet." Augustine, living in an 
 age when capital punishments, in 
 our sense of the term, were com- 
 mon, understands Cicero's words 
 as signifying the " punishment of 
 death" But in Cicero's time, 
 when the punishment of death 
 was, so far as Roman citizens 
 were concerned, unknown to the 
 law ; the expressions, capite san- 
 cire, and res capitalis, generally, 
 as is well known, have a milder 
 meaning, and caput refers to the 
 civil rather than to the natural 
 life of a citizen. Thus Gaius says 
 expressly, " Pcena manifesti furti 
 ex lege XII. tabularum capitalis 
 
 erat," III. 189. And then he 
 goes on, " Nam liber verberatus 
 addicebatur ei cui furtum fecerat." 
 On the other hand, not to insist on 
 Horace's line, " Vertere modum 
 formidine fustis," Cornutus, the 
 scholiast on Persius, says express- 
 ly, " Lege XII. tabularum cau- 
 tum est, ut fustibusferiretur, qui 
 publice invehebatur," &c. Yet 
 still there is another question, for 
 the military punishment of the 
 fustuarium was notoriously often 
 fatal ; and it may be that the ex- 
 pression " fusti ferire," included 
 even a beating to death. Thus we 
 read of Egnatius Metellus, " qui 
 uxorem fuste percussam inter- 
 emit," Valer. Max. VI. 3. 9, 
 where the words fuste percussam 
 are, I think, meant to describe 
 the manner of the death, rather 
 than a punishment inflicted pre- 
 viously to the capital one. And 
 yet fustigatio, in the estimate of 
 the later law, was a milder punish- 
 ment than flagellatio ; and the 
 Digest calls it " fustigationis ad- 
 monitio." See Heineccius, IV. 
 18, 7- 
 
 If we look to the later law, in 
 order to learn what was then the 
 punishment of libel, we shall find, 
 that according to Ulpian, (Digest. 
 De injur. et famosis libellis, 1. 5, 
 9,) the libeller was to be intes- 
 tabilis, that is, he could neither 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 289 
 
 heaviest punishments, involving a climinutio capitis, CHAP. 
 if he publicly uttered in word or writing any thing v -, 
 that tended to bring disgrace upon his neighbour. 
 Cicero refers to this law, as proving the existence of 
 something of a literature in the times of the decem- 
 virs ; and he contrasts it with the licence enjoyed by 
 the comic poets at Athens. No doubt satirical songs 
 are sufficiently ancient, and these were the literature 
 which the decemvirs dreaded ; the coarse jests which 
 were uttered in the Fescennine verses, and which 
 were allowed, as at a kind of Saturnalia, to the sol- 
 diers who followed their general in his triumph. But 
 the effect of this law was to make the ancient poetry 
 of Rome merely laudatory; and afterwards, when 
 prose compositions began, they caught the same in- 
 fection. If the poet Naevius could be persecuted by 
 the powerful family of the Metelli, and obliged to 
 
 give evidence in a court of justice, severity, fatal ; and that a man 
 
 nor make a will. And in the some- who had thus died under his pu- 
 
 what vague language of the Theo- nishment was considered as jure 
 
 dosian Code, IX. 34, 10, Libel- caesus. It might thus be truly 
 
 lers are to dread " ultorem suis said, that libels were punished 
 
 cervicibus gladium." But"famosi capitally, in the later sense of the 
 
 libelli," in the Theodosian code, term, if the punishment might in 
 
 mean, perhaps, something differ- fact be made to amount to a sen- 
 
 ent from the libellous carmina of tence of death, at the discretion of 
 
 the twelve tables. those who inflicted it. But the 
 
 On the whole it is certain that law meant only, that the libeller 
 
 the punishment of a libeller in- should be beaten, and incur also a 
 
 volved in it a diminutio capitis, diminutio capitis ; and this was 
 
 and was thus in the Roman sense sufficiently severe, when we find 
 
 of the term capital. It may be that the most grievous bodily in- 
 
 also that the sentence " ut fuste juries, although visited by punish- 
 
 ferietur," not being limited with ment in kind, yet did not involve 
 
 the careful humanity of the Jew- any forfeiture of civil rights, 
 ish law, was, when executed with 
 
 VOL. I. U 
 
290 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, leave Rome, for no severer satire than his famous line, 
 
 XIV 
 
 ' v -^ " Fato Roma) fiunt Metelli consules," we may readily 
 understand how little a humble writer, in recording 
 the actions of a great patrician house, would dare to 
 speak of them truly. And hence it has happened 
 that the falsehood of the Roman annals is so deeply 
 rooted, and that there is scarcely an eminent person 
 in the Roman history who is spoken of otherwise 
 than in terms of respect. It may be said that the 
 licence of Athenian comedy spared neither the inno- 
 cence of Nicias, nor the pure and heroic virtue of 
 Pericles. But has history therefore done justice 
 to their merit ? And how different is the value of 
 praise when given, on the one hand, by the free pens 
 of the great historians of Greece, and on the other, 
 by that uniform habit of adulation which saw even 
 in Marius and Sulla more matter for admiration than 
 for abhorrence ! 
 
 Penal law. All the offences hitherto enumerated were con- 
 sidered as private rather than public wrongs ; and if 
 they were in any case punished capitally, it was 
 rather that the law allowed the injured party to take 
 into his own hands the extremest measure of venge- 
 ance, than that the criminal suffered death in con- 
 sequence of the deliberate sentence of the judge. 
 But some offences were regarded as crimes, or public 
 wrongs in the strictest sense ; they were tried either 
 by the people in the comitia of centuries, or by 
 judges, like the qusestores parricidii, specially ap- 
 pointed by the people. Of this sort were parricide, 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 
 
 and probably all murder 65 , arson 66 , false witness 67 , 
 injuring a neighbour's corn by night 68 , witchcraft 69 , 
 and treason 70 . The punishment for these crimes 
 was death, either by beheading, hanging, throwing 
 the criminal from the Tarpeian rock, or in some cases 
 by burning alive. This last mode of execution was 
 adjudged by the twelve tables to the crime of arson : 
 but a memorial has been preserved by the lawyers, 
 confirmatory of the story already mentioned of the 
 execution of the nine adversaries of the consul T. 
 Sicinius, that there was a time when burning alive 
 was the punishment of enemies and deserters 71 . The 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 65 Every one knows the famous 
 punishment of the parricide, that 
 he should be scourged, then sewn 
 up in a sack, in company with a 
 dog, a viper, and a monkey, and 
 thrown into the sea. But it is not 
 certain that this was a law of the 
 tsvelve tables. Cicero mentions 
 only the sewing up of the parri- 
 cide in the sack, and throwing 
 him into the river. And he merely 
 says, " Majores nostri supplicium 
 in parricidas singulare excogitave- 
 runt," pro Roscio Amerino, 25. 
 It may have been a traditional 
 punishment, older than even the 
 twelve tables. So again nothing 
 is known of the law of the twelve 
 tables respecting murder. Pliny 
 only says that the turning cattle 
 into a neighbour's corn by night 
 was punished by the twelve tables 
 more severely than murder ; inso- 
 much as the offender was hanged 
 up as devoted to Ceres, and so put 
 to death. Histor. Natur. XVIII. 
 3. Of course murder was punish- 
 ed, and probably with death; but 
 the criminal was beheaded, we may 
 suppose, and this would be con- 
 
 U 
 
 sidered as a less punishment than 
 hanging. 
 
 66 Gaius, IV. ad Leg. XII. Ta- 
 bularum apud Digest. XLVII. 
 Tit. IX. 9. De incendio, ruina, 
 naufragio. 
 
 w Aulus Gellius, XX. 1. 
 
 68 Pliny, Hist. Natur. XVIII. 3. 
 
 89 Pliny, Hist Natur. XXVIII. 
 2. 
 
 7 Digest. XLVIII. Tit. VI. 
 2. Ad Legem Juliam Majestatis. 
 
 " Digest. XLVIII. fit. XIX. 
 De poenis, 1. 8. 2. Hostes autem 
 item transfugae ea pcena afficiun- 
 tur, ut vivi exurantur. Godefroy 
 remarks that we never read of ene- 
 mies being so punished, and some 
 have proposed to read " hostes," 
 i e. " trarisfugae," as if deserters 
 alone were intended. I believe 
 that the common reading is right, 
 but that it relates, as I have ob- 
 served, to the Romans who were 
 declared enemies of their country. 
 That a foreign enemy, however, 
 might be sometimes so treated, is 
 not impossible, as is shown by the 
 story of Cyrus* treatment of Croe- 
 sus. 
 
 2 
 
292 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. " enemies " here meant could not have been merely 
 ^> foreigners taken in war, for their punishment could 
 have found no place in the civil or domestic law of 
 Rome; they must rather have been those Roman 
 traitors, who, according to a form preserved till the 
 latest period of the Commonwealth, were solemnly 
 declared to be enemies of their country. 
 Law of bi. When we read of capital punishments denounced 
 by the Roman law, and yet hear of the worst crimi- 
 nals remaining at liberty till the very end of their 
 trial, and being allowed to escape their sentence by 
 going into voluntary banishment, we are inclined to 
 ask whether the law meant to threaten merely, and 
 never to strike an offender. Niebuhr has explained 
 this seeming contradiction with his usual sagacity; 
 it will be enough to say here, that although the 
 Roman law, like the old law of England, did not 
 refuse bail for a man accused of treason and felony 72 , 
 yet that it was by no means a matter of course that 
 it should be granted ; and ordinary criminals, at least 
 in these early times, were in the regular course of 
 
 72 " By the ancient common law tion of the Greek and Roman law, 
 
 all felonies were bailable." Black- that no power could bail a thief 
 
 stone, Vol IV. p. 298. The statute taken with the manner, that is, 
 
 law has greatly restricted this with the thing stolen upon him. 
 
 power, so far at least as justices In cases of crimes committed by 
 
 of the peace are concerned ; for persons of high birth, like Ka?so 
 
 " the Court of King's Bench may Quinctius, the being allowed to 
 
 bail for any crime whatsoever, be offer bail was a means of evading 
 
 it treason, murder, or any other justice; and so it was found to be 
 
 offence." Blackstone, IV. p. 299- in England, before parliament in- 
 
 This last doctrine, however, was terfered to amend the common 
 
 contested by Junius, in his famous law. But humble and ordinary 
 
 letter to Lord Mansfield, in which criminals would not equally be 
 
 he contends, agreeably to the no- allowed to profit by it. 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 293 
 
 things committed to prison to abide their trial, nearly CHAP. 
 with as much certainty as in England. 
 
 And now we come to the constitutional law of CONSTITU- 
 TIONAL 
 
 the twelve tables, a subject almost of greater interest 
 than the common law, but one involved in much 
 greater obscurity. Four or five enactments alone 
 have been preserved to us : 1. That there should be 
 an appeal to the people 73 from the sentence of 
 every magistrate. 2. That all capital trials 74 should 
 be conducted before the comitia of the centuries. 
 3. That privilegia 75 or acts of pain and penalties 
 against an individual should be unlawful. 4. That 
 the last decision 76 of the people should supersede 
 all former decisions on the same subject. 5. That 
 the debtor whose person and property were pledged 
 to his creditor, nexus 77 , and he who remained the 
 free master of both, solutus, should be equal in the 
 sight of the law ; that is, that the nexus should not 
 be considered to be infamis. And the same legal 
 equality is given also to the fortis and the sanas 78 ; 
 
 73 Cicero, de Republica, II. 31. tioned, Chap. XIII. note 39, thut 
 
 75 Cicero, de Legibus, III. 19. the only existing MS. of Fesfus 
 
 75 Cicero, de Legibus, III. 19. has suffered from a fire, by which 
 
 76 Livy, VII. 17 ; IX. 34. half of many of the pages has been 
 
 77 See Festus in " Sanates." burnt away vertically from top to 
 But it is right to say that the sen- bottom, so that every line is left 
 tence has been conjecturally re- mutilated. 
 
 stored by Scaliger, all the words 78 Our whole knowledge of this 
 
 actually remaining in the MS, enactment is derived from the 
 
 being these, which I have printed mutilated article in Festus, on the 
 
 in the Roman character : word " Sanates." The epitome of 
 
 in xii nexo solutoque Paulus gives a foolish etymology, 
 
 forti sanatigwe idem jus esto. and says that the Sanates were 
 
 The words in Italics which com- people dwelling above and below 
 
 plete the lines were supplied by Rome, who first revolted, but soon 
 
 Scaliger. It has already been men- afterwards returned to their duty, 
 
294 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIV. 
 
 The consti- 
 tutional 
 changes ef- 
 fected by the 
 decemvirs 
 were pro- 
 bably not 
 contained in 
 the twelve 
 tables. 
 
 terms which were merely guessed at in the Augustan 
 age, and which it is hopeless to attempt to understand 
 now. A sixth enactment is expressly ascribed to the 
 last two tables, which Cicero describes as full of un- 
 equal laws 79 , namely, that between the burghers and 
 the commons there should be no legal marriages ; if 
 a burgher married the daughter of a plebeian, his 
 children followed their mother's condition, and were 
 not subject to their father, nor could inherit from 
 him if he died intestate. 
 
 With no further knowledge than of these mere 
 fragments, we can judge but little of the tenor 
 of the whole law; but yet, if we had the entire 
 text of the twelve tables before us, we should pro- 
 bably find in them 80 no direct mention of the great 
 
 and were called "Sanates :" " quasi 
 sanata mente." And the "Fortes," 
 according to Paulus, were " boni 
 qui nunquam defecerant a populo 
 Romano." This is all improbable 
 enough ; but Niebuhr says that 
 the terms sanas and fortis must 
 probably be understood either of 
 bondmen and freemen, or of those 
 who had hitherto been vassals in 
 the ancient colonial towns, and 
 the colonists. It is impossible, in 
 the present state of our knowledge, 
 to give any thing more certain on 
 the subject. 
 
 79 Cicero, de Republica, II. 37. 
 
 80 The twelve tables were extant 
 down to the latest age of Roman 
 literature, and their contents were 
 familiarly known. Had they con- 
 tained therefore many regulations 
 of a constituent cast, such for in- 
 stance as related to the powers of 
 the several orders in the state, to 
 the enrolment of the burghers 
 
 and their clients in the tribes, the 
 Roman writers could not possibly 
 have showed such great ignorance 
 of the early state of their consti- 
 tution as they have done actually. 
 On one point, however, on which 
 the twelve tables appear to have 
 spoken expressly, the practice and 
 the law in after-times may seem to 
 have been at variance. I allude to 
 the famous provision, " De capite 
 civis nisi per maximum comiti- 
 atum ne ferunto," a provision 
 which appears to make the cen- 
 turies the sole criminal court, and 
 to require that every ordinary 
 felon should be tried before them ; 
 which we know was not the case, 
 and would have been in fact ab- 
 surd and impossible. But, in the 
 first place, the institution of the 
 judices selecti, in later times, was 
 intended to be a sort of represen- 
 tation of the whole people for ju- 
 dicial purposes ; so that a con- 
 
THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 
 
 295 
 
 constitutional changes which the decemvirs are with 
 reason supposed to have effected. Their code of laws 
 was the expression of their legislative, rather than of 
 their constituent power ; it contained the rules here- 
 after to be observed by the Roman people, but would 
 not notice those previous organic changes by which 
 the very composition, so to speak, of the people itself 
 was so greatly altered. 
 
 These changes were wrought by virtue of that They were 
 particular branch of their sovereign power which nrtue of y 
 was afterwards perpetuated in the censorship. When nan power. 
 we find the censor Q. Maximus 81 annihilating at 
 
 demnatiou by these judges was 
 final, and could not be appealed 
 against, like the sentence of a 
 magistrate (Cicero, Philipp. I. c. 
 9). And, again, there was taken 
 out of the jurisdiction of the cen- 
 turies all those cases of flagrant 
 and evident guilt which, accord- 
 ing to the Roman notions, needed 
 no trial at all. The difference in 
 the penalty affixed to the crimes 
 of furtum manifestum and nee 
 manifestum, is very remarkable : 
 in the former case, the thief was 
 scourged and given over, addictus, 
 to the party whom he had in- 
 jured ; in the latter case he had 
 only to restore twofold. So the 
 man who attacked his neighbour 
 in satirical songs, the murderer 
 caught "red hand," the incen- 
 diary detected in setting fire to his 
 neighbour's house or corn, would 
 like the fur manifestus, be hur- 
 ried off at once to condign pu- 
 nishment, and all trial would be 
 held unnecessary. And the same 
 summary justice would be dealt 
 to the false witness and to the 
 rioter. It is probable, also, that 
 
 the magistrates, using that large 
 discretion which the practice of 
 Rome gave them, would punish 
 summarily crimes as to which the 
 guilt of the accused was perfectly 
 clear, even though he might not 
 have been caught in the fact. 
 When it is further remembered, 
 that slaves and strangers were 
 wholly subject to the magistrates' 
 jurisdiction, and that there are 
 states of society in which crimes 
 of a serious description are ex- 
 tremely rare, it may be conceived 
 that the criminal business of the 
 centuries would not be very en- 
 grossing. 
 
 However, if M. Manlius was, 
 as Niebuhr thinks, tried and con- 
 demned by the comitia of curise, 
 and not by the centuries, it would 
 have been a direct violation of the 
 law of the twelve tables. But the 
 story of Manlius, as we shall see 
 hereafter, is too uncertain to be 
 argued upon ; and it will not per- 
 haps be found necessary to sup- 
 pose that he was really sentenced 
 by the curiae. 
 
 81 Livy, IX. 46. 
 
296 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, once the political influence of a great portion of the 
 _^I_; people, by confining all freedmen to four tribes only ; 
 when we read of another censor, M. Livius 82 , dis- 
 franchising the whole Roman people with the ex- 
 ception of one single tribe, an exercise of power so 
 extravagant indeed as to destroy itself, yet still, so 
 far as appears, perfectly legal, we can scarcely under- 
 stand how any liberty could be consistent with such 
 an extraordinary prerogative vested in the magistrate. 
 But if common censors in ordinary times possessed 
 such authority, much more would it be enjoyed by 
 the decemviri. They therefore altered the organiza- 
 tion of the Roman people at their discretion ; the 
 clients of the burghers, and even the burghers them- 
 selves, were enrolled in the tribes; and the list of 
 citizens was probably increased by the addition of a 
 great number of freedmen, and of the inhabitants of 
 the oldest Roman colonies, mostly the remains of the 
 times of the Monarchy. But whether it was at this 
 time that the comitia of centuries assumed that form 
 in which alone they existed in the historical period 
 of Rome, whether the tribes were now introduced to 
 vote on the field of Mars as well as in the forum, is 
 a question not to be answered. We may be more 
 sure that whilst the patricians were admitted into 
 the tribes of the commons, they still retained their 
 own comitia of curise, and their power of confirming 
 the election of every magistrate by conferring on him 
 the imperium, and of voting upon every law which 
 had been passed by the tribes or centuries. 
 82 Livy, XXIX. 37. 
 
POWERS OF THE DECEMVIRATE. 297 
 
 But Niebuhr has further conjectured that the de- CHAP. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 cemvirs were intended to be a perpetual magistracy, ^ 
 
 > ' Conjectures 
 
 like the archons at Athens in their original constitu- f Niebuhr 
 
 as to the 
 
 tion ; that the powers afterwards divided amongst permanency 
 the military tribunes, the censors, and the qusestores cenwrate. 
 parricidii were to be united in a college often officers, 
 chosen half from the patricians, and half from the 
 plebeians, and to remain in office for five years. And 
 as the plebeians were thus admitted to an equal share 
 in the government, the tribunitian power, intended 
 specially to protect them from the oppression of the 
 government, was no longer needed, and therefore, as 
 Niebuhr supposes, the tribuneship was not to exist in 
 the future constitution. 
 
 Niebuhr's conjectures in Roman history are almost 
 like a divination, and must never be passed over 
 without notice. But as the decemvirate, whether 
 intended to be temporary or perpetual, was so soon 
 overthrown, it does not seem necessary to enter fur- 
 ther into the question ; and the common story ap- 
 pears to me to contain in it nothing improbable. Its 
 details doubtless are traditional, and are full of the 
 variations of traditional accounts ; still they are not 
 like the mere poetical stories of Cincinnatus or Corio- 
 lanus, and therefore I shall proceed to give the ac- 
 count of the second decemvirate, of the tyranny of 
 Appius and the death of Virginia, not as giving full 
 credit to every circumstance, but as considering it, to 
 use the language of Thucydides, as being in the main 
 sufficiently deserving of belief. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SECOND DECEMVIRATE STORY OF VIRGINIA- 
 REVOLUTION OF 305. 
 
 MaAiora (v\ajSfl<T0ai Set rails' vfipif<r6ai vofj.iovras, fj avrovs, fj a>i> 
 Krj86p.fvoi Tvyxavovcriv' a<pfi8a>s yap eavruv f%ovcriv ol 8ia 0vfJ.cn> eiri- 
 s. ARISTOTLE, Politica, V. 11. 
 
 CHAP. THE first decemvirs, according to the general tradi- 
 v - ; tion ' of the Roman annalist, governed uprightly and 
 
 Decemvirs * 
 
 are elected well, and their laws of the ten tables were just and 
 
 for a second 
 
 year. good. All parties were so well pleased, that it was 
 Claudius, resolved to continue the same government at least 
 for another year ; the more so as some of the decem- 
 virs declared that their work was not yet complete, 
 and that two tables still required to be added. And 
 now the most eminent of the patricians -, L. Quinctius 
 Cincinnatus, T. Quinctius Capitolinus, and C. Clau- 
 dius, became candidates for the decemvirate ; but the 
 commons had little reason to place confidence in 
 any of them, and might well be afraid to trust un- 
 limited power in their hands. Appius Claudius, on 
 the contrary, had been tried, and had been found 
 
 1 Livy, III. 33, 34. ' Livy, III. 35. 
 
THE SECOND DECEMVIRATE. 299 
 
 seemingly trustworthy : he and his colleagues had CHAP. 
 used their power moderately, and had done their v v 
 duty as lawgivers impartially ; and such men were 
 more to be trusted than the well-known supporters 
 of the old ascendancy of the burghers. Appius 
 availed himself of this feeling, and exerted himself 
 strenuously to procure his re-election. But his 
 colleagues now becoming jealous of him, contrived 3 
 that he should himself preside at the comitia for the 
 election of the new decemvirs ; it being considered 
 one of the duties of the officer who presided at, or, 
 in Roman language, who held the comitia, to pre- 
 vent the re-election of the same man to the same 
 office two successive years, by refusing to receive 
 votes in his favour if offered : and most of all would 
 he be expected to prevent it, when the man to be 
 re-elected was himself. But the people might re- 
 member, that within the last few years they had 
 owed to the repeated re-election of the same tribunes 
 some of their greatest privileges ; and that then 
 as now the patricians had earnestly endeavoured to 
 prevent it. They therefore elected Appius Clau- 
 dius to the decemvirate for the second time, and 
 passing over all his former colleagues, and all the 
 high aristocratical candidates, they elected with him 
 four patricians, and, as Niebuhr thinks, five ple- 
 beians. The patricians 4 were M. Cornelius Malu- 
 ginensis, whose brother had been consul nine years 
 before ; M. Sergius, of whom nothing is known ; L. 
 
 3 Livy, III. 35. 4 Livy, III. 35. Dionysius, X. 58. 
 
300 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Minucius, who had been consul in the year 296, and 
 Q. Fabius Vibulanus, who had been already thrice con- 
 sul, in 287, 289, and 295. Kaeso Duilius, Sp. Oppius 
 Cornicen, and Q. Poetelius, are expressly said by Dio- 
 nysius to have been plebeians ; and we know of none 
 but plebeian families of the first and last of these 
 names, nor, with one single exception 5 , of the se- 
 cond. The remaining two decemvirs were T. Anto- 
 nius Merenda and M. Rabuleius, and these we 
 should judge from their names to have been plebeians 
 also ; but Dionysius distinguishes them from the 
 three preceding them, and classes them with three 
 of the patrician decemvirs, merely as men of no 
 great personal distinction. 
 Their ty- Experience has shown that even popular leaders 
 
 ranny. - 1 
 
 when entrusted with absolute power have often 
 abused it to the purposes of their own tyranny, yet 
 these have commonly remained so far true to their 
 old principles as zealously to abate the mischiefs of 
 aristocracy; and thus they have done scarcely less 
 good in destroying what was evil, than evil in with- 
 holding what w r as good. But to give absolute power 
 to an aristocratical leader is an evil altogether un- 
 
 4 A vestal virgin of the name of branches of these families may 
 
 Oppia is mentioned in the annals have become extinct long before 
 
 of the year 271, (Livy, II. 42,) the time when their names became 
 
 and she must have been a patri- famous in history. Livy seems to 
 
 cian. Nor is it improbable that have regarded the decemviri as all 
 
 there was, in the times of the de- patricians ; and if their names had 
 
 cemviri, a patrician as well as a presented a manifest proof of the 
 
 plebeian family of Duilii, just as contrary, he surely must have 
 
 there were patrician and plebeian been aware of it, the more so as 
 
 Sicinii. And the same may be the plebeian Duilius acts an im- 
 
 said of the Poetelii, Antonii, and portant part in his narrative of 
 
 Rabuleii ; and the patrician this very period. 
 
THE SECOND DECEMVIRATE. 301 
 
 mixed. An aristocracy is so essentially the strongest CHAP. 
 part of society, that a despot is always tempted to v /-^ 
 court its favour ; and if he is bound to it by old 
 connexions, and has always fought in its cause, this 
 tendency becomes irresistible. So it was with Ap- 
 pius : the instant that he had secured his election, he 
 reconciled himself with his old party 6 , and laboured 
 to convince the patricians, that not their own favour- 
 ite candidates, the Quinctii, or his own kinsman, C. 
 Claudius, could have served their cause more effec- 
 tually than himself. Accordingly the decemvirate 
 rested entirely on the support of the patricians. The 
 associations or clubs 7 , Kscso's old accomplices, were 
 the tools and sharers of the tyranny : even the better 
 patricians forgave the excesses 8 of their party for 
 joy at its restored ascendancy ; the consulship, instead 
 of being controlled, as the commons had fondly 
 hoped, by fresh restraints, was released even from 
 those which had formerly held it ; instead of two 
 consuls, there were now ten, and these no longer 
 shackled by the Valerian law, nor kept in check 
 by the tribuneship, but absolute with more than the 
 old kingly sovereignty. Now indeed, said the patri- 
 cians, the expulsion of the Tarquins was a real gain ; 
 hitherto it had been purchased by some painful con- 
 
 6 Livy, III. 36. Aliquandiu pdav IKOITTOI crvvtjyov, fniXtyo/jifvot 
 sequatus inter omnes terror fuit ; roi/s 6paavra-rovs ru>v ve<av KOI 
 paullatim totus vertere in plebem <r(f)i<riv aurols eVirT/SeioTarovy. Di- 
 ccepit. Abstinebatur a patribus, onysius, X. 60. 
 
 in humiliores libidinose crudeliter- 8 Primores Patrum nee pro- 
 
 que consulebatur. bare quae fierent, et credere baud 
 
 7 Patriciis juvenibus sepserant indignis accidere; avide ruendo ad 
 latera, eorum catervae tribunalia libertatem in servitutem elapsos 
 obsederant. Livy, III. 37- 'Ertu- juvare nolle. Livy, III. 37. 
 
302 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, descensions to the plebeians, and the growing import- 
 v -^- ' ance of those half aliens had impaired the majesty of 
 what was truly Rome. But this was at an end ; and 
 by a just judgment upon their insolence, the very 
 revolution w r hich they had desired was become their 
 chastisement; and the decemvirate, which had been 
 designed to level all the rights of the patricians, was 
 become the instrument of restoring to them their 
 lawful ascendancy. 
 
 They add The decemvirate seems indeed to have exhibited 
 to complete the perfect model of an aristocratical royalty 9 , vested 
 the twelve not in one person, but in several ; held not for life, 
 but for a single year, and therefore not confined to 
 one single family of the aristocracy, but fairly shared 
 by the whole order. Towards the commons, however, 
 the decemvirs were in all respects ten kings. Each 
 was attended by his twelve lictors, who carried not 
 the rods only, but the axe 10 , the well-known symbol 
 of sovereignty. The colleges of ordinary magistrates 
 were restrained by the general maxim of Roman 
 law, " melior est conditio prohibentis," which gave to 
 each member of the college a negative upon the act 
 of his colleagues. But the decemvirs bound them- 
 selves by oath " each to respect his colleagues' majesty; 
 what one decemvir did, none of the rest might do. 
 Then followed all the ordinary outrages of the ancient 
 
 9 Decem regum species erat. res oTrdppi/ra T TrX^et, X. 59. 
 Livy, III. 36. These oaths resembled those which 
 
 10 Cum fascibus secures illigatas were sometimes taken by the rul- 
 prseferebant. Livy, III. 36. ing members of the Greek oli- 
 
 11 Intercessionem consensu sus- garchies : /cat TO> fii^w KOKOVOVS 
 tulerant, is Livy's expression, III. eo-o/zat, KOI @ov\(vo-a> 5 n av e^w 
 36. Dionysius adds, opicia repi'iv- KUKCV. Aristotle, Politica, V. 9. 
 
THE SECOND DECEMVIRATE. 
 
 aristocracies and tyrannies ; insult, oppression, plun- CHAP. 
 der, blood ; and, worst of all, the licence of the patri- -^ 
 cian youth was let loose without restraint upon the 
 wives and daughters of the plebeians 12 . Meanwhile 
 the legislation of the decemvirs was to complete the 
 triumph of their party. The two tables which they 
 added to the former ten are described by Cicero as 
 containing " unequal laws ;" the prohibition of mar- 
 riages between the patricians and plebeians is ex- 
 pressly said to have been amongst the number. Not 
 that we can suppose that such marriages had been 
 hitherto legal, that is to say, they were not connu- 
 bia : and therefore if a patrician, as I have said, 
 married the daughter of a plebeian, his children 
 became plebeians. Still they were common in fact ; 
 and as the object of the first appointment of the 
 decemvirs was in part to unite the two orders into 
 one people, so it was expected that they would 
 henceforth be made legal. It was therefore like the 
 loss of an actual right, when the decemvirs, instead of 
 legalizing these marriages, enacted a positive law to 
 denounce them, as if they intended for the future 
 actually to prohibit them altogether. 
 
 So passed the second year of the decemvirate. They re- 
 
 T- i solve to re- 
 
 13ut as it drew near to its close, the decemvirs tain their 
 
 11 . / P ow er after 
 
 showed no purpose of resigning their offices, or of the end of 
 
 . . TIT-! i . 11 *he year. 
 
 appointing successors. Whether it was really a usur- 
 pation, or whether they had been elected for more 
 than a single year 13 , may be doubtful ; but it is con- 
 
 12 Dionysius, XI. 2. tain that the decemvirs were ap- 
 
 13 Niebuhr considers it as cer- pointed for a longer period than 
 
304 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, ceivable that even in the former case the great body 
 -^ ' of the patricians, however personally disappointed, 
 should have supported the decemvirs as upholding 
 the ascendancy of their order, rather than incur the 
 danger of reviving the power of the plebeians. At 
 any rate, the government of the decemvirs seemed 
 firmly established ; and the outrages of themselves 
 and their party became continually more and more 
 intolerable, so that numbers of the people are said to 
 have fled from Rome H , and sought a refuge amongst 
 their allies the Latins and Hernicans. 
 
 In this state of things, the foreign enemies of 
 Rome proved again her best friends. Since the year 
 297 external wars seem to have been suspended, 
 partly perhaps from the wasting effects of the great 
 plague on the neighbouring nations, partly because 
 the Romans themselves were engrossed with their 
 own affairs at home. But now we hear of an invasion 
 both from the Sabines and the ^Lquians ; the former 
 assembled their forces at Eretum 1S , and from thence 
 
 jEquians 
 Rom a e n e 
 
 a year. Vol. II p. 328. Eng. 
 Transl. Otherwise, he says, they 
 would not have been required 
 to resign their power, but inter- 
 reges would immediately on the 
 expiration of their office have 
 stepped into their place. This 
 however does not seem to follow, 
 In peaceable times, Appius Clau- 
 dius the Blind held his censorship 
 beyond the legal term of eighteen 
 months in defiance of the ^Emilian 
 law, and it does not appear that 
 the tribunes or any other power 
 could actually turn him out of his 
 office ; he was only threatened 
 with imprisonment if he did not 
 
 resign. Livy, IX 34. To deprive 
 a magistrate of his office, " abro- 
 gare magistratum," was accounted 
 a most violent measure ; it was to 
 be resigned, and not wrested from 
 him by any other power. The se- 
 nate ejected Cinna from the con- 
 sulship ; but Paterculus remarks 
 on the act, that " heec injuria ho- 
 mine quam exemplo dignior fuit." 
 They were not disposed to proceed 
 to such an extremity against the 
 decemvirs. 
 
 u Dionysius, XI. 2. 
 
 15 Dionysius, XL 3. Livy, III. 
 38. 
 
THE SECOND DECEMVIRATE. 305 
 
 ravaged the lands along the left bank of the Tiber : CHAP. 
 the latter encamped as usual on Algidus, and plun- v ^ ' 
 dered the territory of Tusculum, which lay imme- 
 diately below them. Then the decemvirs called 
 together the senate, which hitherto it is said they 
 had on no occasion thought proper to consult. The 
 high aristocratical party, headed by the Quinctii 16 
 and C. Claudius, showed symptoms of discontent 
 with the decemvirs for still retaining their power ; 
 L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus l7 were 
 celebrated by posterity for following a more decided 
 course, and upholding the general liberty of the 
 Roman people. But the majority of the senate sup- 
 ported the decemvirs, and the citizens were called 
 upon to enlist against the common enemy 18 . One 
 army commanded by three of the decemvirs was led 
 out to oppose the Sabines at Eretum ; another 
 marched towards Algidus to protect the Tusculans ; 
 Appius Claudius with one of his colleagues, Sp. Op- 
 pius, remained in Rome to provide for the safety of 
 the city. 
 
 Both armies, however, were unsuccessful; and both, The Roman 
 
 . . fi-ii armies are 
 
 after having been beaten by the enemy, tied, the beaten. 
 one to Tusculum, the other to the neighbourhood of 
 Fidense 19 , within the Roman territory. Here they 
 remained, or here at least the story leaves them, till 
 the tidings of the last outrage of the decemvirs' 
 tyranny aroused them, and showed them plainly that 
 
 16 Dionysius, XI. 15^ 18 Livy, III. 41. 
 
 ' Livy, III. 39. 19 Livy, III. 42. 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the worst enemies of their country were within the 
 
 XV. 
 
 v ,J / walls of Rome. 
 
 STORY OP Appius Claudius 20 had stayed behind from the war 
 
 Claudius", a to take care of the city. He saw a beautiful maiden, 
 
 client of . . 
 
 Appius named Virginia, the daughter of L. Virginms , who 
 claims vir- was n0 w serving as a centurion in the army sent 
 
 ginia as his 
 
 slave. against the jE.quians ; and her father had betrothed 
 her to L. Icilius, who had been tribune some time 
 since, and had carried the famous law for assigning 
 out the Aventine to the commons. One day, as the 
 maiden, attended by her nurse, was going to the 
 forum to school (for the schools were then kept in 
 booths or stalls round the market-place), Marcus 
 Claudius, a client of Appius, laid hands on her, and 
 claimed her as his slave. Her nurse cried out for 
 help, and a crowd gathered round her, and when 
 they heard who was her father, and to whom she was 
 betrothed, they were the more earnest to defend her 
 from wrong. But M. Claudius said that he meant 
 no violence, he would try his right at law, and he 
 summoned the maiden before the judgment-seat of 
 Appius. So they went before the decemvir, and then 
 Claudius said that the maiden's real mother had been 
 his slave ; and that the wife of Virginius, having no 
 children, had gotten this child from its mother, and 
 had presented it to Virginius as her own. This he 
 would prove to Virginius himself as soon as he 
 should return to Rome ; meanwhile it was just and 
 
 10 Livy, III. 44, et seqq. 
 
 51 Cicero calls him Decimus Virginius. De Republic^, II. 37. 
 
STORY OF VIRGINIA. 307 
 
 reasonable that the master should in the interval CHAP. 
 keep possession of his slave. The friends of the v -v 
 maiden answered, that her father was now absent in 
 the Commonwealth's service ; they would send him 
 w T ord, and within two days he would be in Rome. 
 " Let the cause," they said, " wait only so long. The 
 law declares expressly, that in all cases like this 
 every one shall be considered free till he be proved 
 a slave. Therefore the maiden ought to be left with 
 her friends till the day of trial. Put not her fair 
 fame in peril by giving up a free-born maiden into 
 the hands of a man whom she knows not." But 
 Appius said, " Truly, I know the law of which you 
 speak, and I hold it just and good, for it was I my- 
 self who enacted it. But this maiden 22 cannot in 
 any case be free ; she belongs either to her father or 
 to her master. Now as her father is not here, who 
 but her master can have any title to her? Where- 
 fore let M. Claudius keep her till L. Virginius come, 
 and let Mm give sureties that he will bring her forth 
 before my judgment-seat when the cause shall be 
 tried between them." But then there came forward 
 the maiden's uncle, P. Numitorius, and Icilius to 
 whom she was betrothed ; and they spoke so loudly 
 against the sentence, that the multitude began to be 
 roused, and Appius feared a tumult. So he said, 
 that for the sake of L. Virginius, and of the rights 
 of fathers over their children, he would let the cause 
 wait till the next day; "but then," he said, "if Vir- 
 
 22 In ea quse in patris manu sit, possessione cedat. Livy, III. 45. 
 neminem esse aliuin cui dominus 
 
 x 2 
 
308 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, ginius does not appear, I tell Icilius and his fellows, 
 ' >. ' that I will support the laws which I have made, and 
 their violence shall not prevail over justice." Thus 
 the maiden was saved for the time, and her friends 
 sent off in haste to her father, to bid him come with 
 all speed to Rome ; and they gave security to Clau- 
 dius, that she should appear before Appius the next 
 day, and then they took her home in safety. 
 Virginias The messenger 23 reached the camp that same 
 
 comes to 
 
 Rome from evening, and Virginius obtained leave of absence on 
 the instant, and set out for Rome at the first watch 
 of the night. Appius had sent off also to his col- 
 leagues, praying them not to let Virginius go : but 
 his message came too late. 
 
 judgment Early in the morning Virginius 24 , in mean attire, 
 awarding 8 ' like a suppliant, led his daughter down to the forum ; 
 
 possession i -r -i 
 
 of Virginia and some Koman matrons, and a great company of 
 tended pre friends, went with him. He appealed to all the 
 Virginius people for their aid ; " for this," said he, " is not my 
 
 kills his tl 1 iiijci 
 
 daughter, cause only, but the cause or all. bo also spoke 
 Icilius ; and the mothers who followed Virginius stood 
 and wept, and their tears moved the people even 
 more than his words. But Appius heeded nothing 
 but his own wicked passion ; and before Claudius had 
 done speaking, without suffering Virginius to reply, 
 he hastened to give the sentence. That sentence 
 adjudged the maiden to be considered as a slave till 
 she should be proved to be free-born ; and awarded 
 the possession of her in the meanwhile to her master 
 
 - s Livy, III. 46. 24 Livy, III. 47, et seqq. 
 
STORY OF VIRGINIA. 309 
 
 Claudius. Men could scarcely believe that they CHAP. 
 
 XV 
 
 heard aright, when this monstrous defiance of all law, ^ ^L~ 
 natural and civil, was uttered by the very man who 
 had himself enacted the contrary. But when Clau- 
 dius went to lay hold on the maiden, then the women 
 who stood around her wept aloud, and her friends 
 gathered round her, and kept him off; and Virginius 
 threatened the decemvir, that he would not tamely 
 endure so great a wrong. Appius, however, had 
 brought down a band of armed patricians with him ; 
 and, strong in their support, he ordered his lictors to 
 make the crowd give way. Then the maiden was 
 left alone before his judgment-seat, till her father, 
 seeing there was no other remedy, prayed to Appius 
 that he might speak but one word with her nurse in 
 the maiden's hearing, and might learn whether she 
 were really his child or no. " If I am indeed 
 not her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter." 
 Leave was given him, and he drew them both aside 
 with him to a spot called afterwards the "new 
 booths," for tradition kept the place in memory, and 
 there he snatched a knife from a butcher, and said, 
 " This is the only way, my child, to keep thee free," 
 and plunged it in his daughter's heart. Then turn- 
 ing to Appius, "On thee, and on thy head," he 
 cried, " be the curse of this blood !" In vain did 
 Appius call out to seize him : he forced his way 
 through the multitude, and still holding the bloody 
 knife in his hand, he made for the gates, and 
 hastened out of the city, and rode to the camp by 
 Tusculurn. 
 
310 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. The rest may be told more briefly. Icilius 25 and 
 v .^-^ Numitorius held up the maiden's body to the people, 
 the city : and bade them see the bloody work of the decemvir's 
 
 the decem- -i j 
 
 virsare passion. A tumult arose, and the people gathered 
 
 driven from . 
 
 the forum, in such strength, that the patrician friends of their 
 cause, L. Valerius and M. Horatius, thought that the 
 time for action was come, and put themselves at the 
 head of the multitude. Appius and his lictors, and 
 his patrician satellites, were overborne by force, and 
 Appius fearing for his life, covered his face with his 
 robe, and fled into a house that was hard by. In 
 vain did his colleague, Oppius, hasten to the forum 
 to support him ; he found the people already tri- 
 umphant, and had nothing else to do but to call 
 together the senate. The senators met, with little 
 feeling for the decemvirs, but with an extreme dread 
 of a new secession of the commons, and a restoration 
 of the sacred laws, and of the hated tribuneship. 
 
 The army The secession, however, could not be prevented. 
 
 on Algidus TT-CI-I i /> -n 
 
 marches to Virgmius" 6 had arrived at the camp, followed by a 
 
 Rome and . .... , , . TT 
 
 occupies the multitude of citizens in their ordinary dress. His 
 bloody knife, the blood on his own face and body, 
 and the strange sight of so many unarmed citizens 
 in the midst of the camp, instantly drew a crowd 
 about him : he told his story, and called on his fellow- 
 soldiers to avenge him. One common feeling pos- 
 sessed them all : they called to arms, pulled up their 
 standards, and began to march to Rome. The au- 
 thority of the decemvirs was wholly at an end ; the 
 
 25 Livy, III. 48, 49. !6 Livy, IN. 50. 
 
SECESSION OF THE ARMIES TO THE AVENTINE HILL. 311 
 
 army entered the city; as they passed along the CHAP. 
 streets they called upon the commons to assert their , -> 
 liberties and create their tribunes ; they then ascended 
 the Aventine, and there, in their own proper home 
 and city, they established themselves in arms. When 
 deputies from the senate were sent to ask them what 
 they wanted, the soldiers shouted that they would 
 give no answer to any one but to L. Valerius and 
 M. Horatius. Meanwhile Virginius persuaded them 
 to elect ten tribunes to act as their leaders : and 
 accordingly ten were created, who took the name of 
 tribunes of the soldiers, but designed to change it ere 
 long for that of tribunes of the commons. 
 
 The army near Fidense was also in motion 27 . The army 
 Icilius and Numitorius had excited it by going to ffma it! 
 the camp and spreading the story of the miserable 
 fate of Virginia. The soldiers rose, put aside the de- 
 cemvirs who commanded them, and were ready to 
 follow Icilius. He advised them to create ten tri- 
 bunes, as had been done by the other army ; and this 
 having been effected, they marched to Rome, and 
 joined their brethren on the Aventine. The twenty 
 tribunes then deputed two of their number to act 
 for the rest, and waited awhile for the message of 
 the senate. 
 
 Delays, however, were interposed by the jealousy Both armies 
 of the patricians. Had the senate chosen, it might, thVmass 
 no doubt, in the fulness of its power, have deposed pie retlre to 
 the decemvirs, whether their term of office was ex- mil. a ' 
 
 v Livy, III. 51. 
 
312 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, pired or no ; as, long afterwards, it declared all the 
 ' v-^ ' laws of M. Drusus to be null and void, and by its 
 mere decree took away from L. Cinna his consulship, 
 and caused another to be appointed in his room. But 
 the patricians were unwilling to violate the majesty 
 of the imperium merely to give a triumph to the 
 plebeians; and the decemvirs, encouraged by this 
 feeling, refused themselves to resign. The commons, 
 however, were thoroughly in earnest ; and finding 
 that nothing was done to satisfy them, they quitted 
 the Aventine 28 , on the suggestion of M. Duilius, not 
 however, we may presume, without leaving it guarded 
 by a sufficient garrison, marched in military array 
 through the city, passed out of it by the Colline gate, 
 and established themselves once more on the Sacred 
 Hill. Men, women, and children, all of the plebeians 
 who could find any means to follow them, left Rome 
 also and joined their countrymen. Again the disso- 
 lution of the Roman nation was threatened ; again 
 the patricians, their clients, and their slaves, were on 
 the point of becoming the whole Roman people. 
 Thedecem- Then the patricians yielded, and the decemvirs 
 
 virs resign, 
 
 and the agreed to resign 29 . Valerius and Horatius went to 
 
 commons 
 
 return to the Sacred Hill, and listened to the demands of the 
 
 Rome. 
 
 commons. These were, the restoration of the tri- 
 buneship and of the right of appeal, together with a 
 full indemnity for the authors and instigators of the 
 secession. All this the deputies acknowledged should 
 have been granted even without the asking ; but there 
 
 28 Livy, III. 52. Livy, III. 52, 53. 
 
RESTORATION OF THE TRIBUNESHIP. 313 
 
 was one demand of a fiercer sort. "These decem- 
 virs," said Icilius in the name of the commons, " are 
 public enemies, and we will have them die the death 
 of such. Give them up to us, that they may be 
 burnt with fire." The friends of the commons had 
 met this fate within the memory of men still living, 
 and certainly not for greater crimes : but a people, if 
 violent, is seldom unrelenting ; twenty-four hours 
 brought the Athenians to repent of their cruel decree 
 against the Mytilenseans ; and a few words from Va- 
 lerius and Horatius, men whom they could fully trust, 
 made the Roman commons forego their thirst for 
 sudden and extraordinary vengeance. The demand 
 for the blood of the decemvirs was withdrawn : so the 
 senate acceded to all that was required : the decem- 
 virs solemnly resigned their power, and the commons 
 returned to Rome. They occupied the Aventine, as 
 before 30 , and thither the pontifex maximus was sent 
 by the senate to hold the comitia for the election of 
 the tribunes : but they occupied more than the Aven- 
 tine; they required some security that the terms of 
 the peace should be duly kept with them ; and ac- 
 cordingly now, as in the disputes about the Publilian 
 law, they were allowed also to take possession of the 
 Capitol 31 . 
 
 In the comitia on the Aventine ten tribunes of Election of 
 
 tribunes 
 
 the commons were elected, amongst whom were and of 
 
 consuls. 
 
 Virginius, Icilius, Numitorius, C. Sicinius, a descen- 
 dant of one of the original tribunes created on the 
 
 30 Livy, III. 54. 31 Cicero pro Cornelio, I. Fragment. 
 
314 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Sacred Hill, and M. Duilius. Then the commons 
 were assembled on the spot afterwards called the 
 Flaminian Meadows 32 , outside of the Porta Carmen- 
 talis, and just below the Capitol ; and there L. Icilius 
 proposed to them the solemn ratification of the in- 
 demnity for the secession already agreed to by the 
 senate. The consent of the commons was necessary 
 to give it the force of a law ; and so in like manner 
 Duilius proposed to the commons that they should 
 accept another measure already sanctioned by the 
 patricians, the election of two supreme magistrates 
 in the place of the decemvirs, with the right of 
 appeal from their sentence. It is remarkable that 
 now, for the first time, these magistrates were called 
 consuls 33 , their old title up to this period having been 
 praetors or captains-general. Consul signifies merely 
 " colleague," one who acts with others ; it does not 
 necessarily imply that he should be one of two only, 
 and therefore the name is not equivalent to duumvir. 
 And its indefiniteness seems to confirm Niebuhr's 
 opinion, that the exact number of these supreme 
 magistrates was not yet fully agreed upon, and that 
 the appointment of two only in the present instance, 
 was merely a provisional imitation of the old praetor- 
 ship, till the future form of the constitution should 
 be finally settled. Thus, as the commons had reco- 
 vered their tribunes, so the patricians had again their 
 two magistrates with the imperium of the former 
 
 32 Livy, III. 64. colonies of a later period, whose 
 
 33 Zonaras, VII. 19. It may be office was analogous to that of the 
 observed, that the two supreme consuls at Rome, were called du- 
 magistrates in the municipia and umviri. 
 
ELECTION OF CONSULS. 315 
 
 praetors, limited as that of the praetors had been by CHAP. 
 the right of appeal ; but the final adjustment of the ' ^ 
 relations of the two orders to each other, was reserved 
 for after discussion. Be that as it may, the form of 
 the old government was once again restored, and 
 two patrician magistrates were elected with supreme 
 power ; but an important change was established, 
 that these two were both freely chosen by the cen- 
 turies, whereas one had hitherto been appointed by 
 the burghers in their curia, and had only been ap- 
 proved by the centuries afterwards. 
 
 The result of the election sufficiently showed that 
 it was a free one. The new magistrates, the first 
 two consuls, properly speaking, of Roman history, 
 were L. Valerius and M. Horatius ; and the execu- 
 tive government, for the first time since the days of 
 Brutus and Poplicola, was wholly in the hands of 
 men devoted to the rights of their country rather 
 than to the ascendancy of their order. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 INTERNAL HISTORY CONSTITUTION OF THE YEAR 
 
 306 VALERIAN LAWS, AND TRIALS OF THE DE- 
 CEMVIRS REACTION IN FAVOUR OF THE PATRI- 
 CIANS CANULEIAN LAW CONSTITUTION OF 312 
 
 COUNTER-REVOLUTION. 
 
 "The seven years that followed are a revolutionary period, the 
 events of which we do not find satisfactorily explained by the historians 
 of the time." HALLAM, Middle Ages, Vol. II. p. 458. 
 
 CHAP. WE read in Livy and Dionysius an account of the 
 
 XVI. 
 
 1 ^ > affairs of Rome from the beginning of the Common- 
 Obscurity of 
 the history wealth, drawn up in the form of annals : political 
 
 of this < , t r 
 
 period. questions, military operations, what was said in the 
 senate and the forum, what was done in battle against 
 the ^Equians and Volscians, all is related with 
 the full details of contemporary history. It is not 
 wonderful that appearances so imposing should have 
 deceived many ; that the Roman history should have 
 been regarded as a subject which might be easily 
 and completely mastered. But if we press on any 
 part this show of knowledge, it yields before us, an- 
 comes to nothing. Nowhere is this more map 
 
CONSTITUTION OF 306. 317 
 
 fest than in the story of the period immediately CHAP. 
 subsequent to the decemvirate. What is related of ,_ > 
 these times is indistinct, meagre, and scarcely intel- 
 ligible ; but scattered fragments of information have 
 been preserved along with it, which, when carefully 
 studied, enable us to restore the outline of very im- 
 portant events ; and these, when thus brought forward 
 to the light, afford us the means of correcting or 
 completing what may be called the mere surface 
 view contained in the common narrative. The lines 
 hitherto invisible being so made conspicuous, a to- 
 tally different figure is presented to us ; its propor- 
 tions and character are all altered, and we find that 
 without this discovery, while we fancied ourselves in 
 possession of the true resemblance, we should in fact 
 have been mistaking the unequal pillars of the ruin 
 for the original form of the perfect building. 
 
 The common narrative of the overthrow of the Constitution 
 
 of the year 
 
 decemvirs omitted, as we have seen, the important 306. 
 fact that the commons in that revolution occupied the 
 Capitol. It mentions ' however, that the two popular 
 leaders, Valerius and Horatius, were appointed the 
 two chief magistrates of the Commonwealth, and 
 that they passed several laws for the better confirm- 
 ation of the public liberty, without experiencing any 
 open opposition on the part of the patricians. In 
 fact the popular cause was so triumphant, that all, 
 and more than all, of the objects of the Terentilian 
 law were now effected ; and a new constitution was 
 
 1 Livy, III. 55. Dionysius, XI. 45. 
 
318 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, formed, by which it was attempted at once to unite 
 ^ ' the two orders of the state more closely together, 
 
 and to set them on a footing of entire equality, 
 anilws^ ^ n *he first place the old laws for the security of 
 personal liberty were confirmed afresh, and received 
 a stronger sanction. Whoever while presiding at the 
 comitia 2 should allow the election of any magistrate 
 with no right of appeal from his sentences, should be 
 outlawed, and might be killed by any one with im- 
 punity. This was the law proposed and passed by 
 Valerius : but even this, as we shall see presently, 
 did not content the commons ; they required and 
 carried a still stronger measure. A second Valerian 
 law 3 formally acknowledged the commons of Rome 
 to be the Roman people ; a plebiscitum, or decree of 
 the commons, was to be binding on the whole people ; 
 so it is expressed in the annalists : but Niebuhr sup- 
 poses that there was a restriction on this power of 
 which the annalists were ignorant ; namely, that the 
 plebiscitum should have first received the sanction of 
 the senate, and of the assembly of the curige. It is 
 indeed certain that the assembly of the tribes was 
 not made the sole legislative authority in the Com- 
 monwealth ; what was intended seems to have been 
 nothing more than to recognize its national character; 
 
 2 Livy, III. 55. Xo^tVtrtj/ fKK\ij<riais 
 
 3 Quod tributim plebes jussis- XI. 45 Now we Know that at 
 set populum teneret. Livy, III. this time laws passed by the co- 
 55. Dionysins describes this law mitia of centuries were not valid 
 correctly. He calls it vo^ov at- without the sanction of the senate, 
 \evovra rovs VTTO TOV 8r)fj.ov TfOtvras and therefore laws passed by tbe 
 (v rats (j)v\fTiKais fKK\rj(riais vopovs, tribes must equally have required 
 airacri Kfltrdai 'Poj/icu'ots e' tomi, TTJI it. 
 
 avTTjv r^oi/ray 8vvap.iv rois fv rais 
 
CONSTITUTION OF 306. 319 
 
 its resolutions or decrees 4 , where not directly inter- CHAP. 
 
 XVI 
 
 fered with by another power equally sovereign, were v ,. ' / 
 to embrace not the commons only, but the whole 
 nation. In the same way in the later constitution 
 the senate was not all-powerful ; it could not legis- 
 late alone, and its decrees were liable to be stopped 
 by the negative of the tribunes ; but no one doubted 
 that its authority extended over the whole people, 
 and not over the members of its own order only. 
 And this appears to have been the position in which 
 the Valerian law placed the assembly of the tribes. 
 
 Thus far we follow the express testimony of the Division of 
 annals from which Livy and Dionysius compiled gistracieTof 
 their narratives. But we are warranted in saying monweaith 
 that the revolution did not stop here. Other and patncfans ' 
 
 1 i f*> i -I t t 
 
 deeper changes were effected ; but they lasted so 
 short a time, that their memory has almost vanished 
 out of the records of history. The assembly of the 
 tribes had been put on a level with that of the cen- 
 turies, and the same principle was followed out in 
 the equal division of all the magistracies of the state 
 between the patricians and the commons. Two 
 supreme magistrates 5 , invested with the highest ju- 
 dicial power, and discharging also those important 
 duties which were afterwards performed by the cen- 
 
 4 Compare the difference be- need not give to a synod the ex- 
 
 tween a resolution or an order of elusive right of making laws ; it 
 
 the house of commons, (although would deserve its name if it merely 
 
 that body cannot legislate without placed it on a level with the house 
 
 the consent of the house of lords of commons ; if it empowered it 
 
 and the king,) and the canons of to represent the whole nation, 
 
 a synod of the clergy. A law and not only one single order of 
 
 which should enact that "quod men. 
 clerus jussisset populum teneret" 5 Diodorus, XII. 25. 
 
320 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, sors, were to be chosen every year, one from the 
 -, ' patricians, and the other from the commons. Ten 
 tribunes of the soldiers 6 , or decemviri, chosen five 
 from the patricians and five from the commons, were 
 to command the armies in war, and to watch over 
 the rights of the patricians; while ten tribunes of 
 the commons, also chosen in equal proportions from 
 both orders, were to watch over the liberties of the 
 commons. And as patricians were thus admitted 
 to the old tribuneship, so the assemblies of the 
 tribes 7 were henceforth like those of the centuries 
 to be held under the sanctions of augury, and no- 
 thing could be determined in them if the auspices 
 were unfavourable. Thus the two orders were to be 
 made fully equal to one another; but at the same 
 time they were to be kept perpetually distinct ; for 
 at this very moment 8 the whole twelve tables of the 
 laws of the decemvirs received the solemn sanction 
 of the people, although, as we have seen, there was a 
 law in one of the last tables which declared the mar- 
 riage of a patrician with a plebeian to be unlawful. 
 Horatian There being thus an end of all exclusive magis- 
 
 andDuilian . . . , -, 
 
 laws. tracies, whether patrician or plebeian ; and all magis- 
 trates being now recognized as acting in the name 
 
 6 Diodorus,XII.25.Ae/caatpeio-- patricians or burghers were in- 
 
 601 8r)fj.apxovs /leyiWas e^oi/ray tended rather than the commons, 
 
 e Covering rwv KOTO. TTO\IV dpx6vTa>v, 7 Zonaras, VII. 19- He inen- 
 
 ical TOVTOVS vTrapxfiv olovel (pv\ai<as tions the fact without its connex- 
 
 rijs TUV TToAtrwi/ fXfvdfpias. This ion ; but it seems to me extremely 
 
 description does not suit the tri- valuable towards confirming the 
 
 bunes of the commons, and the view of all these arrangements 
 
 expression, rfjs rwv TroAmbv eAeu- which is given in this history. 
 
 Sepias, instead of rfjs TOV 8fjnov 8 Diodorus, XII. 26. Livy, III. 
 
 f\ev0tptas, seems to show that the 57. 
 
CONSTITUTION OF 306. 
 
 321 
 
 of the whole people, the persons of all were to be CHAP. 
 regarded as equally sacred. Thus the consul Hora- * * 
 tius proposed and carried a law which declared that, 
 whoever harmed any tribune of the commons, any 
 sedile, any judge, or any decemvir, should be out- 
 lawed and accursed 9 ; that any man might slay him, 
 and that all his property should be confiscated to 
 the temple of Ceres. Another law was passed by 
 M. Duilius, one of the tribunes, carrying the penalties 
 of the Valerian law to a greater height against any 
 magistrate who should either neglect to have new 
 
 9 See this memorable law in 
 Livy, III. 55. " Qui tribunis ple- 
 bis, aedilibus, judicibus, decem- 
 viris nocuisset, ejus caput Jovi 
 sacrum esset, familia ad sedem 
 Cereris liberi liberaeque venum 
 iret." The different interpreta- 
 tions given to the words "judi- 
 cibus, decemviris," in this passage 
 are well known. Niebuhr under- 
 stands the latter nearly as I do, 
 but the "judices" he considers to 
 have been the centumviri. But 
 the order of the words, is, I think, 
 decisive against this last notion; 
 the centumviri never could have 
 been mentioned between the aediles 
 and decemviri. Whereas, accord- 
 ing to my interpretation, the two 
 old plebeian offices are mentioned 
 first, and then the two new offices 
 which they were thenceforward to 
 share, those of judge or consul, 
 and of decemvir or tribune of the 
 soldiers. Livy himself informs us 
 that there were some who had ex- 
 tended this law to the patrician 
 magistrates, and who explained 
 the "judices" as I have done; 
 but he objects that judex as ap- 
 plied to the consul was a later 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 title, and that the consul at this 
 time was called praetor. To which 
 the reply is easy : that according 
 to Zonaras, who derived his mate- 
 rials from Dion Cassius, the con- 
 suls ceased to be called praetors at 
 this very time, and were now first 
 called consuls or colleagues; and 
 it is very likely that their military 
 power being transferred to the tri- 
 bunes of the soldiers, their name 
 of judices, which they are allowed 
 by Livy. himself to have borne 
 afterwards, (see also Cicero, de 
 Legibus, III. 4,) took its origin 
 from this period. 
 
 I may add also, that the sup- 
 position that there were to be ten 
 tribunes of the soldiers and as 
 many tribunes of the commons, 
 would agree with the otherwise 
 puzzling statement of Pomponius, 
 de Origine Juris, 25, " that 
 there were sometimes twenty tri- 
 bunes of the soldiers," for the two 
 tribuneships must, under the con- 
 stitution of 306, have so resembled 
 each other in many important 
 points, that they may easily have 
 been represented as one magis- 
 tracy. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, magistrates appointed at the end of the year 10 , or 
 
 v3_^ ' who should create them without giving the right of 
 
 appeal from their sentence. Whosoever violated 
 
 either of these provisions was to be burned alive as 
 
 a public enemy. 
 
 Decrees of Finally, in order to prevent the decrees of the 
 
 kept se in a the senate from being tampered with by the patricians, 
 
 Ceres? Horatius and Valerius began the practice 11 of having 
 
 them carried to the temple of Ceres on the Aven- 
 
 tine, and there laid up under the care of the sediles 
 
 of the commons. 
 
 The state of This complete revolution was conducted chiefly, as 
 not ripTfbr far as appears, by the two consuls and by M. Duilius. 
 tution. nB Of the latter we should wish to have some further 
 knowledge ; it is an unsatisfactory history, in which 
 we can only judge of the man from his public mea- 
 sures, instead of being enabled to form some estimate 
 of the merit of his measures from our acquaintance 
 with the character of the man. But there is no 
 doubt that the new constitution attempted to obtain 
 objects for which the time was not yet come, which 
 were regarded rather as the triumph of a party, than 
 as called for by the wants and feelings of the nation ; 
 and therefore the Roman constitution of 306 was 
 as short-lived as Simon de Montfort's provisions of 
 
 10 Livy, III. 55. Diodorus, XII. in their office, (see Valerius Maxi- 
 
 25. Livy says, " Tergo et capite mus, VI. 3. 2, and note 39 to 
 
 puniretur." Diodorus more cor- chap. XIII. of this history,) can- 
 
 rectly, favras KaraKavd^vai. The not but strike every one ; the clue, 
 
 connexion of this law with that however, only goes far enough to 
 
 mysterious story of the burning excite curiosity, but will not enable 
 
 alive of nine tribunes, for not pro- us to satisfy it. 
 viding successors for themselves u Livy, III. 55. 
 
IMPEACHMENT OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS. 323 
 
 Oxford, or as some of the strongest measures of the CHAP. 
 
 XVI 
 
 long parliament. An advantage pursued too far in * v-^ 
 politics, as well as in war, is apt to end in a repulse. 
 As yet, however, at Rome, the tide of the popular 
 
 ment of 
 
 cause was at full flood, for the decemvirs were still Appius 
 
 Claudius. 
 
 unpunished, and the fresh memory of their crimes He ls cast 
 
 into prison. 
 
 excited an universal desire for vengeance. Vir- 
 ginius singled out Appius and impeached him I2 ; 
 but Appius, with the inherent pride of his family, 
 scorned the thought of submission, and appeared 
 in the forum with such a band of the young patri- 
 cians around him, that he seemed more likely to 
 repeat the crimes of his decemvirate than to solicit 
 mercy for them. But the tide was not yet to be 
 turned, and Appius only hastened his own ruin. 
 Virginius refused to admit the accused to bail, unless 
 he could prove 13 before a judge duly appointed to 
 
 12 Livy, III. 56. For the matter of the transac- 
 
 13 < Nj judicem dices te ab liber- tion itself it may be observed, that 
 tate in servitutem contra leges vin- the judge would have had to try 
 dicias non dedisse, in vincula te simply the question of fact, whe- 
 duci jubeo." Livy, III. 56. Nie- ther Appius had given vindiciae, 
 buhr rejects the reading " judicem or possession, in favour of slavery 
 dices " as nonsense, and corrects or not. And it was manifest that 
 "judicem doces." I should lay if the judge found against Appius 
 little stress on the authority of our on this issue, such a verdict 
 MSS. of Livy, which are all ex- would have weighed strongly 
 tremely corrupt ; but in this in- against him at his trial before the 
 stance the common reading is centuries. On the other hand, 
 supported by the similar expres- Appius wished to reserve his 
 sion " diem dicere " and the term whole case for the judgment of 
 " condictio," qua " actor adver- the centuries ; for there, as he well 
 sario denuntiabat r.t ad judicem knew, the issue tried was far less 
 capiendum die XXX adesset." narrow, and the sentence would 
 Gaius, IV. 18. "Ni judicem depend, not on the evidence as to 
 dices " signifies, " Unless thou a particular fact, but on the gene- 
 wilt give me notice to come be- ral impression produced on the 
 fore a judge with thee, to have minds of the audience by the 
 this issue tried." speakers on either side ; and to 
 
 Y2 
 
324 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, try this previous issue, " that he had not in a question 
 ' of personal freedom, assumed that the presumption 
 was in favour of slavery ; in having adjudged Virgi- 
 nia to be regarded as a slave till she was proved free, 
 instead of regarding her as entitled to her freedom, 
 till she was proved a slave." Appius dared not have 
 this issue tried ; he only appealed to the tribunes, the 
 colleagues of Virginius, to save him from being cast 
 into prison ; and when they refused to interpose u , he 
 appealed to the people. The meaning of this appeal 
 was, that he refused to go before the judge as Virgi- 
 nius had proposed, and submitted his whole case to 
 the judgment of the people in the assembly of cen- 
 turies. This he might legally do ; but on the other 
 hand, his refusal to have the question of fact, as to his 
 conduct in the affair of Virginia, tried before a judge, 
 enabled Virginius to assume his guilt as certain. 
 But bail was not to be given to notorious criminals ; 
 it was thus that Kseso had defrauded justice, and 
 Appius would certainly fly from Rome before his trial, 
 
 produce this impression, the feel- ot 8rjfj.apxoi fj.fi o~vfj.(pa>v><ri npos 
 
 ings and interests of the judges aXX^Xous, Kvpiot flvat TOV dva pea-ov 
 
 were freely appealed to, so that Keiptvov fj.fi /cwAtW&zi. XII. 25. 
 
 the greatest criminal might hope Wesseling and the other interpre- 
 
 to be acquitted, if his eloquence ters understand TOV ava \ttaov 
 
 and the influence of his friends \povov, "in the interval," which 
 
 were sufficiently powerful. seems to me to be neither good 
 
 14 An obscure and corrupt pas- Greek nor sense. I am inclined 
 
 sage of Diodorus would appear to to read TO ava fiea-ov Ktipevov, " the 
 
 intimate, that by the new consti- matter that was between them :" 
 
 tution, the act of one tribune " If the tribunes should disagree, 
 
 could not be stopped by another ; they had authority in the matter 
 
 in other words, that the ordinary that was disputed between them, 
 
 rule of Roman law, " melior est so as not to be restrained by the 
 
 conditio prohibentis," was, in the veto of their colleagues." But I am 
 
 case of the tribunes, at this time not yet satisfied that this is the 
 
 reversed. The words are eav 8e complete restoration of the passage. 
 
DEATH OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS. 325 
 
 unless he were secured within the walls of a prison. CHAP. 
 Accordingly, Virginius ordered him to be thrown into ' - 
 prison, there to await the judgment of the people. 
 
 But that judgment he never lived to undergo. Livy His death 
 chose to believe that he killed himself 15 , despairing of trial. 
 the event of the trial. Another account implies, that 
 it was the accusers and not the accused who feared to 
 trust to the decision of the centuries ; the tribunes, 
 it was said, ordered him to be put to death in prison 1G . 
 It would be painful to believe that so great a crimi- 
 nal, like the dictator Csesar, was not executed, but 
 murdered ; yet the utter uncertainty of a trial before 
 the centuries, where so many other points were sure 
 to be considered besides the fact of the criminal's 
 guilt, and the strange latitude allowed by the Ro- 
 mans to their magistrates on the plea of the public 
 safety, render it not improbable that the tribunes 
 dealt with Appius as Cicero treated the accomplices 
 of Catilina in the very same prison. Cicero's conduct 
 on that occasion was sanctioned by Cato, and by the 
 majority of the senate ; and certainly the crimes of 
 Appius were neither less flagrant, nor less notorious 
 than those of Cethegus and Lentulus. 
 
 15 Livy, III. 58. tribunes. But that Appius was 
 
 16 Dionysius, XI. 46. "This," put to death in prison, is also 
 he says, "was the general opinion," the account given by the author 
 
 pev f) T>V 7roAXwi> vTroXrjtyis ?)v. of the little work, " De Viris Illus- 
 
 He must have copied this from tribus ;" and it is stated positively 
 
 some annalist, although the oldest as a point which was not doubted. 
 
 annalist could know as little as And if this work was compiled, 
 
 Dionysius of the public opinion of as Borghesi and Niebuhr believe, 
 
 the times of the decemvirs. Per- from the inscriptions at the base 
 
 haps the statement came from the of the statues in the forum of Au- 
 
 memorials of the Claudian family, gustus, it may be supposed to ex- 
 
 which would naturally be glad to press the prevailing opinion in the 
 
 impute such a crime to the hated Augustan age. 
 
326 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Another of the decemvirs, Spurius Oppius 17 , un- 
 derwent a similar fate. He was particularly odious, 
 because he had been left with Appius in the govern- 
 ment of the city, while the other decemvirs were 
 abroad with the legions ; and because he had been 
 a faithful imitator of his colleague's tyranny. His 
 most obnoxious crime was his having cruelly and 
 wantonly scourged an old and distinguished soldier, 
 for no offence, as it was said, whatsoever. Bail, 
 therefore, was refused to him also ; he w r as committed 
 to prison, and there died before his trial came on, 
 either by the hands of the executioner or his own. 
 The other decemvirs 18 , and M. Claudius, who had 
 claimed Virginia as his slave, were all allowed to give 
 bail, or to escape before sentence was executed ; and 
 accordingly they all fled from Rome, and went into 
 exile. Their property, as well as that of Appius and 
 Oppius, was confiscated and sold at the temple of 
 Ceres. 
 Reaction From this point the reaction may be said to have 
 
 and division 
 
 among the begun. Vengeance having been satisfied, compassion 
 leaders. arose in its place ; the patricians seemed the weaker 
 party, and any further proceedings against them were 
 received with aversion, as a generous spirit cannot 
 bear to strike an enemy on the ground. Accord- 
 ingly, there seems from this moment to have been 
 a division amongst the popular leaders ; some think- 
 ing that they had done enough, and that in order to 
 carry into effect the new constitution, nothing was 
 
 17 [.ivy, III. 58. Livy, III. 58. Dionysius, XI. 46. 
 
THE PROSECUTIONS STOPPED. 327 
 
 so much needed as conciliation; while others be- CHAP. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 lieved that the patricians would never endure an v ' 
 equal government, and that it was the truest wisdom, 
 as they had once fallen, to keep them down for ever. 
 As far as we can discern any thing of individual 
 character amid the darkness of these times, the two 
 consuls and M. Duilius were of the former of these 
 two opinions; L. Icilius and L. Trebonius were of 
 the latter. 
 
 The state required, as Duilius thought, a general Duilius 
 
 amnesty; and accordingly he declared 19 that he further pro- 
 secutions. 
 would stop any further political prosecutions ; that 
 
 he would allow no man to be impeached, nor to be 
 thrown into prison as unworthy of bail, during the 
 remainder of the year. With the next year, as he 
 hoped, the new constitution would come into force, 
 and then the liberty of the commons, and the peace 
 of the nation, would be secured for ever. 
 
 But as far as appears, the patricians observed that The consuls 
 
 / i . take the 
 
 there were symptoms of a turn or the tide ; and they field, and are 
 
 T/.-, i . i i . i victorious 
 
 hoped for better things than to be obliged to submit over the 
 to the constitution of Duilius. The two consuls 20 senate re- 
 
 . Ti-1 11 fuses them a 
 
 went out to battle against the /Lquians and the triumph, but 
 
 n i T i 1111 *^e people 
 
 fctabmes, and returned, asserting that they had won grant it to 
 
 . . . i them. 
 
 great victories, and claiming the honour of a triumph. 
 No doubt the boast of victories in that plundering 
 warfare was often very unsubstantial ; but in this 
 case the defeat of the Sabines at any rate seems to 
 
 19 Livy, III. 59. w Livy, III 6063. 
 
328 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, have been real and signal, for we hear no more of 
 
 XVI 
 
 v ' wars with them for a hundred and fifty years after- 
 wards. The patricians, however, would grant no 
 honour to consuls whom they regarded as traitors to 
 their order, and the triumphs were refused. But on 
 this occasion the consuls threw themselves into the 
 hands of the more decided popular party ; they sum- 
 moned the people to meet in their centuries 21 , and 
 there L. Icilius, the tribune, with the consuls' sanc- 
 tion, moved that the Roman people, by its supreme 
 authority, should order the consuls to triumph. In 
 vain did the patricians oppose the motion to the ut- 
 most ; they had taken up an ill-chosen position, and 
 
 21 It is not clear whether the 
 vote in favour of the consuls' 
 triumph was passed by the cen- 
 turies or by the tribes. Livy's 
 expressions are, "tulit ad popu- 
 lum," not "adplebem," and "po- 
 puli jussu triumphatum est," not 
 " plebis jussu." Yet the vote is 
 passed on the motion of a tribune, 
 and it is said that " omnes tribus 
 earn rogationem acceperunt." On 
 the other hand, Dionysius says 
 that the consuls summoned the 
 people to the assembly, and the 
 tribunes are represented as second- 
 ing their representation, rather 
 than originating the question them- 
 selves. TroAAa TTJS fiovXrjs 
 
 pjcravTfs, a~uvayopV(ra.vT(0v avros 
 TO>V 8rj^.dp)(a>v. XI. 50. These cir- 
 cumstances suit best the comitia 
 of centuries, for the consuls could 
 not enter the city without laying 
 aside their imperium, and so 
 giving up their claim to a triumph, 
 and would necessarily assemble 
 the people without the walls. 
 
 Besides, the question of a triumph 
 might be more justly decided by 
 the people in the military array of 
 their centuries on the Campus 
 Martius, than by the commons in 
 their tribes in the forum . If Livy's 
 expression, " omnes tribus roga- 
 tionem acceperunt," could be re- 
 lied upon, it would go far to prove 
 that the blending of the system of 
 centuries with that of tribes, in the 
 comitia centuriata, that most per- 
 plexing question of Roman consti- 
 tutional history, began at least as 
 early as the time of the decemvirs, 
 and probably accompanied the 
 admission of the patricians and 
 their clients into the tribes. Fifty 
 years later, in the year 359, Livy 
 speaks of the " praerogativa tri- 
 bus," and the "jure vocatae tri- 
 bus," at the comitia of centuries, 
 without the least intimation that 
 the system implied in those ex- 
 pressions was then of recent in- 
 troduction. See Livy, V. 18. 
 
NEW ELECTION OF TRIBUNES. 329 
 
 the reaction here availed them nothing : the people CHAP. 
 ordered as Icilius proposed, and the consuls tri- v 
 umphed. 
 
 This, if the consular Fasti may be trusted, took Growing 
 
 strength of 
 
 place in August. Again the mist closes over the the a ist - 
 
 e cratical 
 
 events of the remainder of the year, and we can only party- 
 judge of their nature by the result. The reaction 
 grew stronger, and was increased by all the inherent 
 strength of an aristocracy, the most powerful of all 
 governments so long as it retains any portion of its 
 original vigour. The patricians were determined 
 that the new constitution should never take effect; 
 that there should be no plebeian consul, and no ple- 
 beian tribunes of the soldiers : whether, if these points 
 were carried, they might be forced also to have no 
 patrician tribunes of the commons, they cared but 
 little. 
 
 To meet this determination, the bolder part of the Proceedings 
 
 i i r> i iiit f D u il' us 
 
 leaders ot the commons resolved that the magistrates at the eiec- 
 
 _ _ tion of the 
 
 for the present year should be re-elected. " If the new tri- 
 patricians will not have the constitution," they said, 
 " we will at least keep matters exactly as they now 
 are ; we have two consuls whom we can trust to the 
 death, we have ten true and zealous tribunes, the 
 leaders of our late glorious deliverance. If we re- 
 tain these, the patricians will gain little by their re- 
 sistance." But here again the division in the popular 
 party made itself manifest : the consuls shrunk from 
 the odium of re-electing themselves ; Duilius was 
 equally opposed to the re-election of himself and his 
 nine colleagues. The lot for holding the comitia for 
 
330 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the election of new tribunes happened to fall to him. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 v-1 ' He resolutely refused 22 to receive votes for any of 
 the last year's tribunes ; and as many of the voters 
 would vote for no other candidate, it turned out that 
 only five candidates could obtain that proportion of 
 suffrages out of the whole number 23 , which was 
 required to constitute the legal vote of a tribe. Ac- 
 cordingly, when the sun set, he pronounced the 
 comitia to be dissolved, and as all elections were to 
 end in a single day, he declared 24 that the voting for 
 
 22 Livy, III. 64. "Cum ex 
 veteribus tribunis negaret ullius 
 se rationem habiturum." 
 
 23 " Cum alii candidati tribus 
 non explerent." " Explere tribum," 
 and " explere centuriam," signify 
 the obtaining such an absolute 
 number of votes out of the whole 
 number contained in the tribe or 
 century, as was required to con- 
 stitute its suffrage : for if the 
 votes of the tribe were divided 
 amongst so many candidates, that 
 no one had an absolute majority 
 of the whole tribe in his favour, 
 the tribe was held to have voted 
 for no one. And so if no candi- 
 date had an absolute majority of 
 the whole number of tribes in his 
 favour, the comitia were held to 
 have voted for no one, and there 
 was no legal return. 
 
 24 There is much difficulty here 
 in Livy's narrative. After saying 
 that Duilius dismissed the as- 
 sembly when only five tribunes 
 had been elected, and that he 
 would not go on with the election 
 on any future day, " concilium 
 dimisit, nee deinde comitiorum 
 causa habuit," Livy goes on as 
 follows, " satisfactum legi aiebat, 
 quae numero nusquam prsefinito 
 tribunis, modo ut relinquerentur 
 
 sanciret, et ab iis qui creati essent 
 cooptari collegas juberet. Recita- 
 batque rogationis carmen," &c. 
 Now this evidently implies that 
 Duilius referred to his own law 
 passed in this very year, by which 
 it was made a capital offence in 
 any tribune to go out of office or 
 to let the year expire without pro- 
 viding for the election of new tri- 
 bunes to succeed him : and it ap- 
 pears that this very law had con- 
 tained a clause, authorizing the 
 elected tribunes, if fewer than ten, 
 to fill up their number by choos- 
 ing their own colleagues. Nie- 
 buhr, on the other hand, sup- 
 poses that this was a new law, 
 now proposed by Duilius ; and 
 he therefore reads, " et ab iis qui 
 creati essent cooptari collegas ju- 
 bebat," referring the verb to Dui- 
 lius, instead of the common read- 
 ing "juberet," referring to the 
 former law. I think, however, that 
 the grammar is against this con- 
 struction, for if Livy had meant 
 that Duilius brought forward a new 
 measure, which must have been 
 done at a particular time and place, 
 he would not have used the im- 
 perfect tenses "aiebat "and "re- 
 citabat," but rather " dixit " and 
 " recitavit." And besides, what 
 
NEW CONSTITUTION SET ASIDE. 331 
 
 tribunes was duly finished; that the commons had CHAP. 
 
 XVI 
 
 elected no more than five, and that it must remain v v 
 with these five to complete their own number. Ac- 
 cordingly the five elected tribunes chose to them- 
 selves five colleagues, and two 25 of these are expressly 
 said to have been moderate patricians. We may safely 
 conclude, that all five were patricians, and that Dui- 
 lius, hoping to prevail by moderation and conciliation, 
 took this opportunity to carry into effect one part of 
 the new constitution, in the confidence that, after 
 this proof of honourable dealing, the patricians for 
 very shame would be forced to fulfil the rest of it. 
 
 In this however, he was mistaken: they had no Th enew 
 
 constitution 
 
 thought of fulfilling it, although by what means they is set aste. 
 were enabled to defeat it we can only conjecture. 
 Many years afterwards the patricians habitually set 
 the Licinian law at defiance, and prevented the 
 election of a plebeian consul, whenever the comitia 
 were held by a magistrate devoted to their interests. 
 
 likelihood is there that such a the fearful penalty of the law, in 
 measure would have been passed a case in which he might be per- 
 by the commons at the very mo- fectly innocent ; for it might not 
 ment when they were complaining be in his power to secure the 
 of Duilius's conduct ? Whereas election of ten tribunes in a single 
 it is very conceivable that the day, if there was a very great 
 clause appealed to by Duilius, had number of candidates. And thus 
 been inserted by him in his former the tenses aiebat and recitabat are 
 law, perhaps with a view to the quite right ; for they express the 
 very object which he now pro- defence which Duilius was in the 
 posed to gain by it; namely, the habit of making, whenever his con- 
 securing the admission of some duct was called in question, 
 patricians into the number of tri- - 5 These were Sp. Tarpeius and 
 bunes. And the clause would A. Aternius, the consuls of the 
 then have been passed without year 300, who had passed the law 
 suspicion, as it involved no new " De multae sacramento." Livy, 
 principle, as might seem in- III. 65, and Cicero, de Repub. II. 
 tended merely to relieve the tri- 35. 
 bune presiding at the comitia from 
 
332 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. But how could they persuade Horatius and Valerius, 
 s % ' whom they had so recently insulted, to enter into 
 their feelings, and when the day of election came on, 
 to refuse all votes given in favour of a plebeian can- 
 didate? Perhaps the opposition of the patricians 
 was so determined, that the consuls could not but 
 yield to it ; they might know, that although the cen- 
 turies should elect a plebeian, yet the curiae would 
 not confirm the election by conferring on him the 
 imperium, or sovereign power; and above all, they 
 might feel that there was not in the mass of the 
 commons so deep an interest in the point as could 
 overpower even the most resolute resistance. Thus 
 they abandoned the new constitution to its fate : 
 there was no election of tribunes of the soldiers, nor 
 of a plebeian consul ; only two patricians of known 
 moderation were chosen, Lars Herminius 26 and T. 
 Virginius Cselimontanus, men who were not likely to 
 abuse their power, and so to make the victory of the 
 patricians insupportable. 
 
 The Tre- Thus the hopes of Duilius were altogether disap- 
 pointed, and the tribuneship had been laid open to 
 the patricians for nothing. The most moderate men 
 now saw that they had been deluded, and L. Trebo- 
 nius, one of the five plebeian tribunes, was loud in 
 his complaints of the treachery of the patricians. He 
 then proposed a law 27 , which enacted that the elec- 
 tion of tribunes of the commons should from hence- 
 
 26 Livy, III. 65. The consuls XI. 63. Livy, IV. 37. 
 at this time came into office on 27 Livy, III. 65. 
 the Ides of December. Dionysius, 
 
VIOLENCES OF THE YOUNG PATRICIANS. 
 
 forth be continued till the whole number of ten were CHAP. 
 elected. We read of no opposition to this law from ' v - 
 any quarter; the patricians knew that they must 
 abandon their hold on the tribuneship if they insisted 
 on keeping all the curule offices to themselves, and 
 probably they were anxious to leave no vestige of 
 the new constitution in existence, lest the commons, 
 while any part of it remained, should be tempted to 
 demand the whole. Accordingly all things returned 
 to their old state : except that the two orders were 
 rendered more distinct than ever by the positive law 
 enacted by the decemvirs, and introduced into the 
 twelve tables, by which intermarriage between them 
 was strictly forbidden. 
 
 It was impossible however that matters should so A.U.C. sos. 
 
 A.C. 444. 
 
 rest. The moderate consuls of the year 307 were violences of 
 succeeded by two men of a different character, M. patricians. 
 Geganius Macerinus 28 and C. Julius. Immediately 
 we hear again of the young patricians, as in the time 
 of the decemvir Appius and of Kseso Quinctius. 
 The tribunes in vain endeavoured to break up their 
 organization, by impeaching the most forward indi- 
 viduals: the consuls took their part, and repressed, 
 says Livy, the combination among the tribunes with- 
 out attacking the tribunician power in itself, and yet 
 without compromising the dignity of the patricians. 
 This can only mean that private influence, corruption, 
 or intimidation, were used to deter the accusers from 
 proceeding. Thus relieved from all restraint, the 
 
 28 Livy, III. 65. 
 
334 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 patricians went on more boldly : violence was con- 
 stantly offered to individual plebeians; the young 
 patricians, organized in their clubs, supported each 
 other in their outrages : and even the tribunes, far 
 from being able to protect their constituents, were 
 themselves, in spite of the Sacred laws, insulted and 
 assaulted. The commons complained that they 
 wanted tribunes like Icilius ; that those whom they 
 now had were no better than mere shadows. It re- 
 quires indeed no ordinary man to act the part of 
 popular leader against a powerful aristocracy. Even 
 in the forum the patrician clubs were now the 
 strongest party ; so great is the superiority of youth, 
 high birth, training in martial exercises, and organi- 
 zation, over mere numbers. But when they left the 
 forum, the tribunes were but individuals, often ad- 
 vanced in life 29 , with few slaves and no dependents ; 
 exposed in their own persons, and still more in their 
 families, to all the insults and oppressions which 
 wealth, rank, and their numerous clients, enabled the 
 
 29 Shakspeare has truly seized has to make his own way to fame, 
 
 this point in the character of the cannot expect to he distinguished 
 
 tribuneship, that it was generally as early in life as those who are 
 
 held by men of mature or even of recommended at once to public 
 
 advanced age ; the tribunes who notice by the celebrity of their 
 
 oppose Coriolanus are elderly men, family. 
 
 like the city magistrates of mo- Afterwards, when the tribunes, 
 
 dern times ; and the aristocratical as in the case of the Gracchi, 
 
 party taunt them with their want were chosen from families, which 
 
 of strength ; " Aged sir, hands though not patrician were yet in 
 
 off." " Hence, rotten thing ! or I the highest degree noble, young 
 
 will shake thy bones out of thy men might be elected to the office ; 
 
 garments." So the popular leader for then they enjoyed all the aris- 
 
 at Syracuse, Athenagoras, com- tocratical advantages of hereditary 
 
 plains of the youth and presump- distinction, although their office 
 
 tion of Herraocrates and his party, was still a popular one. 
 And this is natural; for he who 
 
THE CANULEIAN LAW. 335 
 
 patricians to offer. Whose spirit would not be CHAP. 
 
 XVI 
 
 broken by such a trial ? Who but the very boldest ^ ., > 
 and firmest of men would have scrupled to purchase 
 security in private life from such constant perse- 
 cution, by withdrawing in his public capacity that 
 opposition which after all he might feel to be hope- 
 less? 
 
 In the next year, a member of the Quinctian A.U.C. 309. 
 house was chosen consul, T. Quinctius Capitolinus. Consulship 
 
 .,.,,, f , , . , f ofT.Quinc- 
 
 Accordmgly the story of the year is made up from tius. The 
 
 n i "-I i i f^. /! T Canuleian 
 
 some or the memorials of the Quinctian family, and law. 
 is a mere panegyric of the consul's great qualities in 
 peace and in war. The real history of the year is 
 lost almost entirely; it is only said 30 that the irri- 
 tation of the commons was continually becoming 
 more violent, and that impeachments against indivi- 
 dual patricians were constantly the occasion of fresh 
 contests between the orders. Then the panegyric 
 succeeds, and describes 31 how the yEquians and Vol- 
 scians broke in upon the Roman territory, and car- 
 ried their ravages up to the very walls of Rome ; how 
 there was no one who went out to oppose them ; and 
 how the consul then called the people together, and 
 addressed them so earnestly, and with such effect, 
 that all internal quarrels were suspended, every man 
 followed the consul to the field, and a great victory 
 was gained over the enemy. So ran the story, but 
 on this occasion it has not found its way into the 
 Fasti, and the annals of the year contain no record of 
 
 30 Livy, III. G6. 31 Livy, III. 66. 
 
336 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, a triumph obtained by either consul. When Quinc- 
 ' . ' > tius and his panegyric disappear from the state, the 
 
 A.U.C. 310. J 
 
 A.C. 442. story of internal disputes returns, and we find 32 the 
 .ZEquians and Volscians, together with the Veien- 
 tians and Ardeatians, again threatening Rome from 
 without. But the new college of tribunes contained 
 a man of resolution, C. Canuleius, and one to all 
 appearance as wise as he was bold. He chose that 
 particular reform out of many in which the commons 
 felt a deep interest, and in which many of the patri- 
 cians sympathized with them ; the repeal, namely, of 
 that law of the twelve tables which forbade connubia 
 between the two orders. Many families must have 
 felt the hardship of this law ; for marriages between 
 patricians and plebeians were common, and as they 
 were not in the highest sense legal, the children fol- 
 lowed the mother's condition, not the father's, and 
 w r ere not subject to their father's power, nor could 
 inherit from him if he died intestate. On this point 
 there was a strong and general feeling ; but the other 
 nine tribunes 33 , encouraged by their colleague's bold- 
 ness, attempted to revive the question of the ad- 
 mission of plebeians to the consulship, and they 
 proposed a law, " that the consulship should be 
 thrown open, without distinction, to the members of 
 both orders." 
 
 Tumult on Here again the family memorials, and the annalists 
 
 the Janicu- 
 
 lum. The who compiled their narratives from them, have left a 
 
 Canuleian 
 
 law is car- blank in the story. No patrician made himself re- 
 
 32 Livy, IV. l. Livy, IV. 1. 
 
THE CANULEIAN LAW CARRIED. 337 
 
 inarkable, either by his magnanimous opposition to CHAP. 
 the commons, or by his patriotic support of their ' / ' 
 claims ; no memorable tale of outrage or of heroism 
 was connected with these events, and thus they have 
 been passed by almost unnoticed. But the short 
 statement of Zonaras 34 , " that many violent things 
 were said and done on both sides," acquires some- 
 thing more of distinctness from the mention made 
 by Florus 8) of a tumult which broke out on the hill 
 Janiculum, headed by the tribune Canuleius. It 
 seems then that the commons again took up arms, 
 and established themselves, not as before on the 
 Aventine or the Sacred Hill, but beyond the Tiber, 
 on a spot easily capable of being converted into a 
 distinct city. Thus pressed, the patricians once more 
 yielded, and the law of Canuleius, to repeal the 
 decemvirs' 3G prohibition of intermarriages between 
 the two orders, was carried without farther oppo- 
 sition. 
 
 The success of Canuleius encouraged his col- Disputes 
 
 about the 
 
 leagues ; and they now more vehemently ur^ed their law proposed 
 
 . by his col- 
 
 law for opening the consulship to the commons. But leagues for 
 
 opening the 
 
 this measure it seems excited a less general interest onsuhhip 
 
 . . to the com- 
 
 m its behalf, while it awakened a yet fiercer opposi- mons - 
 tion. We may suppose however that the commons 
 again occupied in military order, either the Aventine 
 or the Janiculum : for the patricians held meetings 
 
 34 IloXXa KO.T d\\r)\<av Kal /3i'ata tumultus in monte Janiculo, duce 
 e\fy6v re KOI tTrparrov, VII. 1Q. Canuleio, tribuno plebis, exarsit. 
 
 35 Tertiam seditionem incitavit Florus, I. 25. 
 matrimoniorum dignitas, ut plebeii 36 Livy, IV. 6. 
 cum patriciis jungerentur. Qui 
 
 VOL. I. Z 
 
338 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, amongst themselves 17 , which neither Valerius nor 
 ^ ' Horatius would attend ; and C. Claudius, true to the 
 spirit of his family, wanted to invest the consuls with 
 full military power, and to commission them to attack 
 the tribunes and the commons by force of arms. The 
 Quinctii however, so said their family accounts, would 
 have no violence done on the sacred persons of the 
 tribunes ; and their milder counsels led to a tempo- 
 rary settlement of the contest. The consulship was 
 to be suspended, but tribunes of the soldiers with 
 consular power were to be appointed, and these 
 might be either plebeians or patricians. What was 
 to be the number of these tribunes is uncertain ; 
 three only were actually chosen, but Zonaras says 38 , 
 that according to the constitution of the office there 
 were to be six, three to be chosen from each order. 
 Perhaps the number three had reference to the three 
 old tribes of the Roman people, the Ramnenses, Ti- 
 tienses, and Luceres, and as these in the division of 
 the centuries were now six, the sex suffragia, it may 
 have been intended in like manner that after three 
 patrician tribunes had been elected, three plebeians 
 should be added to their number, like the first and 
 second centuries of the three tribes, according to the 
 system ascribed to the elder Tarquinius. At any 
 rate, three tribunes were elected ; and, as Livy de- 
 clares, three patricians: A. Sempronius Atratinus, 
 L. Atilius, and Cloelius 39 . 
 
 * Ia\7, IV. 6. Dionysius, XL 39 In the MSS. of Livy, this last 
 
 55. tribune is called "T. Celius," or 
 
 38 VII. 19. Dionysius also agrees " Caelius," or " Csecilius;" Caeci- 
 
 with him, XL 60. lius is the reading followed in 
 
APPOINTMENT OF CONSULS AS BEFORE. 339 
 
 It is remarkable that two out of these three, Sem- CHAP. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 pronius and Cloelius, were chosen from families espe- v v ' 
 
 The dispute 
 
 ciallv noted twelve years 10 earlier, for their violent ends in the 
 
 appointment 
 
 hostility to the commons, and for the great strength of consuls 
 
 as before. 
 
 of their bands of associated followers. This can 
 hardly have been a mere accident : it looks as if the 
 patricians had made every effort to bring them for- 
 ward as efficient leaders in the struggle for which 
 they were preparing. But again the details are lost ; 
 and Livy's story 41 merely relates, that within three 
 months the tribunes were called upon by the au- 
 gurs to resign, from an alleged religious informality 
 in their election; that there was then a dispute, 
 whether other tribunes should be elected, or whe- 
 ther consuls should be appointed as before ; that T. 
 Quinctius Barbatus, whom the patricians had ap- 
 pointed interrex, was on this occasion their leader; 
 that the commons feeling that only patricians would 
 
 Drakenborch's edition, but Bek- were not once patrician houses of 
 
 ker has adopted the correction of all those names, which to us in 
 
 Sigonius, " T. Cloelius." In Dio- the later history occur only as 
 
 dorus the MSS. read KoiVros, for plebeian, except where the plebeian 
 
 which the editors have corrected family had been noble in some 
 
 KotWios (Quintius, or Quinctius). other city of Italy, and was not of 
 
 In Dionysius, the common reading Roman extraction. Thus we do 
 
 is KAuo-ioi/ SiKeAov, but the cogno- not hear of any patrician M\n or 
 
 men enables us to correct this, Csecilii. It is more probable, I 
 
 and in the Vatican MS. it is think, that the three tribunes first 
 
 rightly given KAvXiov SiKtAoi/. chosen were patricians, and that 
 
 Niebuhr says that L. Atilius must three plebeians were to have been 
 
 have been a plebeian, because the added to their number; but that 
 
 Atilii were a plebeian family, and the patricians resisted this, and 
 
 the L. Atilius, who was tribune of finally, to simplify the question, 
 
 the soldiers in 356, is expressly got rid of their own tribunes also, 
 
 called a plebeian by Livy himself, and returned to the government 
 
 But this is merely the same ques- by consuls, 
 
 tion which occurs with respect to 40 Dionysius, X. 41. 
 
 some of the decemvirs ; and it 41 Livy, IV. 7- 
 never can be shown that there 
 
 z 2 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, be elected, whether under the name of consuls or 
 
 XVI 
 
 ' v tribunes, thought it vain to dispute for nothing; and 
 that thus in the end two consuls were appointed, L. 
 Papirius Mugillanus, and another Sempronius Atra- 
 tinus, and all mention of the laws proposed by the 
 tribunes of the commons was thus for several years 
 laid to sleep. 
 
 Varying Another account 42 represents T. Quinctius not as 
 
 accounts of . 
 
 these interrex, but as dictator, and says that in no more 
 
 transactions. . 
 
 than thirteen days he put an end to the contest, and 
 then laid down his office. And as we find the record 
 of a treaty concluded in this year between Rome and 
 Ardea, it has been conjectured 43 that the patricians 
 may have availed themselves of foreign aid in putting 
 down the opposition of the commons. It is certain 
 that in the following year we meet for the first time 
 with the name of a new patrician magistracy, the 
 censorship ; and Niebuhr saw clearly that the crea- 
 tion of this office was connected with the appoint- 
 ment of tribunes of the soldiers ; and that both be- 
 long to what may be called the constitution of the 
 year 312. 
 New con- This constitution recognized two points: a sort 
 
 stitution. 
 
 Censors, of continuation of the principle of the decemvirate 
 
 quaestors, 
 
 ami tribunes inasmuch as the supreme government was again, to 
 
 soldiers. speak in modern language, put in commission, and 
 
 the kingly powers, formerly united in the consuls or 
 
 42 Lydus, de Magistratibus, I. extremely questionable. 
 38. But the infinite confusions 43 Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 410. 
 
 of the passage in which this state- Engl. Transl. 
 ment occurs, render its authority 
 
CONSTITUTION OF 312. 341 
 
 praetors, were now to be divided between the censors CHAP. 
 
 5f VT 
 
 and tribunes of the soldiers ; and secondly, the eligi- ^ ^_L 
 bility of the commons to share in some of the powers 
 thus divided. But the partition even in theory was 
 far from equal : the two censors, who were to hold 
 their office for live years, were not only chosen from 
 the patricians, but, as Niebuhr thinks 44 , by them ; 
 that is by the assembly of the curiae : the two quaes- 
 tors who judged in cases of blood were also chosen 
 from the patricians, although by the centuries. Thus 
 the civil power of the old praetors was in its most 
 important points still exercised exclusively by the 
 patricians ; and even their military power, which was 
 professedly to be open to both orders, was not trans- 
 mitted to the tribunes of the soldiers, without some 
 diminution of its majesty. The new tribuneship was 
 not an exact image of the kingly sovereignty, it 
 was not a curule office, and therefore no tribune ever 
 enjoyed the honour of a triumph 45 , in which the con- 
 quering general, ascending to the Capitol to sacrifice 
 to the guardian gods of Rome, was wont to be arrayed 
 in all the insignia of royalty. 
 
 44 Vol. II. p. 394. Engl. Transl. the curise. 
 
 It appears that in after times the ** Zonaras, VII. 19- It might 
 election of the censors was con- be a curious question whether the 
 firmed by a lex centuriata, as that ovation, or inferior triumph, in 
 of the other curule magistrates which the conquering general 
 was by a lex curiata. Both were, walked on foot instead of riding 
 then, a mere formality; but Nie- in his chariot, was not first intro- 
 buhr infers from this difference duced in the case of a tribune of 
 between the censorship and the the soldiers ; and whether it did 
 other magistracies, that the former not mark in its origin the inferior 
 was originally conferred by the rank of the general who had 
 curise, and confirmed by the cen- gained it, rather than the less 
 turies, as the others were conferred importance of his military sue- 
 by the centuries and confirmed by cesses. 
 
342 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. But even the small share of power thus granted 
 itThT'""^ m tneor ) T to tne commons, was in practice withheld 
 equality as f rO m them. Whether from the influence of the 
 
 regarded the 
 
 commons, patricians in the centuries, or by religious pretences 
 urged by the augurs, or by the enormous and arbi- 
 trary power of refusing votes which the officer pre- 
 siding at the comitia was wont to exercise, the college 
 of the tribunes was for many years filled by the pa- 
 tricians alone. And while the censorship was to be 
 a fixed institution, the tribunes of the soldiers were 
 to be replaced whenever it might appear needful by 
 two consuls; and to the consulship no plebeian was 
 so much as legally eligible. Thus the victory of the 
 aristocracy may seem to have been complete, and w r e 
 may wonder how the commons, after having carried 
 so triumphantly the law of Canuleius, should have 
 allowed the political rights asserted for them by his 
 colleagues, to have been so partially conceded in 
 theory, and in practice to be so totally withheld. 
 {MS wa8 Why ^ ne ex pl ana ti n is simple, and it is one of the 
 quietly most valuable lessons of history. The commons ob- 
 
 endured. * 
 
 tained those reforms which they desired, and they de- 
 sired such only as their state was ripe for. They had 
 withdrawn in times past to the Sacred Hill, but it was 
 to escape from intolerable personal oppression ; they 
 had recently occupied the Aventine in arms, but it 
 was to get rid of a tyranny which endangered the 
 honour of their wives and daughters, and to recover 
 the protection of their tribunes ; they had more lately 
 still retired to the Janiculum, but it was to remove an 
 insulting distinction which embittered the relations 
 
CONSTITUTION OF 312. 343 
 
 of private life, and imposed on their grandchildren CHAP. 
 
 in many instances, the inconveniences, if not the v ^ 
 
 reproach, of illegitimacy. These were all objects of 
 universal and personal interest; and these the com- 
 mons were resolved not to relinquish. But the pos- 
 sible admission of a few distinguished members of 
 their body to the highest offices of state concerned 
 the mass of the commons but little. They had their 
 own tribunes for their personal protection ; but curule 
 magistracies, and the government of the Common- 
 wealth, seemed to belong to the patricians, or at 
 least might be left in their hands without any great 
 sacrifice. So it is that all things come best in their 
 season; that political power is then most happily 
 exercised by a people, when it has not been given to 
 them prematurely, that is, before in the natural pro- 
 gress of things they feel the want of it. Security for 
 person and property enables a nation to grow without 
 interruption ; in contending for this a people's sense 
 of law and right is wholesomely exercised ; meantime, 
 national prosperity increases, and brings with it an 
 increase of intelligence, till other and more necessary 
 wants being satisfied, men awaken to the highest 
 earthly desire of the ripened mind, the desire of 
 taking an active share in the great work of govern- 
 ment. The Roman commons abandoned the highest 
 magistracies to the patricians for a period of many 
 years : but they continued to increase in prosperity 
 and in influence ; and what the fathers had wisely 
 yielded, their sons in the fulness of time acquired. 
 So the English house of commons in the reign of 
 
344 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Edward III. 46 , declined to interfere in questions of 
 
 XVI. 
 
 , ' peace and war, as being too high for them to com- 
 pass; but they would not allow the crown to take 
 their money without their own consent ; and so the 
 nation grew, and the influence of the house of com- 
 mons grew along with it, till that house has become 
 the great and predominant power in the British 
 constitution. 
 
 If this view be correct, Trebonius judged far more 
 wisely than M. Duilius ; and the abandonment of 
 half the plebeian tribuneship to the patricians, in 
 order to obtain for the plebeians an equal share in 
 the higher magistracies, would have been as really 
 injurious to the commons, as it was unwelcome to 
 the pride of the aristocracy. It was resigning a 
 weapon with which they were familiar, for one which 
 they knew not how to wield. The tribuneship was 
 the foster nurse of Roman liberty, and without its 
 care that liberty never would have grown to matu- 
 rity. What evils it afterwards wrought, when the 
 public freedom was fully ripened, arose from that 
 great defect of the Roman constitution, its conferring 
 such extravagant powers on all its officers. It pro- 
 posed to check one tyranny by another; instead of 
 so limiting the prerogatives of every magistrate and 
 order in the state, whether aristocratical or popular, 
 as to exclude tyranny from all. 
 
 46 Hallam, Middle Ages, Vol. III. p. 71. ed. 1822. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 INTERNAL HISTORY FROM 312 TO 350 THE CENSOR- 
 SHIP, AND THE LIMITATION OF IT BY MAMERCUS 
 
 JEMILIUS SP. MJELIUS AND C. AHALA THE QU^ES- 
 
 TORSHIP LAID OPEN TO THE COMMONS SIX TRI- 
 BUNES OF THE SOLDIERS APPOINTED, AND PAY 
 ISSUED TO THE SOLDIERS. 
 
 " What can be more instructive than to observe the first principles 
 of right springing up, involved in superstition and polluted with 
 violence; until, by length of time and favourable circumstances, it 
 has worked itself into clearness ? " BURKE, Abridgment of English 
 History, Book III. Chap. IX. 
 
 THE period of nearly forty years on which we are CHAP. 
 now going to enter, so short a space in the history of v " .. 
 a nation, so long to all of us individually, includes 
 within it the whole of the Peloponnesian war. 
 Whilst at Rome the very form and tendency of great 
 political revolutions cannot be discovered without 
 difficulty ; whilst military events are wholly disguised 
 by ignorance or flattery, and whilst we can as yet 
 obtain no distinct ideas of any one individual, nor 
 fully conceive the character of the national mind, 
 Athens is, on the other hand, known to us almost 
 in its minutest points of detail. During this time 
 
346 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 c'HAP. Thucydides was collecting materials for his history; 
 
 ^-v '* and Herodotus, after having travelled nearly all over 
 the world, was making the last additions to his great 
 work in the country of his later years, on the southern 
 coast of Italy. Pericles had passed all of his glorious 
 life except its most glorious close ; and Socrates, the 
 faithful servant of truth and virtue, was deserving 
 that common hatred of the aristocratical 1 and demo- 
 cratical vulgar, which made him at last its martyr. 
 The arts and manufactures of Athens were well 
 known at Rome ; and those names and stories of the 
 wars of Thebes and Troy, which their dramatists were 
 continually presenting afresh to the memory of the 
 Athenians, were familiar also in the heart of Italy, 
 were adopted into the language and traditions of 
 Etruria and of Rome, and employed the genius of 
 Italian artists '' as of those of their original country. 
 
 1 The aristocratical hatred against down to the humblest. 
 Socrates is exhibited in the Clouds 2 In the specimens of Etruscan 
 
 of Aristophanes ; and the famous vases and frescoes given by Micali 
 
 speech of Cleon on the question in the atlas accompanying his 
 
 of the punishment of the revolted History of the Ancient People of 
 
 Mytileneeans, shows the same spi- Italy, and in those published more 
 
 rit in connexion with the strong recently by the Antiquarian So- 
 
 democratical party. Political par- ciety of Rome, it is curious to ob- 
 
 ties are not the ultimate distinction serve how many of the subjects 
 
 between man and man ; there are are taken from the story of the 
 
 higher points, whether for good siege of Thebes, and still more 
 
 or evil, on which a moral sym- from that of Troy. Many of the 
 
 pathy unites those who politically vases on which these subjects oc- 
 
 are most at variance with each cur, are thought to be actually of 
 
 other ; and so the common dread Athenian manufacture ; others ap- 
 
 and hatred of improvement, of pear to be Italian imitations ; but 
 
 truth, of principle in other words, both equally prove that the stories 
 
 of all that is the light and life of of the heroic age of Greece were 
 
 man, has, on more than one occa- well known in Italy, and the works 
 
 sion, united in one cause all who of Grecian art admired and sought 
 
 are low in intellect and morals, after, 
 from the highest rank in society 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY. 347 
 
 But during the period at which we are now arrived, CHAP. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 central Italy became acquainted, not with Athenian ' . 
 art only, but with the fame of the Athenian arms. 
 The Etruscans heard with delight that a mighty 
 avenger of their defeat at Cuma 3 was threatening 
 their old enemies of Syracuse ; their cities gladly lent 
 their aid to the invader ; and the Romans must have 
 heard with interest from their neighbours and friends 
 of Ca3re or Agylla, how some of their countrymen 
 had done good service in the lines 4 of the Athenian 
 army, and how they had been involved in that 
 sweeping ruin in which the greatest armament ever 
 yet sent out by a free and civilized Commonwealth 
 had so miserably perished. But the Romans knew 
 not, and could not know, how deeply the greatness 
 of their own posterity, and the fate of the whole 
 western world, was involved in the destruction of the 
 fleet of Athens in the harbour of Syracuse. Had 
 that great expedition proved victorious, the energies 
 of Greece during the next eventful century would 
 have found their field in the west no less than in the 
 east ; Greece, and not Rome, might have conquered 
 Carthage ; Greek, instead of Latin, might have been 
 at this day the principal element of the languages of 
 
 3 The naval victory of Cuma was discovered by an English tra- 
 
 was won by Hiero, the brother veller, in 1817, amongst the ruins 
 
 and successor of Gelon, over the of Olympia, and bears an inscrip- 
 
 Etruscans, in the year 474 B.C. tion which tells its story, "that 
 
 Olymp. 76-3. It is commemo- Hiero, the son of Dinomenes, and 
 
 rated by Diodorus, XI. 51, and the Syracusans, offered it to Jove 
 
 by Pindar, Pyth. I. 140; and one as a part of the Tyrrhenian spoil 
 
 of the helmets taken from the from Cuma." See Bockh, Corpus 
 
 enemy on this day, and sent as an Inscript. Graec. torn. I. p. 34. 
 offering to the Olympian Jupiter, 4 Thucydides, VII. 53. 
 
348 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Spain, of France, and of Italy : and the laws of 
 
 XVII. 
 
 1 , Athens, rather than of Rome, might be the founda- 
 tion of the law of the civilized world. 
 General The period now before us is marked, as far as 
 
 character 
 
 of the en- Rome itself is concerned, with few events of great 
 
 suingpenod. 
 
 importance. The commons retained and asserted 
 those rights which were the best suited to their actual 
 condition ; and thus became gradually fitted to desire 
 and to claim others of a higher character. But for 
 the first important advantage to their cause they 
 were indebted to one of the wisest and best Romans 
 of his time, who was at once trusted by them, and 
 respected by his own order, the patrician Mamercus 
 JSmilius. Nine years after the institution of the 
 A.U.C. 321. censorship, Mamercus having been named dictator, 
 
 A.C. 431. 
 
 to oppose a threatened attack from the Etruscans, 
 proposed and carried a law 5 to limit the duration of 
 the censorship. That office, in its powers and out- 
 ward splendour a lively image of royalty, was held 
 for a term of five years. By the law of Mamercus 
 jEmilius it was to be held in future only for eighteen 
 months ; and as the election of censors still took 
 place only at intervals of five years, this magistracy 
 was always in abeyance for a longer time than it was 
 in existence. 
 
 The censor- The censorship was an office so remarkable, that 
 however familiar the subject may be to many readers, 
 it is necessary here to bestow some notice on it. Its 
 original business 6 was to take a register of the citi- 
 
 5 Livy, IV. 24. ministerium custodiaeque et ta- 
 
 6 Magistrates, cui scribarum bularura cura, cui arbitrium for- 
 
POWERS OF THE CENSORS. 349 
 
 zens and of their property ; but this, which seems at CHAP. 
 first sight to be no more than the drawing up of a v 
 mere statistical report, became in fact, from the large 
 discretion allowed to every Roman officer, a political 
 power of the highest importance. The censors made 
 out the returns of the free population ; but they did 
 more ; they divided it according to its civil distinc- 
 tions, and drew up a list of the senators 7 , a list of 
 the equites, a list of the members of the several 
 tribes, or of those citizens who enjoyed the right 
 of voting, and a list of the agrarians, consisting of 
 those freedmen, naturalized strangers, and others, 
 who being enrolled in no tribe, possessed no vote in 
 the comitia, but still enjoyed all the private rights 
 of Roman citizens. Now the lists thus drawn up by 
 the censors were regarded as legal evidence of a 
 man's condition : the state could refer to no more 
 authentic standard than to the returns deliberately 
 made by one of its highest magistrates, who was re- 
 sponsible to it for their being drawn up properly. 
 He would, in the first place, be the sole judge of 
 many questions of fact, such as whether a citizen had 
 the qualifications 8 required by law or custom for the 
 rank which he claimed, or whether he had ever 
 incurred any judicial sentence which rendered him 
 infamous 9 : but from thence the transition was easy, 
 
 mulse censendi subjiceretur. Livy, claiming to belong to one of the 
 
 IV. 8. tribes, followed any trade incom- 
 
 7 See the accounts of the census patible with the character of a 
 in Livy, XXIV. 18, and XXXIX. plebeian; all retail trades being 
 42. 44. See also Zonaras, VII. forbidden at this time to the com- 
 19- mons. See Diunysius, IX. 25. 
 
 8 For instance, whether a man 9 This was called a "judicium 
 
350 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, according to Roman notions, to the decision of ques- 
 v '> tions of right ; such as whether a citizen was really 
 worthy of retaining his rank, whether he had not 
 committed some act as justly degrading as those 
 which incurred the sentence of the law ; and in this 
 manner the censor gave a definite power to public 
 opinion, and whatever acts or habits were at variance 
 with the general feeling, he held himself authorized 
 to visit with disgrace or disfranchisement. Thus 
 was established a direct check upon many vices or 
 faults which law, in almost all countries, has not 
 ventured to notice. Whatever was contrary to good 
 morals, or to the customs of their fathers, Roman 
 citizens ought to be ashamed to practise: if a man i0 
 behaved tyrannically to his wife or children, if he was 
 guilty of excessive cruelty even to his slaves, if he 
 neglected his land 11 , if he indulged in habits of ex- 
 travagant expense 12 , or followed any calling which 
 was regarded as degrading 13 , the offence was justly 
 noted by the censors, and the offender was struck off 
 from the list of senators, if his rank were so high ; or 
 if he were an ordinary citizen, he was expelled from 
 his tribe, and reduced to the class of the serarians. 
 
 turpe," and this was incurred in 10 Dionysius, XX. 3. Fragm. 
 
 various actions, which are spe- Mai. 
 
 cified by the lawyers ; as, for in- u A. Gellius, IV. 12. 
 
 stance, if a man were cast in an 12 Dionysius, XX. 3. See the 
 
 actio furti, or vi bonorum rap- well-known story of the censor 
 
 torum, or tutelar, or mandati, or Fabricius expelling Rufinus from 
 
 pro socio, &c. See Gaius, Insti- the senate, because he had ten 
 
 tutes, IV. 182. And the dis- pounds' weight of silver plate in 
 
 qualification thus incurred was his possession. 
 
 perpetual, and could not be re- 13 As, for instance, that of an 
 
 versed by the censors. See Cicero, actor. See Livy, VII. 2. 
 
 pro Cluentio, 42. 
 
POWERS OF THE CENSORS. 
 
 351 
 
 Beyond this the censor had no power of degra- 
 dation H ; for the private rights of Roman citizens 
 could not be taken away by any magistrate ; the sen- 
 tence could only affect his honours, or such privi- 
 leges as were strictly political. 
 
 Yet the censors had a farther hold even on the 
 agrarians, nor was their power limited to the de- 
 grading a citizen from his rank; they could also 
 affect his fortune. It was their business, as I have 
 said, to make a return of the property of every 
 Roman, and of its value ; for the taxes were levied 
 according to this return, and here too its evidence 
 was decisive. Every citizen presented at the census 
 a detailed account of his property; he stated the 
 name 15 and situation of his landed estate, what pro- 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Power of 
 the censors 
 over the 
 property of 
 the people. 
 
 14 There is a remarkable passage 
 in Livy, XLV. 15, in which C. 
 Claudius, one of the censors in 
 the year 584, is represented as de- 
 nying the right of the censor to 
 deprive any man of his vote : he 
 could remove him from a more 
 honourable tribe to a less honour- 
 able, but he could not remove 
 him from all the thirty- five tribes, 
 and so, in effect, disfranchise him. 
 And yet the expression "in aera- 
 rios referri," is equivalent to " in 
 Caeritum tabulas referri," and this 
 is a well-known designation of the 
 " civitas sine suffragio ;" for Gel- 
 lius says expressly, that " in has 
 tabulas censores referri jubebant, 
 quos noise causa suffragiis pri- 
 vabant." XVI. 13. It would seem, 
 however, that " tribu movere," 
 and " in serarios referre," were 
 two distinct sentences, and that 
 the former did indeed only imply 
 a removal from a higher tribe to a 
 
 lower (in which sense it probably 
 is that Dionysius speaks of the 
 censors as removing a man els ras 
 Tatv aTip.a)v <pv\as, XVIII. 22. 
 Fragm. Mai); but that the latter 
 was for the time equivalent to a 
 judicium turpe, and deprived a 
 citizen of all his political rights ; 
 but it could be reversed either by 
 the censor's colleague, or by the 
 next censors. But the question 
 concerning the aerarians, like 
 every other connected with the 
 censors and the centuries, is beset 
 with difficulties, from our igno- 
 rance of the changes introduced 
 at different periods, and thus being 
 apt to ascribe to one time what 
 is applicable only to another. 
 
 15 See all these particulars in the 
 " forma censualis," given by Ul- 
 pian, de Censibus, lib. III. quoted 
 in the Digest, Tit. de Censibus, 
 L. 4. (Lib. L. Tit. XV.) 
 
352 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, portion of it was arable, what was meadow, what 
 
 XVII 
 
 v '* vineyard, and what olive ground. He was even to 
 number his vines and olive trees, and to the whole 
 thus minutely described he was to affix his own valu- 
 ation. He was to observe the same rules with regard 
 to his slaves, and undoubtedly with regard to his 
 horses and cattle ; for all these came under the same 
 class of res mancipii. But the censor had an un- 
 limited power of setting on all these things a higher 
 valuation, and consequently of subjecting them to a 
 higher rate of taxation. Further, we have instances 1C 
 of a censor's calling for a return of other articles of 
 property, such as clothing, jewels, and carriages, 
 which were not returned in the regular order of the 
 census ; and on these he would set an extravagant 
 valuation, to ten times their actual worth. Nor does 
 it appear that in these cases there was any remedy 
 for the person aggrieved : the censor's decision was 
 final. On the return of taxable property thus made, 
 the senate, in case of need, levied a certain rate, 
 ordinarily 17 , as it seems, of no more than one per 
 thousand ; but raised, as circumstances might require, 
 to two, three, or four per thousand. For it must be 
 understood that this property tax, or tributum, was 
 mostly a war tax, and not a part of the regular re- 
 
 16 Livy, XXXIX. 44. Ornamenta the second Punic war; Livy, 
 et vestem muliebrem et vehicula XXIX. 15; and Niebuhr con- 
 .... in censum referre jussit : eludes that it was the ordinary 
 . . . . uti decies tanto pluris quam rate. " Three per thousand " is 
 quanti essent aBstimarentur. mentioned as the rate fixed by 
 
 17 This was the proportion ob- Cato and Valerius Flaccus in their 
 served in the tribute imposed on severe censorship in 568. Livy, 
 the twelve defaulting colonies in XXXIX. 44. 
 
POWERS OF THE CENSORS. 353 
 
 venues of the state : it might happen, therefore, that CHAP. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 no property-tax was levied, and in that case the * v 
 censor's surcharge, or over-valuation, would have been 
 inoperative ; but wars were so frequent, and the ne- 
 cessities of the state so great, in the early periods 
 of the Roman history, that there was probably no 
 one term of five years in which the tributum was not 
 needed, and consequently no return of any censors 
 which was not carried into effect. We are told also 
 that the censors 18 , on some occasions, not only put 
 their own valuation on the property returned at the 
 census, but also fixed the rate to be levied upon it : 
 being sure in this, as in so many other instances, to 
 have their acts sanctioned by the senate, if it did not 
 appear that they had been influenced by any un- 
 w^orthy motives. 
 
 In addition to this great power Avith regard to the TCr the 
 
 A vectigaha, or 
 
 taxes, or tributa, the censors had the entire manage- property of 
 
 the Com- 
 ment of the regular revenues of the state, or of its 
 
 vectigalia 19 . They were the Commonwealth's stew- 
 ards, and to their hands all its property was en- 
 trusted. But these state demesnes were ample and 
 various, including arable land, vineyards, pastures, 
 forests, mines, harbours, fisheries, and buildings ; the 
 letting or farming of all these belonged wholly to 
 the censors ; the harbours, including the portoria or 
 customs, which appear to have been levied as a har- 
 bour, wharfage, and perhaps warehouse duty. They 
 were thus a charge paid by the merchant for his use 
 
 18 Livy, XXXIX. 44. sub nutu atque arbitrio (censorum 
 
 19 Ut vectigalia populi Romani essent. Livy, IV. 8. 
 
 VOL. I. A a 
 
354 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, of the state's property : and this is the proper notion 
 v > of vectigal as opposed to tributum ; that the first 
 was received by the state in its capacity of landlord 
 or proprietor, the latter was paid to it as a political 
 society : the vectigal was given by the farmer, trader, 
 or consumer, as the price of some commercial or 
 economical benefit; the tributum was the citizen's 
 duty to his country. Besides all these sources of re- 
 venue, the state claimed a monopoly of salt 20 ; and 
 the right of selling this most necessary article was 
 also let by the censors on their own terms ; for they 
 fixed the price at which it was to be sold to the 
 public. Why salt was thus considered as state pro- 
 perty may probably be explained on the principle 
 that the sea and the sea-shore belonged to no man ; 
 and in a country where the whole supply of salt 
 comes from the sea, it would not appear unnatural 
 that the state should take into its own hands the 
 sale of a commodity so universally needed, and which 
 was derived immediately from that element which 
 no individual could claim as his property. At any 
 rate, salt was at Rome, as afterwards in France, an 
 article that could be sold only by the government. 
 With these almost kingly powers, and arrayed in 
 
 20 The salt works at the mouth own hands, and did not farm it, 
 
 of the Tiber were said to have as was usual with the other vecti- 
 
 been first established in the reign galia. But it was farmed, and the 
 
 of Ancus Marcius. Livy, I. 33. price at which it was to be sold 
 
 According to Gronovius' excellent was fixed by the censors in the 
 
 note on the well-known passage year 548, when M. Livius, one of 
 
 in Livy, II. 9, the government in the censors, acquired from this 
 
 the earlier times of the Common- very circumstance his nickname 
 
 wealth kept the sale of salt in its Salinator. Livy, XXIX. 37. 
 
LIMITATION OF THE CENSORSHIP. 355 
 
 kingly state, for the censor's robe 21 was all scarlet, CHAP. 
 and not merely bordered with a scarlet band, elected v v 
 by the curise, and holding their office for five years, 
 the censors might well seem too great for a free com- 
 monwealth, and the patricians, in retaining an office 
 so important in their own exclusive possession, 
 seemed to have more than compensated for their loss 
 of a part of the military tribuneship, had the consti- 
 tution of 312 been really acted on. It was a most 
 welcome law then to the commons, when the dicta- 
 tor Mamercus ./Emilius, in the year 321, proposed 
 the shortening of the term of the censor's office to 
 eighteen months. Nor did the patricians refuse 
 their consent to the measure ; for there were many 
 of their body who felt that a magistracy held for five 
 years could be accessible only to a few individuals of 
 the highest distinction; and that the mass of the 
 patricians, no less than of the commons, would be 
 subject to the power of the censors without being 
 ever able to exercise it themselves. 
 
 The greatness of the censor's office has led me to 
 depart a little from the chronological order of events, 
 and to anticipate by a few years the regular mention 
 of the jEmilian law. I now go back to the year 
 312, and the appointment of consuls in the room of 
 tribunes of the soldiers, immediately after the insti- 
 tution of this latter office. 
 
 21 Polybius, VI. 53. And a and magnificent of any. See Ta- 
 
 censor's funeral, funus censorium, citus, Ann. IV. 15, and XII. 2, 
 
 used to be voted even to the em- with Lipsius' note on the first- 
 
 perors, as the most honourable quoted passage. 
 
 A a 2 
 
356 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Consuls continued to be appointed for the next 
 
 XVII 
 
 ' ./ - 1 four years ; but a memorable event which occurred 
 in the year 316, again led to the election of tribunes. 
 A.u.c.315. The year 315 had been a season of great scarcity 22 ; a 
 Scarcity,and special officer had been named with the title of prse- 
 beraiitiesof fectus annonse, or master of the markets, in order 
 to relieve the general distress ; but he had been able 
 to do very little, and the suffering was so extreme, 
 that many of the poorer citizens threw themselves 
 into the Tiber in despair. In this state of things 23 , 
 Sp. Mselius, one of the richest of the commons, and 
 a member of one of the plebeian centuries of knights 
 or equites, a man of large mercantile dealings, and 
 having thus many connexions in the neighbouring 
 countries, succeeded in making large purchases of 
 corn, and issued it to the poorer citizens either at a 
 very low price or even gratis. He thus became ex- 
 ceedingly popular, and was followed by a great mul- 
 titude 24 whenever he appeared in the forum ; so that 
 it was supposed that he would attempt to win a 
 share of the consulship for the commons, and was 
 likely himself to become the first plebeian consul. 
 The patricians, resolved to prevent this, procured the 
 appointment of one of the most eminent of their 
 A.U.C. 316. order, T. Quinctius Capitolinus ; but the danger 
 might be only delayed : the scarcity still continued, 
 and Maelius was gaining fresh popularity every day : 
 
 22 Livy, IV. 12. men to seize the Capitol, and other 
 
 23 Livy, IV. 13. Zonaras, VII. strong positions in the city; for 
 20. this must be the meaning of the 
 
 34 Zonaras adds, that he had expression, fTropla-aro 
 actually provided himself with 
 
DEATH OF SP. MyELIUS. 357 
 
 the harvest was still distant, and if the distress be- CHAP. 
 
 XVII 
 
 came greater, the mingled despair and gratitude of ^ j 
 the commons might overbear all opposition, and the 
 consulship might be wrested from the patricians in 
 spite of all their efforts. On a sudden 25 it was an- 
 nounced that the old L. Quinctius Cincinnatus had 
 been named dictator by the consul T. Quinctius, in 
 consequence of a meeting of the senate : the dictator 
 had made C. Servilius Ahala his master of the horse ; 
 the patricians and the plebeian knights 26 had occu- 
 pied the Capitol and the other strong places of the 
 city during the night, and in the morning the dictator 
 appeared in the forum, with the array of his four- 
 and-twenty lictors, all bearing along with their rods 
 those well-known axes which denoted his sovereign 
 power, while he was supported besides by his master 
 of the horse, at the head of a numerous body of the 
 younger patricians in arms. 
 
 The dictator took his seat at his tribunal, and sent He is put to 
 
 /-i A i i /r i ( i death by C. 
 
 C. Ahala to summon JVlselms to appear before him. Ahaia. 
 As master of the horse, all the members of the cen- 
 
 25 The senate, according to the conspiracy of the Querini and 
 
 Zonaras, appointed L. Quinctius Thiepoli. See Daru, B. VII. 
 dictator before they left the senate 26 Zonaras says, that the Capitol 
 
 house ; and they did not separate was secured 8ia TU>V iTnreav. This 
 
 till evening, that the result of may include the plebeian centuries 
 
 their measures might not be pre- of knights, but it certainly applies 
 
 maturely known. The occupation mainly to the patricians, who were 
 
 of the Capitol during the night, all enrolled in the sex suffragia, or 
 
 and the appearance of the dictator patrician centuries of knights or 
 
 in the forum early in the morning, cavalry. And so, after the death 
 
 ready to anticipate whatever might of Majlius, Ahala is described as 
 
 have been the designs of Maelius, returning to the dictator, " stipa- 
 
 remind us of the Doge of Venice, tus caterva patriciorum juvenum." 
 
 Gradenigo, and the energetic mea- Livy, IV. 14. 
 sures by which he met and baffled 
 
358 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, turies of equites were under his immediate authority ; 
 
 XVII 
 
 v-^ and on this account perhaps he was chosen to de- 
 liver the summons. Mselius saw that his fate was 
 determined ; he endeavoured to fly ; his enemies 
 charged him with snatching up a butcher's knife 27 , 
 and endeavouring to repel the knights who were pur- 
 suing him: under somewhat similar circumstances 
 the treacherous murder of Wat Tyler was excused 
 by his pretended insolent behaviour to the king; 
 and Ahala, as eager as Sir William Walworth to do 
 his work, slew Mselius on the spot, as guilty of dis- 
 obedience. The old dictator 28 justified the deed to 
 the multitude : " Mselius had aimed, not at the con- 
 sulship, but at making himself king ; the master of 
 the markets had reported to the senate that secret 
 meetings were held at his house, and arms col- 
 lected : to meet this danger the senate had appointed 
 a dictator; he had purposed to try Mselius, and 
 judge him according to his guilt or innocence ; but 
 as he had refused to obey his summons, and had 
 resisted his own immediate commander, he had been 
 lawfully slain 29 ." Immediately afterwards, treating 
 Mselius as a convicted traitor, he ordered his house 
 to be levelled with the ground; thus the story of 
 the concealed arms could never be disproved ; for no 
 time was allowed to the tribunes of the commons to 
 search the house : Melius' enemies might report 
 
 27 Dionysius, XII. 1. Fragm. diet of "justifiable homicide." 
 
 Mai. Suetonius pronounces this same 
 
 18 Livy, IV. 15. judgment on the murder of Caesar, 
 
 29 "Jure caesum pronuntiavit," " Praegravant csetera facta dictaque 
 
 an expression which seems as ejus ut . . . . jure cssus existime- 
 
 technical and official as our ver- tur." C. 76. 
 
INDIGNATION OF THE COMMONS. 359 
 
 whatever they pleased. The house stood under the CHAP. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Capitol, not far from the Mamertine prison 30 , and the *- 
 site of it was for ages after called the ^Equimaelium, 
 or the Mselian level. 
 
 Such is the story which the traditions or memoirs The com- 
 
 mons are m- 
 
 of the Quinctian and Servilian families handed down, dignant at 
 
 , , his death. 
 
 and which the annalists adopted on their authority. 
 Whatever ambitious designs Maelius may have had, 
 nothing, even according to the statement of his ene- 
 mies, was proved against him ; and his aiming at the 
 consulship would have been a sufficient crime in the 
 eyes of the patricians to tempt them to violent mea- 
 sures. On the other hand, charity was so little 
 familiar to the Greeks and Romans, that the splendid 
 munificence of Maelius is in itself suspicious ; a time 
 of great distress would make -it easy for a man of his 
 wealth to engage a band of armed adventurers, suffi- 
 cient to put him in possession of the Capitol by a 
 sudden attack ; and then his popularity with the 
 commons, and their hatred of the patricians, would 
 have rendered him ample service. However, the 
 commons were indignant at his summary death ; and 
 there is a dim and confused account of disturbances 
 consequent upon it. Ahala was obliged to leave 
 Rome 3I ; and tribunes of the soldiers instead of con- 
 
 30 Niebuhr, Vol. II. note 928. diately afterwards mentions "in- 
 Bunsen, Beschreibung der Stadt vidia Nasicse." Now offensio is 
 Rom. Vol. III. p. 46. Varro, Ling, in itself an ambiguous term, and 
 Lat. V. 157. Ed Miiller. may signify either exilium or in- 
 
 31 Valerius Maximus, V. 3. 2. vidia ; either " the misfortune or 
 And so Cicero, de Republica, I. 3. calamity of Ahala," or " the odium 
 Offensio commemoratur Ahalae. which he incurred." But then 
 He had just before spoken of this odium may have induced him 
 " Camilli exilium," and imme- to leave Rome, as Nasica did, 
 
360 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, suls were chosen for the following year ; thus much 
 
 XVTT 
 
 ^ s J is intelligible ; and the strength of the patricians in 
 the comitia of the centuries, the immense power of 
 the officer who presided at them, and perhaps also 
 the natural leaning of the richer plebeians to the side 
 of the patricians in a time of distress, when the con- 
 test was so likely to take the form of one between 
 numbers and property, will sufficiently account for 
 the election of three patricians, and amongst them of 
 L. Quinctius, the son of the old dictator. But still 
 the greatest number of votes was given to Mamer- 
 cus JEmilius, who had been chosen one of the quses- 
 tores parricidii along with L. Valerius a few years 
 before, and whose popular dictatorship four years 
 later we have already noticed. 
 
 story of L. There was, however, a much more mysterious 
 
 Minucius * 
 
 having gone story 32 to be found in some of the annalists from 
 
 over to the 
 
 commons, whom Livy compiled his history; that L. Minucius, 
 
 and of his * J ' 
 
 popular acts, that very master of the markets who is said to have 
 given the first information of the dangerous designs 
 of Sp. Maelius, now in the disturbances that followed 
 went over from the patricians to the commons, was 
 chosen by the ten tribunes to be their colleague, thus 
 raising the number to eleven, and in this office put a 
 stop to the dissensions. Further, he is said to have 
 brought down the price of corn at the end of three 
 market days to one as for the modius 33 , and to have 
 
 without undergoing any formal Domo, c. 32, and this may have 
 
 trial ; and then when his party been called a return from banish- 
 
 was strong enough, he may have ment without much exaggeration, 
 
 returned, according to the state- 32 Livy, IV. 16. 
 
 ment of the pseudo-Cicero pro w Pliny, Hist. Nat. XVIII. 4. 
 
STORY OF L. MINUCIUS. 361 
 
 become so popular, that the commons presented him, CHAP. 
 as their deliverer out of misery, with an ox with ^ ^> 
 gilded horns to offer as a sacrifice 34 ; and a statue 
 was erected in his honour without the Porta Trige- 
 mina, made out of the bronze or brass coins which 
 the commons subscribed for the purpose, each man 
 contributing an ounce, or the twelfth part of the as, 
 which was still of the weight of a full pound. 
 
 Dion Cassius has preserved a statement, that in Remarks on 
 these times many patricians did in fact go over to the 
 commons ; and it is remarkable that from this time 
 forward we meet with none but plebeians of the name 
 of Minucius, although patrician Minucii have hither- 
 to occurred several times in the Fasti. And it is 
 conceivable enough that if any man had wished so to 
 
 Livy describes this as if Minu- the statue, XVIII. 4, and XXXIV. 
 
 cius had sold at this rate the corn 11, and both specify the place, 
 
 which Maelius had collected, and extra portam Trigeminam, that is, 
 
 which had been confiscated after on the bank of the Tiber, between 
 
 his death. But Pliny's expres- the north-eastern foot of the Aven- 
 
 sion, " in trinis nundinis ad assem tine and the river. But as Livy's 
 
 redegit," implies a more gradual expression, " bove aurato extra 
 
 and at the same time a more ex- portam Trigeminam est donatus," 
 
 tensive reduction of the price. If is rather strange, his editors have 
 
 he proposed a law to fix a maxi- proposed various corrections, 
 
 mum, it would of course require amongst which, the most plausi- 
 
 three nundina3 to elapse before it ble was that of Gronovius, who 
 
 could be passed ; and this may be proposed to read " bove et prato." 
 
 Pliny's meaning. Then the sale But a bos auratus, that is, auratis 
 
 of Melius' corn at a cheap rate cornibus, was given by the consul 
 
 may have taken place in the mean- to P. Decius, one of the tribunes 
 
 while ; and if much corn had of the soldiers, for saving his 
 
 really been hoarded, it would na- army in the first Samnite war, 
 
 turally cause a great reduction of Livy, VII. 37 : and Niebuhr's 
 
 prices when brought suddenly into conjecture is simpler and more 
 
 the market in the spring, espe- probable, that the words, " et sta- 
 
 cially if there was a promise of an tua " have dropped out in Livy's 
 
 abundant harvest in the coming text, between " bove aurato " and 
 
 summer. " extra portam Trigeminam." 
 34 Livy mentions the ox, Pliny 
 
362 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 degrade himself, as the patricians would consider it, 
 he might have done it with no opposition on their 
 part: nay, they would have at once cast him out 
 from their body as an unworthy member; for the 
 feeling of later times, when P. Clodius was adopted 
 into a plebeian family, to enable him to stand for the 
 tribuneship, and when the aristocracy opposed it as 
 only furthering the purposes of his ambition, could 
 not exist amongst the haughty patricians of the 
 fourth century. On the other hand, Cicero treats 
 these supposed passings over from one order to the 
 other as mostly fictitious ; and invented by plebeians, 
 merely to claim for themselves kindred with an old 
 patrician house of the same name. Nor is it pro- 
 bable that there could have been eleven tribunes at 
 once ; but it may be that L. Minucius so acted in 
 concert with the tribunes as master of the markets 5 , 
 that he was said to be like an eleventh member of 
 their college. The rest is sufficiently probable, that he 
 proposed and carried, after the regular period of three 
 market days, a law to fix the maximum at which 
 corn should be sold ; and this, in a season of scarcity, 
 when the evil is always attributed by the vulgar 
 to the covetousness of corn dealers, rather than to 
 
 35 Three of the tribunes, we the other seven, constituting the 
 
 are told by Livy, had taken no majority of the college, must have 
 
 part in proposing the vote of the gone along with him in his mea- 
 
 commons, which rewarded Minu- sures as master of the markets, 
 
 cius with his ox and his statue ; and his acting in concert with 
 
 but on the contrary continued to them, perhaps in some instances 
 
 revile him, as he had been the against the wishes of the patri- 
 
 first person to give information to cians, may have given rise to the 
 
 the senate of the supposed trea- story, 
 sonable designs of Maelius. But 
 
GROWING POWER OF THE COMMONS. 363 
 
 natural causes, would quite account for his popu- CHAP. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Jarity. ' v ' 
 
 In the following year, however, consuls were again Dictatorship 
 
 of Mamer- 
 
 chosen, and continued to be so for four years, that cu S ^mi- 
 is, till 321, when Mamercus jEmilius was appointed 
 dictator. His law for abridging the duration of the 
 censor's office so offended the existing censors, one 
 of whom was M. Geganius Macerinus, already kno\vn 
 as a zealous partizan of his order in his consulship in 
 308, that they degraded him from his tribe 36 , and 
 rated his property in the census at eight times as much 
 as its real value. The commons were so indignant, 
 that they called aloud for military tribunes instead of 
 consuls; and for the next two years tribunes were 
 accordingly elected ; but still no plebeian was chosen, 
 nor even any patrician distinguished for his attach- 
 ment to the popular cause. 
 
 Again, for five years we find the names of consuls The tribunes 
 in the Fasti, from 324 to 328 inclusive. But the mons are 
 power of the commons was silently and healthily by the 
 
 . T.I-T.T r* senate to 
 
 advancing : and within this short period we find two compel the 
 remarkable instances of it. In 325 37 , T. Quinctius, submit to its 
 
 authority. 
 
 a son of the old L. Cincinnatus, and C. Julius 
 Mento, were consuls. The jEquians and Volscians 
 had united their forces, and assembled a great army 
 at their usual position on Algidus. A pestilence 
 nearly cotemporary with that which visited Athens 
 so fearfully in the early years of the Peloponnesian 
 war, had prevailed in Rome at intervals during the 
 
 36 Livy, IV. 24. 37 Livy, IV. 26. 
 
364 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, last four years, and had carried off great numbers of 
 
 XVII. 
 
 v v ' the people. This gave a sense of weakness, and to 
 increase it, the consuls attacking the enemy on Al- 
 gidus were defeated. Then the senate resolved to 
 appoint a dictator ; but the consuls, jealous at this 
 implied censure on themselves, refused to obey the 
 senate's decree. Some party or family feuds, of which 
 we know nothing, were most probably at work in this 
 dispute; and it was proposed and carried that the 
 senate should call upon the tribunes for their aid. 
 Niebuhr thinks that the tribunes were called upon 
 to propose the senate's decree to the commons, 
 that their acceptance of it might give it the force 
 of a law. Livy's story is, that the tribunes threat- 
 ened to throw the consuls into prison, if they per- 
 sisted in disobeying the senate. However this be, 
 there was at any rate an important acknowledgment 
 of the power of the commons, when the patrician 
 senate appealed to them to enforce its authority over 
 the highest patrician magistrates. 
 
 The ques- Again in 328, when a war with Veii was resolved 
 
 tion of a war 
 
 with Veil is on, the tribunes threatened 38 to stop the enlistments 
 
 submitted to 
 
 the centu- of soldiers, unless the question of going to war were 
 first submitted to the people in their centuries. The 
 senate had considered its own decree sufficient ; but 
 it had taught the tribunes by its own conduct not to 
 regard it so ; and accordingly the war was proposed 
 in the comitia, and sanctioned by the votes of all the 
 centuries. 
 
 33 Livy, IV. 30. 
 
AN AGRARIAN LAW DEMANDED. 365 
 
 These were great constitutional points; another CHAP. 
 matter, deeply affecting individuals, had been pro- * -< 
 
 A.I.'. fj_.). 
 
 vided for by a law passed three years before, which A -c. 4-27. 
 
 * J Law for a 
 
 fixed a definite money commutation for the fines of fixed money 
 
 commula- 
 
 39 sheep and oxen commonly imposed by the consuls tion for the 
 for contempt of their jurisdiction. That the pay- shee P and 
 ment of these fines in kind would be often highly 
 vexatious is obvious : and if the consul were allowed 
 to fix his own rate of commutation, it might bear 
 hardly on the delinquent, especially if, as is probable, 
 the brass money was now beginning to rise in value, 
 so that the old money price of an ox or a sheep 
 would be now more than it was worth. Cicero's 
 statement 40 is, that the censors L. Papirius and P. 
 Pinarius had imposed their fines in kind, and had 
 thus seized so many cattle, that the consuls, to relieve 
 the commons, fixed an easy rate of money commu- 
 tation, at which the cattle might be redeemed. 
 
 From the year 329 to 341 we have tribunes con- A.U.C. 331. 
 
 J A.C. 421. 
 
 stantly, with the exception of only two years, instead New de- 
 
 mand for an 
 
 of consuls. In 331, after a long interval 41 , we again agrarian law. 
 hear of a call for an agrarian law ; recent victories 
 over the Volscians and Veientians had added pro- 
 bably to the amount of the demesne land ; and the 
 patricians who occupied it, either paid no acknowledg- 
 ment for it at all, or if they did, it went not in the 
 national treasury, but into that of their own order ; 
 the commons reaped no benefit from it. At the same 
 time the commons had to serve at their own expense 
 
 39 Livy, IV. 30. Livy, IV. 36. 
 
 40 De Republica, II. 35. 
 
366 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, in war; and thus, as the poorer classes could ill sup- 
 v -/ ' port this burden, and could provide themselves only 
 with the most inferior arms, the numbers and the 
 efficiency of the regular infantry were much below 
 what they might have been. Accordingly, the tri- 
 bunes demanded that there should be a division of a 
 portion of the demesne land amongst the commons ; 
 and that the occupiers of the remainder should pay 
 their vectigal regularly, and that it should be devoted 
 to the purpose of paying the soldiers. Here was a 
 question in which the mass of the commons were 
 interested: and it was likely, that during the con- 
 tinuance of this contest, the leaders of the commons 
 would gain some of those points which they so longed 
 for, but which were of far less importance in the 
 estimate of their followers, an admission to the higher 
 magistracies. 
 
 A.U.C. 334. A favourable opportunity presented itself three 
 The office of years afterwards, in 334: when the patricians 42 them- 
 
 the quaes- 
 
 tores classic! selves proposed an increase in the number of the 
 
 is thrown 
 
 open to the qusestores classici, those officers chosen by the cen- 
 turies, and quite distinct from the qusestores par- 
 ricidii, whose business it was to receive all money 
 paid to the public treasury, and to make all payments 
 from it. This was an office of great trust and dig- 
 nity, and was usually regarded as a title to a place 
 in the senate ; the censors, in drawing out their list 
 of that body, generally included in it the quaestors of 
 the last five years. Now, as wars were beginning to 
 
 42 Livy, IV. 43. 
 
 commons. 
 
THE COMMONS ADMITTED TO THE QU-&STORSHIP. 367 
 
 be carried on on a greater scale, and were attended CHAP. 
 with more success than formerly, it was desirable to v ,- ' 
 have two new quaestors to accompany the armies to 
 the field, and to take charge of the plunder that 
 might be gained, or of the lands that might be con- 
 quered. But the tribunes naturally demanded, that 
 if the college of quaestors were thus increased to 
 four, two of them should be chosen from the com- 
 mons. This the senate would not listen to, but pro- 
 posed that the whole number should be taken indis- 
 criminately from either order. When the tribunes 
 refused to accept this compromise, having learned 
 from experience that such a pretended free choice 
 would always end in the exclusive election of patri- 
 cians, the senate dropped the measure altogether. 
 But the tribunes then brought it forward themselves, 
 and after long disputes, the compromise first proposed 
 by the senate was accepted, and the quaestorship, 
 with its four places, was declared by law to be open 
 alike to the patricians and to the commons. 
 
 Here again the advantage gained by the commons Dispute 
 as an order was great ; but the individuals who had imnankw. 
 sowed the seed did not reap the fruit ; for again, H. PMM- 
 owing to the great influence of the magistrate who ^idlers! " 
 presided at the comitia, none but patrician quaestors 
 were chosen. Still the commons waxed stronger: 
 three years afterwards, in 337, an agrarian law 43 was A.u.c.337. 
 passed, by which fifteen hundred of the commons 
 received allotments of two jugera a man out of the 
 
 43 Livy, IV. 47. 
 
368 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, land lately conquered from the people of Lavici. 
 
 v v - ' But a larger division of the demesne land was de- 
 manded, and in a quarter where it could be enjoyed 
 more securely; for the colonists sent to a frontier 
 district would have continually to defend their new 
 property with their swords, and men naturally longed 
 for a division of the old demesne nearer home, which 
 every new advance of the Roman boundary placed at 
 a greater distance from danger. This, however, the 
 patrician occupiers of this land were too powerful to 
 permit ; and the contest really turned upon the dis- 
 
 A.U.C. 340. posal of the new conquests. Thus, in 340, Bolae was 
 
 A C 412 
 
 conquered, a town of the JEquians, not far from 
 Lavici ; and the commons required that a portion of 
 this newly-won territory might, at least, be allotted 
 to them. Even this was resisted, and by none more 
 vehemently than by M. Postumius Regillensis 44 , one 
 of the military tribunes of the year 341. He com- 
 manded one of the armies which were in the field 
 against the ^Equians, and abusing his military power 
 for political purposes, he threatened to visit upon his 
 soldiers any display of feeling which they might have 
 shown in favour of the proposed agrarian law. This 
 excited universal indignation, which he heightened 
 by refusing to his army any share of the spoil which 
 they had won in recovering Boise from the ^Equians. 
 Open discontent then broke out, and Postumius re- 
 pressing it with extreme severity, and the most mer- 
 ciless executions, provoked his soldiers to a mutiny, 
 in which he was stoned to death. 
 
 44 Livy, IV. 49, 50. 
 
THE MURDERERS OF M. POSTUMIUS PUNISHED. 369 
 
 A crime so rare in the Roman annals produced its CHAP. . 
 
 , . xvii. 
 
 natural and just consequence, a reaction against the /-; ' 
 
 cause which appeared to be connected with it. Con- in conse - 
 
 quence of 
 
 suls were chosen instead of tribunes of the soldiers ; """ murder. 
 and the commons, to whom the senate had given 
 the choice of the judge 45 in this cause, commissioned 
 the consuls to inquire into the murder of Postumius, 
 and to punish the guilty. This choice was sanc- 
 tioned by the curise, and the judges thus appointed 
 fulfilled their task with moderation, so that the in- 
 fluence which the patricians had gained by the whole 
 transaction was marked by the undisturbed election 
 of consuls for three years following. But by that 
 time the feeling had changed : the continued oppo- 
 sition of the patricians to any agrarian law seemed 
 a more present evil than the murder of Postumius : 
 and while that crime had been duly punished, the 
 injustice of the patricians was triumphant. It is 
 dangerous to overlook a change in public opinion, 
 and still more to try to force in its old direction 
 the tide which is beginning to turn. The patricians 
 carried the election of consuls for a fourth year, in 
 spite of a strong feeling of discontent ; but the A.U.C. s-16. 
 
 A.C. 406. 
 
 commons were so roused, that in spite of all obstruc- 
 
 45 " A plebe, consensu populi, plebeians against the patrician 
 
 consulibus negotium mandatur." order ; it was then an act of mo- 
 
 Livy, IV. 51. A remarkable pas- deration in the senate, to allow 
 
 sage, which Niebuhr, as may be the offending party to name the 
 
 supposed, has not forgotten to judge, and the patricians, to whom 
 
 appeal to, as a proof of the iden- the injury had been done, would 
 
 tity of the populus in old times at any rate require that the nomi- 
 
 with the patricians. It would seem nation should be submitted to 
 
 as if the murder of Postumius was them for their approval, 
 regarded as a crime committed by 
 
 VOL. I. B b 
 
370 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, tions caused by the presiding officer, they elected at 
 v ^' the open comitia of quaestors 46 no fewer than three 
 
 plebeians. 
 Contests Then the agrarian law was demanded more vehe- 
 
 about the ., ... . 
 
 agrarian law mentlv than ever, and three tribunes, all ot the 
 
 continued. _.,.., . ,, -, j , , 
 
 Icilian family, were conspicuous as the leaders or the 
 commons. The year passed away in these contests, 
 but the commons insisted on having tribunes instead 
 of consuls for the year following ; and this was con- 
 sented to 4r , but at the same time rendered nugatory 
 by the condition annexed to it, that none of the tri- 
 bunes of the commons of that year should be either 
 re-elected to the same office or be chosen tribunes of 
 the soldiers. Thus those candidates being excluded 
 whose claims were greatest, the patricians once more 
 succeeded in defeating the plebeian candidates of less 
 name, and in obtaining every place in the tribune- 
 ship for their own body. 
 
 A.U.C. 349. Two years afterwards came the issue of the con- 
 Pay granted test. A truce which had been concluded for twenty 
 d\en] mim- years 48 with the Veientians was now on the point of 
 
 46 Livy, IV. 54. cient notions, at war with Veii, 
 
 47 Livy, IV. 55. to pass away without attacking 
 
 48 Livy, IV. 58. Livy says that their enemy, because the Veien- 
 in the year 348 the truce had tians were involved in civil dissen- 
 already expired, and as it had sions, and the Romans were too 
 been concluded, according to his generous to take advantage of their 
 own account, in the year 330, weakness. We see from Thucy- 
 Niebuhr supposes that it must dides, V. 14, that it was usual 
 have been intended to last only when a truce was nearly expired, 
 for twenty cyclic years, of ten to negotiate as to the terms on 
 months each. But we find that which it might be renewed: and 
 hostilities did not begin till 350, this, I doubt not, is the true ex- 
 and no one will believe that the planation of the negotiations that 
 Romans allowed two years, in went on during the years 348 and 
 which they were, according to an- 349. 
 
PAY GRANTED TO THE SOLDIERS. 371 
 
 expiring ; and as war rather than peace was sup- CHAP. 
 posed to be the natural state of things between two v ^ '- 1 
 
 ber of tri- 
 
 nations, unless some express treaty was interposed, bunesoftb 
 so at the end of the truce hostilities would be c . reased to 
 
 SIX. 
 
 resumed of course, unless either party wished to 
 renew it, and was willing to purchase its continuance 
 on the enemy's terms. Rome now felt itself much 
 stronger than Veii, for that town had been lately 
 torn with internal discords, so much more violent 
 and injurious than those of Rome, in proportion as 
 there was less of equal law and of acknowledged 
 rights. The Romans therefore put a higher price on 
 the renewal of the truce than the Veientians would 
 consent to pay ; and both nations prepared for war. 
 This was the moment for the commons to press their 
 claims, and they refused to vote for the war unless 
 something was done to satisfy them. The patricians, 
 looking forward to all the glory and dominion pro- 
 mised them by the expected conquest of Veii, or 
 yielding to the power of justice, at last gave way. 
 The vectigal 49 , or tithe, due from the occupiers of 
 the public land, was to provide pay for the soldiers ; 
 if this were not sufficient, it was to be made good 
 by a tax or tribute levied upon the whole people, 
 according to the census of every citizen : and six tri- 
 bunes of the soldiers were henceforth to be elected 
 
 49 This is not stated by Livy; bably however paid very irre- 
 
 but as it had been the great object gularly, and hence the pay of the 
 
 insisted on by the tribunes, it is soldiers would, in point of fact, 
 
 natural to suppose that it must be provided chiefly out of the tax 
 
 either have been granted or at or tributum. 
 any rate promised. It was pro- 
 
 Bb2 
 
372 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, annually ; one of whom, as Niebuhr thinks, was 
 v ' always to be a patrician, and to perform the im- 
 portant judicial duties afterwards discharged by the 
 praetor urbanus ; the other five were to be elected 
 indiscriminately from either order. At any rate, six 
 tribunes were elected from this time forwards, and 
 this increased number gave the commons a greater 
 likelihood of seeing some of the places filled by men 
 of their own body. And so it happened, in fact ; but 
 for this the commons had yet to wait five years 
 more. 
 
 Accordingly pay 50 was issued to the soldiers, six 
 
 tribunes of the soldiers were elected, and in the year 
 
 A.U.C. 350. 350, about the end of the Peloponnesian war, the 
 
 4U^i# 
 
 Romans began their vast career of dominion by lay- 
 ing siege to the great Etruscan city of Veii. 
 
 50 Livy, IV. 59, 60, 61. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WARS OF THE ROMANS FROM 300 TO 364 THE JEQUI- 
 
 ANS AND VOLSCIANS THE ETRUSCANS SIEGE AND 
 
 CAPTURE OF VEIL 
 
 Ta jiiei/ (rTTfvSofifvoi, ra 8e TTO\ffj,ovvrfs ev jrapfancevdcravTO ra TroAe- 
 fj.ia Kal epTTftpoTepot eyevovro, fiera Kiv8vva>v ras pf\eras iroiovp.evoi. 
 
 THUCYDIDES, I. 18. 
 
 THE internal history of Rome in the first century of CHAP. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 the Commonwealth is obscure and often uncertain ; v ~^-> 
 
 The foreign 
 
 nor can we venture to place full confidence in the history of 
 
 Rome is 
 
 details of events, or of individual characters. The even more 
 
 uncertain 
 
 family traditions and funeral orations out of which than the 
 
 domestic. 
 
 the oldest annalists compiled their narratives were 
 often, as we find, at variance with each other, and 
 dealt largely in exaggeration and misrepresentation. 
 Yet still up to a certain point they were a check 
 upon one another; there were necessarily limits to 
 falsehood, when fellow-citizens, whether individuals 
 or parties, were the subject on which it was exercised. 
 But with regard to foreign enemies, even this check 
 was wanting. Every family might claim victories 
 over the ^Equians or the Veientians : there was no 
 
374 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, sufficient knowledge of chronology to make it evi- 
 
 XVIII 
 
 * v J dent that the story of one victory and one triumph 
 was fatal to the truth of others ; the accommodating 
 annalists found room for all. The account then of 
 the early wars of the Romans cannot be trusted im- 
 plicitly in its merest outline ; we have the highest 
 authority ' for saying that victories and even triumphs 
 were sometimes purely imaginary ; a year which is 
 filled with pretended successes of the Romans may 
 have witnessed nothing but their defeats. We are 
 reduced therefore, not only to an outline, but to one 
 made up from such scattered and almost accidental 
 notices, that scarcely any one but Niebuhr would 
 have attempted, far less have been able to restore it. 
 Here, as well as in the domestic history, the work is 
 almost done to my hands : it were endless to make 
 particular acknowledgments, when scarcely a page of 
 this volume could have been written, had I not en- 
 joyed the benefit of Niebuhr's guidance. 
 
 Advance of Our last notice of the foreign affairs of Rome 
 
 the Roman -1-1. .11 
 
 power be- stopped at that disastrous period, the end of the third 
 
 tweenSOO *. 
 
 and 364. century, when the .'Equians and Volscians, having 
 overrun Latium, having occupied many of the Latin 
 towns, and established themselves on the Alban hills, 
 were in the habit of carrying their plundering inroads 
 up to the very walls of Rome. And whilst the 
 Opican nations were thus formidable on the side of 
 Latium, the Sabines made frequent descents into the 
 
 1 That namely of Cicero, in the eis (scil. in mortuorum laudationi- 
 often-quoted passage of his Bru- bus) quse facta non sunt, falsi tri- 
 tus, c. 16. "Multa scripta sunt in umphi," &c. 
 
WAR WITH THE SABINES. 375 
 
 Roman territory between the Tiber and the Anio, CHAP. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 and sometimes spread their ravages on that side also v J 
 as far as the immediate neighbourhood of the city. 
 Such nearly was the state of things about the year 
 300, which may be considered as the lowest point of 
 the Roman fortunes. The next sixty years witnessed 
 a wonderful change ; at the end of that period the 
 Roman power had spread itself out on every side, 
 and the Opican nations, the Sabines, and the Etrus- 
 cans, had all given way before it. 
 
 Of these three enemies, the Sabines were the Successful 
 soonest and most effectually repelled. After the peace with 
 year 306, when M. Horatius Barbatus, the deliverer 
 of the Roman commons from the decemvirs' tyranny, 
 is said to have gained a great victory over them 2 , we 
 read of them no more during a period of more than 
 a hundred and fifty years. A treaty of some sort 
 or other must have followed this victory ; perhaps it 
 was only a truce for a certain number of years, 
 which may have been continually renewed by mu- 
 tual consent ; the Romans having enough to do in 
 Latium and in Etruria ; and the Sabine youth find- 
 ing a field for their enterprize, by joining their 
 kinsmen, the Samnites, who soon after this time 
 began their conquests in Campania. Thus the Ro- 
 man territory along the left bank of the Tiber was 
 left in peace, and the frontier of the Commonwealth 
 on this side remained long unaltered, being bounded 
 
 2 Livy, III. 62, 63. Fasti Ca- vit) Ann. CCCIV. VII. K. Sep- 
 pitolini. " M. Horatius, M. F. tembr." 
 Barbatus, de Sabineis (triumpha- 
 
376 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, by the territory of the Sabine city of Eretum, which 
 v v ' was situated about nineteen miles from Rome. 
 Wars with A far more obstinate and varied contest was main- 
 
 the^Equians 
 
 andVoi- tained against the Romans and Volscians. It is 
 
 scians. Dic- 
 tatorship pretended that L. Valerius, the worthy colleague of 
 
 and victory 1 
 
 ofA.postu- M. Horatius, gained a great victory over them in 
 
 mius Tuber- 
 
 tu s- the year 306 3 ; but in 309 4 we find them again 
 
 overrunning the Roman territory, and advancing un- 
 opposed for the last time as far as the walls of Rome 
 by the Esquiline gate. In that same year T. Quinc- 
 tius the consul is said to have gained a great victory 
 over them, and there is this evidence of its reality, 
 that the Romans established a garrison on the ene- 
 mies' frontier at Verrugo 5 ; a place undoubtedly on 
 the Alban hills, but whether on Algidus above Tus- 
 culum, or on the side of Velitrse looking towards 
 Antium and the Volscian lowlands, seems impossible 
 to be ascertained. From this time we hear of no 
 general efforts of the ^Equians and Volscians for fif- 
 teen years ; but in 324 the united armies of the two 
 
 A.u.c.324. nations again appeared on Algidus 6 , and the Romans 
 
 A.C. 428. . . ._ _ 
 
 m alarm named A. Postumms Tubertus dictator 
 to oppose them. That the danger was great, is 
 shown by the dreadful stoiy related of A. Tubertus 7 , 
 
 3 Livy, HI. 61 "Posthumia" or "Posthumiana 
 
 4 Livy, III. 66. imperia et Manliana," I. 13. 7; 
 
 5 Livy, IV. 1. although it is one of Livy's rea- 
 
 6 Livy, IV. 26. sons for not believing the story, 
 
 7 Livy, IV. 29, mentions the that the common proverbial ex- 
 story, but wishes not to believe it. pression to denote power arbitra- 
 It is related however by Diodorus, rily and cruelly exercised was 
 XII. 64 ; by Valerius Maximus, " imperia Manliana non Postu- 
 II. 7. 6 ; and by Aulus Gellius, miana." 
 
 XVII. 21. Gellius also speaks of 
 
WARS WITH THE OPICAN NATIONS. 377 
 
 that he executed his own son, for having engaged CHAP. 
 with the enemy without orders, although successfully. * - . '- 
 This rigorous observance of discipline always occurs 
 in Roman history, when the Roman arms were en- 
 gaged in any contest more than ordinarily hazardous ; 
 and thus in the great Latin war about ninety years 
 after this period, the act of A. Postumius Tubertus 
 was again repeated in the more famous instance of 
 T. Manlius. On the present occasion the Latins and 
 Hernicans aided the Romans with their whole force, 
 and the Opican nations were completely defeated. 
 A truce of eight years was concluded with the 
 ^Equians 8 ; the power of the Volscians, already shaken 
 by their defeat, was further weakened by civil dissen- 
 sions ; the advocates for peace and war proceeding 
 to the most violent extremities against each other. 
 
 Eight years afterwards 9 , the Opican nations, first War on the 
 
 *. ,/Equian 
 
 the Volscians, and soon after the /Equians, again frontier. 
 
 8 Livy, IV. 30. year with the words, " Non diu- 
 
 9 According to Livy, the ^Equi- tius fortuna ./Equis indulsit, qui 
 ans had obtained a truce for eight ambiguam victoriara Volscorum 
 years, in the beginning of the pro sua amplexi fuerant." Now 
 year 325. IV. 30. Five years after- this " dubia victoria " had been 
 wards, in 330, they are described won in 332, and the expression, 
 as suing again for an extension of " non diutius indulsit," would im- 
 this term, and obtaining an ad- ply that for a certain time fortune 
 ditional truce for three years. IV. had favoured the ^Equians ; in 
 35. The renewal of hostilities is other words, that they, encouraged 
 placed in the year 334, Livy, IV. by the Volscians' success in 332, 
 43 ; but it may be concluded that took up arms themselves in the 
 it should in fact be placed a year following year, and were during 
 earlier, and that the year 333, that year masters of the field, 
 which with the Roman annalists is Thus it would seem that a truce 
 wholly devoid of military transac- of eight years, not cyclic but com- 
 tions, was indeed devoid of Ro- mon years, had been observed 
 man victories, but not of defeats, from 325 to 333 ; and the proba- 
 or at least of disasters. For Livy bility is, that the term originally 
 begins the account of the next agreed upon was five years, to 
 
378 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, renewed the contest. The seat of war was again on 
 
 XVIII 
 
 v '> the frontier of the jEquians : and there in the year 
 
 Lavici and 
 
 Boia taken 332 the Romans received a check which we may not 
 
 by the . ' 
 
 Romans, improbably conjecture to have been a serious defeat. 
 But four years afterwards, in 336, ( the people of La- 
 vici 10 are mentioned as joining the JEquians, and are 
 spoken of as new enemies. Lavici, now La Colonna, 
 placed on an isolated hill which rises as a sort of 
 outwork at the northern extremity of the Alban 
 cluster, had been one of the thirty Latin cities which 
 signed the treaty of alliance with Rome in 261. 
 Since that time the conquest of the Opican nations 
 had separated it from its old confederacy, and it 
 had possibly received an .ZEquian colony ; but it had 
 hitherto taken no active part against Rome. Now 
 however it openly joined the ^Equians; and its sol- 
 diers, after having ravaged the neighbouring territory 
 of Tusculum, encamped together with their allies in 
 their old station on Algidus. They gained one vic- 
 tory, but it was speedily retrieved by the dictator 
 Q. Servilius Priscus; Lavici was taken by the Ro- 
 mans", its inhabitants massacred, expelled, or sold 
 for slaves, and a large portion of its land was allotted 
 to colonists of the Roman commons. This was a 
 decided conquest, and gave the Romans possession 
 of an advantageous post on their enemy's frontier. 
 The victory seems also to have shaken the JEquian 
 
 which threewere afterwards added ; added in 330 were an addition to 
 
 Livy's mistake consisting in this, this number, 
 that he supposes the whole eight 10 Livy, IV. 45. 
 years' truce to have been granted n Livy, IV. 47. 
 in 325, and that the three years 
 
WARS WITH THE OPICAN NATIONS. 379 
 
 confederacy ; for Bola, another town formerly belong- CHAP. 
 ing to the Latins, but wrested from them by the v / 
 Opican conquerors, was allowed by the other J^quian 
 states to fall unassisted, and another important post 
 was thus occupied by the Romans. This happened 
 in the year 341 12 . 
 
 The tide had now turned, and as ill success loosened Continued 
 
 successes 
 
 the bond which held the Opican nations and cities f the Ro- 
 mans, La- 
 together, so victory strengthened the alliance of the tins, and 
 
 Hernicans. 
 
 Romans, Latins, and Hernicans. In 342, this last 
 people recovered Ferentinum 13 , one of their towns 
 which the Volscians had formerly conquered : and as 
 we hear in two following years of the ravage of the 
 Latin and Hernican territory by the enemy, we can- 
 not doubt that all the three confederate nations took 
 an active part in the war. The Opicans, however, 
 struggled vigorously ; the frontier posts of Verrugo H 
 and of the castle of Carventum 15 were taken and 
 retaken : but the ./Equians suffered so much from 
 having the seat of war so continually on their fron- 
 tier, that in the rally of the Opican league, which 
 took place in the year 347, the lowland Volscians 
 appear at the head of the confederacy, and the 
 gathering place of the army was at Antium. For 
 two years nothing decisive happened ; but in 349 I6 
 
 12 Livy, IV. 49. Bunsen suggested to me the high 
 
 13 Livy, IV. 51. ground of Monte Ariano, Mons 
 
 14 Livy, IV. 55, 56. 58. Artemisius, the south-eastern sum- 
 18 Livy, IV. 53. 55. The posi- mit of the Alban hills, which rises 
 
 tion of Carventum and of its castle above Velletri. I have not been 
 
 or citadel is wholly unknown. Sir able to find any notice of the 
 
 W. Cell puts it doubtfully at place in Westphal's work on the 
 
 Rocca Massimi, a high point on neighbourhood of Rome, 
 
 the Volscian highlands near Cora. 16 Livy, IV. 59. 
 
380 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the Romans opened the campaign with their force 
 1 . / -> divided into three small armies ; and while one 
 threatened Antium, and a second advanced upon 
 Ecetrse, laying waste the country on every side to 
 divert the enemy's attention, the third pushed direct 
 for Anxur, or Tarracina, a most important place, 
 standing at the very end of the plain of the Pontine 
 marshes, at the point where the Apennines of the 
 Volscian highlands come down close upon the sea. 
 They take Tarracina 17 , a Tyrrhenian city, had been subject to 
 or Anxur,' Rome in the last period of its Monarchy; immediately 
 afterwards it had been conquered by the Volscians, 
 and from them received its name of Anxur ; it is the 
 natural gate of the country round Rome on the one 
 hand, and of Campania on the other, and its capture 
 would restore the Roman boundary to the extent 
 which it had formerly reached under the Tarquinii. 
 Its distance from the front of the war probably put 
 its inhabitants off their guard, and it yielded to the 
 sudden attack of the Romans with little resistance 18 . 
 Twenty-five hundred of the inhabitants, wiio survived 
 the storming of the town, were saved alive to be 
 sold for slaves ; and the two divisions which had co- 
 vered the siege now came up to join their comrades, 
 and the plunder of the town was given to the whole 
 army without distinction. Two years afterwards the 
 
 17 It was probably a town be- Tarracina is mentioned as a de- 
 longing to the same race as Circeii pendent ally of Rome in the first 
 and Ardea ; that race which may treaty between Rome and Car- 
 be called either Tyrrhenian, Pelas- thage, concluded in the first year 
 gian, or Sikelian, and which in of the Commonwealth. See Poly- 
 language and religion bore so bius, III. 22, 
 close an affinity to the Greeks. w Livy, IV. 59. 
 
WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS, ETC. 381 
 
 Romans invaded the Volscian highlands, and Ar- CHAP. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 tena 19 , on the edge of the mountains, looking across " -^ - 1 
 
 and Artena. 
 
 to the Alban hills at the back of Algidus, was taken 
 and razed to the ground. From henceforward the 
 attention of Rome for some years was so much en- 
 gaged by her wars on the Etruscan frontier, that she 
 would have been well contented to have maintained 
 and secured her conquests from the ^Equians and 
 Volscians, without endeavouring to extend them. 
 And now was proved the advantage of the occupation 
 of posts on the enemies' territory, and still more of 
 the Roman system of colonies. When Anxur was 
 taken, the neighbouring Volscian cities seem to have 
 concluded a truce with Rome to save their lands 
 from ravage ; at least there was a free intercourse be- 
 tween them and the garrison, and the Roman soldiers 
 were scattered 20 over the neighbourhood to traffic 
 with the inhabitants instead of plundering them. 
 Advantage was taken of this, and Anxur was sur- Anxur is 
 prised by a sudden attack and recovered. But as the aLrprise. y 
 Volscians are not charged with perfidy, we must 
 either suppose that the assailants came from some of 
 the more distant cities, which had not been included 
 in the truce, or that the truce itself was concluded 
 only for periods of a few days 21 , and continued by 
 
 19 Livy, IV. 61. The present Artena at a place not more than a 
 
 Monte Fortino, according to Sir mile on the south-east of Monte 
 
 W. Gell ; and according to West- Fortino, where the remains of a 
 
 phal also, if Artena, Ortona, and polygonal wall on a high level 
 
 Virtona, be, as is probable, only spot are still visible, 
 
 one and the same place. I learn 20 Livy, V. 8. 
 
 from a review of this history in 21 Like the ten days' truce, which 
 
 the Dublin Review, No. XIII. was all that the Boeotians could be 
 
 that Nibby fixes the exact site of persuaded to agree to with Athens, 
 
382 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 successive renewals ; and that at the end of one of 
 these periods the Volscians had refused to renew it, 
 whilst the Romans had fully depended on its con- 
 tinuance. This was in 353, and two years after- 
 But again wards Anxur was again recovered by a fresh surprise, 
 
 recovered. -ii.ni-i 
 
 the Volscians 2Z neglecting to guard their walls whilst 
 keeping a festival. It was recovered just in time ; 
 for as the war of the Romans with Veii and the 
 neighbouring cities still continued, the Opican na- 
 tions seem to have renewed their league, and made 
 another combined effort to retrieve their losses. In 
 358 23 the Volscians were employed in besieging 
 Anxur, while the ^Equians were surrounding Lavici : 
 had not the Romans possessed these two posts, the 
 enemy might have again spread ravage over their 
 whole territory, at a moment when a force could ill 
 have been spared to check them. As it was, Anxur 
 and Lavici were left to their own resources, and to 
 the aid of the Latins and Hernicans, who at this cri- 
 tical period seem to have sustained the whole weight 
 of the struggle with the Opican nations, for all the 
 Roman armies were engaged elsewhere. Whether 
 Lavici was taken or not, we know not; but in the 
 next year Veii fell, and then the JEquians and Vol- 
 scians solicited and obtained a truce 2 *. The Romans 
 The Romans availed themselves of it to establish a new colony in 
 coiony S at a the country conquered from the ^.quians, at Vi- 
 the jEq'uian tcllia 2S , not far from Preeneste, on the opposite side 
 
 frontier. 
 
 when Lacedsemon concluded the 23 Livy, V. 16. 
 
 peace of Nicias. See Thucydides, 24 Livy, V. 23. 
 
 V. 26. 32. 25 Livy, V. 24. 29. Sir W. 
 
 22 Livy, V. 13. Gell places Vitellia at Valmonte, 
 
WAR WITH THE JEQUIANS. 383 
 
 of the great gap or break by which the chain of the CHAP. 
 Apennines is there interrupted. They had found v -/ ' 
 the benefit of their colony at Lavici ; and this more 
 distant settlement was made proportionably stronger ; 
 three thousand colonists were sent to occupy it in- 
 stead of fifteen hundred. But the yEquians were 
 more roused than daunted by this occupation of Vi- 
 tellia, as they had already been taught the import- 
 ance of such colonies. We hear nothing of the 
 Volscians, so that they probably remained at peace ; 
 but the jEquians, though alone, dislodged the Romans The JE^m- 
 from their old post of Verrugo 2G , and in the following it- 
 year surprised the new colony of Vitellia. Four years 
 after the fall of Veii, the whole force of Rome under 
 both consuls was once more employed against the 
 jEquians on the old battle ground of Algidus 27 ; 
 which clearly shows that the ^Equian frontier had 
 again advanced, and that Vitella and its territory 
 were lost to Rome. An easy victory is indeed 
 
 claimed for the Roman armies in this campaign, but The war un- 
 decided up 
 
 the contest was not over, and its issue was still unde- to the time 
 
 of the Gaul- 
 
 cided, when in the next year the storm of the Gaulish * 
 
 in the situation described in the and Circeii must have been lost 
 
 text. Westphal puts it, but doubt- previously and recently recovered 
 
 fully, immediately under the north- again, as a colony was planted 
 
 east extremity of the Alban hills, there in the year 362. It is clear 
 
 on that shoulder of ground, raised from this statement, that the Opi- 
 
 above the ordinary level of the can nations were rather roused 
 
 Campagna, which connects the than daunted by the fall of Veii, 
 
 roots of the Alban hills with the and were carrying on the war 
 
 Apennines. with Rome with unabated vigour, 
 
 26 Livy, V. 28. down to the very time of the 
 
 27 Livy, V. 31. According to Gaulish invasion. See Diodorus, 
 Diodorus, Velitrse and Satricutn XIV. 102. 106. 
 
 revolted from Rome at this period, 
 
384 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, invasion broke upon Latium, and crushed both of the 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 '-^v^ contending parties ; the Romans, however, for a short 
 
 time only, the JJLquians for ever. 
 Results of Thus in her loner contest with the Opican nations, 
 
 this long 
 
 contest. Rome had advanced indeed from her depressed state 
 at the beginning of the century, yet had by no means 
 reduced her enemies to submission. The occupation 
 of Anxur on the side of the Volscians, of Lavici and 
 Bola on the jEquian frontier, was an important 
 advantage; but the attempt to effect a settlement 
 within the line of the jEquian highlands had been 
 utterly defeated, and the ^Equians, instead of defend- 
 ing their own country, were still able to fix the war 
 on what may be called their advanced post of obser- 
 vation, the Alban hills; and from their vantage 
 ground of Algidus could still overhang Tusculum, 
 and threaten devastation to the whole territory of 
 Rome. It was in the opposite quarter, on the right 
 bank of the Tiber, that the Romans made the first 
 important addition to their dominion, and, for the 
 first time since the days of their kings, increased 
 their power by an accession of new citizens from the 
 population of the countries which they conquered. 
 
 Wars with We have seen that in the year 280 28 , the Veien- 
 
 Veil and 
 
 Fidenae. tians had concluded a peace with the Romans for 
 forty years. But in the year 317 the two nations 
 were again involved in war ; whether we are to sup- 
 pose, with Niebuhr, that the truce was to last only 
 for forty cyclical years of ten months each, and 
 
 28 See chapter XII. 
 
WAR WITH VEIL 385 
 
 therefore that it had expired three years before, or CHAP. 
 
 J XVIIL 
 
 whether it was brought to a premature termination, v v ' 
 
 like the thirty years' peace between Athens and 
 Sparta, which was cut short in the midst by the 
 breaking out of the Peloponnesian war. The latter 
 seems the more probable, because the quarrel is 
 especially said to have originated in the revolt of 
 Fidenae ; whereas, had the truce been at an end, no 
 particular cause of war would have been needed ; 
 hostilities would have been resumed as a matter of 
 course. 
 
 The left bank of the Tiber, immediately above its situation of 
 confluence with the Anio, is skirted by a line of low IB twiea 
 hills at the distance of about half a mile. On one finally kept 
 of these, which, like all the hills of the Campagna, Romans. 
 break off into cliffs on their sides, stood the town of 
 Fidense 29 , between five and six miles distant from 
 Rome ; the citadel, as some think, was on a higher 
 point of the ridge, separated from it by a valley, and 
 rising immediately above the river. Fidense is de- 
 scribed as an old Roman colony, established as early 
 as the time of Romulus 30 ; other accounts call it an 
 Alban or Latin colony 31 , while it is represented as 
 
 29 Westphal places Fidenae at Tiber. Westphal says that some 
 
 the site of the modern Villa Spada, inscriptions have been found which 
 
 just five miles from Rome ; a spot identify the spot. If so, and if I 
 
 which is now shown to strangers recognise his description, the ex- 
 
 as the site of the villa of Phaon, cavations in the rock behind the 
 
 Nero's freedman, and the place Villa Spada, resembling those at 
 
 where Nero killed himself. Ac- Snenton near Nottingham, would 
 
 cording to Sir W. Cell, Fidenae be probably the tombs of the citi- 
 
 was about half a mile further on zens of Fidenae. 
 
 the road, and its citadel stood on 30 Compare Livy, I. 14, and 27. 
 
 the isolated hill of Castel Giubileo, 31 Dionysius, II. 53, says that 
 
 which rises immediately above the Fidenae, Nomentum, and Crustu- 
 
 VOL. I. C C 
 
386 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, having been originally a city of the Etruscans S2 . 
 
 \ V 111, 
 
 v ' It is said also to have twice revolted from Rome since 
 the expulsion of the kings, and to have been twice 
 reduced, the last time in the year 256 33 , and to have 
 forfeited the half of its territory to the Roman garri- 
 son or colonists who occupied its citadel. All that 
 can be gathered from these stories is, that the sub- 
 ject population in Fidense consisted chiefly of Etrus- 
 cans ; and that the ruling part of the inhabitants, 
 the citizens of the colony, were Romans. In the 
 year 31 7 34 , from some causes of which we know 
 nothing, the old Etruscan population rose against 
 the Roman colonists, expelled them, and then put 
 themselves under the protection of Veii. It is added 
 that four Romans, sent to remonstrate with them 
 upon their revolt, were murdered by them at the com- 
 mand of the Veientian king, who was become their 
 new sovereign; and statues of the men thus slain, 
 were afterwards set up in the rostra ; an honour that 
 
 meria were all of them Alban colo- Capena,) seems to show, that pre- 
 
 nies, founded at the same time by viously to its final conquest by 
 
 three brothers. Virgil names Fi- the Romans, the Etruscan element 
 
 denae along with Nomentum and was predominant. See Miiller's 
 
 Gabii, and also speaks of it as an Etrusker, Vol. I. p. 113. 361. 
 Alban colony. JEn. VI. 73. w Dionysius, V. 60. 
 
 32 Livy, I. 15. Strabo, V. 2. 34 Livy, IV. 17. He speaks as 
 
 Q. p. 226. Plutarch makes Fi- if the Roman colonists had re- 
 
 denae, Crustumeria, and Antemnae volted ; but Niebuhr seems right 
 
 to have been Sabine towns, Romu- in supposing, that when we read 
 
 lus, 17. Miiller well remarks, that of the revolt of a colony in these 
 
 in Fidenae and Crustumeria, as in early times, we should understand 
 
 Rome, we find traces of these same it not properly speaking of the 
 
 three elements of the population, colonists, but of the subject popu- 
 
 Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans, lation who arose and drove them 
 
 But at Fidenae, the close connex- out, and then asserted their own 
 
 ion of the place with Veii, (to independence, or connected them- 
 
 which place it seems to have been selves with some people of their 
 
 subject or dependent, as was also own race. 
 
FIDEN^E FINALLY SUBDUED. 387 
 
 was paid two centuries later to the ambassadors CHAP. 
 murdered by the Illyrian queen Teuta. This revolt v . - 
 of Fidense, and the protection afforded to the re- 
 volters by the Veientians, led to a renewal of war 
 between Rome and Veii ; and the seat of the war 
 was removed not only from the right to the left 
 bank of the Tiber, but even on more than one 
 occasion to the left bank of the Anio, that is to say 
 within three miles of Rome. In 320, however, 
 Q. Servilius Priscus 35 , who was appointed dictator, is 
 said to have taken Fidense, and new colonists were 
 again sent to occupy the place ; but in 329 we read 
 of another revolt, accompanied by a massacre 36 of 
 the colonists, and Mamercus jEmilius was named 
 dictator to meet this new danger. He gained a 
 great victory over the Veientians and Fidenatians, 
 and again took Fidense ; but this time the work was 
 done effectually 37 , the Etruscan population were 
 either massacred or sold for slaves, and the town 
 and its territory remained from henceforth in the 
 undisturbed possession of the Romans. At the same 
 time a peace was concluded with the Veientians for 
 twenty years 38 . 
 
 This was in 330, but in the year 348, Livy says w r with 
 that the term of the truce had already expired 39 ; 
 
 35 Livy, IV. 21. The common in his edition. Sigonius, Glar- 
 
 editions of Livy, including Bek- eanus, Pighius, and Drakenborch, 
 
 ker's, call him A. Servilius, fol- all prefer the reading " Quintus." 
 
 lowing in this most of our present 36 Livy, IV. 31. 
 
 MSS. But Glareanus says that 37 Livy, IV. 34. 
 
 most of the MSS. had " Quintus," * Livy, IV. 35. 
 
 and that " Aulus " was the reading 39 Livy, IV. 58. Tempus indu- 
 
 of Aldus' MS. which he followed ciarum exierat. 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, so that Niebuhr conjectures that in this instance 
 
 XVIII 
 
 - v '-> also we must reckon by cyclical years of ten months, 
 and that the truce was only concluded for sixteen 
 common years and eight months. On the other 
 hand, if this were so, the truce must have expired 
 early in 347, for there seems no foundation for Nie- 
 buhr's conjecture, that it had not begun before 331 : 
 it was surely likely that it would have been solicited 
 immediately after the taking of Fidense, and con- 
 cluded early rather than late in 330 ; much less can 
 we suppose it to have been delayed till the year 
 following. Besides, we read of no actual hostilities 
 before the year 350, that is, till the end of twenty 
 common years ; and the story that the Romans for- 
 bore to press their demands on Veii during the year 
 348 out of magnanimity, because the Veientians 
 were distracted by internal factions, is suspicious 
 enough to throw discredit upon the whole narrative 
 which involves it. It is far more probable, that as 
 the expiration of the truce drew near, both parties 
 tried what could be gained by negotiation 10 . The 
 Romans were engaged in war with the JEquians and 
 Volscians, and although successful in the campaign 
 of 347, yet they had obtained no decided advantage. 
 Thus the Veientians tried to spin out the negotia- 
 tion till they should see the event of the next cam- 
 paign, but as that was unfavourable to the Romans, 
 the garrison at Verrugo being surprised and cut to 
 pieces by the Volscians, the Veientians took courage 
 
 40 See note 48 of the last chapter. 
 
SIEGE OF VEIL 389 
 
 and refused to grant the Roman demands. The next CHAP. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 year, however, greatly altered the face of affairs ; the ' / J 
 Romans were completely successful against the Vol- 
 scians, and took the important city of Anxur : war 
 with Veii was now looked forward to with delight, 
 the commons were conciliated by the grant of pay to 
 the soldiers, and thus at the close of the twentieth 
 year of the truce, apparently in the spring of 350, the 
 Roman people voted for instant war with the Veien- 
 tians; and the military tribunes of that year 41 com- 
 menced the invasion of the Veientian territory, and 
 the occupation of fortified posts in the neighbourhood 
 of Veii. 
 
 Again, in the year following, 351, the Roman The siege of 
 arms were called off from Veii by the Volscian 
 war 42 , and nothing was attempted against the city. 
 But in the next year the Volscians were quiet, and 
 the siege of Veii was commenced in earnest. Livy's 
 expressions 43 convey the notion that a double line of A.U.C. 3.^2. 
 
 * A.C.400. 
 
 walls was carried all round the city, as at Plataea, 
 the inner wall to blockade the besieged, the outer 
 one to shelter the besiegers from any attempt to 
 raise the siege on the part of the other states of 
 Etruria. But the circuit of the walls of Veii, ac- 
 cording to Sir W. Cell's measurements 44 , was above 
 
 41 Livy, IV. 61. Ab his pri- of the Peloponnesian lines round 
 mum circumsessi Veii sunt. Platea : TO ret^os d^e 8vo TOVS 
 
 42 Livy, IV. 61. 7rept/3oXoty, rrpos re TiXaraicov, Kcii 
 
 43 Livy, V. 1. Ita muniebant et ns ega>6fv air 'A.0rjvSiv eVi'ot. III. 
 ut ancipitia munimenta essent, alia 21 . 
 
 in urbem versa, aliis frons in 44 See the conclusion of the 
 
 Etruriam spectans auxiliis, si qua article " Veii," in his work on the 
 
 forte inde venirent, obstruebatur. topography of Rome and its vi- 
 
 Compare Thucydides' description cinity. 
 
390 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, five miles ; the besiegers' line therefore must have 
 
 XVIII 
 
 * -w '- embraced a still larger space, and the deep valleys with 
 rocky sides, between which the small streams of this 
 district always flow, would have offered formidable 
 interruptions to the work. Besides, it is manifest that 
 if such a circumvallation had been completed, Veii 
 must have been starved out within a year, instead of 
 resisting for seven years, and not being even at last 
 reduced by famine. It appears rather that the two 
 Roman armies employed in the siege established 
 themselves in two separate camps, and secured the 
 communication between them as well as they could 
 by detached forts, intending to carry on their circum- 
 vallation on each side from their camps, as the 
 Athenians did at Syracuse, till it should meet and 
 effectually inclose the city. And as it was necessary 
 that the lines should be maintained through the 
 winter, the Romans now for the first time became 
 acquainted with war on a greater scale, and instead 
 of returning home after a few days' service, a con- 
 siderable portion at least of the soldiers were to 
 remain before Veii during the whole year. This 
 was as strange and unwelcome to the Romans as it 
 would have been to the Peloponnesians, but the 
 national feeling was interested in the war, and the 
 lines, after having been once taken by a sally of the 
 besieged, were recovered and maintained by an army 
 of volunteers. 
 
 A - u -c. 353. Still there was no complete circumvallation : Veii 
 
 A.O. o"9. 
 
 Attacks was open and accessible to relief; and the people of 
 
 made on the 
 
 besieging the two neighbouring cities of Capena and Falerii, 
 
SIEGE OF VEIL 391 
 
 being at length aroused to a sense of their own dan- CHAP. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 ger if Veii fell, exerted all their power to deliver it. ' v ' 
 They attacked the Roman lines 45 , stormed one of 
 the two camps which formed the strongholds of the 
 besieging army, and for the remainder of the year 
 the communications of Veii with the surrounding 
 country were carried on in freedom. 
 
 For five years after this, the siege, if so it may be The other 
 
 J J Etruscan 
 
 called, made but little progress. The Romans re- states refuse 
 
 their aid to 
 
 . . 
 
 tained their camps before Veii, as the Veientians the vd 
 
 x tians. 
 
 had once held the Janiculum ; they plundered the 
 Veientian territory, and by their advanced position 
 protected their own. The Capenatians and Faliscans 
 could not again succeed in carrying the Roman 
 camps, and the Tarquinensians, who took part in the 
 contest in the year 358 46 , and ventured to invade the 
 Roman territory, were repelled with loss. But this 
 interference of the people of Tarquinii, one of the 
 greatest and most influential of the Etruscan cities, 
 and not the immediate neighbour of Veii, was pro- 
 bably a symptom of the dispositions of the whole 
 Etruscan confederacy. A great council of the whole 
 nation met at the temple of Voltumna 47 , the Panio- 
 nium of Etruria ; the question of aiding Veii with 
 
 45 Livy, V. 8. with a religious festival, with games 
 
 46 Livy, V. 16. of various sorts, and especially 
 
 47 Livy, V. 17. The situation dramatic entertainments; so that 
 of this temple is unknown, as well people of all ranks came together 
 as the attributes of the goddess to on these solemnities, and the con- 
 whom it was dedicated. The as- course attracted traders from fo- 
 semblies held at the temple were reign countries, as to a favourable 
 composed only of the ruling caste, opportunity of carrying on their 
 the Principes or Lucumones of traffic. 
 
 Etruria : but they were connected 
 
392 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the united force of the twelve cities was debated : 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 v * ' but at this critical moment the attention of the 
 northern states of the league was drawn off to an- 
 other and a more imminent danger. The Gauls had 
 crossed the Alps, and were overrunning the country 
 of the twelve cities of northern Etruria, between 
 the Alps and the Apennines. With such an enemy 
 so near them, the northern states of Etruria proper, 
 Volterae, Faesulse, Cortona, and Clusium, were not 
 disposed to march their forces away to a contest on 
 the banks of the Tiber, and to leave their own homes 
 open to the inroads of the Gauls. Accordingly the 
 southern cities were left to their fate ; and only 
 Capena and Falerii took any part in the final struggle 
 between Veii and Rome. 
 
 A.u.c.359. But the events of the last year of this struggle 
 
 A.C. 393 
 
 The Romans plainly showed what Rome would have had to fear 
 fore veil, from a coalition of all the twelve cities of Etruria. 
 appointed Two of the Roman military tribunes 48 were defeated 
 by the Faliscans and Capernatians ; one of them was 
 killed in the battle ; and the panic spread to the 
 lines before Veii and even to Rome itself, where the 
 rumour prevailed, that the whole force of Etruria 
 was on its march, that the lines before Veii were 
 actually assailed by the enemy, and that his victo- 
 rious bands might be expected every moment to 
 advance upon Rome. So great was the alarm that 
 the matrons crowded to the temples to avert by 
 prayers and sacrifices their country's peril ; and the 
 
 48 Livy, V. is. 
 
CAMILLUS APPOINTED DICTATOR. 393 
 
 senate resolved to appoint a dictator 49 . The dictator CHAP. 
 thus chosen was the famous M. Furius Camillus. * v 
 During thirty years from this period Camillus was Th( j hi * tor y 
 undoubtedly the most eminent man in Rome, and Veii has 
 
 * been sup- 
 
 the favourite leader of the aristocracy, who twice P lant ed by 
 
 the poetical 
 
 made him their champion in the hour of their stor y- 
 greatest need, once to put down M. Manlius, and 
 again to prevent if possible the passing of the Lici- 
 nian laws. Nor was the distinction of his family 
 confined to him alone ; one of his sons was the first 
 praetor, and another was twice dictator, and twice 
 consul, and gained a memorable victory over the 
 Gauls. But in proportion to this high eminence of 
 the Furian family, was the exaggeration of which 
 they were the subject. The stories told of them 
 were so popular, that they were not merely en- 
 grafted upon the brief notices contained in the 
 genuine records of the time, but took the place of 
 these altogether ; so that it is through the Greek 
 writers only that we can learn the real issue of the 
 Gaulish invasion, and the history of the taking of 
 Veii has not been preserved at all. That the beau- 
 tiful and romantic story of the fall of Veii belongs 
 entirely to the traditions and funeral orations of the 
 
 49 So strangely does the poetical vandaeque patriae M. Furius Ca- 
 
 story at this point supplant the millus dictator dictus magistrum 
 
 real history, that Livy does not so equitum P. Cornelium Scipionem 
 
 much as mention the resolution of dixit." V. 19- It appears hovv- 
 
 the senate to appoint a dictator, ever that the master of the horse, 
 
 but after describing the alarm at according to the Fasti Capitolini, 
 
 Rome, and the prayers of the ma- was not P. Cornelius Scipio, but 
 
 trons, he passes abruptly to the P. Cornelius Maluginensis. See 
 
 legend, and merely says, " fatalis the " Frammenti nuovi," published 
 
 dux ad excidium illius urbis ser- by Borghesi. 
 
394 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Furian family, is plain from this, that the events 
 ^ ' even of the very last year of the war are related 
 historically down to the very time of the appoint- 
 ment of Camillus to the dictatorship ; but then the 
 history suddenly vanishes, and a mere romance suc- 
 ceeds in its place wherever the actions of Camillus 
 are the subject, interspersed here and there with 
 fragments of authentic history, where the story re- 
 lates to the actions of other persons. Thus we do not 
 really know how Veii fell, or by what means a con- 
 test, which in the beginning of the year 359 wore so 
 unpromising an aspect, was before the end of that 
 same year brought to a triumphant conclusion. It 
 is mentioned 50 that the Latins and Hernicans, who 
 seem hitherto to have taken no part in the war, 
 joined the Romans with their whole force as soon as 
 Camillus was made dictator. Probably, the defeat 
 sustained in the early part of the year, and the fear 
 lest all Etruria should combine to relieve Veii, if any 
 accident should turn the stream of the Gaulish in- 
 vasion upon other countries, convinced the Romans 
 that they must make the most of the present mo- 
 ment, whilst the Etruscans still stood aloof. An 
 overpowering army of the Romans and their allies 
 was brought against Veii ; the siege of Platsea shows 
 what great works for the reduction of a town could 
 be completed within a short time by the united 
 labour of a multitude of hands : a mound might be 
 carried to the top of the loftiest walls ; or their 
 
 50 Livy, V. 19. 
 
OF THE STORIES OF THE FURIAN FAMILY. 395 
 
 foundations might be undermined, and a breach CHAP. 
 opened in an instant ; or in the \vide extent of Veii ^ r j 
 some ill-guarded spot might be found, by which the 
 enemy might effect an entrance without opposition. 
 Be this as it may, the manner of the real capture of 
 the place is irrecoverably lost ; but it is certain that 
 in the year 359, after a war of nine years, this old 
 antagonist of Rome, the large, the wealthy, and 
 powerful city of Veii, was taken by the Romans, and 
 the political existence of its people destroyed for 
 ever. 
 
 But before we finally quit the poetical legends of Difference 
 
 * -^ " between tlic 
 
 the early Roman historv, the last of them and not p etical 
 
 * legends and 
 
 the least beautiful, that which relates to the fall of*. 6 * 3 *'* 1 
 
 falsehoods 
 
 Veii, must find its place in this narrative. In the ofthe f amil > r 
 
 memoirs. 
 
 life of Camillus there meet two distinct kinds of 
 fiction, equally remote from historical truth, but in 
 all other respects most opposite to one another ; the 
 one imaginative but honest, playing it is true with 
 the facts of history, and converting them into a 
 wholly different form, but addressing itself also to 
 a different part of the mind ; not professing to im- 
 part exact knowledge, but to delight, to quicken, and 
 to raise the perception of what is beautiful and 
 noble ; the other, tame and fraudulent, deliberately 
 corrupting truth in order to minister to national 
 or individual vanity, pretending to describe actual 
 events, but substituting in the place of reality the 
 representations of interested or servile falsehood. To 
 the former of these classes belongs the legend of the 
 fall of Veii ; to the latter the interpolation of the 
 
396 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, pretended victory of Camillus over the Gauls. The 
 
 XVIII 
 
 1 v ' stories of the former kind, as innocent as they are 
 delightful, I have thought it an irreverence to neglect: 
 the fabrications of the latter sort, which are the pe- 
 culiar disgrace of Roman history, it is best to pass 
 over in total silence, that they may if possible be 
 consigned to perpetual oblivion. 
 
 POETICAL The poetical story of the fate of Veii is as follows: 
 THE FALL For seven years and more the Romans had been 
 The lake of besieging Veii. Now the summer was far advanced 5I , 
 flows its and all the springs and rivers were very low ; when 
 on a sudden the waters of the lake of Alba began to 
 rise ; and they rose above its banks, and covered the 
 fields and the houses by the water side; and still 
 they rose higher and higher, till they reached the 
 top of the hills which surrounded the lake as with a 
 wall, and they overflowed where the hills were low- 
 est ; and behold the water of the lake poured down 
 in a mighty torrent into the plain beyond. When 
 the Romans found that the sacrifices 52 w r hich they 
 offered to the gods and powers of the place were of 
 no avail, and their prophets knew not what counsel 
 to give them, and the lake still continued to over- 
 flow the hills and to pour down into the plain below, 
 then they sent over the sea to Delphi, to ask counsel 
 of the oracle of Apollo, which was famous in every 
 land. 
 
 A prophet of So the messengers were sent to Delphi. And 
 meanwhile the report of the overflowing of the lake 
 
 51 Dionysius, XII. 11. Fragm. 52 Dionysius, XII. 12. 
 Mai. 
 
LEGEND OF THE FALL OF VEIL 397 
 
 was much talked of; so that the people of Veil heard CHAP. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 of it. Now there was an old Veientian 53 , who was v j 
 
 of the over- 
 
 skilled in the secrets of the Fates, and it chanced flow. 
 that he was talking from the walls with a Roman 
 centurion whom he had known before in the days of 
 peace ; and the Roman spoke of the ruin that was 
 coming upon Veii, and was sorry for the old man 
 his friend ; but the old man laughed and said : " Ah ! 
 ye think to take Veii : but ye shall not take it till 
 the waters of the lake of Alba are all spent, and flow 
 out into the sea no more." When the Roman heard 
 this he was much moved by it, for he knew that the 
 old man was a prophet ; and the next day he came 
 again to talk with the old man, and he enticed him 
 to come out of the city, and to go aside with him to 
 a lonely place, saying that he had a certain matter 
 of his own concerning which he desired to know the 
 secrets of fate : and while they were talking together, 
 he seized the old man, and carried him off to the 
 Roman camp, and brought him before the generals ; 
 and the generals sent him to Rome to the senate. 
 Then the old man declared all that was in the Fates 
 concerning the overflow of the lake of Alba; and 
 he told the senate what they were to do with the 
 water, that it might cease to flow into the sea : " If 
 the lake overflow, and its waters run out into the 
 sea, woe unto Rome ; but if it be drawn off, and the 
 waters reach the sea no longer, then it is woe unto 
 Veii." But the senate would not listen to the old 
 
 53 Dionysius, XII. 13. Livy, V. 15. Plutarch, Camillas, 4. 
 
398 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP man's words, till the messengers should come back 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 1 v ' from Delphi. 
 
 The Romans After a time the messengers came back, and the 
 
 dig through 
 
 themoun- answer of the god agreed in all things with the 
 
 tains, and 
 
 draw off the words of the old man of Veii. For it said ", " See 
 
 water of the 
 
 lake - that the waters be not confined within the basin of 
 the lake ; see that they take not their own course 
 and run into the sea. Thou shalt let the water out 
 of the lake, and thou shalt turn it to the watering of 
 thy fields, and thou shalt make courses for it till it 
 be spent and come to nothing." Then the Romans 
 believed the oracle, and they sent workmen, and 
 began to bore through the side of the hills to make 
 a passage for the water. And the water flowed out 
 through this passage under ground ; and it ceased to 
 flow over the hills ; and when it came out from the 
 passage into the plain below, it was received into 
 many courses which had been dug for it, and it 
 watered the fields, and became obedient to the Ro- 
 mans, and was all spent in doing them service, and 
 flowed to the sea no more. And the Romans knew 
 that it was the will of the gods that they should 
 conquer Veii. 
 
 The Romans So Marcus Furius Camillus was made dictator; 
 
 refuse peace 1 __ . . 
 
 to the and the Veientians sent to Rome to beg for peace 5 ', 
 
 Veientians. , > , . - T 
 
 but the Romans would not grant it. Now the 
 Etruscans are skilled in the secrets of fate above all 
 other nations ; and one of the chief men of Veii, who 
 had gone with the embassy, turned round as he was 
 
 54 Livy, V. 16. 55 Dionysius, XII. I/. 
 
LEGEND OP THE FALL OF VEIL 399 
 
 going out of the senate house, and looked upon the CHAP. 
 senators and said : " A goodly answer truly have ye v ., > 
 given us, and a generous; for though we humble 
 ourselves before you, ye will show us no mercy, but 
 threaten to destroy us utterly. Ye heed neither the 
 wrath of the gods, nor the vengeance of men. Yet 
 the gods shall requite you for your pride, and as ye 
 destroy our country, so ye shall shortly after lose 
 your own." 
 
 Meanwhile Marcus Furius 56 pressed the city on A mine dug 
 
 . into the 
 
 every side : and he was at the head of a mighty heart of the 
 
 * . citadel of 
 
 army ; for the Latins and the Hernicans had brought Veu. 
 their aids ; and he commanded his men to dig a way 
 under ground which should pass beneath the walls, 
 and come out again to the light within the precinct 
 of the temple of Juno, in the citadel of Veii. The 
 men worked on by night and by day; for they were 
 divided into six bands ; and each band worked in 
 turn and rested in turn ; and the secret passage was 
 carried up into the precinct of the temple of Juno ; 
 but it had not broken through the surface of the 
 ground ; so that the Veientians knew not of it. 
 
 Then every man " who desired to have a share of venis 
 
 taken. 
 
 the spoil hastened from Rome to the camp at Veii. 
 And Marcus the dictator made a vow, and promised 
 to give the tenth part of all the spoil to Apollo the 
 god of Delphi : and he prayed also to Juno the god- 
 dess of the Veientians that she would be pleased to 
 depart from Veii, and to follow the Romans home to 
 
 56 Livy, V. 19. 57 Livy, V. 20, 21. 
 
400 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, their city, which from henceforth should be hers, and 
 
 XVIII 
 
 v '-> where a temple worthy of her majesty should be 
 given her for her abode. After this, he ordered the 
 Romans to assault the city on every side; and the 
 Veientians ran to the wall to meet them ; and the 
 shout of the battle arose, and the fight was carried 
 on fiercely 58 . But the king of the Veientians was 
 in the temple of Juno in the citadel, offering a sacri- 
 fice for the deliverance of the city ; and the prophet 
 who stood by, when he saw the sacrifice, cried aloud, 
 " This is an accepted offering ; for there is victory for 
 him who offers its entrails upon the altar!" Now 
 the Romans were in the secret passage, and heard 
 the words of the prophet. So they burst forth into 
 the temple, and they snatched away the entrails from 
 those who were sacrificing, and Marcus the Roman 
 dictator, and not the king of the Veientians, offered 
 them upon the altar. Then the Romans rushed 
 down from the citadel, and ran to the gates of the 
 city, and let in their comrades; and all the army 
 broke into the town, and they sacked and took Veii. 
 - While they were sacking the city, Marcus looked 
 down u P n tne havoc from the top of the citadel, 
 and when he saw the greatness of the city and the 
 richness of the spoil, his heart swelled within him 59 , 
 and he said, "What man's fortune was ever so 
 great as mine ?" But then in a moment there came 
 the thought, how little a thing and how short a time 
 can bring the greatest fortune down to the lowest, 
 
 58 Livy, V. 21. Plutarch, Ca- 59 Dionysius, XII. 19. 
 millus, 5. 
 
LEGEND OF THE FALL OF VEIL 401 
 
 and his pride was turned into fear, and he prayed CHAP. 
 
 if it must be that in return for such great glory and v / > 
 
 victory, some evil should befal himself or his coun- 
 try, yet that it might be light and recoverable. 
 Whilst he prayed he veiled his head 60 , as is the cus- 
 tom of the Romans in prayer, and turned round 
 towards the right ; but as he turned, his foot slipped, 
 and he fell upon his back upon the ground. Yet he 
 was comforted rather than dismayed by his fall, for 
 he said, " The gods have heard my prayer, and for 
 the great fortune of my victory over Veii they have 
 sent me only this little evil." 
 
 Then he ordered some young men 61 , chosen out The statue 
 from all his army, to approach to the temple of carried from 
 Juno ; and they had washed themselves in pure Rome. 
 water, and were clothed in white, so that there was 
 on them no sign or stain of blood and of slaughter ; 
 and they bowed low as they came to the temple, but 
 were afraid to touch the image of the goddess, for 
 no hand might touch it except the priest's who was 
 born of the house that had the priesthood. So they 
 asked the goddess whether it was her pleasure to go 
 with them to Rome. And then there happened a 
 wonder ; for the image spake, and answered, " I will 
 go ;" and when they touched it, it moved from its 
 place of its own accord, and it was carried to Rome. 
 Thus Juno left her abode in the citadel of Veii, and 
 she dwelt in her temple at Rome, on the hill Aven- 
 tinus, which the Romans built and dedicated to her 
 honour. 
 
 60 Dionysius, XII. 22, 23. Plutarch, Camillus, 5. G1 Livy, V. 22 
 VOL. I. D d 
 
402 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. After this 62 there were rejoicings at Rome greater 
 , ' than had ever been known before ; and there were 
 
 Camillas 
 
 t roudF h " thanksgivings for four days, and all the temples were 
 filled with those who came to offer their thank-offer- 
 ings. And Marcus entered the city in triumph, and 
 he rode up to the Capitol in a chariot drawn by four 
 white horses, like the horses of Jupiter and like the 
 horses of the sun. But wise men thought that it was 
 done too proudly ; and they said, " Marcus makes 
 himself equal to the blessed gods ; see if vengeance 
 come not on him, and he be not made lower than 
 other men." 
 
 increase of To return from this famous legend to our imper- 
 territoryby feet history of the times, the Romans by the fall of 
 
 the conquest _ T .. , ., , , -,-, 
 
 of veii. yen acquired a considerable addition to their terri- 
 tory. The inhabitants of several districts subject to 
 the Veientians had revolted to the Romans during- 
 
 o 
 
 the war, or rather, to escape the ravage of the 
 Roman armies, had surrendered themselves and their 
 lands at discretion. The rest of the country, if any 
 remained so long independent, must have fallen 
 with the capital ; and thus the Romans now ex- 
 tended their dominion along the right bank of the 
 Tiber, from its mouth to a distance of about thirteen 
 miles above Rome C3 , whilst it stretched northwards 
 from the Tiber as far as the Lago di Bracciano, 
 Lacus Sabatinus 64 , and the edge of the actual Cam- 
 
 Livy, V. 23. nus, and from there being no in- 
 
 ; 3 PHny, Hist. Nat. III. 9. dependent city, so far as we know, 
 
 This may be concluded, not between them ; but it seems to fol- 
 
 only from the short distance be- low, also, from the name of one of 
 
 tween Veii and the Lacus Sabati- the new tribes which were formed 
 
STORY OF CAMILLUS AT FALERII. 403 
 
 pagna at Monterosi; passing thence, in a line in- CHAP. 
 eluding the remarkable eminence of Monte Musino 65 , ^ , / _ 1 
 to the Tiber opposite the Ager Crustumerinus. But 
 in the years immediately following the conquest of 
 Veii, the Romans penetrated still deeper into Etru- 
 ria. Capenia, which had stood by the Veientians to 
 the last, fell in the very next year after its ally G6 ; 
 and its conquest put the Romans in possession of 
 an additional portion of the right bank of the Tiber, 
 above the territory just won from the Veientians. 
 In the year after we hear of the submission of 
 Falerii, the sole remaining member of the alliance, 
 situated either on or near the site of the modern 
 town of Civita Castellana 67 . Camillus was the 
 military tribune who reduced Falerii, and accord- 
 ingly we have another tale in the place of history. 
 A schoolmaster 68 , who had the care of the sons of the 
 principal citizens, took an opportunity when walking 
 with his boys without the walls, to lead them to the 
 Roman camp, and throw them into the power of the 
 enemy. But Camillus, indignant at this treason, bade 
 the boys to drive their master back into the town 
 again, flogging him all the way thither, for the Ro- 
 
 immedintely after the Gaulish in- fl6 Livy, V. 24. 
 vasion, the tribus Sabatina. The 7 Westphal and Nibby place 
 lands of this tribe must have been the Etruscan Falerii at Civita Gas- 
 situated near the lake; and from tellana, and the later Koman colony 
 whom could the Romans have con- at S. Maria di Falari, about half 
 quered them at that period except way between Civita Castellana and 
 from the Veientians ? Ronciglione. Sir W. Gell places 
 f ' 5 See the description and sketch the Etruscan city at S. Maria di 
 of Monte Musino, in Sir W. Gell's Falari. 
 work on the neighbourhood of 68 Livy, V. 27. 
 Rome, under the title " Ara M utiae." 
 
 D d 2 
 
404 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, mans, he said, made no war with children. Upon this 
 v v '> the Faliscans, won by his magnanimity, surrendered 
 to him at discretion, themselves, their city, and their 
 country. Whether the city however was really sur- 
 rendered at this time may seem very doubtful ; that 
 it sued for and obtained peace is likely : it lost also 
 a portion of its territory, for we read of a number of 
 Faliscans as forming a part of the four new tribes 69 
 of Roman citizens, which were created immediately 
 after the Gaulish invasion. 
 
 Submission In the same or in the following year may be 
 and su- placed also the submission of Nepete and Sutrium 70 , 
 which appear immediately after the retreat of the 
 Gauls as the dependent allies of Rome. They did 
 not surrender themselves, " dediderunt se," but ob- 
 tained a treaty of alliance, such as we find so often 
 between the weaker and the stronger states in 
 Greece. Nepete still exists with almost the same 
 name, and is a well-known town on the Perugia 
 road to Rome, standing in a beautiful country be- 
 tween the edge of the Campagna and the valley of 
 the Tiber, a little to the north of Monterosi. Su- 
 trium also exists in the modeTn town of Sutri, a 
 little to the west of the present road from Monterosi 
 to Ronciglione. 
 
 The Romans had now reached what may be called 
 
 reach the 
 ridge 
 
 1 Livy, VI. 4. buhr proposes to supply eVt, but 
 
 70 Diodorus places in the same the corruption lies, I think, in the 
 
 year the peace with the Faliscans, verb, and in the preceding con- 
 
 and something in connexion with junction, /cm. See Diodorus, XIV. 
 
 Sutrium. The present text is cor- 98. 
 rnpt : "S,ovrpiov p.ev mpfjirjcrav. Nie- 
 
THE CIMINIAN MOUNTAINS. 405 
 
 the extreme natural boundary of the basin of the 
 Tiber on the side of Etruria. Sutrium and Nepete ^7^7 
 looked up immediately to the great and lofty ridge J^jj^ 
 of the Ciminian mountains, that ridge which the 
 traveller ascends as soon as he leaves Viterbo, while 
 from its summit he catches his first view of the 
 neighbourhood of Rome, of the line of the Apen- 
 nines skirting the Campagna to the north-east, and of 
 the Alban hills in the furthest distance, and, although 
 the particular objects cannot be distinguished, of 
 that ever-memorable plain in which stands Rome. 
 This ridge, in short, separates the streams which feed 
 the Tiber from the valley of Viterbo and the basin 
 of the lake of Bolsena, or to speak the language of 
 the fourth century of Rome, it separated the terri- 
 tories of Veii and Falerii, the advanced posts, as it 
 were, of the Etruscan confederacy, from those of 
 Vulsinii and Tarquinii, two of the greatest and most 
 distinguished states of the whole nation. 
 
 Eighty years after this period, the passage of the They cross 
 Ciminian mountains was 1 regarded as a memorable -ye engaged 
 
 in war with 
 
 event, as little less than the entrance into an un- th e people of 
 
 Vulsuiii and 
 
 known world 71 . But now, emboldened by their the Saipi- 
 
 * natians. 
 
 victories over the nearer Etruscan cities, and aware, 
 no doubt, that the dread of the Gauls on the northern 
 frontier would render a general gathering of the 
 whole nation impossible, the Romans seemed anxious 
 to cross their natural boundary, and to penetrate 
 into the heart of Etruria. A war broke out, we 
 
 71 Livy, IX. 36. 
 
406 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, know not on what grounds, between Rome and 
 
 XVIII 
 
 ^ s ' Vulsinii 72 ; but in the first year the Romans were 
 crippled, according to their own account, by a famine 
 and pestilence, and the Vulsinians, aided by the 
 Salpinatians, a neighbouring people wholly unknown 
 to us, invaded the Roman territory without opposi- 
 
 A.U.C. 364. tion. In the next year however the Romans were 
 
 A.C. 388. 
 
 able to act on the offensive ; a great victory was 
 gained over the Vulsinians, the Salpinatians did not 
 risk a battle, and after the lands of either people had 
 been laid waste by the conquerors, the Vulsinians 
 sued for and obtained a truce for twenty years 73 , on 
 the condition of giving satisfaction to the Romans 
 to the extent of their demands, and furnishing a 
 year's pay for the army employed against them. Of 
 the Salpinatians we hear no further mention, either 
 now or at any future period. 
 
 Conclusion. Thus Rome was gaining ground rapidly in Etruria, 
 while in Latium she could not yet dislodge her old 
 enemies the ^Equians even from the Alban hills. 
 With so stubborn, so active, and so powerful an 
 adversary on the south, any attempt to make exten- 
 sive conquests on the north must ever have been 
 full of danger ; and an alliance between the Etrus- 
 can confederacy and the Opican nations, at this 
 period of the Roman history, would probably have 
 effected what the league between the Etruscan and 
 Sabellian nations ninety years afterwards attempted 
 in vain. But Providence, which designed that Rome 
 
 " Livy, V. 31. 73 Livy, V. 32. 
 
EFFECT OF THE GAULISH INVASION ON ROME. 407 
 
 should win the empire of the world, altered the CHAP. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 course of events by turning the torrent of a Gaulish < ., 1 
 invasion upon Latium. This it was which crushed 
 the ^Equians for ever ; and which obliged the Ro- 
 mans by its consequences to confine their attention 
 again for a long period to the left bank of the Tiber. 
 There, in many years of patient and arduous struggles, 
 they laid deeper and firmer the foundations of their 
 after greatness, by effectually subduing the remnant 
 of their Opican enemies, and obtaining a more com- 
 plete command than ever over the resources of the 
 cities of the Latins. Thus the Gaulish invasion and 
 conquest of Rome, was but the instrument of her 
 greater and surer advance to the dominion of Italy. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 INTERNAL HISTORY FROM 850 TO 364 PLEBEIAN 
 
 MILITARY TRIBUNES BANISHMENT OF CAMILLUS. 
 
 " SICINIUS. He's a disease that must be cut away. 
 MENENIUS. Oh, he 's a limb that has but a disease: 
 Mortal to cut it off; to cure it easy." 
 
 SHAKSPEARE, Coriolanus. 
 
 (s yap OVTOV ol TroAAot TO p-eytdos rrjs Tt KOTO. TO eavrov 
 crco/ia irapavofjilas ts TTJV diatTav . . . . a>s Tvpavvi8os fTTiGv^ovvri TroAe- 
 /uoi KaQfo-Tcttrav. THUCYDIDES, VI. 15. 
 
 CHAP. IN the fourteen years which elapsed between the 
 
 XIX 
 
 < ^^ beginning of the last war with Veii and the invasion 
 
 Advance of .,,,, , 
 
 the pie- or the Gauls, the plebeian leaders reaped the fruit of 
 the seed which their predecessors had sown so perse- 
 veringly. Now for the first time we find plebeians 
 not only admitted into the college of military tri- 
 bunes, but forming in it the majority. Yet even 
 this was as it were only the first fruits of the harvest ; 
 many years elapsed before the full crop was brought 
 to the sickle. 
 
 The pa- In the year 352, the third year of the war with Veii, 
 
 terfare^hh the Romans intending, as has been mentioned, to 
 of tribunes? blockade the city, were obliged to keep a part of their 
 
THE PEOPLE MURMUR AT THE WAR WITH VEIL 409 
 
 forces on duty during the winter. This was doubly CHAP. 
 unpopular, both as it obliged so many citizens to be ^> 
 absent from their homes for several months together, 
 a term of service ill endured by an army of house- 
 holders and agriculturists ; and also as it increased 
 the expense of the w T ar ; for the soldiers received pay 
 only for those months in which they were actually 
 under arms. Thus the tribunes began to complain 
 of the burden of the siege, and the indecisive cha- 
 racter of the war hitherto was likely to make it un- 
 popular ; but when news came that the Roman lines 
 had been destroyed by a sally of the besieged \ na- 
 tional pride prevailed, and all ranks united in sup- 
 porting the contest zealously. But the next year 
 only brought fresh disasters 2 : Anxur was surprised A.U.C. 353. 
 
 AC 399. 
 
 by the Volscians, and the armies before Veii were 
 completely defeated, and the blockade entirely raised. 
 Then feelings of irritation revived ; and these were 
 so far shared by the senate, that they obliged all the 
 military tribunes of the year to go out of office on 
 the first of October 3 , two months and a half before 
 the expiration of their year. The commons, however, 
 were not satisfied ; for the first act of the new mili- 
 tary tribunes was to call out to military service, not 
 only the citizens within the usual age 4 , but the older 
 men also, who were to form a force for the defence 
 of the city. Such a call, just as winter was coming 
 on, was most unwelcome ; besides, every additional 
 soldier rendered a heavier taxation necessary ; and 
 
 1 Livy, V. 7. 3 Livy, V. 9. 
 
 2 Livy, V. 8. 4 Livy, V. 10. 
 
410 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, as the patricians were continually evading the pay- 
 
 JV1 A 
 
 v > ' ment of the vectigal for their occupation of the public 
 land, so the tributum or property-tax necessarily 
 increased in amount. In this state of things, the 
 patricians were so afraid of the possible effects of the 
 tribunician power, that they ventured on the unusual 
 step of tampering with the elections for new tribunes, 
 which took place in December. The tribune who 
 presided at the comitia must have been gained over 
 to betray his trust ; he refused votes we must sup- 
 pose, when given in favour of the most popular, and 
 therefore- the most obnoxious candidates, whilst others 
 could not gain from the tribes themselves the requisite 
 majority of suffrages. The consequence was that, in 
 defiance of the Trebonian law, only eight tribunes 
 were returned "' ; and these, by a second violation of 
 the law, filled up the vacant places by choosing two 
 colleagues for themselves. 
 
 Plebeians But this over-straining broke the bow. One 
 time elected honest tribune of the college, Cn. Trebonius, was 
 
 as tribunes 111 t> i 
 
 of the enough, where the cause was so manifestly just, to 
 awaken the indignation of the commons. Three of 
 the other tribunes 6 , men, as it seems, of those base 
 natures which always follow the stream, now strove 
 to avert their own unpopularity by impeaching the 
 two unfortunate military tribunes who had been 
 defeated before Veii. These were condemned and 
 fined, but their punishment did not abate the storm. 
 The tribunes then proposed an agrarian law; and 
 
 6 Livy, V. 10. 6 Livy, V. 11. 
 
PLEBEIAN MILITARY TRIBUNES. 411 
 
 when this was resisted, they positively refused to CHAP. 
 allow the tribute to be collected 7 for the benefit of ^ '> 
 the army at Veii. This stoppage of the supplies 
 brought the soldiers almost to a state of mutiny. We 
 have seen 8 that a custom, so old as to be held equi- 
 valent to law, authorized the soldier to practise a 
 summary process of distress upon the paymaster, if 
 his pay was not regularly issued. Thus the law 
 itself seemed to sanction insubordination, if the sol- 
 dier's right was denied him : so that if the tribunes 
 persisted in forbidding the tribute to be levied, the 
 siege of Veii was inevitably at an end. Then, at 
 last, after an interval of more than forty years, the 
 constitution of the year 312 was fully carried into 
 effect ; the elections of military tribunes were left A.U.C. 355. 
 
 A.C. 397. 
 
 really free, and four out of six 9 . of the members of 
 
 7 Cum tributum conferri per P. Licinius, is a confirmation of 
 tribunes non posset. Livy, V. 12. their being plebeians. And if we 
 
 8 Pignoris capio. See Gaius, examine the several names, we find 
 IV. 27. a M. Titinius elected tribune of 
 
 9 The names, as given by Livy, the commons in the year 306, and 
 are, P. Licinius Calvus, P. Man- a Sex. Titinius tribune in the year 
 lius (Maenius being a mere correc- 316. And the fragments of the 
 tion by Sigonius), L. Titinius, P. Fasti Capitolini describe P. Mae- 
 Maelius, L. Furius Medullinus, and lius as the son of Sp. Mselius, and 
 L. Publilius Volscus. He calls give him the surname of Capito- 
 them all patricians, except Lici- linus ; so that there is every reason 
 nius ; yet it is certain that all, ex- to regard him as the son of that 
 cept L. Furius and P. Manlius, Maelius who was murdered by 
 were plebeians. The names are Servilius Ahala in 316, and whose 
 all plebeian; which, although not house, as we know, stood suffici- 
 a decisive argument with respect ently within the precincts of the 
 to the very early times of the Com- Capitoline hill to entitle him to 
 monwealth, yet becomes a circum- the name Capitolinus. Lastly, 
 stance of great weight in the mid- Publilius Volscus is described in 
 die of the fourth century of Rome, the Fasti as " Voleronis Nepos," 
 Again, the re-appointment of many and as bearing the surname of 
 of the tribunes of this year, four Philo ; so that there can be no 
 years afterwards, as colleagues of doubt that he was a descendant of 
 
412 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the college were chosen from among the plebeians. 
 
 -... 
 
 ^~jJ7f~^ A similar result attended the elections of the year 
 A.C. 396. following ; four out of six of the tribunes of the 
 
 soldiers were again chosen from the commons. 
 Endeavours Such a choice, continued for two years successively, 
 
 of the pa- ' J 
 
 tnciansto proves how deep was the indignation excited by the 
 
 recover the 
 
 exclusive attempt of the patricians to tamper with the tribune- 
 
 possession 
 
 of the ship of the commons. But the influence of an aris- 
 
 military 
 
 tocracy acts through the relations of private life, 
 which are in their very nature permanent, whilst it 
 is opposed only by a strong feeling of anger, or an 
 urgent sense of public interest, both of which exist 
 only in seasons of excitement, and wear out by the 
 mere lapse of time. It happened also that in the 
 last two years Rome had been visited by a winter 
 of such unusual severity, as to appear preternatural, 
 and afterwards, by a pestilence ; and such calamities 
 have a well-known tendency to engross men's minds 
 with their own domestic affairs, and to make them 
 regard political questions with indifference. Nor 
 did the patricians fail to represent these visitations 
 as proofs of the displeasure of the gods, who were 
 offended that plebeians 10 had been elected even in 
 the comitia of centuries, which professed to be regu- 
 lated according to the divine will as observed and 
 declared by the augurs. And still further to secure 
 their object, when the election of military tribunes 
 came on, the most eminent individuals of the noblest 
 
 the famous tribune who carried mous plebeian dictator, who passed 
 the Publilian law in the year 283, the Publilian laws of the year 416. 
 and of the family of the no less fa- 10 Livy, V. 14. 
 
CONTESTS FOR THE TRIBUNESHIP. 413 
 
 families of the patricians appeared as candidates. CHAP. 
 Accordingly, every place in the college for the year ^- 
 357 n , was once more filled by a patrician ; and the 
 election of the following year presented the same 
 result. 
 
 The tribunes of the year 358 appear however to The com- 
 mons resist 
 
 have been moderate men ; and there was a danger, them with 
 
 success. 
 
 lest they should hold the comitia fairly, and lest 
 some plebeians might thus again be elected as their 
 successors. Accordingly the senate obliged them all 
 on religious pretences 12 to resign before their year 
 was expired ; and an interrex was named to hold the 
 comitia. But the discontent of the commons had 
 been again growing ; even in this very year the tri- 
 bunes had opposed the enlistment of soldiers to meet 
 a new enemy, the people of Tarquinii ; and now, 
 when the object of the patricians in appointing an 
 interrex could not be mistaken, they interfered, and 
 would not allow the comitia to be held. The dispute 
 went on for some time, and lasted till a third interrex 
 had been appointed, the famous M. Camillus. But 
 even he, though one of the bitterest enemies of the 
 commons, was on this occasion obliged to yield; 
 either Veii must be relinquished, or the commons 
 must have justice ; and accordingly it was agreed that 
 the elections should be held freely, so as to allow 
 a majority in the college to the plebeians 13 , and 
 
 11 Livy, V. 14. 16. P. Licinius, the son of the tribune 
 
 12 Livy, V. 17. of 355, L Titinius, P. Maenius, P. 
 
 13 Livy, V. 18. Fasti Capitolini. Maelius, Cn. Genucius, and L. 
 Frammenti nuovi, Borghesi. Ac- Atilius. But the fragments of the 
 cording to Livy, the tribunes were Fasti show that for P. Msenius we 
 
414 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIX. 
 
 But after 
 the fall of 
 Veii the 
 patricians 
 again pre- 
 vail. 
 
 Disputes 
 about the 
 tithe of the 
 plunder of 
 Veii. 
 
 four out of six of the military tribunes were again 
 chosen from the plebeians. 
 
 The defeat of two of these tribunes by the Falis- 
 cans and Capenatians led to the appointment of M. 
 Camillus as dictator, and in this year Veii fell. Thus 
 the patricians were no longer obliged to conciliate 
 the commons; the opposition of the tribunes to the 
 levying of the tribute was henceforward of no im- 
 portance ; and we hear no more of plebeian military 
 tribunes. The entire college was composed of patri- 
 cians in the years 360, 361, and 364 ; and in the 
 years 362 and 363 the senate decreed that consuls 
 should be created instead of military tribunes ; so 
 that from the fall of Veii to the Gaulish invasion 
 the patricians appear to have recovered their old 
 exclusive possession of the highest magistracies. 
 
 Yet this period was by no means one of hopeless 
 submission on the part of the commons ; nor were 
 there wanting subjects of dispute which the tribunes 
 followed up with vigour. Camillus had vowed to 
 offer to Apollo the tithe of the spoil won at Veii ; 
 but the town had been plundered before Apollo's 
 portion had been set apart for him ; and the soldiers 
 having soon disposed of all that they had gained, 
 were unwilling to refund it afterwards 14 . The pon- 
 
 ehould here also read Q. Manlius ; 
 and the cognomen of Cn. Genu- 
 cius, as appears from the Fasti for 
 356, was Augurinus ; so that he 
 belonged to the patrician Genucii, 
 one of whom was elected consul, 
 and afterwards decemvir, with Ap- 
 pius Claudius, in the year 303. 
 Thus the plebeians were four to 
 
 two in the college of 359, and not 
 five to one ; and this agrees with 
 the stipulation made previously to 
 the election "ut major pars tri- 
 bunorum militum ex plebe cre- 
 aretur." Livy, V. 17. 
 
 14 Livy, V. 23. The practice of 
 devoting a tithe of the spoil to 
 some god, was adopted sometimes 
 
ZEAL OF THE ROMAN MATRONS. 415 
 
 tifices however declared that the vow must be per- CHAP. 
 
 XIX 
 
 formed ; and an appeal was made to the conscience " -/ -> 
 of every individual, calling upon him to value his 
 share of the plunder, and bring the price of the tithe 
 of it into the treasury for the purchase of an offering 
 of gold to A polio. This call was slowly obeyed, and 
 Camillus complained loudly of the profane neglect 
 of the people; he urged further, that his vow had 
 included the tithe, not only of the moveable pro- 
 perty of Veii, but also of the city and territory 15 . 
 The pontifices decided that this too must be paid ; 
 and the money was accordingly advanced out of the 
 treasury for this purpose. The money of the Romans 
 at this period was all of copper ; gold was dear, and 
 could not readily be procured. Accordingly the 
 Roman matrons are said to have brought to the 
 treasury all their ornaments of gold 16 ; and the senate 
 showed its sense of their zeal by giving them per- 
 mission to be drawn in a carriage about Rome on all 
 occasions, and to use a peculiar and more luxurious 
 sort of carriage at the games and solemn sacrifices. 
 Yet, after all, the gold was not accepted as a gift ; 
 the senate ordered every matron's contribution to be 
 valued, and the full price paid to her. 
 
 This transaction irritated the minds of men against The com- 
 
 n -11 -fi.- v. j i, monsdesiie 
 
 Camillus, as it his vow had been a mere pretence, in to remove 
 
 to Veii. 
 
 in order to prevent an indiscri- the advice given by Croesus to Cy- 
 
 minate plunder : the spoil was first rus after the taking of Sardis. 
 
 to be brought to the general, that Herodotus, I. 89. 
 
 the tithe might be duly separated 15 Livy, V. 25. 
 
 from it, and the remainder was 1G Livy, V. 25. 
 then to be equitably divided. See 
 
416 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, order to defraud the people of the spoil which they 
 ., ' had so hardly won. But the conquest of Veii gave 
 occasion to another dispute of a more serious cha- 
 racter. T. Sicinius u , one of the tribunes, proposed 
 a law for removing a portion of the patricians and 
 commons to Veii, and for allotting to them the whole 
 or a considerable part of the Veientian territory ; so 
 that the Roman Commonwealth should consist of 
 two cities, Rome and Veii. The peculiarity of this 
 proposal, according to Roman notions, consisted in 
 making Veii a co-ordinate state with Rome instead 
 of a colony. The unity of the Commonwealth Avas 
 in no way injured by the foundation of neAV colonies, 
 because these became its subjects and not its equals ; 
 whereas if a portion of the Roman people lived in 
 Veii, a city equal to Rome in extent and magnifi- 
 cence, the Commonwealth must either be reduced to 
 a mere confederacy, like that of the cities of the 
 Latins, or else it would be a matter of dispute at 
 which of the two cities the assemblies of the united 
 people should be held, and which of them should be 
 the home of the national gods. Accordingly the 
 project was strenuously resisted by the patricians, 
 who saw how fatal it would prove to the greatness 
 of Rome, and they persuaded two of the tribunes to 
 oppose it I8 . Thus the measure was resisted for that 
 year, and it met with the same fate the year follow- 
 ing, 361 ; both parties having obtained the re-elec- 
 tion of the same tribunes, so that T. Sicinius and his 
 
 17 Livy, V. 24. 1S Livy, V. 25. 29. 
 
FAIR INFLUENCE EXERCISED BY THE PATRICIANS. 417 
 
 friends again brought forward the law, and A. Vir- CHAP. 
 ginius and Q. Pomponius, the two tribunes who v v- ' 
 sided with the patricians, were again ready to meet 
 it with their negative. 
 
 But in the year 362, Virginius and Pomponius The mea- 
 sure rejected 
 
 were no longer re-elected tribunes, but were, on the through the 
 
 influence 
 
 contrary, impeached for their betrayal of their con- of the 
 
 patricians. 
 
 stituents interests during the time of their magis- 
 tracy. They were tried and condemned to pay a 
 heavy fine !9 , and the tribunes again brought forward 
 their law, with a confidence that it would meet with 
 no opposition. But the patricians now resolved to 
 exert their influence in a fair and constitutional 
 manner, and they exerted it with success. Leaving 
 the decision of the question to the votes of the 
 tribes 20 , and being prepared themselves to attend at 
 the comitia and give their votes like the rest of their 
 fellow citizens, they endeavoured by their individual 
 authority to win the suffrages of their tribesmen, 
 entreating and reasoning by turns, and imploring 
 them not to pass a law which would put the con- 
 quered city of Veii on a level with its conqueror. 
 Their arguments and solicitations were listened to 
 with respect, and when the question was brought 
 forward, it was negatived by the votes of eleven 
 tribes out of twenty-one. 
 
 A victory thus fairly and honourably obtained 
 was likely to dispose the patricians to placable and 
 kindly feelings. Immediately after the rejection of tothecom - 
 
 19 Livy, V. 29. M Livy, V. 30. 
 
 VOL. I. E 6 
 
418 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the law, the senate decreed a division of the Veien- 
 
 -A-1-A.t 
 
 v v ' tlan territory 2I amongst the commons on a scale 
 of unusual liberality. Each lot consisted of seven 
 jugera ; and not only fathers of families were con- 
 sidered in this grant, but they received an additional 
 allotment of seven jugera for each free person in 
 their household. Thus the dispute was for the time 
 peaceably and advantageously settled. 
 
 Alteration The year 363 is remarkable, as introducing an- 
 at whlch'the other change in the time at which the curule magis- 
 the soldiers trates entered on their office. The consuls, one of 
 whom was M. Manlius, afterwards so famous, were 
 obliged by the senate 22 to resign three months be- 
 fore the end of their year, so that their successors, 
 the military tribunes of the year 364, came into 
 office on the first of July. But why they were 
 required to resign is doubtful. The ostensible rea- 
 son was the state of their health ; a dry and exceed- 
 ingly hot season had ruined the crops, and given 
 birth to a violent epidemic disorder, which attacked 
 both of the consuls, and prevented them from taking 
 the field against the Vulsiniensians. On the other 
 hand, Niebuhr thinks that the real cause of their 
 deposition was their having neglected to aid the 
 people of Caere, the allies of Rome, when their har- 
 bour of Pyrgi was taken and sacked by Dionysius of 
 Syracuse. Perhaps, too, personal feelings were con- 
 cerned, for immediately on the resignation of the 
 consuls, M. Camillus was appointed interrex, who 
 
 21 Livy, V. 30. M Livy, V. 31. 
 
IMPEACHMENT OF CAMILLUS. 419 
 
 was afterwards so strongly opposed to M. Manlius, CHAP. 
 and whose enmity may have already begun before "- v ' 
 this period. It should be observed that the six mili- 
 tary tribunes elected for the following year were all 
 patricians. 
 
 If Camillus had any undue share in effecting the charge of 
 
 i i corruption 
 
 resignation of the late consuls, he did not long enioy a g a >nst Ca- 
 
 J J millus. He 
 
 his triumph. L. Appuleius 23 , one of the tribunes, retires from 
 impeached him for having appropriated secretly to 
 his own use a portion of the plunder of Veii. It was 
 said 2t that some doors of brass, tho bullion of a 
 country which at this time used only brass money, 
 were found in his house ; and that his numerous 
 clients and friends told him plainly 25 , when he ap- 
 plied to them for their aid, that they were ready to 
 pay his fine for him, but that they could not acquit 
 him. We are startled at finding the great Camillus 
 brought to trial on a charge of personal corruption ; 
 but that strict integrity which Polybius ascribes to 
 the Romans seems not always to have reached as 
 high as the leaders of the aristocracy, for the great 
 Scipio Africanus was impeached on a similar charge, 
 and his brother, the conqueror of Antiochus, was not 
 only accused, but condemned. Nor were the emi- 
 nent men of the Spartan aristocracy free from the 
 same reproach ; the suspicion attached itself to Leo- 
 tychides, the immediate predecessor of Archidamus ; 
 to Pleistoanax the son of Pausanias ; and just before 
 
 23 Livy, V. 32. * Livy, V. 32. 
 
 24 Plutarch, Camillus, 12. 
 
 E 6 2 
 
420 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the banishment of Camillus, the famous Gylippus, 
 v J the conqueror of the Athenians at Syracuse, had been 
 driven from his country for a similar act of baseness. 
 Other accounts 26 , as was natural, ascribed the con- 
 demnation of Camillus solely to the envy and hatred 
 of the commons ; while, according to others 27 , his 
 punishment was a sort of ostracism, because the 
 arrogance of his triumph, after the conquest of Veii, 
 seemed inconsistent with the conduct of a citizen in 
 a free commonwealth. It seems allowed by all that 
 no party in the state attempted to save him ; and it 
 is clear also, that he incurred the forfeiture of all his 
 civil rights in consequence of his not appearing to 
 stand his trial, either as an outlawry, or because his 
 withdrawal was held equivalent to a confession of 
 guilt, and a man convicted of furtum incurred there- 
 by perpetual ignominy, and lost all his political 
 franchise. Perhaps his case was like that of the 
 Spartan Pausanias ; and the treasure which he se- 
 creted may have been intended to furnish means 
 for making him tyrant of Rome. But at any rate he 
 withdrew from Rome before his trial came on, and 
 retired to Ardea. The annalists reported 28 that as 
 he went out of the gates, he turned round, and 
 prayed to the gods of his country, that if he were 
 unjustly driven into exile, some grievous calamity 
 might speedily befal the Romans, and force them to 
 
 26 Dionysius, XIII. 5. Fragm. M Livy, V. 32. Plutarch, Ca- 
 Mai. millus, 12. Dionysius, XIII. 6. 
 
 27 Diodorus, XIV. 117. 
 
BANISHMENT OF CAMILLUS. 421 
 
 call him back again. They who recorded such a CHAP. 
 
 XIX 
 
 prayer must have believed him innocent, and there- * ., 
 fore forgave him for it ; they even thought that the 
 gods heard it with favour, and fulfilled its petition 
 by sending the Gauls in the very next year to be 
 ministers of vengeance on his ungrateful country. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 STATE OF FOREIGN NATIONS AT THE PERIOD OF THE 
 GAULISH INVASION ITALY, SARDINIA, CORSICA. 
 
 To TTJS f)p.Tfpas IT pay pare [as "8iov , . . TOVTO e<mv' on KaQairep 17 
 cr^f 8bv aTTavra ra TTJS olKOVfJLevrjs Trpdyfj-ara irpbs tv eifXive p,epos, . . . OVTO> 
 Kal 8ia rfjs Icrropias VTTO p.iav crvvo^iv ayaytiv rois tVTvyxavovai. rbv 
 Xtipio'p'OV TJJS TVXIJS, w KtxpfJTai irpos rrjv ratv 6\<av Trpa.y\La.ra>v (rvv- 
 reXfiav. PoLYBlUS, I. 4. 
 
 CHAP. THE furthest point hitherto reached by the soldiers 
 
 -\r v 
 
 of any Roman army was scarcely more than fifty 
 
 e 
 
 to the view" miles distant from Rome. The southern limit of 
 
 Roman warfare had been Anxur; its northern was 
 Vulsinii. Nor do we read of any treaties or com- 
 mercial intercourse by which Rome was connected 
 with foreign powers, since the famous treaty with 
 Carthage, concluded in the first year of the Common- 
 wealth. Still the nations of the ancient world knew 
 more of one another than we are inclined to allow 
 for : we do not enough consider how small a portion 
 of their records has come down to us ; how much 
 must have been done, of which mere accident has 
 
NOTICES OF ROME BY FOREIGN WRITERS. 423 
 
 hindered us from hearing. About thirty ' years later CHAP. 
 than the Gaulish invasion, the author of that most " 
 curious survey of the coasts of the Mediterranean, 
 known by the name of the Periplus of Scylax, men- 
 tions Rome and Ancona alone of all the cities of 
 Italy, with the exception of the Greek colonies ; and 
 this notice is the more remarkable as Rome is not 
 immediately on the coast, and the survey rarely ex- 
 tends to any place far inland. Aristotle also was 
 not only acquainted with the fact that Rome was 
 taken by the Gauls, but named an individual whom 
 he called Lucius 2 , as its deliverer. Heraclides Ponti- 
 cus 3 even spoke of Rome as a Greek city, which 
 while it shows the shallowness of his knowledge con- 
 cerning it, proves also, that it was sufficiently famous 
 in Greece, to make the Greeks think it worthy of 
 belonging to their race and name ; and we see be- 
 sides that a wide distinction was drawn between the 
 
 1 For the date of the Periplus of times men were designated by their 
 Scylax, see Niebuhr's essay in the praenomen rather than by their no- 
 first volume of his " Kleine Histo- men or cognomen ; and thus Aris- 
 rische Schriften," Bonn, 1828, p. totle would call L. Furius " Lu- 
 105 ; or, as translated by Mr. Hare, cius," rather than "Furius," or 
 in the second number of the Phi- " Camillus," just as Polybius calls 
 lological Museum. I have said Scipio " Publius," and Regulus 
 that Scylax mentions no other " Marcus." 
 
 Italian cities but Rome and An- 3 Plutarch, Camillus, 22. He- 
 cona, with the exception of the raclides noticed Rome in his trea- 
 Greek colonies. It is true that, tise, Hepl ^n>x^ s an< ^ sa '^ tnat 
 according to other writers, Ancona " a report had come from the west, 
 itself was a Greek colony, but Scy- telling how a host had come from 
 lax does not describe it as such ; the land of the Hyperboreans, 
 whereas, in speaking of the cities without the Pillars of Hercules, 
 on the Lucanian and lapygian and had taken a Greek city called 
 coast, he expressly notices their Rome, which was situated some- 
 Greek origin. where in those parts about the 
 
 - Plutarch, Camillus, 22. It great sea." 
 need not be said, that in the old 
 
424 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Latins and the Etruscans, the latter of whom they 
 v v^ ' always regarded as foreigners, while in the former 
 they did but exaggerate the degree of connexion 
 really subsisting between the two nations, whose 
 kindred is proved by the resemblance of their lan- 
 guages. But the fame of the Gaulish invasion, the 
 first great movement of barbarians breaking down 
 upon the civilized countries of Europe from the 
 north, which had occurred within historical memory, 
 drew the attention of the Greeks more than ever 
 towards Italy. And as this invasion led to a more 
 general mixture of nation and nation, for less than 
 twenty years afterwards we read of Gaulish cavalry 
 in the service of Dionysius of Syracuse, and of their 
 being sent by him to Peloponnesus to help the La- 
 cedaemonians against Epaminondas ; so I may at this 
 period draw up the curtain which has hitherto veiled 
 from our view all countries and people beyond the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the Tiber, and look as 
 widely over the face of the world as the fullest know- 
 ledge of Greeks or Carthaginians enabled them at this 
 time to see either eastward or westward. 
 The The fall of Veil, and the submission of Capena 
 
 and Falerii, have shown us that the greatness of 
 the Etruscans was on the wane. In the days of 
 their highest prosperity they had spread their domi- 
 nion widely over Italy. The confederacy of their 
 twelve cities, each of which was again the head of 
 a smaller confederacy of the neighbouring towns, 
 occupied the w r hole country between the Tiber, the 
 Macra, the Apennines, and the sea. But they were 
 
CONDITION OF THE ETRUSCAN STATES. 425 
 
 also to be found on the north of the Apennines 4 , and 
 another Etruscan confederacy, consisting also of their 
 favourite number of twelve cities, extended to the 
 shores of the Adriatic, and possessed the plain of 
 the Po, and of its tributary rivers to the north and 
 south, from the sea as high as the Trebia. Bononia, 
 under its older name of Felsina, Melpum, Mantua, 
 and Atria, with Cupra on the coast of the Adriatic, 
 were Etruscan towns. Nor had their dominion been 
 confined to the north of the Tiber ; a third confede- 
 racy of twelve cities had occupied Campania 5 ; and 
 
 4 This is the positive statement 
 of the ancient writers ; as Livy, V. 
 33, Strabo, V. p. 216, and Verrius 
 Flaccus and Csecina, quoted by the 
 interpreters of Virgil, J5n. X. 198, 
 in the Verona MS. Niebuhr, 
 agreeably to his notion that the 
 Etruscans came into Italy over the 
 Alps, from the north, and not by 
 sea from Asia, considers their set- 
 tlements in the valley of the Po 
 to have been older than those in 
 Etruria. Miiller believes them to 
 have been of equal antiquity with 
 each other ; the Etruscans, or Ra- 
 sena, he holds to have been an 
 aboriginal people of Italy, settled 
 from time immemorial both on the 
 north and south sides of the Apen- 
 nines. (Etrusker, Einleitung, III. 
 1.) Micali places the original 
 seat of the Etruscans in the Apen- 
 nines ; he even ventures to fix on 
 the precise spot, namely, the moun- 
 tains which extend from the high 
 point of La Falterona, above the 
 valley of the Sieve, or of Mugello. 
 (Storia degli antichi popoli Italiani, 
 Vol. I. p. 106.) From thence they 
 descended first into Etruria, and 
 afterwards, having become a civil- 
 ized people, they sent out their 
 
 colonies into northern Italy. With- 
 out entering on the endless ques- 
 tion of the origin of the Etruscans, 
 or of the comparative antiquity of 
 their several settlements, I have 
 thought it sufficient merely to no- 
 tice the limits which their nation 
 reached at the time of its greatest 
 power. 
 
 5 It is well known that Niebuhr 
 doubts the existence of this Cam- 
 panian Dodecapolis ; and he thinks 
 that the whole statement of Etrus- 
 can settlements in Campania is a 
 mere mistake, arising out of the 
 common confusion between the 
 Tyrrhenians and the Etruscans. 
 He says, that neither in the in- 
 scriptions found in Campania, nor 
 in the works of art, is there to be 
 observed any trace of an Etruscan 
 population ; and he thinks that in 
 the days of the Etruscan greatness, 
 that is, in the third century of 
 Rome, we cannot conceive the pos- 
 sibility of Etruscan colonies being 
 settled in Campania, while the in- 
 tervening country between the Ti- 
 ber and the Liris was occupied by 
 the Romans and the Opican na- 
 tions. See Vol. I. p. 74. 76. Eng. 
 transl. Miiller, on the contrary, 
 
426 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, amonsrst these were Capua, Nola, Surrentum, and 
 
 XX 
 
 v-^ ' Salernum. Nay, there are traditions and names which 
 have preserved a record of a still more extended 
 Etruscan sovereignty : there was a time when their 
 settlements in Campania must have been connected 
 with those in Etruria by an uninterrupted line of 
 conquered countries ; the Volscians 6 were once sub- 
 ject to the Etruscans ; the name of Tusculum seems 
 to show that their power had penetrated into La- 
 tium ; and it is stated generally that they had pos- 
 
 receives the common account of 
 the ancient writers as containing 
 in it nothing improbable. Etrus- 
 ker, Einleitung, IV. 1. Polybius' 
 testimony is positive, that the 
 Etruscans possessed the Phle- 
 graean plains round Capua and 
 Nola, at the time when they were 
 also in possession of the plains 
 round the Po, II. 17- And there 
 were writers whom Velleius Pater- 
 culus quotes as saying that Capua 
 and Nola were founded by the 
 Etruscans, about forty-eight years 
 before the common date of the 
 foundation of Rome. When Pa- 
 terculus further quotes Cato, as 
 saying that Capua had been 
 founded by the Etruscans, and yet 
 that it had existed only two hun- 
 dred and sixty years at the time of 
 its conquest by the Romans in the 
 second Punic war, there is indeed 
 a calculation not very easy to be 
 explained ; for this would place the 
 foundation of the Etruscan Capua 
 or Vulturnum, only about fifty 
 years earlier than its conquest by 
 the Samnites, and in the year of 
 Rome 281, a period at which it is 
 indeed difficult to conceive of the 
 Etruscans as establishing them- 
 selves for the first time in Cam- 
 pania. The solution of the whole 
 
 question is probably to be found 
 in what Virgil says of Mantua : 
 " Gens illi tripler : . . . Tusco de 
 sanguine vires." The ruling por- 
 tion of these Campanian cities was 
 Etruscan, but the bulk of the popu- 
 lation was Oscan. Thus, when 
 they were conquered by the Sam- 
 nites, the marks of the Etruscan 
 dominion speedily vanished, and 
 the inscriptions which have reached 
 our times are naturally Oscan, as 
 that continued to be the language 
 of the mass of the people. The 
 foundation of Capua and Nola by 
 the Etruscans may, in fact, have 
 been no more than their occupa- 
 tion by some bands of Etruscan 
 adventurers, who may have been 
 engaged in the service of the Oscan 
 inhabitants; just as Mastarna and 
 his followers once occupied Rome, 
 or as the Campanians afterwards 
 occupied Messina. The Etruscan 
 Dodecapolis, or confederacy of 
 twelve cities, if indeed it ever ex- 
 isted in Campania, must have been 
 founded undoubtedly at an earlier 
 period ; and yet we need not con- 
 ceive it much earlier than the be- 
 ginning of the Commonwealth of 
 Rome. 
 6 Servius, Mn. XI. v. 567. 
 
CONDITION OF THE ETRUSCAN STATES. 427 
 
 sessed nearly the whole of Italy 7 . But from this CHAP. 
 their height of greatness they had long since fallen. * ^ ' 
 Within historical memory they were only to be found 
 in Etruria, on the Po, and in Campania ; but about 
 half a century before the period at which we are 
 now arrived, the Samnites had broken up their 
 southern confederacy, and had wrested 8 from them 
 Capua, and most of their other cities in that quarter ; 
 while more recently, in the last year of the siege of 
 Veii 9 , the conquest of their northern confederacy 
 was completed by the Gauls. Thus there only re- 
 mained the central confederacy of Etruria Proper, 
 and even this had been broken in upon as we have 
 seen by the loss of Veii. Still there were left to them 
 the powerful cities of Tarquinii, Vetulonium, Vola- 
 terrse, and Pisa, on or near the coast ; and in the in- 
 terior, Vulsinii, Clusium, Perusia, Cortona, and Ar- 
 retium. 
 
 We are told that in early times 10 the Etruscans Their reia- 
 
 .. ,, . i -I tions with 
 
 had enjoyed the dominion or the neighbouring seas, the Greeks. 
 as well as of the land of Italy. About a hundred and 
 fifty years before the fall of Veii, the Etruscans and 
 Carthaginians in the western part of the Mediterra- 
 nean stood in nearly the same relation to the Greeks 
 
 7 Servius, JEn. XI. v. 567. incidence as so very exact, it is 
 
 8 Livy, IV. 37. hard to guess : but that generally 
 
 9 Melpum, one of the richest the fall of the northern Etruscan 
 cities in the country north of the confederacy was contemporary 
 Po, was said by Cornelius Nepos with the siege of Veii, is rendered 
 [Pliny, Hist. Natur. III. 17] to sufficiently probable by the ap- 
 have been destroyed by the Gauls pearance of the Gauls in Etruria 
 on the very day on which Camillus Proper so soon afterwards. 
 
 took Veii. What gave occasion 10 Livy, V. 33. 
 to this story, representing the co- 
 
428 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, who ventured into those seas, as the Spaniards in 
 
 XX . 
 
 ,.,-1 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did to the 
 English in the West Indies and in South America. 
 The Greeks were treated as interlopers, and they in 
 their turn seem to have held, that there was no 
 peace beyond the straits of Messina. Dionysius of 
 Phocaea, when he fled from the ruin of the Ionian 
 cause in Asia Minor, after the sea-fight off Miletus, 
 considered the Etruscans n and Carthaginians as his 
 natural prey, just as Raleigh regarded the Spaniards ; 
 and those treaties of commerce between Etruria and 
 Carthage, of which Aristotle 12 has preserved the me- 
 mory, provided, it is likely, not only for their rela- 
 tions with one another, but for their mutual defence 
 against a nation whom both looked upon as their 
 common enemy. But with the growth of the Greek 
 cities in Sicily the maritime dominion of the Etrus- 
 cans began to fall ; and after the great naval victory 
 gained over them at Cuma by Gelon's brother and 
 successor, Hiero, they sank from sovereigns of the 
 sea to pirates ; and a few years afterwards, a very 
 short time before the decemvirate at Rome, the Sy- 
 racusans 13 sent a fleet to the coasts of Etruria, with 
 the avowed object of putting down their piracies. 
 And yet we know there was an active commerce u 
 carried on between Etruria and the cities of old 
 
 11 Herodotus, VI. 17. in the recent excavations at Vulci 
 
 12 Politic. III. 9. and Tarquinii. See the " Discours 
 
 13 Diodorus, XI. 88. de M. Bunsen," in the sixth vo- 
 
 14 We know this by the surest lume of the " Annali dell' Instituto 
 evidence, namely, by the vast di corrispondenza archeologica," 
 quantities of Greek, and in parti- p. 40. et seqq. 
 
 cular of Athenian pottery, found 
 
SARDINIA AND CORSICA. 429 
 
 Greece, so advantageous to both nations, that we can CHAP. 
 
 XX. 
 
 scarcely conceive how either of them could have ' -, 
 allowed the robberies of its own people to hazard its 
 interruption. It is possible, however, that what the 
 Greeks called piracy was a system of vexations and 
 violence carried on against Greek vessels in the 
 Etruscan seas, with the view of keeping the trade 
 exclusively in Etruscan hands ; and the robberies of 
 which the Greeks complained were committed by 
 the people of the small towns along the coast, who 
 not possessing natural advantages or wealth enough 
 to -engage on a large scale in commerce, turned their 
 seamanship and enterprise to account in another 
 way, and fitted out small vessels for piracy instead of 
 the large ships employed for trading voyages. Thus 
 it is expressly mentioned that the people of Caere 15 , 
 which was a large and wealthy city, possessing its 
 harbour on the coast for the convenience of its trade, 
 were wholly free from the reproach of piratical prac- 
 tices thrown by the Greeks upon the mass of their 
 countrymen. 
 
 Nothing can be more unequal than the fate of the Sardinia, 
 three sister islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. 
 Whilst the first of them has rivalled in its fame the 
 most distinguished countries of Europe, the two 
 latter have remained in obscurity from the earliest 
 times down to the present hour. They seemed to 
 repel that kindling spark of Greek civilization, which 
 found so congenial an element in Sicily ; and, there- 
 
 18 Strabo, V. 2. 3. p. 220. 
 
430 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, fore, as they did not receive what was the great 
 ,'-! . principle of life in the ancient world, they were con- 
 demned to perpetual inactivity and helplessness. Of 
 what race were the earliest inhabitants of Sardinia, 
 we have no records to inform us. Settlers from 
 Africa, not Carthaginians, but native Lybians 16 , are 
 said to have crossed over to the island at a very 
 remote period. They were followed at intervals, 
 such was the Greek tradition, by some adventurers 
 or fugitives from Greece and Asia Minor ; but these 
 all belong to the mythic period, and the Greek 
 settlements are said to have been afterwards utterly 
 extirpated, whilst those from Asia, described as fugi- 
 tives from Troy, were driven to the mountains and 
 became barbarized. A more probable statement 
 mentions a colony of Iberians from Spain, the foun- 
 ders of Nora 17 , the oldest city in the island ; and 
 during the height of the Etruscan dominion, the 
 Etruscan colonists brought in a new element to the 
 already mingled population. When the power of the 
 Carthaginians began to grow, Sardinia soon attracted 
 their notice ; already in the first year of the Roman 
 Commonwealth, eight and twenty years before the 
 expedition of Xerxes, it is spoken of as belonging 
 exclusively to their dominion, in their famous com- 
 mercial treaty with Rome ; and at the period of the 
 great Persian invasion of Greece, Sardinia is men- 
 tioned together with Corsica as furnishing mercenary 
 soldiers l8 to that great host with which Hamilcar 
 
 16 Pausanias, X. 17. 18 Herodotus, VII. 165. 
 
 ]J Pausanias, X. 17. 
 
SARDINIA CORSICA. 431 
 
 invaded Sicily, and which was destroyed by Gel on at CHAP. 
 Himera. Yet a few years before, when the Persians < ,_!_ 
 were overpowering the Greek commonwealths in 
 Asia Minor, Sardinia was more than once looked to 
 by the lonians 19 , as offering them a desirable refuge 
 from the conquerors' dominion, and as affording 
 every facility for a flourishing Greek colony. But it 
 was to the lonians of Asia like an unknown world ; 
 and no sufficient number of colonists could be in- 
 duced to join in the enterprise, while a small body 
 would have been utterly unable to maintain its 
 ground against the Carthaginians. Thus Sardinia 
 remained subject to Carthage; and as the Cartha- 
 ginians wanted it chiefly to supply their armies with 
 soldiers, and to provide harbours for their ships 
 engaged in the trade with Etruria, they took no 
 pains to improve its natural resources, but are said 
 to have purposely kept waste 20 some of its most 
 fertile districts, that no reports of its fertility might 
 tempt thither what they above all things dreaded, a 
 colony of Greeks. 
 
 Corsica had undergone nearly the same course Corsica. 
 of events as Sardinia. Its oldest inhabitants were 
 Iberians and Liguriaris ; it was then occupied by the 
 Etruscans, who after having by the aid of the Car- 
 thaginians effected the ruin of the Greek settlement 
 of Aleria or Alalia 21 , and having shared the do- 
 minion of the island with their Carthaginian allies 
 down to the time of the decemvirate at Rome, were 
 
 19 Herodotus, I. 170. V. 124. 21 Herodotus, I. 166. 
 
 20 Aristotle, De mirabil. 100. 
 
432 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, now, in the general decline of their nation, leaving it 
 
 .A. .A.. 
 
 s - ' entirely to the Carthaginians. Corsica was valuable 
 for its timber and its mines, but its agriculture 
 was of no account, and its native inhabitants were 
 reckoned among the most untameable of barba- 
 
 99 
 
 nans . 
 
 Campania. These were the countries which bounded the 
 horizon of Rome to the north and west. Southward 
 and eastward, beyond that belt of mountain country 
 held by the Opican nations, the ^Equians and Vol- 
 scians, which girt in Latium from the Anio to the 
 sea, there lay a country, destined ere long to be the 
 favorite battle-field of the Romans, but a stranger to 
 them as yet both in the relations of peace and of 
 war. Campania, inhabited in the most remote times 
 by the Sikelians 23 , then wrested from them by the 
 Opicans, receiving at a very early period the first 
 germ of Greek civilization, in the Chalcidian colony 
 of Cuma, and afterwards subjected, like so many 
 other parts of Italy, to the wide-spreading dominion 
 of the Etruscans, had lately, as we have seen, sub- 
 mitted to a new invader, the nation of the Samnites. 
 The Samnites, a people of the Sabellian or Sabine 
 race, had descended from their high valleys amidst 
 the ranges of the divided line of the Apennines, and 
 were now the ruling nation in Campania, although 
 they had by no means extirpated the older races of 
 its inhabitants. On the contrary, they seem them- 
 selves to have almost melted away into the general 
 
 22 Strabo, V. 2. 6, 7. p. 224. 25 Thucydides, VI. 2. 
 
CAMPANIA. 433 
 
 mass of their mixed subjects ; the conquered did not CHAP. 
 become Samnites, but the conquerors became Cam- v 
 panians, the Opican or Oscan being the prevailing 
 language, but the influence of the Greek colonies, 
 Cuma and Neapolis, spreading powerfully around 
 them, as usual, the arts and the manners of Greece. 
 But the Samnite invasion, and the revolution which 
 followed it, produced great disorder ; the old inhabit- 
 ants, whom the conquerors despoiled of their pro- 
 perty, were driven to maintain themselves by their 
 swords ; the conquerors themselves had many adven- 
 turers amongst them, who preferred war, with the 
 prospect of fresh plunder, to a peaceful life in the 
 country which they had won ; and thus for more 
 than a century we read of numerous bands of Cam- 
 panian or Opican mercenaries, partly Samnite and 
 partly Oscan, employed in the wars of Sicily, as if 
 foreign service had been one of the principal re- 
 sources of the nation. It is mentioned that eight 
 hundred of them were engaged by the Chalcidian 
 Greeks of Cuma or Neapolis 24 , to serve in the 
 Athenian armament against Syracuse; but that, 
 arriving in Sicily after the destruction of the Athe- 
 nians, they were hired by the Carthaginians. 
 
 As a new people had thus arisen in Campania, so invasion of 
 
 the south of 
 
 new names and a new power had lately come into itaiy by the 
 
 Lucaniatis. 
 
 notice in the south of Italy. From Thurn to Khe- 
 gium, on the shore of the Ionian Sea, from Rhegium 
 to Posidonia, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, the numerous 
 Greek colonies which lined both coasts were settled 
 
 24 Diodorus, XIII. 44. 
 VOL. I. F f 
 
434 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, in a country known to the early Greek writers by 
 
 .A. .A.. 
 
 v ' the names of Italia and (Enotria 25 . The natives of 
 the interior, (Enotrians and Chonians, had for many 
 years past wanted either the will or the power to 
 offer serious annoyance to the Greeks; and when 
 Sybaris was destroyed by its neighbour city Croton, 
 the natives took no advantage of these internal 
 quarrels, and a new Greek colony, Thurii, arose in 
 the place of Sybaris without any opposition on their 
 part. But the latter part of the fifth century before 
 the Christian sera, in other words, the early part of 
 the fourth century of Rome, and the period of the 
 Peloponnesian war, was a time marked by natural 
 as well as political calamities beyond all remembered 
 example. The pestilences, which we have already 
 noticed as causing such havoc at Rome and through- 
 out Latium, travelled, we may be sure, into Samnium 
 also ; their visitations are often accompanied by un- 
 favourable seasons, which cause scarcity or famine ; 
 and the distress occasioned by one or both of these 
 scourges may have led to those movements amongst 
 the Samnites which at this period so greatly changed 
 the face of Italy. On one side, as we have seen, 
 they broke in upon the Opicans of the valley of the 
 Vulturnus and the country round Vesuvius ; on ano- 
 ther they overwhelmed the (Enotrians and Chonians :6 , 
 and spread themselves as far as the Ionian Sea. The 
 tribe or mixed multitude which moved on this ex- 
 pedition southwards, was afterwards known by the 
 
 K Aristotle, Politica, VII. 10. * Strabo, VI. 1. 2, 3. p. 253, 
 Herodotus, I. 167. 254. 
 
THE LUCANIANS. 435 
 
 name of Lucanians. It does not follow that they CHAP. 
 
 XX 
 
 were very numerous, far less are we to suppose that v v ' 
 they extirpated the older inhabitants; but as con- 
 querors they gave their name to the country, and till 
 they gradually became a settled people, they were 
 the terror of the Greek colonies. It is probable that 
 many of the (Eriotrians became barbarized by the 
 oppressions and example of their conquerors, and 
 that the whole population of the interior, known 
 under one common name of Lucanians, carried on a 
 restless plundering warfare against the Greek cities 
 on both coasts of the Peninsula. Posidonia fell 
 into their hands, and the Greek inhabitants, like 
 the Opicans of Capua, became a subject people in 
 their own city ; and so general was the terror excited 
 by the Lucanian inroads, that the Greeks formed 
 a league 27 amongst themselves for their mutual 
 defence, and if any city was backward in coming 
 to the rescue, when summoned to aid against the 
 Lucanians, its generals were to be put to death. 
 But whilst the barbarians were thus driving them 
 to the sea, another enemy drove them back from 
 the sea to the barbarians. Dionysius of Syracuse 
 had formed an alliance with the Lucanians, hoping, 
 with their aid, to obtain possession of the Greek 
 cities ; he repeatedly invaded Italy, destroyed Caulon 
 and Hipponium, and made himself master of Rhe- 
 gium. 
 
 When the Lucanians first became formidable to Character 
 
 of the 
 Lucanians. 
 
 Diodorus, XIV. 101. 
 F f 2 
 
436 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the Italian Greeks, they were stigmatized as a horde 
 .- ' of the lowest barbarians 28 , a mixed band of robbers, 
 swelled by fugitive slaves, and desperate adventurers 
 of every description. But when time had converted 
 the invaders and plunderers of (Enotria into its 
 regular inhabitants and masters, when the Lucanians 
 had an opportunity of displaying the better points 
 of their character, then the contrast between their 
 simple and severe manners, and the extreme profli- 
 gacy of the Greek colonies, could not fail to attract 
 attention. " The Lucanians," says Heraclides Ponti- 
 cus 29 , " are a hospitable and an upright people." And 
 another testimony 30 declares, that "amongst the Lu- 
 canians, extravagance and idleness are punishable 
 crimes ; and if any man lends money to a notorious 
 spendthrift, the law will not enable him to recover 
 it." We find similar praises bestowed by Scymnus 
 of Chios on the Illyrians, who a century before his 
 time had been infamous for their piracies. But 
 when a rude people have lost somewhat of their fero- 
 city, and have not yet acquired the vices of a later 
 stage of civilization, their character really exhibits 
 much that is noble and excellent, and both in its 
 good and bad points it so captivates the imagination, 
 that it has always been regarded by the writers of a 
 
 28 We Athenians, says Isocrates, of the fourth century before the 
 paov fj.fTa8i8oiJ.fv rots ySouAo/itVoi? Christian aera : he was a disciple of 
 ravTTjs TTJS fuyevfias r) Tpt/3aAAol Plato, Speusippus, and Aristotle. 
 Kai A.(VKavol rt)s aiiraiv 8va~yfvfias. See Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellen. 
 De Pace, 62. p. 169. Vol. III. Appendix XII. 
 
 29 De Politiis sive rehuspublicis. ^ Nicolas Damascenus, de mo- 
 Artie. " Lucam." Heraclides Pon- ribus gentium. Artie. " Lucani." 
 ticus flourished in the latter part He lived in the Augustan age. 
 
DIONYSIUS OF SYRACUSE. 437 
 
 more advanced state of society with an admiration 
 even beyond its merits. 
 
 The extreme south-eastern point, the heel of Italy, 
 was the country of the lapygians or Apulians, the 
 one being the Greek and the other the Latin form of 
 the same name 31 . They stretched round the lapygian 
 cape, and were to be found along the coast of the 
 Adriatic, as far as the headland of Garganus. But 
 neither these nor the Sabellian nations immediately 
 beyond them, nor the Umbrians who lived again still 
 further to the north-west, and joined the Etruscan 
 settlements on the shores of the Adriatic, were as 
 yet become famous in history. 
 
 There was, however, a movement beginning about interference 
 this period on the east of Italy, which threatened to of Syracuse 
 
 , , , . T^.. . in the affairs 
 
 lead to the most important consequences. Dionysms of south 
 of Syracuse, unsatisfied with his Sicilian dominion, 
 and looking to Greece itself as the most tempting 
 field of ambition to every Greek, was desirous of 
 getting a footing on the coast of Epirus, and of esta- 
 blishing a naval power in the Ionian Sea and the 
 Adriatic. Accordingly he entered into an alliance 
 with the Illyrians 32 , and, unless there is a confusion 
 between the two names, he occupied both the island 
 of Issa 33 , the modern Lissa, and the town of Lissus 3 * 
 
 31 See Niebuhr, Vol. I. p. 151. in which, after mentioning the 
 Ed. 1827. foundation of Lissus, it goes on, 
 
 32 Diodorus, XIV. 13. e' ravrr^s ovv 6pfj.a>fj.(vos Atovvaios 
 
 33 Scymmis Chius, V. 413. Scy- Kareo-KetWe i/ewpia, K. T. A. describ- 
 lax also calls Issa a Greek city. ing, in three lines, the great works 
 
 34 Diodorus, XV. 13, 14. It is of Dionysius at Syracuse, which 
 hard to account for the strange Diodorus had already mentioned 
 state of the actual text of Diodorus, at length in the preceding book, 
 
438 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, on the main land, a little to the north of Epidamnus, 
 
 .A J\. 
 
 v ' and kept a fleet regularly stationed at this latter 
 settlement, to uphold the reputation of his power. 
 But there is a statement in Pliny 35 and other writers, 
 that Ancona, Numana, and Adria, on the coast of 
 Italy, were also Sicilian settlements. Adria is ex- 
 pressly said to have been founded by Dionysius, and 
 his intercourse with these countries is further shown 
 by the fact that he was in the habit of importing 
 the Venetian horses 36 , as the best breed for racing ; 
 the great games of Greece being to him, as they had 
 been to Alcibiades, an object of peculiar interest and 
 ambition. Strabo also calls Ancona a Syracusan 
 colony 37 , but ascribes its foundation to some exiles 
 who fled from the tyrranny of Dionysius. That there 
 was a Greek population there, and that the Greek 
 
 and which have no intelligible con- ftafafAnp Aia-a-ov, but, as I should 
 nexion with the foundation of suppose, to Syracuse, such as it 
 Lissus. It is a curious specimen was when Dionysius first became 
 of the patchwork of so many of tyrant. Some mention of Syra- 
 the ancient histories ; for the whole cuse must have preceded the de- 
 passage, beginning at Hdpioi Kara ecription of the docks and walls, 
 riva xprjapov, and going down to and the expression, rfj TroXet, as 
 the end of the chapter, is taken at present the sentence is either 
 apparently from some account wholly ungramrnatical, or is mere 
 either of Paros, or of the Greek nonsense. Mitford really sup- 
 settlements in the western seas, poses that <?K ravrrjs refers to Lis- 
 where the writer having been led sus, and talks of the advantages 
 accidentally to mention Dionysirs, derived from this colony giving 
 (Tv^nrpa^avTos avrols Aiow&iov roii Dionysius the means of building 
 rvpdvvov, took the opportunity to docks, &c. at Syracuse ; an inter- 
 give a brief sketch of the greatness pretation equally at variance with 
 of so famous a man. But Dio- grammar and with history, 
 dorus must have left out some- 35 Hist. Natural. III. 13. Nu- 
 thing in the middle of the passage, mana a Siculis condita ; ab iis- 
 and joined the end with the be- dem colonia Ancona. Etymologic, 
 ginning with most extraordinary Magn. in 'A8pias. 
 carelessness; i< rav-njs never could 36 Strabo, V. 1. 4. p. 212. 
 have referred to TTJV iro\iv rfjv ovo- & V. 4. 2. p. 241. 
 
HIS RELATIONS WITH ITALY. 439 
 
 language was prevalent, is proved by its coins ; yet, CHAP. 
 on the other hand, Scylax, though he names Ancona, < ^ 
 does not call it a Greek city, a circumstance which 
 he rarely or never omits, when he is speaking of 
 Greek cities built on a foreign coast. The probability 
 is, that the death of Dionysius and the subsequent 
 decline of his power, left these remote colonies to 
 themselves ; that their communication with Greece 
 and Sicily was greatly checked by the growing 
 piracies of the Illyrians, and that they admitted, 
 either willingly or by necessity, an intermixture of 
 barbarian citizens from the surrounding nations, 
 which destroyed or greatly impaired their Greek 
 character. But it marks the power of Dionysius, 
 that at one and the same time he should have been 
 founding colonies on the coast of the Adriatic, and 
 that on the other side of Italy he should have been 
 master of the sea without opposition, insomuch that, 
 under pretence of restraining the piracies of the 
 Etruscans, he appeared with a fleet of sixty triremes 38 
 on the coast of Etruria, passed the mouth of the 
 Tiber almost within sight of Rome, landed on the 
 territory of Caere, defeated the inhabitants who came 
 out to resist him, sacked their sea- port of Pyrgi, 
 and carried off from the plunder of the temple of 
 Leucothea 39 , or Mater Matuta, a sum computed at 
 no less than a thousand talents. 
 
 38 Diodorus, XV. 14. Pseudo- iepov. Pseudo-Aristotle. "Leu- 
 Aristotle, (Econom. II. p. 1349. cothee Graecis, Matuta vocabere 
 Ed. Bekker. nostris." Ovid, Fasti, VI. 545. 
 
 39 "EXaftfV fK TOV TTjS AfVKodfdS 
 
440 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The mention of this eminent man leads me natu- 
 rally to Sicily, to take some notice of the heart and 
 root of that mighty dominion which spread out its 
 arms so widely and so vigorously. Besides, the Roman 
 history has hitherto presented us with nothing but 
 general pictures, or sketches rather, of the state of 
 the Commonwealth as a whole : individuals have been 
 as little prominent as the figures in a landscape ; 
 they have been too subordinate, and occupied too 
 small a space in the picture, to enable us to form any 
 distinct notion of their several features. But Diony- 
 sius out-topped by his personal renown the greatness 
 of the events in which he was an actor ; he stood far 
 above all his contemporaries, as the most remarkable 
 man in the western part of the civilized world. We 
 may be allowed then to overstep the limits of Italy, 
 and to consider the fortunes and character of a man 
 who was the ruler of Syracuse and of Sicily during 
 a period of nearly forty years in the middle of the 
 fourth century of Rome. 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 DIONYSIUS THE ELDER, TYRANT OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 HOTT\IOV SKiTTiWa (pavi epa>Tr)6fVTa, rivets V7roAa/i/3ai/ei 
 TOVS avBpas yc/ovevai KOL <rvv v<a roXfjLTjpoTaTovs, fmflv, rovs Trepl 'Aya- 
 6oK\fa KOI &.IOVIHTIOV Tovs 2tKeXto>raf. Kat TTfpi fifv r>v TOIOVTOIV avftpcbv 
 fls (Tvitrracriv ayeiv TOVS dvayivaHTKOiras . . . ical KadoXov Trpocmdfvai, rov 
 \6yov appo^fi. POLYBIUS, XV. 35. 
 
 THE history of colonies seldom offers the noblest CHAP. 
 
 XXI 
 
 specimens of national character. The Syracusan ^ --- 
 
 State of 
 
 people, made up in the course of a long alternation Syracuse 
 
 r before the 
 
 of tyrannies and factions, out of the most various tyranny of 
 
 Dionysius. 
 
 elements, had been bound together by no compre- 
 hensive code of laws, and from their very circum- 
 stances they could not find a substitute for such a 
 code in the authority of ancient and inherited rites of 
 religion, and of the manners and customs of their 
 fathers. 
 
 The richer citizens, who often possessed very large 
 fortunes, were always suspected, and probably not Diode*. 
 without reason, of aiming at making themselves 
 tyrants ; whilst the people, possessing actual power, 
 yet feeling that its tenure was precarious, were dis- 
 posed to be suspicious even beyond measure, and 
 
442 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, were prone to violence and cruelty. The Athenian 
 v v-^ J invasion, by obliging the Syracusans to fit out a great 
 naval force, had increased, as usual, the power of the 
 poorer classes ', who always formed the great mass of 
 the seamen in the Greek commonwealths : while on 
 the other hand, although Hermocrates, one of the 
 most eminent of the aristocratical leaders, had per- 
 sonally displayed great courage and ability, and al- 
 though the cavalry in which the richest citizens 
 served had always acquitted itself well, yet the heavy- 
 armed infantry, which contained the greatest propor- 
 tion of the upper classes, had gained little credit; 
 and the victory over the invaders had been won by 
 the seamen of Syracuse far more than by its soldiers. 
 Thus the popular party became greatly strengthened 
 by the issue of the invasion : Hermocrates and some 
 of his friends were banished 2 , while Diocles, the head 
 of the popular party, a man somewhat resembling the 
 tribune Rienzi, a sincere and stern reformer, but 
 whose zealous imagination conceived schemes beyond 
 his power to compass, endeavoured at once to give 
 to his countrymen 3 a pure democracy, and to establish 
 it on its only sure foundation, by building it upon a 
 comprehensive system of national law. 
 Code of of the details of this code we know nothing. 
 
 Diocles. 
 
 Diodorus ascribes to it the high merits of conciseness 
 and precision, and, while he speaks of it as severe, he 
 praises it for its discrimination in proportioning its 
 punishments to the magnitude of the crime. But 
 
 1 Aristotle, Politic. V. 4. Thucyclides, VIII. 85. 
 
 2 Xenoph. Hellenic. I. i. 27. 3 Diodorus, XIII. 31, 35. 
 
THE CODE OF DIOCLES. 443 
 
 its best praise is, that it continued to enjoy the re- CHAP. 
 
 -\.X 1 . 
 
 spect, not only of the Syracusans, but of other Sicilian v 
 states also, till the Roman law superseded it. This 
 was the law of Syracuse, and Diocles was the law- 
 giver ; while others, who in the time of Timoleon, 
 and again in the reign of Hiero, either added to it or 
 modified it, were called by no other title than ex- 
 pounders of the law 4 ; as if the only allowed object 
 for succeeding legislators was to ascertain the real 
 meaning of the code of Diocles, and not to alter it. 
 
 But democracy and law, when first introduced Efforts of 
 
 the aristo- 
 
 amongst a corrupt and turbulent people, require to cmticai 
 be fostered under the shelter of profound peace. a g ains t it; - 
 Unluckily for Diocles, his new constitution was born 
 to stormy times ; its promulgation was coincident 
 with the renewal of the Carthaginian invasions of 
 Sicily, after an interval of nearly a century. " War," 
 says Thucydides 5 , " makes men's tempers as hard as 
 their circumstances." The Syracusan government 
 was engaged in an arduous struggle ; the power of 
 its enemy was overwhelming, while every failure in 
 military operations bred an increase of suspicion and 
 disaffection at home. Then the aristocratical party 
 began, as they are wont to do, to use popular lan- 
 guage, in order to excite the passions of the multi- 
 tude, and thus make them the instruments of their 
 own ruin. They encouraged the cry of treason and 
 corruption against the generals of the Conimon- 
 
 TOV vofJ-oQerov. Dio- Trpos TO. irapovTa ras opyas row 
 dor XIII. 35. 7ro\\<ov ofj.oiol. 
 
 5 III. 82. B/ator BiddcrKaXos, KOI 
 
444 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, wealth ; and personal profligacy was united with party 
 
 J&JLJU 
 
 v v zeal. Hipparinus was a member of the aristocratical 
 party ; he was also a desperate man, because he had 
 ruined himself by his extravagance 6 ; both these 
 causes united made him anxious to overthrow the 
 popular government ; and looking about for a fit in- 
 strument to accomplish his purpose, he found and 
 brought forward Dionysius. 
 
 Early There must have been no ordinary promise of 
 
 character of ... ' . 
 
 character in Dionysius to lead to such a choice. He 
 was a young man under five-and-twenty 7 , not dis- 
 tinguished either for his birth or fortune, and his 
 personal condition was humble ; he was a clerk 8 in 
 some one of the departments of the public business. 
 But he had been a follower of Hermocrates, and had 
 accompanied him in his attempt to effect his return 
 from exile by force, and had been wounded 9 in the 
 conflict which took place on that occasion, and in 
 which Hermocrates was killed. He was brave, ac- 
 tive, and eloquent; the wealth 10 and influence of a 
 powerful party supported him, and he came forward 
 when men's minds were wrought up to the highest 
 pitch of alarm and irritation; for Agrigentum, after 
 a seven months' siege, had been taken and sacked 
 by the Carthaginians, and the fugitives who fled to 
 
 6 Aristotle, Politica, V. 6. gistrates for addressing the people 
 
 7 Cicero, Tusculan. Disputat. irregularly, Philistus, the historian, 
 V 20. a man of large property, paid the 
 
 8 Demosthenes, Leptines, prope fine for him, and told him to go 
 finem. on speaking as much as he pleased, 
 
 9 Diodorus, XIII. 75. and that as often as the magis- 
 
 10 It is said that at the begin- trates fined him, so often would he 
 ning of his career, when he was continue to discharge the fine for 
 fined, on one occasion, by the ma- him. Diodorus, XIII. 91. 
 
SUICIDE OF DIOCLES. 445 
 
 Syracuse for shelter, ascribed the loss of their city to CHAP. 
 the misconduct of the Syracusan generals, who had ,, 
 been sent to its relief, and had allowed it to fall 
 unprotected. 
 
 The popular party was no longer headed by Dio- Death of 
 cles. We do not know the exact time or occasion 
 of his death, but the circumstances attending it are 
 most remarkable. One of the laws of his code had 
 denounced the penalty of death against any man 
 who came into the market-place armed. This was 
 especially directed no doubt against the aristocratical 
 party, who were apt to resort to violence n , in order 
 to break up or intimidate the assemblies of the peo- 
 ple, or to revenge themselves on any of the more 
 obnoxious popular leaders. It happened that Diocles 
 had marched out of the city on an alarm of some 
 hostile inroad, perhaps that very attempt I2 of Her- 
 mocrates to get back to Syracuse by force, which 
 has been already noticed. But he was suddenly re- 
 called by the news that the enemy were in the citv, 
 
 / / / ' 
 
 and, armed as he was, he hastened back to meet 
 them, and found them already in possession of the 
 
 11 As the aristocrats at Corcyra of Syracuse, between the Athenian 
 broke into the council-house with expedition and the tyranny of Di- 
 daggers, and murdered the heads onysius, is exceedingly fragment- 
 of the popular party, to the num- ary, and observes no chronological 
 her of about sixty, partly to escape order. It may be, then, that Di- 
 from the payment of a fine which ocles had been recalled previously 
 they had lawfully incurred, and to the final attempt of Hermo- 
 partly to prevent the passing of a crates ; at least the circumstances 
 decree for an alliance with Athens, of that attempt, and of the affray 
 Thucyd. III. 70. which led to the death of Diocles, 
 
 12 It is true, that according bear a remarkable resemblance to 
 to Diodorus, Diocles had been each other. See Diodorus, XIII. 
 banished some time before [XIII. 33 and 75. 
 
 75] ; but his account of the affairs 
 
446 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, market-place. A private citizen, most probably after 
 v / j the fray was over, when the death of so eminent a 
 citizen as Hermocrates would be deeply felt, even by 
 many of his political adversaries, called out to Dio- 
 cles, in allusion to his having appeared in arms in 
 the market-place, "Ah, Diocles, thou art making 
 void thine own laws !" " Nay rather," was his reply, 
 " I will ratify them thus ; " and he instantly stabbed 
 himself to the heart. Such a spirit, so sincere, and 
 so self-devoted, might well have been the founder of 
 freedom and of legal order for his country, and saved 
 her, had his life been prolonged, from the selfish am- 
 bition of Dionysius. 
 Restoration His place at the head of the government was sup- 
 
 ofthearisto- A 
 
 craticai plied, inadequately as it appears, by Daphnseus and 
 Demarchus 13 . Dionysius played the demagogue ably; 
 inveighing against the incapacity of the generals, re- 
 presenting them as men of overweening influence 14 , 
 and urging that the people would do well to choose, 
 in their place, men of humbler means, whom they 
 would be able more effectually to control. Accord- 
 ingly the assembly deposed their actual generals, and 
 elected others in their room, and amongst these was 
 Dionysius. Thus far successful, he ventured on a 
 
 13 Diodorus, XIII. 96. Daph- Peloponnesians, on the coast of 
 
 naBus had commanded the Syra- Asia Minor, against the Athenians. 
 
 cusan troops which had been sent Thucyd. VIII. 85. 
 
 ineffectually to the relief of Agri- 14 Diodorus, XIII. 91. Aristotle, 
 
 gentum. Diodorus, XIII. 86 De- Politica, V. 5. Aiovvaios KarrjyopSnv 
 
 marchus was one of the generals faxfrvaiov KOI TO>J> 7r\ov<ria)v f)gid)()r) 
 
 sent to supersede Hermocrates in rfjs rvpavvidos, 8ia TTJV '<iy6pav TTIO-- 
 
 the command of the auxiliary force rtvBfls a>s 
 which was co-operating with the 
 
ARISTOCRATICAL EXILES RECALLED. 447 
 
 more decisive measure, a general recall of exiled CHAP. 
 citizens 15 . It should be remembered, that in the ' - ' 
 continual struggles between the aristocratical and 
 popular parties throughout Greece, the triumph of 
 one side was accompanied by the banishment of the 
 most forward supporters of the other. Every state 
 had thus always its exiles, like ihe fuorusciti of the 
 Italian republics, whose absence 16 was essential to 
 the maintenance of the existing order of things, and 
 whose recall was equivalent to a revolution. The 
 Syracusan exiles were the youth of the aristocratical 
 party, the friends and comrades of Hermocrates, bold 
 and enterprising, proud and licentious, the counter- 
 parts of Kseso Quinctius and of the supporters of the 
 decemvir Appius; men whose natural hatred and 
 scorn of the popular party was embittered by the re- 
 collection of their exile. An obdurate spirit is not 
 the vice of a democracy ; the kindly feelings of the 
 people, their sympathies with youth and high birth, 
 their hopes and their fears were alike appealed to; 
 the tide was already setting towards aristocracy : 
 the assembly decreed a general recall of the exiles, 
 and the revolution from that moment became in- 
 evitable. 
 
 The overthrow of the constitution of Diocles and Dionysius 
 
 <> i i i * appointed 
 
 or the popular party was sure : but it was owing to captain- 
 
 f i /-N i IT general of 
 
 the terror or the Carthaginian arms, and the per- the Com- 
 
 i i* T\' t monwealth. 
 
 sonal ascendancy or Dionysius, that there was set up 
 
 15 Diodorus, XIII. 92. " that he would not recall those 
 
 16 Thus it was one of the clauses citizens who were in exile." De- 
 in the oath taken by every member mosthenes, Timocrates, p. 746. 
 
 of the court of Helisea, at Athens, 
 
448 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, in its place the despotism of a single man, instead of 
 v-^ ' an aristocracy. Dionysius continued to attack his 
 colleagues 17 , no less than the generals who had pre- 
 ceded them : " they were selling Syracuse to the Car- 
 thaginians," he said; "they were withholding the 
 soldiers' pay, and appropriating the public money to 
 themselves ; he could not endure to act with such 
 associates, and was resolved therefore to lay down 
 his office." A dictatorship is the most natural govern- 
 ment for seasons of extraordinary peril, when there 
 appears a man fit to wield it. The terror of the 
 coalition drove the French, amidst the full freshness 
 of their enthusiasm for liberty, to submit to the des- 
 potism of the Committee of Public Safety ; and Dio- 
 nysius, bowing all minds to his ascendancy by the 
 mighty charm of superior genius, was elected sove- 
 reign commander of the Commonwealth 18 . It is said 
 that Hipparinus, who first brought him forward, was 
 appointed as his nominal colleague ; with as much 
 
 17 Diodorus, XIII. 94. Hermocrates urged that their ge- 
 
 18 SrpaTTjyos avroKparoop. It is nerals also should be invested with 
 not to be supposed that this title these full powers, and that the 
 conferred that unconstitutional and people should take the oath which 
 absolute power which the Greeks in fact conveyed them, namely, 
 called " tyranny." It implied " that they would let their gene- 
 merely an unrestricted power of rals exercise their command at 
 conducting the operations of the their discretion." See Thucydides, 
 war, and released the general from VI. 26. 72. But as the perpetual 
 the necessity of consulting the dictatorship at Rome was equiva- 
 government at home as to his lent to a tyranny, so Dionysius, 
 measures, and of communicating by retaining h.s command for an 
 his plans to them. It was the title unlimited time, and abusing the 
 conferred on Nicias and his col- military power which it gave him 
 leagues by the Athenians, when for purposes wholly foreign to its 
 they sent their great expedition to proper objects, did in fact convert 
 Sicily ; and after the Syracusans it into a political despotism. 
 
 had sustained their first defeat, 
 
GENERAL POLICY OF DIONYSIUS. 449 
 
 of real equality of power as was enjoyed by Lebrun CHAP. 
 and Cambaceres when they were elected consuls v 
 along with Napoleon. 
 
 From this time forward Dionysius retained the Length of 
 
 his reign. 
 
 supreme power in Syracuse till his death, a period of 
 nearly forty years. When he first assumed the govern- 
 ment, the Peloponnesian war was not yet ended : 
 and one of his latest measures was to send aid to his 
 allies the Lacedaemonians, when Sparta itself was 
 threatened with conquest by the army of the Theban 
 confederacy, headed by Epaminondas. In the course 
 of this long reign he had to contend more than once 
 with domestic enemies, and was always more or less 
 engaged in hostility with Carthage. The first he 
 crushed, and from the last, although reduced on one 
 occasion to the extremest jeopardy, he came forth at 
 last triumphant. Without entering into a regular 
 account of his life and actions, it will be enough to 
 take a general view of his government in some of its 
 most important relations at home and abroad. 
 
 Dionysius owed his elevation, as we have seen, to internal 
 
 . . -i affairs. 
 
 the ascendancy of his own genius acting upon minds state of 
 
 . . T parties. 
 
 agitated by suspicion of their own government, and 
 by intense fear of the progress of the Carthaginians. 
 The recall of the exiles gave him a number of de- 
 voted partisans, and the war led to the employment 
 of a large body of mercenary soldiers, who both from 
 inclination and interest would be disposed to sup- 
 port an able and active general. These remained 
 faithful to him 19 , when his ill success against the 
 
 19 Diodorus, XIII. 112, 113. 
 VOL. I. G g 
 
450 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Carthaginians, in the very first year of his govern- 
 ' ment, had shaken his popularity amongst the Syra- 
 cusans, and encouraged them to attempt an insur- 
 rection. Nor was it the old popular party to whom 
 he was most obnoxious, but the citizens of the richer 
 classes, who as they would have rejoiced in the over- 
 throw of the democracy, so were no way pleased to 
 see it succeeded by the despotism of a single man, 
 under which they were sure to be the greatest suf- 
 ferers. And partly perhaps from this very reason 
 the poorer classes began to be better affected to his 
 government, and he showed a desire to win their 
 attachment. The knights, or richest class, fled from 
 Syracuse in great numbers, or were banished, or put 
 to death 20 ; a great mass of landed property was thus 
 placed at his disposal ; and there was besides, as in 
 every state of the ancient world, a considerable 
 amount also of public land, of which wealthy indi- 
 viduals had ordinarily a beneficial occupation. With 
 all these means in his power, he put in practice the 
 two grand expedients of revolutionary leaders, a large 
 admission of new citizens, and a division of the public 
 and confiscated land amongst them. The new citi- 
 zens were many of them enfranchised slaves, to whom 
 he assigned houses in Syracuse, as well as portions of 
 land in the country. Thus the state of parties had 
 assumed a new form ; the better part of both the old 
 aristocratical and popular interests were drawn to- 
 gether by their common danger, while Dionysius 
 
 20 Diodorus, XIII. 113. XIV. 7. 
 
INSURRECTION AGAINST DIONYSIUS. 451 
 
 was supported by a few individuals of the richest CHAP. 
 class who shared in the advantages of the tyranny, v *r -> 
 by the mercenary soldiers, and by the lowest portion 
 of the whole population, who owed to him their 
 political existence. 
 
 Accordingly, as the knights had shown their hos- Fruitless 
 
 ... . . attempt to 
 
 tility to his government, so also did that large body overthrow 
 of citizens of the middle classes, who in the ancient Dionysms. 
 commonwealths composed the heavy-armed infantry. 
 When Dionysius led them into the field to make 
 war against the Sikelians, (the old inhabitants of 
 Sicily, whom the Greek colonies had driven from 
 the coast into the interipr of the island,) they openly 
 rose against his authority 21 , and invited the exiled 
 knights to join them. This was one of the greatest 
 dangers of his life ; he fled to Syracuse and was 
 there besieged, but the strength of the walls pro- 
 tracted the siege, and time led to divisions and 
 quarrels amongst the besiegers. Meantime Diony- 
 sius engaged the services of a body of those Campa- 
 nian mercenaries 22 , whose reputation for valour was 
 so high at this period in Sicily, and by their aid he 
 defeated his antagonists. But wishing to break 
 effectually so formidable a combination, he offered an 
 amnesty 23 to all who would return and live quietly 
 in Syracuse ; and finding that few only of the exiled 
 knights accepted this offer, and feeling that the class 
 of heavy-armed citizens was no less hostile to him, 
 he took advantage of the ensuing harvest, when the 
 
 21 Diodorus, XIV. 7. - 3 Diodorus, XIV. 9. 
 
 22 Diodorus, XIV. 8. 
 
 Gg2 
 
452 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, citizens were engaged in getting in their corn in the 
 
 .A. .A. 1. 
 
 v v ' country, and sent parties of soldiers 24 to their houses 
 
 in Syracuse to carry off their arms. After this he 
 began to increase his navy, the seamen being now 
 the class of citizens on whom he could most rely, and 
 further strengthened himself by raising an additional 
 force of mercenaries. 
 
 Causes of From this time till his death, a period of nearly 
 
 the perma- 
 nence of his thirty-seven years, the government of Dionysius met 
 
 government. 
 
 with no further disturbance from any domestic ene- 
 mies. Eight years afterwards, indeed, when the great 
 Carthaginian armament under Imilcon was besieg- 
 ing Syracuse, an attempt was made 25 by some of 
 the knights to excite the people against him, and 
 Theodorus is said to have attacked him in the public 
 assembly as the author of all the calamities of his 
 country. But the influence of the commander of a 
 Lacedaemonian auxiliary force 2C then at Syracuse was 
 exerted strongly in his favour ; his own mercenaries 
 were formidable ; and in a season of such imminent 
 danger from a foreign enemy, many even of those who 
 disliked his government would think it inexpedient 
 to molest it. On this occasion he tried all means to 
 win popularity, mixing familiarly with the poorer citi- 
 zens, gratifying some by presents, and admitting others 
 to those common tables or messes of the soldiers, 
 
 24 Diodorus, XIV. 10. This is TTOIOVVTCII rS>v orrXctv (scil. of TV- 
 
 the irapaipfo-is ra>v oTrXcoc, the dis- pavvoi), says Aristotle, implying 
 
 arming of those classes which usu- that it was their ordinary manner 
 
 ally possessed arms, one of the of proceeding. Politica, V. 10. 
 
 most well-known expedients of 25 Diodorus, XIV. 64, 65. 
 
 the Greek tyrants to ohtain or to 26 Diodorus, XIV. 70. 
 secure their power. T^i> irapaipeo-tv 
 
MEANS BY WHICH HE MAINTAINED HIS POWER. 453 
 
 which were kept up at the public expense 27 . But CHAP. 
 
 the permanent security of his dominion rested on ' -. ' 
 
 his mercenary troops, who were ever ready to crush 
 the beginnings of a tumult, on his own suspicious 
 vigilance, on the ascendancy of his firm and active 
 character, and on the mutual jealousies and common 
 weakness of the old aristocratical and popular 
 parties, among whom there seems to have been 
 no eminent man capable of opposing so able a 
 tyrant as Dionysius. It should be remembered 
 that the far weaker government of the second Di- 
 onysius was only overthrown, in the first instance, 
 by the defection of a member of his own family ; and 
 when he was expelled the second time, the Syracu- 
 sans could find no competent leader amongst them- 
 selves ; they were obliged to invite Timoleon from 
 Corinth. 
 
 All the ancient writers without exception call His govern- 
 ment was a 
 
 tyranny. 
 
 27 Diodorus, XIV. 70. Tivas 8e and especially with a view to their 
 
 eVi TO. avcrcrLTia irapeKa^ave . That becoming more confident in each 
 
 this institution of syssitia, or com- other, so that in the day of battle 
 
 mon tables, was not peculiar to the they might stand more firmly to- 
 
 Lacedaemonians, is well known, gether, and abide by one another 
 
 It was practised at Carthage, and to the death. With Dionysius, 
 
 even its first origin was ascribed these common tables would be 
 
 not to any Greek people, but to confined to his guards, or to such 
 
 the CEnotrians of the south of of the soldiers as he could most 
 
 Italy. See Aristotle, Politic. II. rely on : they would be maintained 
 
 11. VII. 10. Aristotle blames the at his expense, and would be used 
 
 Lacedaemonians for altering the as a means of keeping up a high 
 
 character of the institution by and exclusive feeling amongst 
 
 making each individual contribute their members, as belonging to a 
 
 his portion, instead of causing the sort of privileged order. And thus 
 
 whole expense to be defrayed by the offer of admission to such a 
 
 the public. The object of the society would be an effectual bribe 
 
 common tables was to promote to many, as being at once a benefit 
 
 a social and brotherly feeling and a distinction, 
 amongst those who met at them ; 
 
454 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the government of Dionysius a tyranny 28 . This, as is 
 v ' well known, was with them no vague and disputable 
 term, resting on party impressions of character, and 
 thus liable to be bestowed or denied according to 
 the political opinions of the speaker or writer. It 
 describes a particular kind of government, the merits 
 of which might be differently estimated, but the fact 
 of its existence admitted of no dispute. Dionysius 
 was not a king, because hereditary monarchy was 
 not the constitution of Syracuse ; he was not the 
 head of the aristocratical party, enjoying supreme 
 power, inasmuch as they were in possession of the 
 government, and he was their most distinguished 
 member; on the contrary, the richer classes were 
 opposed to him, and he found his safety in banishing 
 them in a mass, and confiscating their property. 
 Nor was he the leader of a democracy, like Pericles 
 and Demosthenes, all-powerful inasmuch as the free 
 love and admiration of the people made his will 
 theirs ; for what democrat! cal leader ever surrounded 
 himself with foreign mercenaries, or fixed his resi- 
 dence in the citadel 29 , or kept up in his style of 
 
 28 Even Xenophon calls him " the first Dionysius." The of- 
 " Dionysius the tyrant." (Hel- fensive appellation was not to be 
 lenic. II. 2. 24.) It is remark- bestowed on the ally of Lacedaemon 
 able, however, and confirms Nie- and Agesilaus. 
 buhr's opinion that the Hellenics 29 Mitford's mistake in sup- 
 contain two distinct works, and posing that the island at Syracuse 
 that the five last books were writ- was not the citadel ; and arguing 
 ten many years later than the two that Dionysius was not a tyrant, 
 first, when Xenophon's feelings because he resided amongst the 
 were become more completely aris- " nautic multitude," and not on 
 tocratical or anti-popular, that in the heights of Epipolse, which 
 the latter books Dionysius is not Mitford imagines to have been the 
 called tyrant, but is spoken of citadel, will be shown in a subse- 
 simply as " Dionysius," or as quent note. 
 
HIS GOVERNMENT WAS PROPERLY A TYRANNY. 455 
 
 living and in the society which surrounded him the CHAP. 
 state and luxury of a king's court ? He was not an v 
 hereditary constitutional king, nor the leader of one 
 of the great divisions of the Commonwealth : but he 
 had gained sovereign power by fraud, and main- 
 tained it by force : he represented no party, he 
 sought to uphold no ascendancy but that of his own 
 individual self; and standing thus apart from the 
 sympathies of his countrymen, his objects were es- 
 sentially selfish, his own safety, his own enjoyments, 
 his own power, and his own glory. Feeling that he 
 had no right to be where he was, he was full of 
 suspicion and jealousy, and oppressed his subjects 
 with taxes at once heavy and capriciously levied, not 
 only that he might enrich himself, but that he might 
 impoverish and weaken them. A government carried 
 on thus manifestly for the good of one single governor, 
 with an end of such unmixed selfishness, and resting 
 mainly upon the fear, not the love of its people, 
 with whatever brilliant qualities it might happen to 
 be gilded, and however free it might be from acts of 
 atrocious cruelty, was yet called by the Greeks a 
 tyranny. 
 
 It was no part of the policy of such tyrants to en- His taxes 
 
 J . , , and spoli- 
 
 courage trade or agriculture, that their own wealth 
 might be the legitimate fruit of the general wealth 
 of their people. On the contrary, their financial 
 expedients were no other than blind and brute 
 exactions, which satisfied their immediate wants ; it 
 mattered not at what cost of future embarrassment. 
 
456 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Aristotle names Dionysius' government 30 , as exem- 
 v ' plifying the tyrant's policy of impoverishing his peo- 
 ple by an excessive taxation. The direct taxes were 
 at one time so heavy 31 , that it was computed that in 
 the course of five years they equalled the entire yearly 
 value of the property on which they were levied : 
 then there was the old fraud of debasing the coin ?2 , 
 the oppression of forced loans, which he paid in a 
 depreciated currency, direct robbery of his people 
 under the pretence of ornamenting the temples of 
 the gods, and an unscrupulous sacrilege, which ap- 
 
 30 Politics, V. 11. 
 
 31 Aristotle's expression is, ev 
 jrfiTf yap erffriv eiri Aiovi><n.ov Tt\v 
 oixriav aTrafrav i(rfVT]vo^evai crvv- 
 efiaive. This can only mean, I 
 suppose, one of two things : either, 
 as I have explained it in the text, 
 that Dionysius imposed a property 
 tax of twenty per cent., so that in 
 five years a man might be said to 
 have paid taxes to the amount of 
 his whole income, or else that a 
 man's property was valued much 
 be ow its real worth ; so that 
 twenty per cent, on the rated 
 amount of his property, not of his 
 income merely, would be very 
 much less than a fifth part of 
 what he really possessed. It might 
 thus be possible that a man might 
 have paid in five years a sum 
 equal to the rated amount of his 
 whole property ; but that he should 
 literally have paid a sum equal to 
 his whole real property seems to 
 me an absurdity. To notice no 
 other objections, was it ever known 
 that the money in any country 
 bore such a proportion to the 
 value of the property in it as to 
 
 render it possible in five years to 
 convert all property into cash ? 
 For the rest, the period of five 
 years here mentioned is remark- 
 able, as it seems to indicate that 
 the official valuation of property at 
 Syracuse, as at Rome, took place 
 every five years. 
 
 32 This, and the following in- 
 stance of Dionysius' exactions, are 
 taken from the second chapter of 
 the second book of the CEconomica, 
 commonly ascribed to Aristotle. 
 This chapter, however, is clearly 
 not Aristotle's, but as Niebuhr 
 has shown (Kleine Historische 
 Schriften, p. 412), must have been 
 a later work, written in Asia Mi- 
 nor, and is a collection of all sorts 
 of financial tricks and extortions, 
 which are recommended to the 
 imitation of the satraps and officers 
 of the monarchies of Alexander's 
 successors. And whoever reads 
 the whole of the collection will find 
 no reason to doubt the truth of 
 the stories about Dionysius, as 
 being unprecedented or unworthy 
 of him. 
 
HIS PUBLIC WORKS AT SYRACUSE. 457 
 
 propriated the very offerings to the gods, so made, to CHAP. 
 his own individual uses. With such a system, it is ' t ' 
 not wonderful that plunder should have been one of 
 his favourite resources. The sale of prisoners taken 
 in war, one of the most important of the ways and 
 means of the first Caesar, was so much a matter of 
 ordinary usage in the ancient world, that it brought 
 no peculiar obloquy on Dionysius. But the sack of 
 the wealthy temple of the Mater Matuta on the 
 Etruscan coast, was considered as little better than 
 piracy 33 , and it was reported that his settlement at 
 Lissus, on the coast of Epirus, was mainly intended 
 to further his design of plundering the very temple 
 of Apollo at Delphi 3t . We read of his colonies up 
 the Adriatic ; but the only notice of any commerce 
 carried on with those countries, mentions merely 
 the importation of horses 35 from the country of the 
 Veneti, in order that they might run in the chariots 
 of Dionysius at the great games of Greece and of 
 Sicily. 
 
 Every strong and able government, however op- He fortifies 
 
 . -,. t and enlarges 
 
 pressive, is yet sure to accomplish some works at Syracuse. 
 once magnificent and useful ; and thus the extended 
 walls of Syracuse, which included the whole slope of 
 Epipolse to its summit, in addition to the older city 
 which the Athenians had besieged, were the work of 
 Dionysius. These were built 3G under the terror of a 
 
 33 Diodorus, XV. 14. Strabo p 226. 
 
 calls it the temple of Ilithyia, or 34 Diodorus, XV. 13. 
 
 Lucina; and adds, that Dionysius 35 Strabo, V. 1. 4. p. 212. 
 
 plundered it in the course of an 36 Diodorus, XIV. 18. 41, 42. 
 expedition to Corsica. V. 2. 8. 
 
458 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Carthaginian invasion ; and his docks for two hun- 
 
 XXI 
 
 v v ' dred ships, or, according to other accounts, for a far 
 
 greater number, were constructed at once for defen- 
 sive and offensive war against the same enemy. His 
 works in the island of Ortygia had an object more 
 directly selfish. This oldest and strongest part of 
 the city of Syracuse, which had originally consti- 
 tuted the whole city, was now, since the town had 
 spread over the adjacent parts of the main land of 
 Sicily, come to be regarded as the citadel. Here 
 Dionysius fixed his residence 37 , and built a strong 
 wall to cut off its communication with the rest of 
 Syracuse; he also appropriated it exclusively to his 
 own friends and his mercenary soldiers, allowing no 
 other Syracusan to live in it. For the same reasons 
 under the Roman government, the island was the 
 residence of the Roman praetor and his officers 38 , 
 and the Syracusans were still forbidden to in- 
 habit it. 
 
 II.FOREIGN Dionysius had owed his elevation to the terror 
 
 AFFAIRS. 
 
 Carthage* 1 ms pi re d ty the arms of Carthage; and the great 
 and the ita- serv j ce w hich he rendered to Greece and to the 
 
 lian Greeks. 
 
 world, was his successful resistance to the Car- 
 
 37 Diodorus, XIV. 7. Those of security, and although its walls 
 who understand the nature of the were washed by both harbours, yet 
 Greek citadels, that they always we may be sure that it was at no 
 contained the temples of the pe- time the residence of the poorest 
 culiar gods of the people, and classes, such as composed the sea- 
 therefore were always the oldest men of the state, but was appro- 
 part of the city, will understand priated to the oldest and wealth- 
 thai Epipolae could not have been, iest families, 
 according to Greek notions, the ^ Cicero, Verres, V. 32. He 
 citadel of Syracuse. On the other calls the island, " Locus quern vel 
 hand, the strength of the island of pauci possint defendere." 
 Ortygia well fitted it for purposes 
 
WARS WITH CARTHAGE. 459 
 
 thaginian power, and opposing a barrier to their CHAP. 
 conquest of Sicily. The very difficulty of his task, * ,,__ > 
 and the varied fortune of his wars, show plainly that 
 had Syracuse been under a less powerful govern- 
 ment, it must have shared the fate of Selinus and of 
 Agrigentum. We do not know the causes which seem 
 to have roused the Carthaginians to such vigorous 
 activity against the Sicilian Greeks, immediately 
 after the destruction of the Athenian armament. 
 Had that great expedition been successful at Syra- 
 cuse, it was designed to attempt the conquest of the 
 Carthaginian dominions ;;9 and even of Carthage it- 
 self; and the Carthaginians are represented by Her- 
 mocrates 40 , as living in constant dread of the power 
 and ambition of Athens. Yet four or five years after- 
 wards we find them sending out to Sicily so large a 
 force, that they might well have defied the hostility 
 of the Athenians ; and the conquest of Selinus, 
 Himera, and Agrigentum, proved to the Syracusans 
 that they were again incurring the danger, from 
 which they had been delivered about eighty years 
 before by Gelon's great victory of Himera. 
 
 In his first attempts to check the progress of the First treaty 
 
 ofDionysius 
 
 Carthaginians, Dionysius was unsuccessful. He was wth 
 
 * . Carthage. 
 
 glad to conclude a peace with them, by which they 
 were to retain possession of their own colonies, 
 and of the Sicanian tribes in the west of Sicily. The 
 survivors 41 of the people whom they had recently 
 
 39 So Alcibiades told the Spar- dboros, ws St 
 tans; Thucyd. VI. 90, and added, * Thucyd. VI. 34. 
 roiavra fjifv irapa TOV aKpi^ecrrara 41 Diodorus, XIII. 114. 
 
460 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, conquered, of Himera, Selinus, and Agrigentum ; as 
 ' v also the inhabitants of Gela and Camarina, who had 
 abandoned their homes during the war, and had fled 
 first to Syracuse, and afterwards to Leontini, might 
 now, it was stipulated, return to their own countries 
 and live in peace ; but they were to pay a tribute to 
 the Carthaginians, and were to live only in open 
 villages, their cities were to remain dismantled and 
 desolate. In the east of the island, Messana, Leontini, 
 and all the Sikelian tribes were to be independent ; 
 these last were the old enemies of the Syracusans, 
 and the Carthaginians naturally, therefore, made this 
 stipulation in their favour. Thus Dionysius was left 
 master of Syracuse alone ; stripped of its dominion 
 over the Sikelians, stripped of its old allies, the 
 other Dorian cities of Sicily; while the dominion 
 of Carthage, which a few years before had been 
 confined to three settlements at the western corner 
 of the island, was now advanced almost to the east- 
 ern coast, and by means of the Sikelian tribes, whose 
 independence had been just secured, it hemmed in 
 and in a manner overhung, the scanty territory which 
 was still left to Syracuse. 
 
 He prepares This treaty was concluded in the last year of the 
 Peloponnesian war, according to the chronology of 
 Diodorus. It was virtually no more than a truce, 
 delaying the decision of the quarrel between the two 
 contracting parties, till one of them should be in a 
 better condition to resume it. Dionysius had been 
 crippled by his military disasters, and the Carthagi- 
 nians were suffering from a pestilence which was at 
 
PREPARATIONS OF DIONYSIUS. 461 
 
 this time fatally raging in Africa. No sooner then CHAP. 
 
 was the peace concluded, than Dionysius began to v /-^ ' 
 
 undo its work. It had declared the Sikelian tribes 
 independent ; he found, or made a pretence for at- 
 tacking them 42 : it had stipulated for the indepen- 
 dence of Leontini ; he compelled the inhabitants to 
 leave their city 43 , and to come and dwell as citizens 
 in Syracuse. He also destroyed the Chalcidian cities 
 of Naxos and Catana 44 , and sold their inhabitants 
 for slaves. He cultivated the friendship of Messana, 
 Rhegium 45 , and the Greek towns of Italy ; with Lo- 
 cri in particular he established a right of intermar- 
 riage, and he availed himself of it to take a Locrian 
 lady as his own wife. He was busy in making arms 
 and artillery 4G for the use of his armies, and in build- 
 ing ships, and arsenals to receive and tit them out 
 becomingly. And after all his preparations were com- 
 pleted, finding that the pestilence was still raging 
 in Africa 47 , he determined to declare w T ar against 
 Carthage. This was in the fourth year of the ninety- 
 fifth Olympiad, about eight years after the conclusion 
 of the last treaty. 
 
 Dionysius had chosen his own time ; the plague He suddenly 
 had weakened the Carthaginians, and the declaration on the Car- 
 
 , thaginians 
 
 of war against them, unexpected as it was, was pre- and lays 
 ceded by a general plundering of their property 48 , 
 and a massacre of their citizens in all the Greek 
 
 42 Diodorus, XIV. 7. 14. Diodorus, XIV. 41. 
 Diodorus, XIV. 15. 47 Diodorus, XIV. 45. 
 41 Diodorus, XIV. 15. 48 Diodorus, XIV. 46. 
 
 43 Diodorus, XIV. 44. 
 
462 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, cities of Sicily. Dionysius marched immediately to- 
 ,,_L^ wards the Carthaginian territories ; the forces of the 
 several Greek cities joined him as he advanced ; and 
 he laid siege to the city and island of Motya 9 , one 
 of the three settlements which Carthage possessed 
 in Sicily 50 before her conquest of Selinus. Motya 
 was one of a group of small islands which lie off the 
 western coast of Sicily, immediately to the north of 
 Marsala or Lilybaeum. It is about a mile and a half 
 in circumference 51 , and about three quarters of a mile 
 from the main land, with which it was connected by 
 a narrow artificial causeway. Like Tyre and Aradus 
 in point of situation, it was like them flourishing and 
 populous: and its inhabitants, being themselves of 
 Phrenician blood, were zealous in their resistance to 
 the Greek invader. Attacked by an overwhelming 
 force s2 , and seeing their walls breached, and their 
 ramparts swept, by engines and an artillery such as 
 had never before been equalled, they did not yield 
 even when the enemy had forced his way into their 
 city, but availed themselves of their narrow streets 
 and lofty houses to dispute every inch of his progress. 
 The Greeks then brought up their moveable towers, 
 which had been built to match the height of the 
 houses, and from these they threw out bridges to the 
 roofs, and thus endeavoured to board the enemy. 
 Day after day this bloody struggle continued ; the 
 Greek trumpets regularly sounding a retreat when 
 
 49 Diodorus, XIV. 47. on Sicily. 
 
 60 Thucydides, VI. 2. Diodorus, XIV. 4853. 
 
 " See Captain Smyth's Memoir 
 
SIEGE OF MOTYA. 463 
 
 night fell, and calling off their combatants; till at CHAP. 
 
 \ \ 1. 
 
 length Dionysius turned this practice to his account, v - 
 and as soon as the trumpets sounded as usual, and 
 the Phoenicians supposed that the contest was at an 
 end till the next day, he sent in a party of picked 
 men, who, before the enemy suspected their design, 
 had established themselves in a commanding situ- 
 ation from which they could not be dislodged again. 
 Then the whole Greek army poured into the town by 
 the moles or dykes which they had thrown across 
 from the main land to the shore of Motya, and the 
 place was taken by storm. Neither age nor sex were 
 spared by the conquerors ; a few only of the inhabit- 
 ants saved their lives by running to the temples of 
 those gods whom the Greeks honoured in common 
 with the Carthaginians, and these were afterwards 
 sold for slaves. The whole plunder of the town was 
 given to the victorious soldiers. 
 
 While the siege of Motya was ffoinsr on, Dionysius Dionysius 
 
 _ , /,. y , attacks th 
 
 had employed a portion ot his army in endeavouring Sicilian 
 to reduce the remaining colonies or allies of Car- Carthage. 
 thage. The Sicanian tribes 54 , who were the princi- 
 pal inhabitants of the interior in the west of Sicily, 
 submitted without opposition. But five places held 
 out resolutely : Soloeis and Panormus, both of them, 
 as well as Motya, Phoenician settlements; Egesta, 
 whose quarrel with Selinus first brought the Athe- 
 nians into Sicily, and afterwards the Carthaginians ; 
 Entella, and Halicyse. It was in vain that Dionysius 
 
 54 Diodorus, XIV. 4854. 
 
464 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, ravaged their lands, destroyed their fruit trees, and 
 ' attacked their towns ; they remained unmoved in 
 their fidelity : and even after the fall of Motya, when 
 the Greek power seemed so irresistible that the peo- 
 ple of Halicyae then at last submitted to it, yet the 
 other four still held out ; and when Dionysius again 
 ventured to besiege Egesta, the inhabitants sallied by 
 night and set fire to his camp, and obliged him to 
 abandon his enterprise with loss. 
 
 Great CM- Here ended the circle of Dionysius' glory. The 
 expedition Carthaginians 55 , provoked by the suddenness of his 
 lcly ' attack, by his having taken advantage of their dis- 
 tressed condition, and by the inveteracy w r ith which 
 the Greeks were pursuing all of their name and race, 
 were roused to extraordinary exertion. An im- 
 mense army was raised of Africans and Spaniards ; 
 but the Gauls, so constantly employed in the Punic 
 wars, had not yet crossed the Alps, or become known 
 to the civilized nations of the south; so that there 
 were none of them in the armament now collected 
 for the invasion of Sicily. As it was, however, the 
 Carthaginian force was estimated by Timaeus at 
 100,000 men, and it was commanded by Imilcon, the 
 supreme military chief of the Commonwealth. The 
 expedition landed at Panormus, and every thing gave 
 way before it. Motya was instantly recovered ; the 
 Sicanians left Dionysius to join their old friends the 
 Carthaginians ; Dionysius himself retreated upon 
 Syracuse ; and the seat of war was removed almost 
 
 55 Diodorus, XIV. 54, 55. 
 
THE CARTHAGINIANS BESIEGE SYRACUSE. 465 
 
 instantaneously from the western to the eastern ex- CHAP. 
 
 XXI 
 
 tremity of the island, from Motya and Egesta to v-^ ' 
 Syracuse. 
 
 Imilcon advanced 56 along the northern coast to- The Car- 
 
 thaginians 
 
 wards Messina, being anxious to possess that im- besiege 
 
 . Syracuse. 
 
 portant place, and so intercept any succours which 
 might be sent to the aid of Dionysius, either from 
 the Greek states of Italy, or from Greece itself. He 
 took Messina, defeated the Syracusans in a sea-fight 
 off Catana, and then, being completely master of the 
 field, he proceeded to lay siege to Syracuse by sea 
 and land ; his ships occupied the great harbour, 
 while with his army he held all the most important 
 points on shore : the headland of Plemyrium, which 
 forms the southern side of the great harbour, the 
 temple of Olympian Jupiter on the right bank of the 
 Anapus, and the suburb of Neapolis, just without 
 the walls of Acradina, and under the cliffs of Epi- 
 polse. The position of Epipolse itself, which the Athe- 
 nians had at first occupied with so much effect, and 
 which they afterwards neglected to their ruin, was 
 now secured against an enemy by the walls lately 
 carried round its whole extent by Dionysius. 
 
 Thus the Greek power in Sicily was reduced as Critical state 
 it were to one little spark, which the first breath power in"* 
 seemed likely to extinguish ; but on its preservation 
 depended the existence of Rome and the fate of the 
 world. Had Carthage become the sovereign of all 
 Sicily, her power, in its full and undecayed vigour, 
 
 56 Diodorus, XIV. 5763. 
 VOL. I. H h 
 
466 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, must have immediately come into contact with the 
 
 XXI 
 
 v v ' nations of Italy ; and the Samnite wars of Rome 
 might have ended in the destruction of both the con- 
 tending nations, when their exhausted strength had 
 left them at the mercy of a powerful neighbour. But 
 this was not to be, and Dionysius was inspired with 
 resolution to abide the storm, that so he might fulfil 
 that purpose of God's providence which designed the 
 Greek power in Sicily to stand as a breakwater 
 against the advances of Carthage, and to afford a 
 shelter to the yet unripened strength of Rome. 
 
 Dionysius The condition of Dionysius seemed desperate. 
 
 proposes to 
 
 escape from Blockaded by sea and land, with a people impatient 
 of his despotism, with a force of mercenaries, who, the 
 moment that he became unable to pay them, might 
 betray him, either to the enemy without the walls 
 or to his political adversaries within ; he held a coun- 
 cil with his friends in the citadel, and expressed his 
 purpose of leaving Syracuse to its fate, and attempt- 
 ing to effect his own escape by sea. One of them 
 boldly answered 57 , " A king's robe is a noble wind- 
 ing-sheet." At these words the spirit of Dionysius 
 rose within him, and he resolved to live or die a 
 king. 
 
 The Car- g u ^ jjjg deliverance was effected by another power 
 
 thagtnmn 
 
 armament than his own. The spots where the small Sicilian 
 
 crippled by 
 
 sickness"" r i vers ma ke their way into the sea, are during the 
 summer notoriously unhealthy : a malaria fever is 
 almost the certain consequence of passing a single 
 
 57 KaAoV (o-Tiv (VT<i<J)iov rvpawis. Isocrates, Archidamus, 49. p. 125. 
 
THE BESIEGERS WEAKENED BY PESTILENCE. 467 
 
 night in any village so situated. The shore near the CHAP. 
 mouth of the Anapus, and the marshy plain imme- ' . 
 diately behind it, would be absolutely pestilential to 
 an army quartered there during the heats of sum- 
 mer ; and the Athenians, when besieging Syracuse 
 seventeen years before, had severely suffered from its 
 influence ;8 . But now the season was unusually hot, 
 and from the prevalence of epidemic disease in Africa 
 about this period, it is likely that the constitutions 
 of many of the Carthaginian soldiers would be more 
 than usually susceptible of infection. Accordingly 59 , 
 the disorder which broke out in the besieging army 
 more resembled the most malignant pestilence than 
 any ordinary form of marsh or malaria fever. The 
 patients were commonly carried off in five or six 
 days ; and the disease was either really so contagious, 
 or was imagined to be so, that no one dared to visit 
 the sick, or to pay them the most necessary atten- 
 tions : and thus all who were taken ill were left to 
 die without relief. 
 
 This visitation broke both the power and the 
 spirit of the Carthaginians. Dionysius 60 now made 
 a sally, and attacked them both by sea and land. 
 He carried their post at the temple of the Olympian 
 Jupiter, and that at Dascon, at the very bottom of 
 the harbour, on the right of the Anapus, where the 
 Athenians first effected their landing. Here he 
 found their ships drawn up on the beach, and he 
 instantly set fire to them. Meanwhile the Syracusan 
 
 68 Thucydides, VII. 47. * Diodorus, XIV. 7275. 
 
 59 Diodorus, XIV. 70, 71. 
 
 Hh2 
 
468 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, fleet advanced right across the harbour, and surprised 
 
 XXI. 
 
 v v ' the enemy's ships before they could be manned and 
 
 worked out from the shore to offer battle. Thus 
 taking them at a disadvantage, the Greeks sunk or 
 shattered them without resistance, or surrounded 
 them and carried them by boarding. And now the 
 flames began to spread from the ships on the beach 
 to those which lay afloat moored close to the shore. 
 These were mostly merchant ships, worked by sails 
 like ours, and consequently, even while at anchor, 
 they had their masts up and their standing rigging. 
 As the flames caught these and blazed up into the 
 air, the spectacle afforded to the Syracusans on their 
 walls was most magnificent. The crews of the burn- 
 ing ships leaped overboard, and left them to their 
 fate ; their cables were burnt, and the blazing masses 
 began to drift about the harbour, and to run foul of 
 one another ; while the crackling of the flames, and 
 the crashing of the falling masts and of the sides 
 of the ships in their mutual shocks, heard amidst 
 volumes of smoke and sheets of fire, reminded the 
 Syracusans of the destruction of the giants by the 
 thunder of Jove, when they had assayed in their 
 pride to storm Olympus 61 . 
 
 Rejoicings Thus called, as they thought, by the manifest in- 
 
 of the Syra- . . 
 
 cusans. terposition of Heaven to finish the work, the very old 
 
 61 Diodorus, XIV. 73. This writer, far removed in time and 
 
 whole description seems to have space from the action which sug- 
 
 been taken from the history of gested it, but as one which really 
 
 Philistus, who was probably an arose in the minds of the Sy- 
 
 eye-witness of the scene : so that racusans, amidst the excitement 
 
 the comparison is not to be re- and enthusiasm of the actual spec- 
 
 garded as the mere flourish of a tacle. 
 
DEFEAT AND RETREAT OF THE CARTHAGINIANS. 469 
 
 men and boys of Syracuse could bear to look on CHAP. 
 
 XXI 
 
 idly from their walls no longer, but getting into the v -v-^ 
 large punts or barges 62 which were ordinarily used 
 for ferrying men and cattle across the harbour, they 
 put out to sea, to save and capture such of the 
 enemy's ships as the fire had not yet destroyed. But 
 the walls were crowded with fresh spectators ; for as 
 the report of the victory became more and more 
 decided, the women, children, and slaves, all poured 
 out from their houses, and hastened to enjoy with 
 their own eyes the sight of this wonderful deliver- 
 ance. When the day was over, the Carthaginian 
 naval force was almost utterly destroyed, while 
 Dionysius encamped on the ground which he had 
 won near the temple of Olympian Jupiter, having 
 the remnant of the besieging army shut in between 
 his position on one side, and the walls of Syracuse 
 on the other. 
 
 But Imilcon had no hope of continuing the contest Retreat of 
 with success any further. He offered all the treasure th 
 in his camp, amounting to three hundred talents, to 
 purchase the unmolested retreat of the remainder of 
 his armament. " This," said Dionysius, " cannot be 
 granted ; but I will consent that the native Car- 
 thaginians shall be allowed to escape by night to 
 Africa, stipulating nothing for their subjects and 
 
 62 Ta nopdp.fla. Diodorus, XIV. No explanation is given by him, 
 
 74. This is one of the touches because the use of these -rropB^da 
 
 which seem to argue that the was to him so familiar, that he 
 
 wri'er of the description was at could not fancy that any was re- 
 
 any rate a Syracusan, familiar quisite. 
 with the harbour of Syracuse. 
 
470 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 allies." He foresaw that if the head were thus taken 
 from the body, the body would instantly fall into his 
 power ; and he was not sorry to impress the Africans, 
 Iberians, and Sikelians, with a strong sense of the 
 selfish arrogance of the Carthaginians, who thinking 
 only of themselves, abandoned their allies to destruc- 
 tion without scruple. Accordingly, when the Carthagi- 
 nians had escaped, the rest of the armament attempted 
 to provide as they could for their own safety. The 
 Sikelians and Africans were obliged to lay down 
 their arms, after the former had endeavoured in vain 
 to make good their retreat to their own country ; but 
 the Iberians held together, and made so formidable 
 a show of resistance, that Dionysius readily listened 
 to their proposals of entering into his service. They 
 became a part of his mercenary army ; and while 
 they helped to secure his power against his domestic 
 enemies, they also added to the glory of his arms 
 abroad: and in the strange vicissitudes of human 
 fortune, these same Iberians, who had been enlisted 
 in Spain, taken thence to Africa, and afterwards had 
 crossed the sea to Sicily as invaders, were, some years 
 later, sent over from Sicily to Greece 63 , as a part of 
 the auxiliary force sent by Dionysius to aid the 
 Lacedaemonians ; and fought with distinction in La- 
 conia under the eye of Agesilaus, against the invading 
 army of Epaminondas. 
 
 state of the Thus was Dionysius saved from imminent ruin, 
 nian power and the Greek power in Sicilv was preserved. His 
 
 in Sicily. 
 
 63 Xenophon, Hellenic. VII. 1. 20. 
 
PROJECTS AGAINST THE ITALIAN GREEKS. 471 
 
 subsequent wars with Carthage were of no import- CHAP. 
 ance ; for amidst much variety of fortune in particular v - 
 engagements, the relations of the two states were 
 never materially altered ; the Carthaginians remained 
 masters of all the western part of the island, while 
 the eastern part continued to be under the dominion 
 of Dionysius. 
 
 After the destruction of this great armament, Dionysius 
 
 TA i r i i i-i c prepares to 
 
 Dionysius felt nimselr able to carry on his plans or attack the 
 
 r*\ i* T ' /-\ / i Italian 
 
 conquest against the Greeks of Italy. One of his Greeks. 
 first measures was to people the important city of 
 Messana. The remains of the old citizens, who had 
 been driven out by the Carthaginians, returned to 
 their home after Imilcon's defeat ; but their numbers 
 were so thinned, that Dionysius added to them a 
 large body of new citizens from Locri on the Italian 
 coast, his old and firm ally, and from a Locrian 
 colony 64 , Medama, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, which had 
 probably been lately conquered by the Lucanians. 
 With these there were at first joined some exiles 
 from old Greece, of the race of the old Messenians ; 
 but afterwards, to satisfy the jealousy of Lacedsemon, 
 they were removed from Messana, and founded for 
 themselves the new city of Tyndaris 65 . 
 
 The principal object of Dionysius' hostility among Battle of 
 the Greek cities of Italy was Rhegium. The Rhe- prus, aud 
 
 64 Diodorus, XIV. 78. The pre- Strabo, VI. 1. 5. p. 256, and, 
 
 sent reading in the text of Dio- it is said, on one of its coins Me- 
 
 dorus is MeStjui/atovs, for which dama, or Mesma, is described as 
 
 Cluverius has conjectured MeS/xai- a Locrian colony by Strabo, in 
 
 ovs. Mf&z/xai'ous would be still the passage above quoted, and by 
 
 nearer the present reading, and Scyrnnus Chius, V. 307. 
 is the name of the city in Diodorus, XIV. 78. 
 
472 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 gians had favoured his political adv 
 
 personally affronted him by refusing to allow him 
 
 CHAP, gians had favoured his political adversaries, and had 
 
 XXI* 
 
 conquest of 
 
 Rhegium. the right of intermarriage with their citizens. But 
 his ambition led him to desire the dominion of all 
 the coast of Italy on the Ionian Sea ; and he entered 
 into a league with the Lucanians, as has been already 
 mentioned, hoping that they might exhaust the 
 Greek cities, by their constant plundering warfare, 
 and that he might then step in to reap the harvest. 
 His defeat of the combined army of the Italian 
 Greeks on the banks of the Helleporus 66 , and his 
 conquest of Rhegium 67 , Caulon 68 , and Hipponium 69 , 
 are the principal events of this contest. He enlarged 
 Syracuse, by removing thither the whole or a great 
 part of the population of the conquered cities; and 
 his increased power and influence on the Italian 
 coast facilitated those farther plans of aggrandize- 
 ment which have been already noticed, his settle- 
 ments at Issa and Lissus, and on the coast of 
 Picenum, his alliance with the Illyrians, and his 
 trade in the Adriatic. 
 
 Dionysius Thus powerful at home and abroad, and possess- 
 
 sends cha- . ' . . 
 
 riots to the ing a far greater dominion than any prince or state 
 
 games, and in old Greece, Dionysius yet felt that Greece was as 
 
 pnze of it were the heart and life of the civilized world, and 
 
 AtLns. that no glory would be universal or enduring unless 
 
 it had received its stamp and warrant from the 
 
 genius of Athens. He sent chariots to Olympia, to 
 
 66 Polybius calls the river " El- would be " Helleporus." 
 
 leporus," I. 6. Diodorus calls it 67 Diodorus, XIV. 3. 
 
 " Helorus," XIV. 104. I suspect ra Diodorus, XIV. 106. 
 
 that the true reading in Polybius 69 Diodorus, XIV. 107. 
 
LITERARY AMBITION OF DIONYSIUS. 473 
 
 contend for the prize at the Olympic games 70 ; he CHAP. 
 
 sent over also rhapsodists, most eminent for the * ^~> 
 
 powers of their voice and the charm of their recita- 
 tion, to rehearse his poems ; and he was repeatedly a 
 candidate for the prize of tragedy at Athens. Alex- 
 ander, indeed, scorned to contend for victory at the 
 Olympic games unless kings could be his compe- 
 titors ; but in such matters there was a wide differ- 
 ence between a king and a tyrant, between the 
 descendant of a long line of princes 71 , sprung from 
 Hercules, the son of Jove, and the humble citizen of 
 Syracuse, whom his fortune had unexpectedly raised 
 to greatness. There is a story that the public feel- 
 ing at Olympia was so strong against Dionysius as a 
 tyrant 72 , that the tents of his theori, or deputies to 
 the Olympic assembly, were plundered, and the reci- 
 tation of his verses drowned amidst the clamour and 
 hisses of the multitude. But whether this be true 
 or false, we know that at Athens his tragedies were 
 by no means regarded as contemptible ; he gained on 
 different occasions the second and third prizes, and at 
 last his tragedy entitled, " Hector ransomed 73 ," was 
 judged worthy of the highest prize. 
 
 This evident desire of intellectual fame, united His inter- 
 course with 
 with the powers of earning it, tempted the philoso- isolates 
 
 phers of Greece to believe that they should find in 
 
 70 Diodorus, XIV. 109. the prize at the Olympic games, 
 
 71 In an earlier age, however, an even in the foot-race, and he ran 
 ancestor of the great Alexander, accordingly in the stadium. See 
 the Macedonian king of the same Herodotus, V. 22. 
 
 name, who reigned during the 72 Diodorus, XIV. 109. 
 Persian invasion, was anxious to 73 Diodorus, XV. 7*. 
 be admitted as a competitor for 
 
474 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. Dionysius a man who could sympathize with them 
 v- ' in spite of his political greatness, and would rejoice 
 to associate with them on equal terms. Plato visited 
 Syracuse 74 , and Isocrates 75 , at a safer distance, ad- 
 dressed to Dionysius a letter of compliment from 
 Greece. As long as they remained on the opposite 
 shores of the Ionian Sea, the philosopher and the 
 tyrant might correspond with each other without 
 offence. But many are the stories which show the 
 folly of supposing that an equality of mind can 
 triumph over the differences of rank and power. No 
 man can associate freely with another, when his life 
 is at the mercy of his companion's caprice. Plato 
 soon returned to Greece, with a lesson from some of 
 the philosophers of Syracuse, "that men of their 
 profession would do well either to shun the society 
 of tyrants 76 , or else in their intercourse with them, 
 to study how they could please them most." This 
 advice is said to have been occasioned by a practical 
 lesson given to Plato by Dionysius, which ought to 
 have rendered it superfluous ; the story ran, that the 
 tyrant was so offended with something that Plato 
 had said, that he sent him forthwith to the slave- 
 market, and had him sold as a slave, but that the 
 philosophers immediately redeemed him by a general 
 subscription amongst themselves, and then urged 
 
 Diodorus, XV. 7- fact of his having corresponded 
 
 75 Whether the letters profess- with them may be true notwith- 
 
 ing to he written from Isocrates standing. 
 
 to Dionysius and Philip of Ma- 76 Diodorus, XV. 7. Aft TOV 
 
 cedon, and puhlished at the end o-o06i> rols rvpdwois 
 
 of his orations, are genuine, may a>s fjBurra ofj 
 well be doubted; although the 
 
HIS MANNER OF LIVING. 475 
 
 him to quit Sicily. A similar story is told of the CHAP. 
 
 i i JVA! 
 
 poet Philoxenus, whom Dionysius is said to have v * ' 
 
 sent from his own table to his prisons in the quar- 
 ries, because he had expressed an unfavourable 
 opinion of the tyrant's poetry. These stories may 
 deserve but little credit for the particular facts; yet 
 the intercourse between Frederick of Prussia and 
 Voltaire was interrupted in a similar manner, and 
 the presumption of literary men on the one hand, 
 and the pride of rank and power on the other, are 
 likely to lead to such results. 
 
 That the despot of Syracuse should not scruple to His private 
 send a poet to the quarries and to sell a philoso- 
 pher in the slave-market, is nothing wonderful. We 
 may be more unwilling to believe the reports of the 
 state of miserable fear to which suspicion could re- 
 duce one so able and so daring as Dionysius. " He 
 could trust no man," it was said 77 , " but a set of 
 miserable freedmen, and outcasts, and barbarians, 
 whom he made his body-guard. He fenced his cham- 
 ber with a wide trench, which he crossed by a draw- 
 bridge ; he never addressed the Syracusan people but 
 from the top of a high tower, where no dagger could 
 reach him ; he never visited his wives without hav- 
 ing their apartments previously searched, lest they 
 should contain some lurking assassin ; nay, he dared 
 not allow himself to be shaved by any hands except 
 his own daughters' ; and even them he was afraid to 
 entrust with a razor ; but taught them how to singe 
 
 77 Cicero. Tusculan. Disputat. V. 20. 
 
476 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, off his beard with hot walnut shells." Much of 
 v -/ J this is probably exaggeration, but the Greek tyrants 
 knew that to kill them was held to be no murder ; 
 and it is no shame to Dionysius, if his nerves were 
 overcome by the hourly danger of assassination, a 
 danger which appalled even the iron courage of 
 Cromwell. 
 
 Peculiar The Greeks had no abhorrence for kings : the de- 
 character of , _ , , . , 
 the ancient scendant or a hero race, ruling over a people whom 
 
 his fathers had ruled from time immemorial, was no 
 subject of obloquy, either with the people or with 
 the philosophers. But a tyrant, a man of low or 
 ordinary birth, who by force or fraud had seated 
 himself on the necks of his countrymen, to gorge 
 each prevailing passion of his nature* at their cost, 
 with no principle but the interest of his own power, 
 such a man was regarded as a wild beast, that had 
 broken into the fold of civilized society, and whom it 
 was every one's right and duty by any means, or 
 with any weapon, presently to destroy. Such mere 
 monsters of selfishness, Christian Europe has rarely 
 seen. If the claim to reign by " the grace of God" 
 has given an undue sanction to absolute power, yet 
 it has diffused at the same time a sense of the re- 
 sponsibilities of power, such as the tyrants, and even 
 the kings of the later age of Greece, never knew. 
 The most unprincipled of modern sovereigns would 
 yet have acknowledged, that he owed a duty to his 
 people, for the discharge of which he was answer- 
 able to God ; but the Greek tyrant regarded his sub- 
 jects as the mere instruments of his own gratification; 
 
HE WAS JUSTLY CALLED A TYRANT. 477 
 
 fortune, or his own superiority, had given him extra- CHAP. 
 ordinary means of indulging his favourite passions, v *-^- 
 and it would be folly to forego the opportunity. It 
 is this total want of regard for his fellow-creatures, 
 the utter sacrifice of their present and future im- 
 provement, for the sake of objects purely personal, 
 which constitutes the guilt of Dionysius and his fel- 
 low-tyrants. In such men all virtue was necessarily 
 blighted ; neither genius, nor courage, nor occasional 
 signs of human feeling, could atone for the deliberate 
 wickedness of their system of tyranny. Brave and 
 able as Dionysius was, active, and temperate, and 
 energetic, he left behind him no beneficial institu- 
 tions; he degraded rather than improved the cha- 
 racter of his countrymen ; and he has therefore justly 
 been branded with infamy by the accordant voice of 
 his own and of after-ages ; he will be known for ever 
 as Dionysius the tyrant. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CARTHAGE BARBARIANS OF WESTERN EUROPE EAST 
 
 OF EUROPE GREECE MACEDONIA ILLYRIA. 
 
 " Caeterum qui mortales initio coluerint, indigense an advecti, 
 parum compertum." TACITUS, Agricola, 11. 
 
 CHAP. THE enlarged researches of our own times, while 
 
 XXII 
 
 .r-> they make us more sensible of the actual extent of 
 
 Difficulties . . 
 
 ofan.-ient our ignorance, yet encourage us with the hope that 
 it will gradually be diminished. But he who at- 
 tempts to write history, in the interval between this 
 awakened consciousness of the defects of our know- 
 ledge, and that fuller light which may hereafter re- 
 move them, labours under peculiar disadvantages. A 
 reputation for learning was cheaply gained in the 
 days of our fathers, by merely reading the works of 
 the Greek and Roman writers, and being able to re- 
 peat the information which they have communicated. 
 But now we desire to learn, not what existing ac- 
 counts may have recorded of a people or a race, but 
 what that people or race really was, and did; we 
 wish to conceive a full and lively image of them, of 
 their language, their institutions, their arts, their 
 
DOMINION OF CARTHAGE. 479 
 
 morals ; to understand what they were in themselves, CHAP. 
 
 and how they may have affected the fate of the ' - 1 
 
 world, either in their own times, or in after-ages. 
 These, however, are questions which the ancient 
 writers were often as unable to answer as we are ; 
 happier, it may be thought, than we in this, that 
 they had no painful consciousness of ignorance. To 
 repeat what the Greek and Roman writers have left 
 on record of Carthage, and its dominion in Spain 
 and Africa, would be an easy task, but at the same 
 time most unsatisfactory. We look around for other 
 witnesses, we question existing languages, and races, 
 and manners, in the hope of gleaning from them 
 some fuller knowledge of extinct nations than can 
 be gained from the scanty accounts of foreigners or 
 enemies. 
 
 The internal state of Carthage may fitly be re- CARTHAGE. 
 served for a later period of this history. It will be 
 enough now to fill up, so far as I can, that sketch 
 of her dominion and foreign relations which has 
 been begun in some measure in the two preceding 
 chapters. 
 
 In the middle of the fourth century before the Extent of 
 
 J the Cartha- 
 
 Christian era, the Carthaginians possessed the north- gmian domi- 
 ern coast of Africa, from the middle of the greater Africa. 
 Syrtis to the pillars of Hercules, a country reaching 
 from 19 degrees east longitude, to 6 degrees west; 
 and a length of coast which Polybius ' reckoned at 
 above sixteen thousand stadia. But unlike the com- 
 
 1 Polybius, III. 39. 
 
480 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, pactness and organization of the provinces of the Ro- 
 
 XXII 
 
 v ' man empire, this long line of coast was for the most 
 part only so far under the dominion of the Cartha- 
 ginians, that they possessed 2 a chain of commercial 
 establishments along its whole extent, and with the 
 usual ascendancy of civilized men over barbarians, 
 had obliged the native inhabitants of the country, 
 whether cultivators of the soil or wandering tribes, 
 to acknowledge their superiority. But in that part 
 where the coast runs nearly north and south, from 
 the Hermsean headland, or Cape Bon, to the lesser 
 Syrtis, they had occupied the country more com- 
 pletely. This was one of the richest tracts to be 
 found 3 ; and here the Carthaginians had planted their 
 towns thickly, and had covered the open country 
 with their farms and villas. This was their Trc/oioiKtc, 
 the immediate domain of Carthage, where fresh set- 
 tlements were continually made as a provision for 
 the poorer citizens 4 ; settlements prosperous indeed 
 and wealthy, but politically dependent, as was always 
 the case in the ancient world; insomuch that the 
 term iripimicoi, which in its origin expressed no more 
 than "men who dwelt not in, but round about a 
 
 2 "Oo-a yeypaTTTai TroXtV/itara ?; of the irritation occasioned by it, 
 efinopia tv rfj A.ij3uTj dno rrjs 2vp- has been exhibited to the notice of 
 riSos TTJS Trap' 'EcTTrept'Sas p-fXP 1 Europe on more than one occasion 
 'U.paK\fi(ov crrrfXaiv ev Aiftvy TTO.VTU in Switzerland. Liechstal was one 
 earl KapxySovimv. Scylax, Peri- of the irfpiomides of Basel ; and the 
 plus, p 51, 52. Ed. Hudson. disputes between the citizens of 
 
 3 Polybius, III 23. Diodorus, Basel and the inhabitants of Liech- 
 XX. 8. Scylax, p 49. stal and the other country towns, 
 
 4 Aristotle, Politica, VI. 5. With- seemed, to those familiar with an- 
 in the last ten years an exact cient history, like a revival of the 
 image of the relation of the an- political relations of Lacedaemon 
 cient nepioiKot to their iroXis, and and Carthage. 
 
SISTER CITIES OF CARTHAGE, UTICA, ETC. 481 
 
 city," came to signify a particular political relation, CHAP. 
 theirs, namely, who enjoyed personal freedom, but ' v 
 had no share in the government of their country. 
 
 Distinct from these settlements of the Carthagi- Phoenician 
 
 colonies in 
 
 nians themselves, were the sister cities of Carthage, Africa. 
 founded immediately like herself by the Phoenicians 
 of Tyre and Sidon, although her fortune had after- 
 wards so outgrown theirs. Amongst these Phoeni- 
 cian colonies were Utica 5 , more famous in Roman 
 than in Carthaginian history, Adrumetum 6 , the two 
 cities known by the name of Leptis, situated, the 
 one near the western extremity of the great Syrtis, 
 and the other on the coast between the lesser Syrtis 
 and the Hermgean headland, and Hippo, a name so 
 closely connected in our minds with the piety and 
 energy of its great bishop, Augustine. These were 
 the allies of Carthage, and some of them were again 
 at the head of a small confederacy of states 7 , who 
 looked up to them for protection, as they in their 
 turn looked up to Carthage. They enjoyed their own 
 laws, and were independent in their domestic go- 
 vernment ; but in their foreign relations they found, 
 in common with all the weaker states of the ancient 
 world, that alliance with a greater power ended sooner 
 or later in subjection. 
 
 The Phoenician colonists, who founded Carthage, Condition of 
 at first paid 8 a tribute to the native Africans on subjects of 
 
 Carthage. 
 
 5 Justin, XVIII. 4. " the people of Carthage, the peo- 
 
 6 Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. 22. 80. pie of Tyre, and the people of 
 
 7 In the second treaty between Utica, with their allies" Polybius, 
 Rome and Carthage, the contract- III. 24. 
 
 ing parties on the one side are, 8 Justin, XVIII. 5. 
 
 VOL. I. I i 
 
482 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, whose land they had settled, as an acknowledgment 
 v ^/ ' that the country was not their own. But in process 
 of time they became what the Europeans have been 
 in later times in India, no longer dependent settlers, 
 but sovereigns ; and the native Africans, driven back 
 from the coast and confined to the interior, were 
 reduced to the condition of strangers on their own 
 soil. They understood and practised agriculture, but 
 we know not how far they were allowed to retain 
 the property of the land, or to what extent the rich 
 Carthaginians had ejected them, and employed them 
 as tenants and cultivators of the soil of which they 
 had been once proprietors. At any rate, the Africans 
 were in the condition of a Roman province ; they 9 
 were ruled despotically by the Carthaginian officers 
 sent amongst them, and were subject to taxes, and to 
 a conscription of their youth to serve as soldiers, at 
 the discretion of their governors. In the first Punic 
 war, they were taxed to the amount of fifty per cent, 
 on the yearly produce of their land, and the oppres- 
 sion to which they were subjected made them enter 
 readily and zealously into the quarrel of the merce- 
 nary soldiers, during their famous war with the Car- 
 thaginians. 
 
 Differences The contrast between Carthage exercising absolute 
 siTuItiTn of e dominion over her African subjects, and Rome sur- 
 andVtfme rounded by her Latin and Italian allies, and gra- 
 
 with respect in ,. -11,1 i 
 
 to their dually communicating more widely the rights of 
 allied 8 * citizenship, so as to change alliance into union, has 
 
 9 Polybius, I. 72. 
 
CARTHAGINIANS DISTINCT FROM NATIVE AFRICANS. 483 
 
 been often noticed, and is indeed quite sufficient to CHAP. 
 
 XXII 
 
 account for the issue of the Punic wars. But this ^ ^ - 
 difference was owing rather to the good fortune of 
 Rome and to the ill fortune o|" Carthage, than to the 
 Avisdom and liberality of the one and the narrow- 
 mindedness of the other. Rome was placed in the 
 midst of people akin to herself both in race and lan- 
 guage ; Carthage was a solitary settlement in a 
 foreign land. The Carthaginian language nearly re- 
 sembled the Hebrew ; it belonged to the Semitic or 
 Aramaic family. Who the native Africans were, 
 and to what family their language belonged, are 
 among the most obscure questions of ancient his- 
 tory. But it is one of the consequences of that 
 wider view of the connexion of races and languages 
 w 7 hich we have learnt of late to entertain, that the 
 statements to be found in the traditional or mythic 
 reports of the origin of nations appear in some in- * 
 stances to contain in them a germ of truth, and we 
 do not venture, as formerly, to cast them aside as 
 mere fables. Thus in that strange account of the 
 peopling of Africa which Sallust 10 copied from Car- 
 thaginian books, the stream of migration is described 
 as having poured into northern Africa at its western, 
 not at its eastern extremity, by the straits of Gibral- 
 tar, not by the isthmus of Suez and by Egypt. And 
 we read that the invaders were Medians and Per- 
 sians, who had marched through Europe into Spain, 
 as a part of the great army of Hercules. They 
 
 10 Bell. Jugurtbin. 20. Uti ex psalis dicebantur, interpretatum 
 libris Punicis, qui regis Hiem- nobis est. 
 
484 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, found the north of Africa possessed by an older race 
 
 -X.A..L1. 
 
 v ' of inhabitants, the Gaetulians and Libyans, of whose 
 
 origin no account is given. But the story of the 
 expedition of Hercules, and of the Medians and Per- 
 sians ll following in his army, and entering Africa by 
 crossing over thither from Spain, may at least lead 
 us to inquire whether any affinity can be traced 
 between the language of the Berbers, the descend- 
 ants of the ancient Mauritanians, and that of the 
 Basques, the descendants of the old Iberians; and 
 whether the languages of the native tribes of North 
 Africa, whether agricultural or wandering, may not 
 be supposed to have belonged either wholly or in 
 part to the Indo-Germanic family, rather than to the 
 Semitic. These are the points in which we are 
 standing half way between the equally extreme cre- 
 dulity and scepticism of the last two centuries, and 
 that fuller knowledge which may be the portion of 
 our posterity. But whatever may be discovered as 
 to the African subjects of Carthage, they were be- 
 come so distinct from their masters, even if they 
 were originally sprung from a kindred race, that the 
 two people were not likely to be melted together 
 into one state ; and thus they remained always in 
 the unhappy and suspicious relation of masters and 
 of slaves, rather than in that of fellow-citizens or 
 even of allies. 
 
 11 The Sigynnee, a people whom naturally wonders. It is so diffi- 
 
 Herodotus describes, V. 9. as liv- cult, in these stories, to distinguish 
 
 ing beyond the Danube, that is, in what is mere confusion or inven- 
 
 what is now Hungary, were said tion from what contains a germ of 
 
 by some, he tells us, to have been truth, under more or less of dis- 
 
 a colony of the Medes, at which he guise. 
 
THE HALF-CASTE AFRO-PH(ENICIANS. 485 
 
 The dominion of Carthage in Africa, as it resem- CHAP. 
 
 XXII 
 
 bled in many other respects that of the British in * ' 
 
 Colonies of 
 
 India, had produced also, as in our Indian empire, the Afr - 
 
 Phoenicians, 
 
 a numerous half-caste population, sprung from inter- ? r P e P le of 
 
 half-caste. 
 
 marriages between the Carthaginians and the native 
 Africans. This mixed race was known by the name 
 of Liby or Afro Phoenicians 12 ; but whether they were 
 regarded by Carthage as a source of strength, or sus- 
 pected as dangerous enemies, we have no sufficient 
 information to determine. Perhaps they were thought 
 to be dangerous at home, but useful and trustworthy 
 abroad ; and thus they were sent as colonists to 
 Spain 13 , and to the more remote parts of the coast of 
 Africa, without the Pillars of Hercules, just as the 
 poorer citizens of Carthage itself were sent, as we 
 have seen, to settlements nearer home. If we can 
 trust the text and the authenticity of the Greek 
 version now existing of the voyage of Hanno, these 
 Afro-Phoenician colonies were planted on a very 
 large scale ; for that voyage was undertaken for the 
 purpose of settling no fewer than thirty thousand 
 Afro-Phoenicians' 4 along the shore of the Atlantic, 
 southward of the straits of Gibraltar. 
 
 In the seventh century before the Christian sera, a ibem, or 
 Samian ship 15 bound for Egypt was caught in a vio- Phoenician 
 lent storm, with the wind blowing strongly from the Gadiror 
 east. The ship was carried altogether out of her 
 course, the wind continued to blow from the east, 
 
 12 Polyhius, III. 33. Hudson. 
 
 13 Scymnus Chius, V. 195, 196. 15 Herodotus, IV. 152. 
 
 14 Hanno, Periplus, p. 1. Ed. 
 
486 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, and at last she was actually driven through the 
 
 XXII 
 
 Pillars of Hercules, and the first land which she 
 succeeded in making was the coast of Tartessus, or 
 Tarshish, the south-western coast of Spain. The 
 Samians found that the storm had proved their best 
 friend; they returned home enriched beyond all 
 their hopes, for the port of Tarshish, says Herodotus, 
 was at that time fresh 16 and undisturbed; the gold 
 of its neighbouring mines was a treasure not yet 
 appreciated by its possessors ; they bartered it to the 
 Samian strangers, in return for the most ordinary 
 articles of civilized living, which barbarians cannot 
 enough admire. This story makes us feel that we 
 are indeed living in the old age of the world. The 
 country then so fresh and untouched has now been 
 long in the last state of decrepitude : its mines, 
 then so abundant, have been long since exhausted ; 
 and after having in its turn discovered and almost 
 drained the mines of another world, it lies now like 
 a forsaken wreck on the waves of time, with nothing 
 but the memory of the past to ennoble it. In the 
 middle of the fourth century of Rome, the coast of 
 Spain 17 , both on the ocean and on the Mediter- 
 ranean, was full of Carthaginian trading settlements ; 
 but these were mostly small, and of no great cele- 
 brity. Gadir or Gades, on the other hand, a colony 
 founded directly from Tyre 18 , had been long since 
 famous. Here was one of the most celebrated tem- 
 ples of the Tyrian Hercules, and its trade and wealth 
 
 6 'A.KT)parov. ls Strabo, III. prope finem. 
 
 17 Scvlax. Periolus. t>. 1. 
 
 ~ AKIJpOTOV. 
 
 17 Scylax, Periplus, p. 1. 
 
THE IBERIANS. 487 
 
 were considerable ; the neighbouring country being CHAP. 
 
 XXII 
 
 rich in mines, while the sea yielded an inexhaustible v___^__ 
 supply of fish, which was commonly sold in the 
 Athenian markets as early as the Peloponnesian 
 war 19 . But except Gades, the Greek seamen knew 
 of no other place of importance on the coast of Spain 
 at this period, till they came north of the Iberus, to 
 the country which was then inhabited by the Ligu- 
 rians. Here there was the Greek settlement of 
 Emporion , an offshoot from the Phocaean colony of 
 Massalia. If Saguntum w r as really a city of Greek 
 or Tyrrhenian origin, founded by colonists from 
 Zacynthus and Ardea, it seems to have retained no 
 marks of the Greek character ; it had no seaport, 
 and though it was itself near the coast, yet it was 
 not of sufficient importance to attract the notice of 
 the Greek navigators. 
 
 The great Spanish peninsula itself, and its original Native 
 
 ii- i M TI Iberians; 
 
 inhabitants, the various tribes or the Iberian race, their race 
 
 and charac- 
 
 were as yet but little known to the rest of the world, ter. 
 Sicilian antiquarians 21 derived the oldest part of 
 the population of their island, the Sicanians, from 
 the north-eastern coast of Spain. The Iberians had 
 for some time been accustomed to serve in the Car- 
 thaginian armies ; their name occurs amongst the 
 various nations who composed the great host of 
 Hamilcar 22 when he invaded Sicily, in the time of 
 Gelon, and was defeated in the famous battle of 
 
 19 Pollux, VI. 48. Eupoli, 21 Thucydides, VI. 2. following 
 quoted by Stephanus Byzant. in Antiochus. 
 
 TdBfipa. 2 - Herodotus, VII. 165. 
 
 20 Scylax, Periplus, p. 1. 
 
488 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Himera. The Iberians were known to the Athe- 
 nians 23 as amongst the most warlike of the barbarians 
 of the west, whom they purposed to employ in con- 
 quering their Peloponnesian enemies, had success at 
 Syracuse enabled them to fulfil their more remote 
 designs; and we have seen Iberians distinguished 
 above all the other soldiers in the same service, in 
 the great Carthaginian expedition which Imilcon led 
 against the tyrant Dionysius. Another circumstance 
 removed them even more than their remarkable cou- 
 rage from the common mass of barbarians. Writing 
 was common among them ; and some of their tribes 24 
 possessed written records of their past history, not 
 composed in verse, besides numerous poems, and 
 
 23 Thucydides, VI. 90. 
 
 24 Strabo, III. p 139. Here 
 again Niebuhr's sagacity has cor- 
 rected the common reading, vopovs 
 f/jLfjLfrpovs (aKi<rxti-ia>v (T>V, which, 
 as he observes, would not be Greek, 
 into vop.ovs (aKi<rxi\ia>v tn&v. 
 
 When this page was written, I 
 had not seen the excellent work of 
 the lamented William Von Hum- 
 boldt, " On the Earliest Inhabitants 
 of Spain," although I was aware 
 generally of its character, and 
 of the conclusions which it en- 
 deavoured to establish. He con- 
 siders it to be certain, that the 
 present Basque language is sub- 
 stantially the same with the ancient 
 Iberian : the names of places in 
 the ancient geography of Spain 
 being, for the most part, not only 
 significant in Basque, but exhibit- 
 ing in their sound, and in their 
 omission of some letters, and their 
 combinations of others, the pecu- 
 liarities of the existing language. 
 
 It appears that in the Basque 
 country there are three distinct 
 dialects, and that with regard to 
 one of these nothing satisfactory 
 had been published when Von 
 Humboldt wrote, while the lexicon 
 or vocabulary of another was far 
 from perfect. I notice this, be- 
 cause words may exist in these 
 dialects which may go far to es- 
 tablish the resemblance of the 
 Basque language to others, or to 
 prove its diversity; and may ex- 
 plain those names in the ancient 
 geography of Spain which have 
 not been hitherto interpreted. The 
 Iberians, in Humboldt's judgment, 
 were a people quite distinct from 
 the Kelts ; but they may have had 
 the same decree of connexion with 
 them which subsisted between all 
 the nations of the great Indo- 
 Germanic family. He does not 
 believe in the Iberian extraction of 
 any part of the inhabitants of the 
 British islands. 
 
THE LIGURIANS. 489 
 
 large collections of laws and institutions in a metri- CHAP. 
 
 XXII 
 
 cal form, amounting, it was said, to about six thousand v -/ 
 lines. We ourselves have in some degree a national 
 interest in the Iberians, if it be true that colonies of 
 their race crossed the Bay of Biscay, and established 
 themselves on the coast of Cornwall. But their me- 
 mory has almost utterly perished ; we know not with 
 what race of mankind they were connected ; and 
 although the Basque dialect, still spoken on both 
 sides of the Pyrenees, is supposed to be a remnant of 
 their language, yet its relation to other languages 
 appears to have been not yet ascertained, so as to 
 inform us to what family it belongs. It may be 
 hoped that this, as well as the decyphering of the 
 Etruscan monuments, may be amongst the discove- 
 ries reserved for our own generation, or for that of 
 our children. 
 
 From the Pyrenees to the frontiers of Etruria 25 , The Ligu- 
 
 * nans. 
 
 the coast of the Mediterranean was occupied by the 
 Ligurians, a people distinguished by the Greeks both 
 from the Iberians and from the Kelts, although 
 they are supposed to have been connected with the 
 latter nation in their race and language. As the 
 Ligurians dwelt on the coast, they became known to 
 the Carthaginians ; and thus Ligurians 2G are named 
 together with Iberians amongst the soldiers of Ha- 
 milcar's expedition to Sicily, at the beginning of the 
 fifth century before the Christian sera. In the time 
 of Scylax, a few years later than our present period, 
 
 6 Scylax, p. 2. Herodotus live above Massalia." V. 9. 
 speaks of "the Ligurians who - 6 Herodot. VII. 165. 
 
490 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the Ligurians and Iberians were mixed together on 
 
 XXII. 
 
 v */ - > the coast, between the Pyrenees and the Rhone, and 
 the exclusive dominion of the Ligurians only ex- 
 tended from the Rhone to Etruria. But Thucydides 
 mentioned it as an ascertained fact 27 , that at a very 
 remote period they had dislodged the Sicanians from 
 their land on the Sicanian river in Iberia, and that 
 these, flying before their conquerors, went over and 
 settled in Sicily. We cannot certainly tell what 
 river is meant, nor what limits Thucydides assigned 
 to Iberia ; but a migration to Sicily, rather than to 
 Corsica or Sardinia, becomes probable, in proportion 
 as we place the Sicanians further to the south, and 
 nearer to the trading settlements of the Carthagi- 
 nians or Phoenicians. Perhaps the Ligurians advanced 
 along the coast from east to west, expelling or con- 
 quering the Iberian tribes ; till at last, when the force 
 of their irruption was spent, the Iberians recovered 
 their former country, wholly between the Iberus and 
 the Pyrenees, and partially between the Pyrenees 
 and the Rhone. At any rate it should be remem- 
 bered, that the Iberians, and not the Kelts, were the 
 inhabitants of the country between the Pyrenees and 
 the Garonne and the Cevennes, as is shown even to 
 this day, by the existence of the Basque language in 
 the south of France no less than in Spain. 
 
 The Kelts, It may be true, indeed, that the Kelts or Gauls, 
 
 or Gauls : 
 
 why they had long before the fourth century of Rome crossed 
 
 were as yet . 
 
 BO little the Alps, and established themselves in that country 
 
 known. 
 
 27 Thucydides, VI. 2. 
 
THE KELTS OR GAULS. 491 
 
 which now forms the Lombard portion of the Aus- CHAP. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 trian dominions in northern Italy. It may be true, * v - 
 also, that Keltic tribes were to be found in the heart 
 of Spain ; for before civilization has asserted its 
 power, nations, like rivers, are continually changing 
 their boundaries, and take their own course almost 
 at pleasure. But as the Kelts had most certainly 
 neither crossed the Apennines, nor reached as yet 
 the shores of the Adriatic, they had no connexion 
 with the civilized world ; the Carthaginians had no 
 opportunity of enlisting them into their armies, nor 
 had the Greek traders acquired any direct knowledge 
 of them. Their name was known only through the 
 reports of those Phoenicians 28 who navigated the 
 Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay, on their way to 
 the tin-mines of Britain. And this explains the 
 strange description of their position given by Hero- 
 dotus 29 , " that the Kelts dwell without the Pillars of 
 Hercules, and that they border on the Kynesians, 
 who live the furthest to the west of all the people 
 of Europe." This is clearly the language of some 
 Phoenician Periplus of the western coasts of France 
 and Spain : the Kynesians 30 must have lived on the 
 
 zs We can trace with great dis- incursions into central and south- 
 
 tinctness the period at which the ern Italy on the one hand, and 
 
 Kelts hecame familiarly known to into the countries between the 
 
 the Greeks. Herodotus only knew Danube and Macedonia on the 
 
 of them from the Phoenician navi- other, had made them objects of 
 
 gators : Thucydides does not name general interest and curiosity ; and 
 
 them at all : Xenophon only no- Aristotle notices several points in 
 
 tices them as forming part of the their habits and character in dif- 
 
 auxiliary force sent by Dionysius ferent parts of his philosophical 
 
 to the aid of Lacedaemon. Iso- works, 
 crates makes no mention of them. w II. 33. IV. 49- 
 But immediately afterwards, their M There is no mention of these 
 
492 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, coasts of Portugal, Gallicia, and Asturias ; perhaps 
 ^ '> on that of Gascony and Guienne : beyond these, as 
 the voyager pursued his course along the land, he 
 came to the country of the Kelts, who occupied 
 the whole coast north of the Garonne, and were 
 very probably intermixed with the Iberian Kyne- 
 sians on the coasts of Gascony and Navarre. The 
 Greeks, when they read this account, little sus- 
 pected that these same Kelts reached from the 
 shores of the ocean inland as far as the Alps, and 
 possibly, nearly to the head of the Adriatic ; and 
 that while they heard of them only as dwelling with- 
 out the Pillars of Hercules, they were advanced in 
 the opposite direction, almost within the ordinary 
 horizon of Greek observation, and in a very short 
 time would unexpectedly appear like a wasting tor- 
 rent in the heart of Italy. The narrow band of coast 
 occupied by the Ligurian and Venetian tribes, was 
 as yet sufficient to conceal the movements of the 
 Kelts from the notice of the civilized world. Thus 
 immediately before that famous eruption which de- 
 stroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, the level ridge 31 
 which was then Vesuvius excited no suspicion ; and 
 none could imagine that there were lurking close 
 below that peaceful surface the materials of a fiery 
 
 Cynesians, so far as T remember, The account in the text seems 
 
 in any ancient writer, except in sufficiently to explain the descrip- 
 
 the two passages of Herodotus tion in Herodotus, 
 
 quoted above. Niebuhr places ai Vicina Vesevo ora jugo. 
 
 them to the north, rather than to Since the eruption no one would 
 
 the west, of the Kelts (Kleine ever have called the top of Vesu- 
 
 Histor. Schriften, p. 142) ; but I vius a "jugum." 
 do not see why this is necessary. 
 
GREECE SUPREMACY OF LACEDJEMON. 493 
 
 deluge, which were so soon to burst forth, and to con- CHAP. 
 
 tinue for centuries to work havoc and desolation. v ,, 
 
 From the countries of western Europe, on which Greece : 
 
 Supremacy 
 
 the first faint dawn of historical light had as yet of Laceds- 
 
 J mon. 
 
 scarcely broken, we turn to the heart of the civilized oiynti.ian 
 
 confederacy. 
 
 world, to those republics of Greece which had already 
 reached their highest point of glory and advance- 
 ment, and were now feeling the first approach of 
 decay, like a plant when its seed is almost ripe, and 
 ready to be shed or wafted by the winds to a dis- 
 tance, there to multiply the race of its parent. Ac- 
 cording to the synchronism of Polybius 32 , the in- 
 vasion of Rome by the Gauls took place in the same 
 year with the conclusion of the peace of Antalcidas, 
 that is, in the second year of the ninety-eighth Olym- 
 piad. Probably it should be placed a few years later, 
 but at any rate it falls within the period of the 
 Lacedaemonian supremacy in Greece, after the humi- 
 liation of Athens by the result of the Peloponnesian 
 war, and before the rise of the power of Thebes. 
 Never was dominion wielded by such unfit hands as 
 those of the Spartans. Living at home under an 
 iron system, which taught each successive generation 
 that their highest virtue was to preserve and not to 
 improve the institutions of their fathers, the Lace- 
 daemonians were utterly unable to act the part of 
 conquerors ; for conquest, being the greatest of all 
 possible changes, can only be conducted by those 
 who know how to change wisely 33 ; a conqueror who 
 
 i2 I. 6. Se" dvayxafafjLevois levai iroX\f)f KOI 
 
 33 Kavj(afovirg ^tv noXti ra O.K.L- rrjs fTriTfxyr)(Tf(os Set. Thucyd. I. 
 vrjra v6fttfta apitrra' irpbs TroXXa 7l. 
 
494 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, is the slave of existing institutions, is no better than 
 
 XXII 
 
 v '-> a contradiction. Thus the Spartans had no idea of 
 turning their triumph over Athens to any other 
 account than that of their own pride and rapa- 
 city ; neither the general intercourse between nation 
 and nation, nor commerce, nor intellectual nor moral 
 excellence, derived any benefit from their ascen- 
 dancy. It was therefore unnatural, and fulfilled no 
 object of God's providence, except that of being an 
 instrument for the chastisement of others ; so that it 
 could only sow the seed of future wars, till having 
 heaped up the measure of insult and oppression, it at 
 last drew down its just judgment. But the growth of 
 that spirit of organization and self-government which 
 the high intelligence of the Greek mind could not 
 but foster, was seen in the formation of the Olynthian 
 confederacy 3 *. Among the Chalcidian and Bottisean 
 towns of the peninsula of Pallene and its neighbour- 
 hood, places whose fate it had been hitherto to be 
 the mere subjects of some greater power, we now 
 witness the growth of an independent political sys- 
 tem, of which the head was not to be Sparta nor 
 Athens, but Olynthus. This was a proof that the 
 vigour of the Greek character was developing itself 
 in a wider circle than heretofore, and prepares us for 
 the change so soon to be effected by the genius of 
 Philip and Alexander, when the centre of the power 
 and outward activity of Greece was to be found in 
 Macedon, while Athens still remained the well-spring 
 of its intellectual vigour. 
 
 84 Xenophon, Hellenica, V. 2. 12. et seqq. 
 
MOLOSSIANS, THESPROTIANS, ETC. 495 
 
 The eastern coast of the Adriatic is one of those CHAP. 
 
 XXII 
 
 ill-fated portions of the earth which, though placed ^ 
 in immediate contact with civilization, have remained coast of the 
 
 Adriatic. 
 
 perpetually barbarian. Unvisited, and indeed almost Moiossians 
 
 and Thes- 
 
 inaccessible to strangers from the robber habits of P lotians - 
 the population, the Dalmatian provinces of Austria, 
 no less than those of Montenegro and Albania, 
 which are not yet re-united to Christendom, are to 
 this hour as devoid of illustrious names and noble 
 associations, as they were in the fourth century be- 
 fore the Christian sera. From the gulf of Ambracia, 
 the north-western boundary of Greece, up to the head 
 of the Adriatic, the coast was occupied by the Moios- 
 sians, Thesprotians, Chaonians, and, beyond these, 
 by the various tribes 35 of the great Illyrian nation, 
 amongst whom Herodotus included even the Ilene- 
 tians or Venetians, at the northern extremity of this 
 whole region. In remote times, before the Hellenic 
 race began to assume a character so distinct from all 
 its kindred nations, the Moiossians, Thesprotians, and 
 Chaonians, all of them it is probable Pelasgian tribes, 
 were, both in their religion and in their traditions of 
 their heroes, closely connected with the Greeks. The 
 ancient temple of Dodona, once no less famous than 
 Delphi became afterwards, belonged to the Thespro- 
 tians ; the son of Achilles was said to have reigned 
 over the Moiossians; and even within historical 
 
 35 Scylax distinguishes the Ve- lyrians, I. 1Q6. and Strabo calls 
 
 netians, as well as the Istrians and the whole eastern coast of the 
 
 Liburnians, from the Illyrians, p. Adriatic, Illyncum, as far as the 
 
 6,7- And so also does Livy, X. 2. very head of the gulf. VII. p. 
 
 But Herodotus, as I have said, 313, 314. 
 reckons even the Venetians as II- 
 
496 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, memory, the names of Molossian kings and chiefs 
 
 XXII 
 
 v ' are of Greek origin, such as Alcon, one of the suitors 
 of the fair Agariste, the daughter of Clisthenes of 
 Sicyon, and still later, Admetus, the protector of 
 Themistocles in his disgrace, and Alcetas, the ally of 
 Dionysius of Syracuse. But the mass of the people 
 were considered to be barbarian, and their fortunes 
 were distinct from those of Greece, till the brilliant 
 reign of Pyrrhus, more than a century after our pre- 
 sent period, for a time united them. 
 
 uiyrians. The Illyrians were already notorious for their 
 piracies, and it was remarked of them, that some of 
 their tribes were governed by queens 36 . Their queen 
 Teuta, and her wars with the Romans, will give me 
 an opportunity of noticing them more fully here- 
 after ; and so rapidly is our knowledge increasing, 
 that ere long we may possibly gain some clue to assist 
 us in discovering the race and language of the Illy- 
 rians, points which at present are involved in the 
 greatest obscurity. 
 
 Macedon. We are within five and twenty years of the acces- 
 Amynus sion of Philip to the throne of Macedon, but so 
 Philip. entirely was the Macedonian greatness his own per- 
 sonal work, that nothing as yet gave sign of what it 
 was so soon to become. His father Amyntas was 
 at this time king, and unable even to cope with the 
 Olynthian confederacy which had lately grown up in 
 his neighbourhood. Many of the cities of Macedonia 
 
 36 At|3vpj/ol yvvaiKOKparovvTai. were either Illyrians, or, at any 
 Scylax, Periplus, p. 7. This is on rate, of a kindred stock, 
 the assumption that the Liburnians 
 
MACEDON BEFORE THE REIGN OF PHILIP. 497 
 
 were won by the Olynthians s7 , and Amyntas was CHAP. 
 most rejoiced to obtain the aid of Lacedsemon to 
 establish him on his throne by putting down this 
 formidable enemy. The Macedonians 38 were not al- 
 lowed to be Greeks, although they were probably of 
 a kindred stock, and although the Greek language 
 was now in universal use among them. But their 
 kings were of the noblest Greek blood, being Hera- 
 clidss from Argos, claiming descent from Temenus, 
 one of the three hero chiefs of the race of Hercules, 
 who had established themselves in Peloponnesus 
 by the aid of the Dorians. The people were stout, 
 brave, and hardy, and more numerous than the citi- 
 zens of the little Greek commonwealths ; so that 
 Philip afterwards found no difficulty in raising a 
 considerable army, when he began to aspire to the 
 honour of making himself the first power in Greece. 
 But as yet, though Archelaus had made roads through 
 the country 39 , and had collected large supplies of 
 arms to arm his people, the friendship and the en- 
 mity of Macedon were of little value, and none 
 could have imagined that the fatal blow to the 
 independence of Greece was to come from a king- 
 
 37 Xenophon, Hellenics, V. 2. scent from Temenus the Heraclid. 
 13. 3. 9. This would have been needless, 
 
 38 Alexander, the son of Amyn- had his birth as a Macedonian 
 tas, when he went over with some made him a Greek. Again Thu- 
 secret information to the Greek cydides distinguishes the Macedo- 
 camp, before the battle of Plataea, nians from the Greeks who were 
 is represented by Herodotus (IX. settled on their coast, and even 
 45) as accounting for his interest expressly includes them amongst 
 in the welfare of Greece, by saying, the barbarians. IV. 124. 126. 
 that he himself was of Greek ori- 39 Thucydides, II. 100. 
 
 gin, alluding to his supposed de- 
 
 VOL. I. K k 
 
498 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, dom which as yet scarcely belonged to the Greek 
 v v - 1 name, and in the struggles for dominion between 
 Athens and Lacedaemon had been only a subordinate 
 auxiliary. 
 
 state of the Further to the east, the great Persian monarchy 
 monarchy, still existed unimpaired in the extent of its visible 
 dominion, although ready at the first touch to fall 
 to pieces. All of Asia of which the Greeks had 
 any knowledge, from the shores of the ^Egsean to 
 the Indus and the Araxes, from the Erythraean Sea 
 southwards to the Caspian and the chain of Cauca- 
 sus, obeyed, to speak generally, the great king. In 
 Africa however it was otherwise : Egypt had been for 
 some years in revolt, was again governed by a dynasty 
 of its native princes, and had defied the efforts of the 
 Persian kings to reconquer it. And this example, 
 together with the long war carried on against the 
 Persians by Evagoras, the tyrant of the little state of 
 Salamis, in Cyprus, and the belt of Greek cities en- 
 circling the whole coast of Asia Minor, from Tra- 
 pezus on the Euxine to Cnidus by the Triopian 
 Cape, was tending gradually to dissolve the Persian 
 power. The great king's hold on Caria and Cilicia 
 was loosened, and when Isocrates wrote his Pane- 
 gyrical Oration, in the beginning of the hundredth 
 Olympiad 40 , Tyre was in the possession of the king's 
 enemies, and its naval force strengthened for a time 
 the arms of Evagoras. 
 Conclusion. Such was the state of the civilized world, when 
 
 40 Isocrates, Panegyric. 188. p. 74. 
 
THE GAULS. 499 
 
 the Kelts or Gauls broke through the thin screen CHAP. 
 
 XXII 
 
 which had hitherto concealed them from sight, and < ,, 
 began for the first time to take their part in the 
 great drama of the nations. For nearly two hun- 
 dred years they continued to fill Europe and Asia 
 with the terror of their name : but it was a passing 
 tempest, and if useful at all, it was useful only to 
 destroy. The Gauls could communicate no essential 
 points of human character in which other races might 
 be deficient ; they could neither improve the intel- 
 lectual state of mankind, nor its social and political 
 relations. When, therefore, they had done their 
 appointed work of havoc, they were doomed to be 
 themselves extirpated, or to be lost amidst nations 
 of greater creative and constructive power ; nor is 
 there any race which has left fewer traces of itself 
 in the character and institutions of modern civili- 
 zation. 
 
 Kk2 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS PHYSICAL HISTORY. 
 
 " Postrema vero partitio historic civilis ea sit, ut dividatur in meram 
 aut mixtam. Mixturae celebres duse : altera ex scientia civili ; altera 
 prsecipue ex naturali." BACON, De Augmentis Scientiar. II. 10. 
 
 CHAP. A GREAT work might be written on the connexion 
 
 jLJLUJu 
 
 i y ' between the revolutions of nature and those of man- 
 
 Imper- 
 
 fection of k m( j . now th e y ac t each upon the other ; how man 
 
 the materials 
 
 histo hysical * s a ff ec t e( l by climate, and how climate is again 
 altered by the labours of man : how diseases are ge- 
 nerated ; how different states of society are exposed 
 to different disorders, and require different sorts of 
 diet : how, as all earthly things are exhaustible, the 
 increased command over external nature given by 
 increased knowledge seems to have a tendency to 
 shorten the period of the existing creation, by calling 
 at once into action those resources of the earth which 
 else might have supplied the wants of centuries to 
 come : how, in short, nature, no less than human so- 
 ciety, contains tokens that it had a beginning, and 
 will as surely have its end. But unfortunately, the 
 physical history of ancient times is even more im- 
 perfect than the political history ; and in the place 
 
PHYSICAL HISTORY. 501 
 
 of those exact and uninterrupted records of natural CHAP. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 phenomena, from which alone any safe conclusions ^ ' 
 can be drawn, we have only a few scattered notices ; 
 nor can we be sure that even these have recorded 
 what was most worthy of our knowledge. Still these 
 scanty memorials, such as they are, must not be 
 neglected : and as we gain a wider experience, even 
 these may hereafter be found instructive. 
 
 The first question with regard to the physical state The climate 
 
 . of Italy was 
 
 or ancient Rome is, whether the climate was such as anciently 
 
 . . - T i ... .11 colder in 
 
 it is at present. Now here it is impossible not winter than 
 
 . it is now. 
 
 to consider the somewhat analogous condition of 
 America at this day. Boston is in the same latitude 
 with Rome ; but the severity of its winter far exceeds 
 not that of Rome only, but of Paris and London. 
 Allowing that the peninsular form of Italy must at 
 all times have had its effect in softening the climate, 
 still the woods and marshes of Cisalpine Gaul, and 
 the perpetual snows of the Alps, far more extensive 
 than at present, owing to the uncultivated and un- 
 cleared state of Switzerland and Germany, could not 
 but have been felt even in the neighbourhood of 
 Rome. Besides, even on the Apennines, and in 
 Etruria and in Latium, the forests occupied a far 
 greater space than in modern times : this would in- 
 crease the quantity of rain, and consequently the 
 volume of water in the rivers ; the floods would be 
 greater and more numerous, and before man's domi- 
 nion had completely subdued the whole country, 
 there would be large accumulations of water in the 
 low grounds, which would still further increase the 
 
502 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, coldness of the atmosphere. The language 1 of an- 
 
 .XXIII. 
 
 v eient writers, on the whole, favours the same con- 
 clusion, that the Roman winter, in their days, was 
 more severe than it is at present. It agrees with 
 this, that the olive, which cannot bear a continuance 
 of severe cold, was not introduced into Italy till long 
 after the vine : Fenestella 2 asserted that its culti- 
 vation was unknown as late as the reign of Tar- 
 quinius Priscus ; and such was the notion entertained 
 of the cold of all inland countries, even in the latitude 
 of Greece, that Theophrastus 3 held it impossible to 
 cultivate the olive at the distance of more than four 
 hundred stadia from the sea. But the cold of the 
 
 1 It is by no means easy to 
 know what weight is to be given 
 to the language of the poets ; nor 
 how far particular descriptions or 
 expressions may have been oc- 
 casioned by peculiar local cir- 
 cumstances. Pliny's statement, 
 Epistol. II. 17, that the bay-tree 
 would rarely live through the 
 winter without shelter, either at 
 Rome, or at his own villa at Lau- 
 rentum, if taken absolutely, would 
 prove too much ; for although the 
 bay is less hardy than some other 
 evergreens, yet how can it be con- 
 ceived that a climate in which the 
 olive would flourish, could be too 
 severe for the bay ? There must 
 either have been some local pecu- 
 liarity of winds or soil, which the 
 tree did not like, or else the fact, 
 as is sometimes the case, must 
 have been too hastily assumed : 
 and men were afraid from long 
 custom to leave the bay unpro- 
 tected in the winter, although, 
 in fact, they might have done it 
 with safety. Yet the elder Pliny, 
 
 XVII. 2, speaks of long snows 
 being useful to the corn, which 
 shows that he is not speaking of 
 the mountains ; and a long snow 
 lying in the valleys of central or 
 southern Italy would surely be 
 a very unheard-of phenomenon 
 now. Again, the freezing of the 
 rivers, as spoken of by Virgil and 
 Horace, is an image of winter, 
 which could not I think naturally 
 suggest itself to Italian poets of 
 the present day, at any point to 
 the south of the Apennines. Other 
 arguments to the same effect may 
 be seen in a paper by Daines Bar- 
 rington, in the 58th volume of the 
 Philosophical Transactions. Gib- 
 bon also, after stating the argu- 
 ments on both sides of the ques- 
 tion, comes to the same conclu- 
 sion. Miscellan. Works, Vol. III. 
 p. 246. He quotes, however, the 
 Abbe de Louguerue, as saying 
 that the Tiber was frozen in the 
 bitter winter of 1709- 
 
 2 Pliny, Hist. Natur. XV. 1. 
 
 3 Pliny, Hist. Natur. XV. 1. 
 
PROBABLE CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE OF ITALY, 503 
 
 winter is perfectly consistent* with great heat in the CHAP. 
 
 A. A 1 11* 
 
 summer. The vine is cultivated with success on the v - 
 Rhine, in the latitude of Devonshire and Cornwall, 
 although the winter at Coblentz and Bonn is far 
 more severe than it is in Westmorland; and ever- 
 greens will flourish through the winter in the West- 
 morland valleys far better than on the Rhine or in 
 the heart of France. The summer heat of Italy 
 was probably much the same in ancient times as 
 it is at present, except that there were a greater 
 number of spots where shade and verdure might be 
 found, and where its violence w T ould therefore be 
 more endurable. But the difference between the 
 temperature of summer and winter may be safely 
 assumed to have been much greater than it is now. 
 
 It then becomes a question whether the greater This perhaps 
 
 had an effect 
 
 cold of the winter, and the greater extent of wood ? n * h , e 
 
 healthiness 
 
 and of undrained waters which existed in the times oftl '\ 
 
 neignbour- 
 
 of the Romans, may not have had a favourable in- hood of 
 
 J Rome. 
 
 fluence in mitigating that malaria which is now the 
 curse of so many parts of Italy, and particularly of 
 
 4 It is a common notion that western ; and this to such a de- 
 climate follows latitude, and that gree, that Kent is not only colder 
 a northern country will be cold, than Cornwall, but colder than 
 and a southern one warm, as com- Cumberland, or Argyleshire. On 
 pared with each other throughout the other hand, the eastern coast 
 the year. But this is by no means in summer enjoys a much greater 
 an universal rule : on the con- share of steady fine weather and 
 trary, climate in England is more sunshine than the western. Wall- 
 affected by the longitude of a fruit will ripen in the neighbour- 
 place, than by its latitude ; and the hood of Edinburgh far more surely 
 winters are often mildest in those than in Westmorland, and wheat 
 parts, where the summers are grows luxuriantly as far north as 
 least genial. The whole eastern Elgin, while it is a rarity on the 
 coast from Kent to Caithness, is coast of Argyleshire. 
 much colder in winter than the 
 
504 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. On a sub- 
 
 XXIII 
 
 .^ -> ject so imperfectly understood, even by those who 
 have had the fullest experience, it were most unbe- 
 coming in a foreigner to speak otherwise than with 
 the greatest diffidence. We know, however, that 
 the Campagna at Rome, which is now almost a 
 desert, must, at a remote period, have been full of 
 independent cities ; and although the greater part of 
 these had perished long before the fourth century of 
 Rome, yet even then there existed Ostia, Laureiitum, 
 Ardea, and Antium on one side, and Veii and Caere 
 on the other, in situations which are now regarded 
 as uninhabitable during the summer months; and 
 all the lands of the Romans, on which they, like the 
 old Athenians, for the most part resided regularly, 
 lie within the present range of the malaria. 
 
 The range Some have supposed, that although the climate 
 
 f * ne . -i T 
 
 malaria less was the same as it is now, yet the Romans were en- 
 
 formeriy abled to escape from its influence, and their safety 
 
 tlian at i -IT f " 
 
 present. has been ascribed 5 to their practice or wearing 
 
 woollen next to the skin, instead of linen or cotton. 
 But not to notice other objections to this notion, it 
 is enough to say that the Romans regarded unhealthy 
 situations with the same apprehension as their mo- 
 dern descendants ; it is one of the first cautions given 
 by Cato 6 and Varro 7 to a man going to purchase 
 land, that he should buy only where the air is 
 healthy ; " otherwise," says Varro, " farming is nothing 
 
 5 By Brocchi, in his " Discorso logy of Rome, 
 
 sulla condizione dell' aria di Roma 6 Cato, de Re Rustica, II. 
 
 negli antichi tempi," printed at 7 Varro, de Re Rustica, II. 4. 
 the end of his work on the Geo- 
 
AND IN THE RANGE OF THE MALARIA. 505 
 
 else than a mere gambling with life and property." CHAP. 
 The truth seems to be, that the malaria, although ( v '-> 
 well known and extremely fatal, was much more 
 partial than at present, and that many spots which 
 are now infected were formerly free from it. " The 
 whole of Latium," says Strabo 8 , " is a flourishing 
 and very productive country, with the exception of 
 a few spots near the coast, which are marshy and 
 unhealthy." And again, when speaking expressly of 
 the Campagna between the Alban hills and Rome 9 , 
 he says, "that the parts towards the sea are not so 
 healthy ; but that the rest is a good country to live 
 in, and well cultivated accordingly." Now, although 
 this is probably going too far, for the unhealthy spots 
 could not have been confined altogether to the sea 
 coast, yet with every allowance for exaggeration and 
 careless writing, this is a description of the Campagna 
 which no man in his senses would think of giving 
 now. 
 
 On the other hand, Cicero' and Livy 11 both speak Rome itself, 
 
 PI. i . i i i -i < T- then as now, 
 
 of the immediate neighbourhood of Home as un- was less un- 
 
 . , , healthy than 
 
 healthy, but at the same time they extol the positive its imme- 
 healthiness of the city itself; ascribing it to the hills, bourhood. 
 which are at once airy themselves, and offer a screen 
 to the low grounds from the heat of the sun. Bunsen 
 also, after an experience of many years, gives a fa- 
 vourable account of the healthiness of the city itself. 
 
 8 V. 3. 5. p. 231. " Compare VII. 38. "In pes- 
 
 9 V. 3. 12. p. 239- tilente atque arido circa urbem 
 
 10 De Republics, II. 6. " Lo- solo ;" and V. 54. " Saluberrimos 
 cum delegit (Romulus) in regione colles." 
 
 pestilent! salubrem." 
 
506 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. " The site of Rome," he says, " taken generally, may 
 1 w '-> be called healthy." It is true, that one of the most 
 unhealthy parts of modern Rome, the Piazza di 
 Spagna and the slope of the Pincian hill above it, 
 was not within the limits of the ancient city. Yet 
 the praise of the healthiness of Rome must be under- 
 stood rather comparatively with that of the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood than positively. Rome, in the 
 summer months, cannot be called healthy, even as 
 compared with the other great cities of Italy, much 
 less if the standard be taken from Berlin or from 
 London. 
 The Cam- Again, the neighbourhood of Rome is character- 
 
 pagna has 
 
 perhaps be- ized by Livy as a " pestilential and parched soil." The 
 
 come less i -i 
 
 healthy latter epithet is worthy of notice, because the favourite 
 
 from the 
 
 winters opinion has been that the malaria is connected with 
 
 having he- 
 come mild- marshes and with moisture. But it is precisely here 
 
 er, and 
 
 from the that we may find, I think, the explanation of the 
 
 diminution 
 
 in the quan- spread of the malaria in modern times. Even in 
 
 tity of rain. 
 
 spring, nothing can less resemble a marsh than the 
 present aspect of the Campagna. It is far more like 
 the down country of Dorsetshire, and as the summer 
 advances, it may well be called a dry and parched 
 district. But this is exactly the character of the 
 plains 1 - of Estremadura, where our soldiers suffered 
 
 12 The view here given of some has made much use of it in his 
 of the phenomena of marsh or own paper on the " Aria cattiva " 
 malaria fevers, was obtained from in the first volume of his descrip- 
 a paper by Dr. Ferguson of Wind- tion of Rome. An unprofessional 
 sor, " On the Nature and History man's judgment of a medical 
 of the Marsh Poison," which was work is worth little ; but the sub- 
 read before the Royal Society of ject of Dr Ferguson's paper is 
 Edinburgh in 1820. I directed one in which I have long felt a 
 Bunsen's attention to it, and he lively interest ; and all that I have 
 
SUPPOSED CAUSES OF THE MALARIA. 507 
 
 so grievously from malaria fever in the autumn of CHAP. 
 1809. In short, abundant experience has proved, ' 
 that when the surface of the ground is wet, the 
 malaria poison is far less noxious than when all ap- 
 pearance of moisture on the surface is gone, and the 
 damp makes its way into the atmosphere from a 
 considerable depth under ground. After a wet and 
 cold summer, in 1799, when the whole face of the 
 country was nearly flooded with water, the British 
 army remained the whole autumn in one of the most 
 unhealthy parts of Holland, without suffering in any 
 remarkable degree from malaria fever. But in 1809, 
 when the summer had been hot and fine, every one 
 remembers the deadly effect in the autumn fevers on 
 the soldiers who were holding Walcheren. If then 
 more rain fell in the Campagna formerly than is the 
 case now ; if the streams were fuller of water, and 
 their course more rapid ; above all, if owing to the 
 uncleared state of central Europe, and the greater 
 abundance of wood in Italy itself, the summer heats 
 set in later, and were less intense, and more often 
 relieved by violent storms of rain, there is every 
 reason to believe that the Campagna must have been 
 far healthier than at present ; and that precisely in 
 proportion to the clearing and cultivation of central 
 Europe, to the felling of the woods in Italy itself, 
 the consequent decrease in the quantity of rain, the 
 shrinking of the streams, and the disappearance of 
 
 observed myself, or heard from been in agreement with his state- 
 medical men, in answer to my in- ments. 
 quiries as to matters of fact, has 
 
508 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, the water from the surface, has been the increased 
 s '-> unhealthiness of the country, and the more extended 
 range of the malaria. 
 
 I* must be observed also, that the present desola- 
 ^j on o f ^he Campagna, and even that comparative 
 want of population which prevailed in it during the 
 later times of the Roman republic and under the 
 empire, are not wholly to be attributed to physical 
 causes. The aguish districts of England continue to 
 be inhabited, nor have the terrors of the yellow fever 
 driven men away from the unhealthiest situations of 
 the West Indies, or from Vera Cruz, Acapulco, or 
 Carthagena. The old cities of the Campagna would 
 have continued to defy the malaria ; their population 
 would have been kept down indeed ; many of their 
 children would have died young, and the average 
 length of human life would have been far short of 
 threescore years and ten; but men do not readily leave 
 their country, and they would have continued, as 
 their fathers had done before them, to struggle with 
 disease and death. When, however, political causes 
 had destroyed the cities of the Campagna one after 
 the other, and the land became the property of Ro- 
 man citizens ; when again at a later period the small 
 properties disappeared, and whole districts fell into 
 the hands of a few individuals ; then it was natural 
 that those who could afford to live where they chose, 
 should not fix themselves in a spot of even partial 
 unhealthiness, and thus a great part of the Campagna 
 was left only to the slaves by whom it was culti- 
 vated. In modern times, when slave labour was 
 
CAUSES OF THE DESOLATION OF THE CAMPAGNA. 509 
 
 no longer to be had, and there were no attractions 
 strong enough to induce a free population to migrate 
 from their homes to an unhealthy district, the Cam- 
 pagna has remained a wilderness, and its harvests are 
 reaped by a temporary immigration of labourers from 
 other parts of the country. To repeople it under 
 such circumstances is far more difficult than to keep 
 up a population already existing ; and if, as I believe, 
 the physical state of the Campagna has become more 
 and more unfavourable, it seems likely, without some 
 extraordinary advances in our knowledge of the 
 malaria, and in our ability to combat it, to remain 
 a wilderness for ever 13 . 
 
 13 This opinion should be ex- 
 pressed with the greatest hesita- 
 tion and diffidence, because Bun- 
 sen believes that the Campagna is 
 reclaimable by encouraging hu- 
 man habitation in it ; and he 
 thinks that if the great land- 
 holders were to let out their pro- 
 perty on leases to a number of 
 small farmers, who would thus 
 naturally create a resident popu- 
 lation, the unhealthiness of the 
 air would in a great measure 
 be obviated. It is said that the 
 breaking up of the surface of 
 the ground is found to lessen 
 the virulence of the malaria ; and 
 the fires which necessarily accom- 
 pany human dwellings, are an- 
 other known antidote to it. As a 
 proof of this, Bunsen appeals to 
 the great improvement thus ef- 
 fected by the duke of Zagarolo in 
 the neighbourhood of tbat little 
 town, which stands on the edge 
 of the Campagna, a few miles 
 from Palestrina, about a mile on 
 the left of the road coming from 
 Rome. The air, which was de- 
 cidedly unhealthy, has been puri- 
 
 fied ; and the whole district, by 
 having been peopled, has become 
 actually capable of supporting a 
 population in health and prospe- 
 rity. However, without reckon- 
 ing on the moral improbability of 
 finding the great body of pro- 
 prietors disposed to follow a new 
 system at variance with their old 
 habits, it must be allowed, that 
 the duke of Zagarolo's experi- 
 ment was made under circum- 
 stances unusually favourable. The 
 country round Zagarolo is high 
 ground ; it forms a sort of 
 shoulder, connecting the Alban 
 hills with the Apennines, and 
 forms the divortium aquarum, or 
 watershed, of the feeders of the 
 Tiber on the one hand, and of 
 the Garigliano on the other. Its 
 character also is wholly different 
 from the general aspect of the 
 Campagna ; it is not a country of 
 long-swelling slopes, notched as 
 it were here and there with deep 
 narrow stream beds ; but a suc- 
 cession of nearly parallel ridges, 
 rising to a considerable height, 
 with valleys rather than gorges 
 
510 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. The disorders produced by malaria, whether more 
 
 XXIII. ' 
 
 ^ v ' or less fatal, so regularly accompanied the return of 
 
 Various epi- J 
 
 demic dis- no t weather, that they were not likely to be recorded 
 
 orders > J 
 
 noticed in j n the annals. The diseases which were noticed there 
 
 the annals. 
 
 were of a very different character, and belonged 
 rather to another class of phenomena, those extra- 
 ordinary sicknesses, which in obedience to a law 
 hitherto undiscovered, visit the earth at different 
 periods, prevail more or less extensively, and acting 
 independently as it seems of any recognized causes 
 of disease, are also beyond the reach of all known 
 remedies. The first half of the fourth century of 
 Rome was one of these calamitous periods, and the 
 pestilences which occurred at the beginning of it 
 have been already noticed. Seven others are re- 
 corded between the years 318 and 365; that is 
 to say 14 , in 319, 320, 322, 327, 343, 356, and 
 363. They are described in general terms, with the 
 exception of those of the years 327 and 363, which 
 are ascribed to unusual droughts ; and said also to 
 have nearly resembled each other in their symp- 
 toms. The epidemic of 327 first, as we are told, 
 attacked the cattle, the herdsmen, and others who 
 tended the cattle, and lastly it became general. It 
 appears to have been wholly inflammatory, and to 
 have shown itself particularly on the skin ; first in 
 the form of a violent rash ! ', accompanied with ex- 
 treme irritation, and afterwards in the shape of 
 erysipelas of a very malignant kind. This visitation 
 
 between them. To all appearance 14 Livy, IV. 21. 25. 30. 52. V. 
 
 therefore it was more easily re- 13. 31. 
 
 claimable than the great mass of 1S Dionysius, XII. 3. Fragm. 
 
 the Campagna. Mai. 
 
EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 511 
 
 took place just after the conclusion of the peace of CHAP. 
 Nicias, and we do not hear of any coincident preva- ' ^ ' 
 lence of pestilence in Greece. The epidemic of 363 16 
 is described in similar terms ; it was brought on by 
 the same causes, an exceedingly hot and dry sum- 
 mer; and the symptoms were the same, an eruption 
 terminating in large and painful ulcers, accompanied 
 with such irritation, that their patients tore their 
 flesh even to the bone. The date of this disorder 
 falls about the beginning of the ninety-ninth Olym- 
 piad, that is to say it coincides with the Olynthian 
 war ; and as it arose from local causes, we cannot be 
 surprised that we hear no mention of its having 
 extended into Greece. But the epidemic of 322 
 and of the years almost immediately preceding it, was 
 contemporary with the great plague of Athens ; and 
 that of 356 coincided, according to the chronology of 
 Diodorus, with the violent sickness which destroyed 
 Imilcon's army before Syracuse, and had been pre- 
 ceded by three or four years of epidemic disease in 
 Africa. 
 
 If from diseases we turn to the phenomena of the Phenomena 
 
 . IT. i. ofthewea- 
 
 weather, with which they are, in all probability, ther. 
 closely connected, we find the years 327 and 363 of the yew- 
 marked, as has already been observed, by excessive 
 droughts; and the summer of 356 is said by Dio- 
 dorus 17 , to have been of the same character. On 
 the other hand, the winter of 355 had been one of 
 
 16 Dionysius, XIII. 4. Fragm. year earlier than Livy, namely, in 
 Mai. Livy, V. 31. Dionysius 362. 
 appears to put this epidemic a 17 XIV. 70. 
 
512 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, unusual severity 18 ; the Tiber was choked up with 
 
 XXIII 
 
 1 v '-> ice, the snow lay seven feet deep, where it was not 
 drifted ; many men and cattle were lost in it, and 
 many of the cattle were killed by the extreme cold, 
 or starved from want of pasture, the resources by 
 which we now provide for their subsistence during 
 the winter being then little practised. It is added 
 that the fruit trees, by which are meant the figs and 
 olives in particular, either perished altogether, or 
 suffered so severely that they did not bear for a long 
 time afterwards ; and that many houses were crushed 
 by the weight of snow which lay on them, or carried 
 away by its melting when the frost at last broke up. 
 There is also a notice in Diodorus of the winter of 
 321 19 , which is described as having been excessively 
 wet, so that the fruits of the following season never 
 ripened properly, and the corn was considered un- 
 wholesome. 
 
 Volcanic The period about the year 322, was remarkable 
 Earth- ' in Greece for the frequency and severity of earth- 
 quakes ; the numerous earthquakes which, from their 
 occurring so nearly together, were remembered after- 
 wards as an epoch, happened, says Thucydides 20 , 
 at this time. In the same way the Romans were 
 alarmed in the year 319, by reports 21 of frequent 
 earthquakes in the country immediately adjoining 
 
 18 Livy, V. 13. Dionysius, XII. annals, either before or since down 
 
 8. Fragm. Mai. Bunsen observes, to his time. I cannot find any 
 
 that ice in the Tiber is now as particulars of the freezing of the 
 
 unknown a phenomenon as it Tiber in 1709, already noticed in 
 
 would be between the tropics, note 1. 
 
 The winter of 355 is indeed de- 19 XII. 58. 
 
 scribed by Dionysius as one alto- 20 III. 89. 
 
 gether unparalleled in the Roman 21 Livy, IV. 21. 
 
VOLCANIC LAKES LAKE OF ALBA, AND TUNNEL. 513 
 
 Rome, and many houses were thrown down by the CHAP. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 shocks. It is probable that some phenomenon of this v -, ' 
 sort occasioned also the great overflow of the Alban 
 lake during the war with Veii ; an event remarkable 
 in itself, and still more so as having led to the 
 famous work existing to this day, the tunnel by 
 which the water of the lake is carried through the 
 range of hills which encircle it, and from thence is 
 discharged into the Campagna. 
 
 The lakes of Alba and Nemi, like others in the The volcanic 
 
 lakes of the 
 
 neighbourhood of Rome, are of a peculiar character, neighbour- 
 hood of 
 In their elevation, lying 1 nestled as it were high up Rome. 
 
 J ' L Tunnel of 
 
 in the bosom of the mountains, they resemble what the lake of 
 
 J Alba. 
 
 in Cumberland and Westmorland are called tarns; 
 but our tarns, like ordinary lakes, have their visible 
 feeders and outlets, their head which receives the 
 streams from the mountain sides, and their foot by 
 which they discharge themselves, generally in a 
 larger stream, into the valley below. The lakes of 
 Alba and Nemi lie each at the bottom of a perfect 
 basin, and the unbroken rim of this basin allows them 
 no visible outlet. Again, it sometimes happens that 
 lakes so situated have their outlet underground, and 
 that the stream which drains them appears again to 
 the day after a certain distance, having made its 
 way through the basin of the lake by a tunnel pro- 
 vided for it by nature. This is the case particularly 
 where the prevailing rock is the mountain or metalli- 
 ferous limestone of Derbyshire, which is full of ca- 
 verns and fissures ; and an instance of it may be seen 
 in the small lake or tarn of Malham in Yorkshire, 
 VOL. i. L 1 
 
514 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, and another on a much larger scale in the lake of 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 v '-> Copais in Boeotia. But the volcanic rocks, in which 
 the lake of Alba lies, do not afford such natural 
 tunnels, or at least they are exceeding small, and 
 unequal to the discharge of any large quantity of 
 water ; so that if any unusual cause swells the lake, 
 it can find no adequate outlet, and rises necessarily 
 to a higher level. The Roman tradition reported 
 that such a rise took place in the year 357 : it was 
 caused probably by some volcanic agency, and in- 
 creased to such a height, that the water at last 
 ran over the basin of hills at its lowest point 22 , 
 and poured down into the Campagna. Traces 23 
 of such an outlet are said to be still visible ; and 
 it is asserted that there are marks of artificial cutting 
 through the rock, as if to enlarge and deepen the pas- 
 sage. This would suppose the ordinary level of the 
 lake in remote times to have been about two hundred 
 feet higher than it is at present ; and if this were 
 so, the actual tunnel was intended not to remedy a 
 new evil, but to alter the old state of the lake for the 
 better, by reducing it for the time to come to a lower 
 level. Possibly the discharge over the edge of the 
 basin became suddenly greater, and so suggested the 
 idea of diverting the water altogether by a different 
 channel. But the whole story of the tunnel, as we 
 have it, is so purely a part of the poetical account of 
 the fall of Veii, that no part of it can be relied on 
 as historical. The prophecy of the old Veientian, 
 
 22 Dionysius, XII. 11. Fragra. 23 Sir W. Cell, Topography of 
 Mai. Rome, &c. Vol. I. p. 43. 
 
TUNNEL OF THE LAKE OF ALBA. 515 
 
 and the corresponding answer of the Delphian oracle, CHAP. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 connecting the draining of the lake with the fate of ^ ., - 
 Veii, must be left as we find them : only it is likely 
 enough that any extraordinary natural phenomenon, 
 occuring immediately after the visitation of pesti- 
 lence, and in the midst of a long and doubtful war, 
 should have excited unusual alarm, and have been 
 thought important enough to require an appeal to 
 the most famous oracle in the world. But other 
 questions of no small difficulty remain : the length of 
 the tunnel, according to the lowest statement given, 
 exceeds two thousand one hundred yards 24 ; according 
 to others it exceeds two thousand six hundred 25 ; 
 and one estimate makes it as much as two thousand 
 eight hundred 20 : its height varies from seven feet 
 and a half to nine or ten feet ; and its width is not 
 less than four feet. Admitting that it was wholly 
 worked through the tufo 27 , which is easily wrought, 
 still the labour and expense of such a tunnel must 
 have been considerable ; and in the midst of an im- 
 portant war, how could either money or hands have 
 been spared for such a purpose ? Again, was the 
 work exclusively a Roman one, or performed by the 
 Romans jointly with the Latins, as an object of com- 
 
 24 Westphal. Rb'mische Kara- is excavated generally in the tufo. 
 pagne, p. 25. Mr. Meason, whose authority is 
 
 25 Sir W. Gell, Topography of considerable, as he had had much 
 Rome, p. 39. practical acquaintance with min- 
 
 26 Mr. Laing Meason, quoted ing, and went into the tunnel 
 by Sir W. Gell in a note to p. 53 for about 130 yards from the 
 of his Topogr. of Rome, Vol. I. lake, speaks of the work as cut in 
 
 27 Westphal says it is worked the tufo. 
 through lava. Sir W. Gell says it 
 
 Ll2 
 
516 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, mon concern to the whole confederacy ? The Alban 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 v ' lake can scarcely have been within the domain of 
 Rome ; nor can we conceive that the Romans could 
 have been entitled to divert its waters at their plea- 
 sure without the consent of the neighbouring Latin 
 cities. But if it were a common work ; if the Latins 
 entered heartily into the quarrel of Rome with Veii, 
 regarding it as a struggle between their race and 
 that of the Etruscans ; if the overflow of the waters 
 of their national lake, the lake which bathed the foot 
 of the Alban mountain, where their national temple 
 stood and their national solemnities were held, ex- 
 cited an interest in every people of the Latin name, 
 then we may understand how their joint labour and 
 joint contributions may have accomplished the work 
 even in the midst of war ; and the Romans, as they 
 disguised on every occasion the true nature of their 
 connexion with the Latins, would not fail to repre- 
 sent it as exclusively their own. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE GAULS INVADE CENTRAL ITALY BATTLE OF THE 
 
 ALIA BURNING OF ROME RANSOM OF THE CAPI- 
 TOL AND OF THE CITY RETREAT OF THE GAULS. 
 
 " Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates !" 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 " Aurea caesaries ollis, atque aurea vestis : 
 Virgatis lucent sagulis ; turn lactea colla 
 Auro innectuntur : duo quisque Alpina coruscant 
 Gaesa manu, scutis protect! corpora longis." 
 
 VIRGIL, JEn. VIII. 658. 
 
 THE fourth century before the Christian sera brought CHAP. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 the Gauls, as we have seen, for the first time within ^ v -> 
 
 Common ac- 
 
 the observation of the civilized world. They then count of the 
 
 settlements 
 
 crossed the Apennines, and overran central and of the Gaul- 
 ish tribes iu 
 
 southern Italy ; they then also broke in upon the Italy. 
 Illyrian ' tribes, established themselves between the 
 Danube and Greece, and became known to the kings 
 of Macedon 2 . But whether it was in this same 
 
 1 Justin, XXIV. 4. This is reias. The following words, eVt 
 
 the great expedition which Scylax <rTfv5>v, appear to me to be corrupt, 
 
 alludes to when he describes the 2 In the very beginning of the 
 
 Gauls on the north-western coast reign of Alexander, when a Gaul- 
 
 of the Adriatic, as " men who ish embassy came to congratulate 
 
 had stayed behind from their ex- him on his victory over the Getae. 
 
 pedition ;" dirdXexfrdfvrf s rfjs a-rpa- Arrian, Exp. Alex. I 4. 
 
518 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, century that they had first crossed the Alps as well 
 
 XXIV 
 
 .. ' as the Apennines, is a question much more difficult 
 
 to answer. If we follow the well-known account of 
 Livy 3 , we must fix their passage of the Alps two 
 hundred years earlier : it was about six hundred 
 years before the Christian sera, according to this state- 
 ment, that there happened a vast emigration of the 
 inhabitants of central Gaul ; one great multitude, 
 said the story, crossed the Rhine, and sought a home 
 amidst the wilds of the Hercynian forest; another 
 made its way over the Alps, descended into the plain 
 of the Po, encountered and defeated the Etruscans, 
 who were then the masters of the country, near the 
 river Ticinus, and founded the city of Mediolanum. 
 After this other tribes of central Gauls, entering 
 Italy by the same course, and finding their country- 
 men already in possession of all to the westward of 
 the Adda, penetrated still deeper, and extended the 
 Gaulish settlements as far as the Adige. Again, at 
 a later period, but how much later we are not told, 
 the Boii 4 and Ling-ones set out from the east and 
 
 3 Livy, V. 34, 35. countries. Again, the Senones, 
 
 4 The Lingones came from the who are mentioned as having 
 neighbourhood of Langres, that entered Italy last of all the Gauls, 
 high table land which looks do\vn are also included amongst the 
 on the infant Marne to the north, tribes of the first swann who 
 and on the streams which feed the founded Mediolanum. Both these 
 Saone to the south. The situa- circumstances seem to show, that 
 tion of the Boii in Gaul is not in the view of the author of this 
 known ; their nation is only to be account, all the migrations into 
 traced in the countries to which it Italy took place nearly continu- 
 had emigrated, in Germany and ously, and were the result of one 
 Italy. It is remarkable that the and the same cause. This also 
 story speaks of a simultaneous seems to agree best with the fact, 
 migration into Germany and Italy ; that the last comers, instead of 
 and we find Boii in both of these attempting to dislodge those who 
 
MIGRATIONS OF THE GAULS INTO ITALY. 519 
 
 north-east of Gaul, made their way to the lake of CHAP. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Geneva, ascended the valley of the Rhone, crossed v < 
 the Alps by the pass which now bears the name of 
 the Great St. Bernard, and as the whole country on 
 the north of the Po was already occupied, these new 
 adventurers passed that river, and drove out the 
 Etruscans and Umbrians from their possessions 
 between the Po and the Apennines, from the neigh- 
 bourhood of the modern cities of Parma, Modena, 
 and Bologna. Last of all, but again the time is not 
 specified, came the Senones from the same quarter 
 of Gaul, and following in the track of the Boii and 
 Lingones, crossed as they had done both the Alps 
 and the Po, reached the coast of the Adriatic, and 
 finally spread themselves along its shores from the 
 neighbourhood of Ravenna to that of Ancona. 
 
 The geographical part of this account appears to its 
 
 r . logy is sus- 
 
 deserve our full belief; but it does not follow that its picious. 
 chronology is equally trustworthy. The narrative 
 itself seems to imply that all these migrations were 
 nearly continuous, and it is for many reasons most 
 probable 5 that they were so; yet it is not credible 
 
 had arrived before them, passed Ticinus and the Adda, and would 
 
 on quietly to a more distant set- have paid little regard to the tie of 
 
 tlernent This is very conceivable, a common extraction, when dis- 
 
 if all had left their country from tance of time and place had done 
 
 one and the same impelling cause, so much to weaken it. 
 and in the course of one genera- 5 Partly for the reasons given 
 
 tion ; but had the Boii and Lin- in the preceding note, and also, 
 
 gones entered Italy a century or because a general burst of migra- 
 
 a century and a half later than tion at one particular period is 
 
 the founders of Mediolarmm, and more probable amongst a barba- 
 
 from causes wholly unconnected rian people than a succession of 
 
 with their migration, they would migrations to the same quarter, 
 
 in all probability have tried to during a term of two hundred 
 
 establish themselves between the years. 
 
520 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XXIV. 
 
 that the Senones should have t>een settled on the 
 coast of the Adriatic 6 for two hundred years before 
 they crossed the Apennines ; and there is a prepon- 
 derance 7 of evidence to prove that their inroad into 
 
 6 They crossed the Apennines, 
 according to Diodorus and the 
 author of the little work, " De 
 Viris Illustrious," because their 
 settlement on the Adriatic was 
 parched and barren ; they surely 
 would have discovered this in less 
 time than a hundred years. Nie- 
 buhr notices the general rapidity 
 of barbarian incursions ; they ad- 
 vance further and further till they 
 meet with some invincible obsta- 
 cle. And those who had exter- 
 minated the Etruscans from the 
 north of the Apennines, would 
 have had nothing to deter them 
 from attacking the same enemies 
 in their southern possessions in 
 Etruria Proper. 
 
 7 Diodorus, XIV. 113. Diony- 
 sius, XIII. 14, 15. Fragm. Mai. 
 Pliny, Hist. Natur. III. 17, where 
 he says that the Gauls destroyed 
 the Etruscan city of Melpum in 
 northern Italy in the same year 
 and day on which the Romans 
 took Veii. Justin, XXIV. 4, and 
 XX. 5, and even Livy himself, in 
 two passages referred to by Nie- 
 buhr, V. 17, and 37, where he 
 makes the Etruscans speak of the 
 Gauls as a people whom they had 
 never seen, who were recently be- 
 come their neighbours, and with 
 whom they knew not whether 
 they were to have peace or war ; 
 and where in the same way he 
 speaks of the Gauls as a new 
 enemy to the Romans, who were 
 come upon them from the shores 
 of the ocean and the extremities 
 of the earth. The only plausible 
 argument for the more ancient 
 
 settlement of the Gauls in Italy, 
 (for little stress is to be laid on 
 their pretended alliance with the 
 Phocaean exiles who were founding 
 Massilia,) is to be found in the 
 statement of Dionysius, VII. 3, 
 which some understand as saying 
 that the Greek city of Cuma in 
 Campania was besieged in the 
 reign of Tarquinius Superbus by 
 some Etruscans who had dwelt on 
 the shores of the Ionian gulf, 
 and who had been in the course 
 of time driven from their country 
 by the Gauls. This is the in- 
 terpretation of Dionysius' words, 
 as Miiller understands them. 
 (Etrusker, Vol. I. p. 153, note 
 78) Niebuhr, however, under- 
 stands them differently ; and the 
 language is not sufficiently pre- 
 cise to enable us to be certain as 
 to the writer's meaning. The 
 words are, "Tvpprjv&v ol irepl TUV 
 
 loVlOV KO\TTOV KdTOlKOVVTfS, (KfWtV 
 
 ff VTTO TU>V KeXrwv f^eXadfvres crvv 
 Xpovai, Kal cri>i/ avrols 'OpflpiKoi re 
 Kal Aaui/tot /cat avol TO>V a\\<ov 
 
 Niebuhr thinks that this 
 means, " those Etruscans who 
 then were dwelling on the Ionian 
 gulf, but who in the course of 
 time were afterwards driven from 
 thence by the Gauls." Miiller 
 objects that if this were the mean- 
 ing, Dionysius must have written 
 
 Ol TOTf fJifV KUTOlKOVVTfS, VCTTepOV 
 
 fie eg(\a6fiT(s. This would have 
 been clearer undoubtedly ; but 
 Dionysius does not write with 
 the perfect clearness of Isocrates 
 or Demosthenes, and the words 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE KELTIC RACE. 521 
 
 Etruria followed close upon their first establishment CHAP. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 in north Italy. It is impossible to say at how early v v 
 a period tribes of Gauls may have passed over the 
 Cottian Alps, and settled in the valleys and plain of 
 Piedmont. But the general overthrow of the Etrus- 
 can power between the Alps and the Apennines, has 
 every appearance of having been effected suddenly, 
 speedily, and not earlier than the middle of the fourth 
 century of Rome, when some causes, to us unknown, 
 set the whole Keltic or Gaulish nation in motion, 
 and drove them southward and eastward to execute 
 their appointed work of devastation and destruction. 
 
 Another question next presents itself. Can \ve TO what 
 recognize these Gaulish invaders of Italy as belonging did the 
 
 .. i . . . K 1* 1 n Gauls, w k 
 
 to either or the existing divisions of the Keltic race ? invaded 
 Were they Gael, or were they Kymry ? or did they long? 
 belong to some third division, distinct from each of 
 these, which has since utterly perished ? Much has 
 been written upon the subject of the Kelts and their 
 
 aiiv xp6vu> are roeant to express there any reason for considering 
 
 the same thing as Mailer's iWe- the expedition against Cuma as 
 
 pov. But after all, what can be occasioned by the expulsion of the 
 
 made of the passage under any invaders from their own country 
 
 interpretation ? " The Etruscans by another enemy. The Um- 
 
 on the Ionian gulf," that is, on brians and Daunians who took 
 
 the Adriatic, could not have been part in it were certainly never 
 
 driven out by the Gauls as early driven out from their country by 
 
 as the sixty- fourth Olympiad, for the Gauls ; and it is more proba- 
 
 all allow that the Senones, who ble that the Etruscans, who are 
 
 expelled the Etruscans from the named as the first people in the 
 
 coast, entered Italy after all the confederacy, were not a band of 
 
 other Gauls ; and their invasion fugitives ; but were rather at- 
 
 was so recent, that Scylax speaks tempting, in conjunction with their 
 
 of the Etruscans, as well as of the dependent allies, to extend their 
 
 Umbrians and Daunians, as still dominion still further over Italy ; 
 
 dwelling on the shores of the for this was the period of their 
 
 Adriatic even in his time. Nor is greatest power. 
 
522 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, language ; but we seem as yet unable to connect our 
 
 XXIV 
 
 * - ' knowledge of the existing Keltic races with the 
 accounts which we have received of them from the 
 writers of antiquity. 
 
 Diodoras' Diodorus 8 tells us, that the Romans included under 
 
 distinction . . 
 
 between the one common name of (jrauls two great divisions of 
 Kelts. people: the one consisting of the Keltic tribes of 
 Spain, of the south and centre of Gaul, and of the 
 north of Italy; the other embracing those more re- 
 mote tribes which lived on the shores of the ocean, 
 and on the skirts of what he calls the Hercynian 
 mountains, and eastward as far as Scythia. This last 
 division, he says, were the proper Gauls, while the 
 others were to be called Kelts. Niebuhr supposes 
 that Diodorus learnt this distinction from Posidonius, 
 and it is undoubtedly well worth noticing. Diodorus 
 further says, that to these more remote tribes be- 
 longed the Kimbri, whom some writers identified 
 with the old Kimmerians; and that these Kimbri 
 were the people who took Rome, and sacked Delphi, 
 and carried their conquests even into Asia. 
 Kelt and It may be doubted, however, whether there be 
 different " not in this statement a show of knowledge greater 
 e. than the reality. Keltse and Galatae are undoubtedly 
 only different forms of the same name ; the first w r as 
 the form with which the Greeks were earliest ac- 
 quainted, at a time when their knowledge of the 
 Kelts was confined to the tribes of Spain and Gaul. 
 The great Gaulish migration of the fourth century 
 
 8 Diodorus, V. 32. 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE KELTIC RACE. 523 
 
 before Christ introduced the other and more correct CHAP. 
 
 A.XI V. 
 
 form "Galatse;" yet many writers 9 continued to use ^ < ' 
 
 the old orthography, and in fact, with the exception 
 of the Galatians of Asia Minor, the other Gauls, in 
 all parts of the world, are generally called by the 
 Greeks according to their old form of the name, not 
 Galatse but Keltse. These names, therefore, would 
 in themselves rather show that the inv.aders of Italy 
 and Greece were the same people with the old 
 inhabitants of the west of Europe, than establish any 
 diversity between them. 
 
 But when we find from Caesar 10 , that the Gauls Yet the dis - 
 
 tmction of 
 
 on the shores of the ocean, that is, on the coasts of Diodoms is 
 
 partly true, 
 
 the British channel and the North Sea, the Gauls 
 whom he calls Belgians, were distinguished both in 
 language and customs from the Gauls of the interior ; 
 when we consider that these more remote Gauls in- 
 cluded, according to Diodorus, the people called 
 Kimbri, and when we see that the people now call- 
 ing themselves Kymry, namely, the Welsh, do ac- 
 tually differ in language and customs from the Keltic 
 tribes of Ireland and Scotland, the statement of 
 Diodorus does appear to contain a real truth, and we 
 begin to recognize in the Keltse and Galatse of his 
 geography two great divisions of the same race, 
 
 9 Aristotle ascribes to the Keltse speaking of the Kelts of Pannonia 
 
 a peculiarity in national manners, and Thrace, that is, of the Galatse 
 
 which Diodorus reports of the of Diodorus, and not of the re- 
 
 Galatae. And in those notices of mote inhabitants of Gaul and 
 
 Keltic manners and character Spain, 
 
 which occur in several places of 10 De Bello Gallico, I. 1. 
 his works, he must have been 
 
524 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, analogous to the Gael and Kymry existing at this 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 * ' day in Great Britian. 
 
 but in- Yet the gleam of light thus gained is almost 
 
 muchdiffi- instantly overclouded. The Gauls of the north of 
 
 culty. 
 
 Italy appear, according to every testimony 11 , to have 
 been the same people with the Gauls of the centre 
 of France, or, in the language of Diodorus, with the 
 Keltse. The. names of their tribes, the Senones 12 , 
 Lingones, Insubres, Cenomani, can be connected at 
 once with particular districts of Keltic Gaul, which 
 bore, it may almost be said which bear to this day, 
 the same names, and from which their origin is 
 distinctly traced. We find among them no traces of 
 Belgian or Kimbrian names, or of their having come 
 from the shores of the Northern Ocean 13 , or the 
 Hercynian mountains. How then can it be said that 
 the invaders of central Italy w r ere not Keltae but 
 Galatae, not Gael but Kymry? 
 
 The Gauh It has been maintained, indeed, that 14 the Boii, 
 Italy came Lingones, and Senones, the tribes which were the 
 
 from Keltic , _ , . . 
 
 Gaul. last to enter Italy, and which crossed the Alps, not 
 by the passes to the west of Turin, but by the Great 
 
 11 Polybius, II. 15. TpaiWA- l3 The expression in Livy al- 
 irivoi yt p.r)v ov 8ia rfjv TOV ytvovs ready referred to, " that the Gauls 
 aXXa 8ia TTJV TOV TOTTOV 8uxf)opav came from the shores of the ocean," 
 irpoa-ayopfvovTdt. must not be alleged here, inas- 
 
 12 The Senones came from the much as the ocean is there used 
 neighbourhood of Sens on the merely in opposition to the Medi- 
 Yonne, the Lingones from that of terranean, and may quite as well 
 Langres : the Insubres came from be understood of the Bay of Biscay 
 a district in the country of the as of the German Ocean or the 
 ^Edui, between the Loire and Baltic. 
 
 Saone; and the Cenomani from H By Thierry in his Histoire 
 the neighbourhood of Le Mans des Gaulois, Vol. I. p 44, &c. 
 
THE KYMRY. 
 
 St. Bernard, were of a different race from the earlier CHAP. 
 
 A. A.J. V 
 
 invaders, and that while those were Gael, these who * ^ ' 
 came last were Kymry. But the Roman writers, 
 and Polybius, who was well acquainted with the Cis- 
 alpine Gauls, acknowledge no such diversity. And 
 though we cannot ascertain the country of the Boii, 
 yet the Lingones and Senones both fall within the 
 limits assigned by Caesar to Keltic Gaul, as distin- 
 guished from the country of the Belgae or Kymry. 
 
 If, however, we are disposed to rely on the state- But possibly 
 
 the Kimbn, 
 
 rnent of Diodorus and Appian, that the Gauls, who or Kymry, 
 
 may have 
 
 invaded Greece, were Kimbri, it may be very possible * ak( r n P ait 
 
 > J J in the mva- 
 
 that there was a more general movement among the ^ e n m with 
 Keltic tribes in the fourth century of Rome, than 
 the Greek or Roman writers were aware of. The 
 Kymry breaking in upon the Gael from the east and 
 north, may have persuaded or forced some of their 
 tribes to join them in their march southwards ; the 
 two nations may have poured into Italy together, 
 and while the Gaelic tribes settled themselves on 
 the Po or on the coast of the Adriatic, the mass of 
 the Kymrians may have pressed forward round the 
 head of the gulf, and so penetrated into Pannonia 
 and Thrace. Nor could we deny the possibility of 
 some Kymrians having remained in Italy with the 
 Gael ; and if we believe that the name of Brennus l5 
 
 15 It must be remembered al- mentioned the attack on Rome, 
 ways that Fabius, the oldest Ro- as we know, but not with its de- 
 man historian, wrote about two tails ; and it is not likely that they 
 hundred years after the Gaulish should have given the name of 
 invasion, and borrowed largely the Gaulish leader. In fact, Dio- 
 from the Greek writers. They dorus, whose narrative, as Nie- 
 
526 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 i 
 
 CHAP, was really borne by the leader of the attack on 
 
 XXIV 
 
 ' v '-' Rome, and that this word is no other than the 
 Kymrian " Brenhin 16 ," which signifies king or leader, 
 then we must conclude that although the mass of 
 the invaders were Gael, yet that not only were there 
 Kymrians joined with them, but that a Kymrian 
 chief commanded the whole expedition. This may 
 have been so, but I can hardly think that there is 
 sufficient evidence to require us to believe that it 
 was so. 
 
 Difficulty of Again, though I have called the Gauls of north 
 the language Italy Gael, and have supposed that those who passed 
 
 of the Gauls J I T 
 
 who invaded on to Illyricum and Thrace may have been Kymry, 
 
 Italy with J J J 
 
 any existing yet I am far from concluding that in the language- 
 dialect. of the former we should have recognized the exact 
 Erse and Gaelic of Ireland and the Scotch High- 
 lands, or in that of the latter the exact form of the 
 modern Welsh. The Keltic languages, which still 
 exist in these islands, are in all likelihood the soli- 
 tary survivors out of a multitude of languages or 
 dialects, once spoken by the various branches of the 
 great Keltic family, from the Atlantic to the sources 
 of the Danube, from the Mediterranean to the 
 northern extremity of the British isles. Length of 
 
 buhr supposes, is copied from 16 Dr. Pritchard, whose autho- 
 
 Fabius, does not give it at all. rity in such questions is of the 
 
 It is very likely that the name of highest order, believes that Bren- 
 
 Brennus was borrowed from the nus is not the Welsh " Brenhin," 
 
 story of the Gaulish attack on but rather the proper name Bran, 
 
 Delphi, as so many of the em- which occurs in Welsh history. I 
 
 bellishments of the Roman his- know not whether this name ever 
 
 tory have been taken from the prevailed amongst the Irish, or 
 
 famous stories of the history of the Gael of Scotland. 
 Greece. 
 
THE KELTIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 527 
 
 time and remoteness of place introduce wonderful 
 changes in a language; so that no one could expect 
 to find an exact resemblance between the Keltic 
 spoken in the fourth century before the Christian 
 sera, by the Gauls of France and Italy, and the ac- 
 tual language of the inhabitants of Ireland and the 
 north of Scotland. We may, therefore, find names 
 of places and persons H among the ancient Gauls, 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 17 Dr. Pritchard tells me that 
 he cannot trace the terminations 
 magus, briga, and briva, in any of 
 the existing Keltic languages. Al- 
 though 1 am myself ignorant of 
 those languages, yet I can see 
 that Thierry's pretended explana- 
 tions of Keltic names of places are 
 often quite extravagant. Boden- 
 cus, according to Polybius, was 
 the name given by the people 
 of the country to the river Po ; 
 (Polyb. II. 16 ) and this word, 
 according to Pliny, Hist. Natur. 
 III. 16, signifies bottomless, " fun- 
 do carens." Metrodorus of Scep- 
 sis, from whom Pliny borrowed 
 this account, said indeed that Bo- 
 dencus, or Bodincus, as it is in 
 our copies of Pliny, was a Ligu- 
 rian word ; but there was a town 
 Bodincomagus, which has evi- 
 dently a Keltic termination. Can 
 Bodincus or Bodencus be rea- 
 sonably explained by the present 
 Welsh or Irish languages ? Again, 
 the same Metrodorus derived Pa- 
 dus from the Gaulish Fades, 
 which he said signified a pine- 
 tree. Can this be traced in mo- 
 dern Keltic ? It should be ob- 
 served, that in explaining the 
 names of places, and especially of 
 terminations, it is not enough to 
 produce Welsh or Irish words of 
 similar sound, and capable of 
 forming something of a signifi- 
 
 cant word ; but their combination 
 must be agreeable to the usages 
 of the language ; and with regard 
 to terminations, it should be 
 shown either that they are com- 
 mon in names of places in Keltic 
 countries now, or that some word 
 of similar signification is so used. 
 Attempts have been made within 
 these few years by Welsh and 
 German antiquaries to explain the 
 names of ancient towns in Italy 
 from the Keltic and Teutonic lan- 
 guages ; and in either case it has 
 not been difficult to find words of 
 similar sound both in Welsh and 
 German, which when combined 
 give a possible signification. But 
 in all these cases we see at once 
 that of two different derivations 
 one must be wron^; and it mostly 
 happens I think that both are so. 
 
 Von Humboldt notices the ter- 
 minations of magus, briga, and 
 briva, as undoubtedly Keltic. The 
 first and last of them do not occur 
 in Spain ; but Briga is frequently 
 met with within the limits occu- 
 pied by the Keltiberians. Hum- 
 boldt refers to the termination Bria, 
 which is met with in the geography 
 of Thrace, as in the town Selym- 
 bria and Mesembria. He thinks 
 that the Basque " iri" and "uri" 
 are connected with both ; and 
 that we can go no further than to 
 say that there was an old root 
 
528 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, which no Keltic language in its present state will 
 v '-> enable us to interpret. Much more may it be im- 
 possible to trace such words in the written Welsh, 
 or Erse, or Gaelic ; although an exact acquaintance 
 with the various spoken dialects in the several parts 
 of Ireland or Wales might even now enable us to 
 discover them. There are many German words 18 
 lost in our written English, which exist either in the 
 names of places or in some of our provincial dia- 
 lects ; and doubtless the converse of this might be 
 observed by any one who was familiar with the 
 spoken dialects of Germany. For the language of 
 the civilized nation was once no more than the 
 dialect of some particular tribe, till some intellectual 
 or political superiority of those who spoke it, caused 
 it to be adopted in writing in preference to its sister 
 dialects, and thus made its peculiarities from hence- 
 
 Bri, or Bro, expressing land, habi- Irish Dictionary as signifying " a 
 
 tation, settlement, with which also grand house or building, a for- 
 
 the Teutonic Burg, and the Greek tified place, a palace or royal re- 
 
 Trvpyos, may have been originally sidence." O'Brien connects it with 
 
 connected. In the Welsh and briga and the Thracian Bria. I 
 
 Breton languages " Bro " is still, also find the substantive " bru- 
 
 he says, not only a cultivated field, gaide" in O'Brien's Dictionary, 
 
 but generally a country or district; as signifying "a husbandman, 
 
 and the Scholiast on Juvenal, Sat. ploughman, or farmer." 
 
 VIII. 234, explains the name of 18 Dorf, " a village," is a well- 
 
 Allobrogae as signifying strangers, known instance ; a word which 
 
 men from another land, " quoniam now exists in English only in the 
 
 brogae Galli agrum dicunt, alia form of " thorpe," a common ter- 
 
 autem aliud." Briva is supposed mination of the names of places in 
 
 to mean bridge ; but Von Hum- several counties, and sometimes a 
 
 boldt agrees with Dr. Pritchard in name by itself. Again the Ger- 
 
 saying, that there is no similar man " bach," a stream or brook, 
 
 word of a like signification known is in common use in the north 
 
 to exist in any of the surviving of England, where the brooks 
 
 Keltic languages. or streams are invariably called 
 
 I find brog and brug in O'Brien's becks. 
 
THE KELTIC LANGUAGES. 529 
 
 forth the common rule. Now it may well happen CHAP. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 in tM T o nations speaking a common language, that v v 
 
 the dialects 19 which shall ultimately prevail in each, 
 shall not be those which most nearly resemble one 
 another; and thus, at an advanced period of their 
 history, their languages shall present a far greater 
 dissimilarity than existed between them in their 
 infancy. 
 
 Thus, as we follow the stream of time backwards Th <> differ- 
 ences be- 
 
 towards its source, it is natural that the differences, tween lan- 
 guages were 
 not of dialect only, but even of language, should anciently 
 
 * less marked 
 
 become less and less ; so that what are now distinct than the y 
 
 have become 
 
 main branches of one great stock, may at a very >? later 
 remote period have formed the as yet undivided 
 elements of one common trunk. There must have 
 been a time when the Keltic 20 and Teutonic lan- 
 guages were parted far less widely than we find them 
 
 19 Many curious instances of only from their containing a mul- 
 this might be given. Horse and titude of common words, but from 
 pferd are the classical English and a surer evidence, the analogy in 
 German words for the same ani- their grammatical forms. 
 
 mal ; but horse exists in German In order to judge of the con- 
 under the form ros, and is to be nexion between one language and 
 met with in poetry, and also some- another, something more is neces- 
 times on the signs of inns, as if it sary than the being merely able to 
 were now either an old or a merely write and to speak those two Ian- 
 provincial or familiar word. And, guages. Sir W. Betham, in his 
 on the other hand, the English work called " the Cymry and the 
 form of pferd, which is pad, has Gael," gives a list of Welsh and 
 sunk still lower, and is merely a Irish pronouns, to show that the 
 cant or ludicrous word in our Welsh language has no connexion 
 present language. with the Irish. Whereas that very 
 
 20 It is quite manifest from. Dr. list furnishes a proof of their af- 
 Pritchard's excellent work on the finity to any one who has been ac- 
 origin of the Keltic nations, that customed to compare the various 
 the Keltic and Teutonic languages forms assumed by one and the 
 belong to one common family, same original word, in the several 
 which is commonly called the cognate languages of the same 
 Indo-Germanic. This appears not family. 
 
 VOL. I. M m 
 
530 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, now: even within historical memory, when the 
 
 XXIV 
 
 ^ v ' Keltic and Teutonic tribes were intermixed with 
 each other, within the limits of what is now Ger- 
 many, and when they were so confounded together 
 in the eyes of the Greeks and Romans, as to be 
 regarded only as one great people 21 , the real dif- 
 ferences of manners and language may have been 
 much less than they became afterwards, when their 
 limits were more distinctly marked. What was 
 working in the wide extent of central Europe dur- 
 ing so many centuries of which no memorial remains, 
 we should vainly seek to discover. Accident, to use 
 our common language, may have favoured the growth 
 of improvements in some remote tribe, while the 
 bulk of the people, although nearer to the great 
 centre of human civilization, may have remained in 
 utter barbarism : and thus Cesar's statement may be 
 perfectly true, that druidism, of which we find no 
 traces amongst the Cisalpine Gauls, was brought to 
 its greatest perfection in Britain, and that the Gauls 
 in his own time were in the habit of crossing over 
 thither, as to the best and purest source of instruc- 
 tion in its mysteries. 
 
 physical There is one point, however, in which the differ- 
 
 character of , 
 
 the Gauh. ence between the Keltic race in ancient and modern 
 times has been unduly exaggerated. The Greek and 
 
 21 Dionysius divides the country peculiarities of the Gaulish race, 
 
 of the Kelts, KeXrtKq, into two and says that the Romans called 
 
 great divisions, which he calls them Germani, " true," " genu- 
 
 Gaul and Germany, XIV. 2. ine," to intimate that they were 
 
 Fragm. Mai. Strabo describes genuine Gauls : <BJ av yvrja-iovs 
 
 the Germans as the most perfect TaKaras (frpdfav /3ot>Ad/ii/<n. VII. 
 
 and genuine specimens of the 1. 2. p. 290. 
 
PHYSICAL CHARACTER OF THE GAULS. 531 
 
 Roman writers invariably describe the Gauls 22 as a CHAP. 
 
 "V"VT V 
 
 tall and light-haired race in comparison with their ^ v _ 
 own countrymen; but it has been maintained that 
 there must be some confusion in these descriptions 
 between the Gauls and the Germans, inasmuch as 
 the Keltic nations now existing are all dark-haired. 
 This statement was sent to Niebuhr by some English- 
 man; and Niebuhr, taking the fact for granted on 
 his correspondent's authority, w r as naturally much 
 perplexed by it. But had he travelled ever so 
 rapidly through Wales or Ireland, or had he cast a 
 glance on any of those groups of Irish labourers 
 who are constantly to be met with in summer on all 
 the roads in England, he would have at once per- 
 ceived that his perplexity had been needless. Com- 
 pared with the Italians, it would be certainly true 
 that the Keltic nations were generally speaking both 
 light-haired and tall". If climate has any thing to 
 
 22 Diodorus calls them ev/jLrjKeis, market by the conquests of the 
 
 AevKoi, and rais Karats avQoi. V. dictator Caesar, the writers of the 
 
 28. Ammianus Marcellinus calls Augustan age, even though they 
 
 them " candidi et rutili," XV. 12. might never have crossed the 
 
 Virgil speaks of their " aurea Alps, must have been as familiar 
 
 csesaries," and " lactea colla," with the appearance of a Gaul as 
 
 Mn. VIII. 658, 9. Strabo says the West Indians are with that of 
 
 that the " Germans differ a little a negro. A mistake so general on 
 
 from the Gauls in being more tall a point so obvious is utterly im- 
 
 and more light-haired," rw TrXeo- possible. 
 
 vao-fjLQ) TOV fj.fyedovs KOI TTJS avQ6- ?3 I should not have ventured 
 
 TTJTOS. VII. p. 290 ; and again he to speak so confidently merely 
 
 describes the Britons as "less from my own observation; but 
 
 light-haired than the Gauls," IV. Dr. Pritchard, who has for many 
 
 p. 200. Polybius also speaks of years turned his attention to this 
 
 their " great stature," II. 15; and question, assures me that he is 
 
 Livy mentions their " procera perfectly satisfied as to the truth 
 
 corpora, promissae et rutilatoe co- of the fact here stated. To me it is 
 
 rme," XXXVIII. 17. Now after only surprising that any one should 
 
 such multitudes of Gauls had have thought of disputing it. 
 been brought into the slave- 
 
 M m 2 
 
532 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, do with the complexion, the inhabitants of the north 
 
 XXIV 
 
 * v '> of Europe, in remote times, may be supposed to 
 have been fairer and more light-haired than at pre- 
 sent ; while the roving life, the plentiful food, and 
 the absence of all hard labour, must have given a 
 greater development to the stature of the Gaulish 
 warriors who first broke into Italy, than can be 
 looked for amongst the actual peasantry of Wales 
 or Ireland. 
 
 The Gauls The Gauls then from beyond the Alps were in 
 Apennines, possession of the plain of the Po, and had driven out 
 Ctaram. or exterminated the Etruscans, when in the year of 
 Rome 364, they for the first time crossed the Apen- 
 nines, and penetrated into central Italy. On the 
 first alarm of this irruption 24 the Romans sent three 
 of their citizens into Etruria to observe their move- 
 ments ; and these deputies arrived at Clusium just at 
 the time when the Gauls appeared before its walls, 
 and began, after their usual manner, to lay waste the 
 country. The citizens made a sally, and the Roman 
 deputies went out with them ; they engaged with the 
 Gauls, and one of the deputies encountered and slew 
 a Gaulish chief. Roman patricians, said the Roman 
 story 2 ', could not be confounded with Etruscans; 
 the Gauls instantly perceived that there were some 
 strangers of surpassing valour aiding the citizens of 
 Clusium ; they learnt that these strangers were Ro- 
 mans, and they forthwith sent deputies to Rome to 
 
 Diodorus, XIV. 113. tissimique Romans juventutis 
 
 25 Livy, V. 36. Nee id clam pugnarent ; tantum eminebat 
 
 esse potuit, quam ante signa peregrina virtus. 
 Etruscorum tres nobilissimi for- 
 
DOUBTFUL ACCOUNTS OF THE GAULISH INVASION. 533 
 
 demand that the man who had thus fought with CHAP. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 them, and slain one of their chiefs, when there was v v '- 1 
 no war between the Gauls and the Romans, should 
 be given up into their hands, that they might have 
 blood for blood. The senate thought that the de- 
 mand of the strangers was reasonable, and voted that 
 the deputy should be given over into their hands ; 
 but his father, who was one of the military tribunes 
 for the year, appealed to the people from the sen- 
 tence of the senate, and being a man of much in- 
 fluence, persuaded them to annul it. Then the 
 Gauls, finding their demand rejected, broke up in 
 haste from Clusium, and marched directly against 
 Rome' 6 . 
 
 Thus the very outset of this Gaulish invasion, even Uncertainty 
 
 J t of the 
 
 as related by Diodorus, who gives the story in its accounts of 
 
 J J the Gaulish 
 
 simplest form, is disguised by the national vanity of war. 
 the Romans. It is impossible to rely on any of the 
 details of the narrative which has been handed down 
 to us; the Romans were no doubt defeated at the 
 Alia ; Rome was taken and burnt ; and the Capitol 
 ransomed ; but beyond this we know, properly speak- 
 ing, nothing. We know that falsehood has been 
 
 26 Diodorus, XIV. 113, 114. according to Livy, they were three 
 This story, it will be observed, brothers, sons of M. Fabius Am- 
 differs from Livy's in several bustus. Now no Fabius appears 
 points. According to Livy, the in the list of military tribunes for 
 three deputies were all demanded the year 364, either according to 
 by the Gauls ; nothing is said of Diodorus or Livy ; and though 
 their father being military tribune, the list for 365, as given by Diodo- 
 but it is said that they themselves rus, is very corrupt, yet there are 
 were immediately elected military no traces of its ever having con- 
 tribunes for the ensuing year, tained the names of more than 
 Diodorus does not name them ; two Fabii at the most. 
 
534 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, busy, to an almost unprecedented extent, with the 
 * ^ v '-> common story ; exaggeration, carelessness, and honest 
 ignorance, have joined more excusably in corrupting 
 it. The history of great events can only be pre- 
 served by contemporary historians ; and such were in 
 this case utterly wanting. But as we have an out- 
 line of undoubted truth in the story, and as the par- 
 ticulars which are given are exceedingly striking and 
 in many instances not improbable, I shall endeavour 
 at once to present such a view of the events of the 
 Gaulish war as may be clear from manifest error, and 
 to preserve also some of its most remarkable details, 
 which may be true, and are at any rate far too famous 
 to be omitted. 
 
 The Gauis We know that the Gauls needed no especial pro- 
 on^Rome. vocation to attack Clusium, or to penetrate beyond 
 Rome into the south of Italy. Wherever there was 
 a prospect of the richest plunder, there was to them 
 a sufficient cause for hostility. But the cities of 
 Etruria, surrounded by their massive walls, were im- 
 pregnable except by famine ; so that after the open 
 country had been once wasted, the Gauls would natu- 
 rally carry their arms elsewhere. From Clusium the 
 valley of the Clanis would conduct them directly to 
 the Tiber; that river, so far from its mouth, would 
 be easily fordable ; and then all the plain of Latium 
 lay open to their attack. The season was now the 
 middle of summer ; the new military tribunes, who 
 at this period came into office on the first of July, 
 had just been elected; and expecting the Gauls to 
 advance upon Rome, and supposing that they would 
 
THE GAULS MARCH TOWARDS ROME. 535 
 
 approach by the right bank 27 of the Tiber, they sum- CHAP. 
 moned to the field the whole force of the Common- ' . ' 
 wealth, they called on their Latin and Hernican 28 
 allies to aid them, and having thus collected all their 
 strength, they marched out of Rome on the road to 
 Etruria, intending to receive the enemy's attack in 
 the neighbourhood of Veii, which was now a sort of 
 frontier fortress of the Roman territory, and which 
 might serve as the base of their operations. The 
 whole army thus assembled amounted, according to 
 the statement of Plutarch 29 , to forty thousand men. 
 
 But the Gauls meantime had crossed the Tiber 
 into Umbria, and were moving along the left bank of ^e 
 the river, through the country of the Sabines, to- s 
 wards the plain of Latium. The Roman writers, 
 who pretend that their only object was Rome, and 
 that as soon as they heard that their demand for 
 
 ?7 Diodorus states positively, w Camillas, 18. According to 
 
 that the Roman army marched Dionysius, XIII. 19, there were 
 
 out across the Tiber. It is true four legions of picked and expe- 
 
 that he seems to have supposed rienced soldiers, and a still more 
 
 the Alia to have been on the right numerous force of those who 
 
 bank of the Tiber; but this con- commonly stayed at home and 
 
 fusion arose probably from his did not serve in war ; that is, of 
 
 finding no notice of the Romans proletarians and serarians. Ac- 
 
 recrossing the river before the cording to Diodorus, the left 
 
 battle. His first statement is pro- wing of the Roman army, con- 
 
 bable, and seems to me to ex- sisting of the bravest soldiers, 
 
 plain the extreme suddenness with amounted to 24,000: that is, it 
 
 which the battle on the Alia took contained the four regular legions 
 
 place. spoken of by Dionysius, which 
 
 28 "The Gauls," says Polybius, amounted together to 12,000 men, 
 
 " defeated the Romans and those and of an equal number of the 
 
 who were drawn up in the field allies. This would leave about 
 
 along with them." 'Pcapaiovs KCU 16,000 men for the raw and in- 
 
 TOUS pera TOVTOV Trapara^a/jifvovs. ferior troops, TOVS aadevtvraTovs, 
 
 II 18. These could have been no who in the battle formed the right 
 
 other than the Latin and Herni- of the Roman army, 
 can allies. 
 
536 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, satifaction was rejected they hastened from Clusium 
 
 1 * ' to attack the Romans, forget that this is inconsistent 
 
 with another part of their story, namely, that the 
 deputies who had gone to Clusium were, as if in 
 mockery of the Gauls, elected military tribunes im- 
 mediately after the refusal to give them up. For as 
 the tribunes did not enter on their office till the first 
 of July, and the battle of the Alia was not fought 
 till the sixteenth, the pretended hasty march of the 
 Gauls from Clusium to Rome, a distance of about a 
 hundred miles 30 , must have taken up more than a 
 fortnight. But in all likelihood the Gauls went on 
 plundering the country before them, Avithout aiming 
 exclusively at Rome : according to Diodorus, they 
 had waited in Etruria before they began their march 
 southwards, long enough to receive large reinforce- 
 ments 31 from beyond the Apennines; and the pro- 
 vocation given them by the Romans was, we may 
 suppose, gladly seized as a pretence for extending 
 their attacks upon the country of their old enemies, 
 the Etruscans, to that of the other nations of central 
 Italy. 
 
 TheRomans When it was discovered that the Gauls were 
 the Alia, already on the left bank of the Tiber, and advancing 
 by the Salarian road, which was the old communi- 
 cation between the land of the Sabines and Rome, 
 then the Romans were naturally thrown into the 
 
 30 Polybius underrates the dis- and two, and one hundred and 
 
 tance at a three days' journey. II. three miles, and it cannot be much 
 
 25. Strabo calls it eight hundred less. 
 
 stadia. V. p. 226. The itineraries 31 XIII. 114. 
 as corrected make it one hundred 
 
BATTLE OF THE ALIA. 537 
 
 greatest alarm. The Tiber, for many miles above CHAP. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Rome, is not fordable ; as there were no towns on v 
 the river there were probably no bridges, and boats 
 could not be procured at such short notice for the 
 passage of so large an army. The Romans therefore 
 were obliged to go round by Rome, and without an 
 instant's delay march out by the Salarian road, in 
 order to encounter the enemy at as great a distance 
 from the city as possible. They found the Gauls al- 
 ready within twelve miles of Rome ; the little stream 
 of the Alia, or rather the deep bed through which it 
 runs, offered something like a line of defence 32 ; and 
 accordingly the Romans here awaited the attack of 
 their enemy. Their right was posted on some high 
 ground 33 , covered in front by the deep bed of the 
 Alia, and with a hilly and wooded country protecting 
 its flank ; while the left, consisting of the regular 
 legions, filled up the interval of level ground between 
 the hills and the Tiber, and its extreme flank was 
 covered by the river. 
 
 32 It is well known that to there is a small brook with high 
 identify the famous Alia with any banks," and that " on the right 
 existing stream is one of the of the road at this spot you see 
 hardest problems of Roman topo- the village of Marcigliana Vec- 
 graphy. Virgil and Livy agree chia." p. 127. But I cannot re- 
 in placing it on the left bank of concile this with Sir W. Gell's 
 the Tiber ; and Livy's description map, or with his description in 
 seems as precise as possible, for his article on the Alia in his to- 
 he says that the armies met, "ad pography of Rome; for there 
 undecimum lapidem, qua flumen Marcigliana Vecchia is placed 
 Alia Crustuminis montibus pree- about two miles nearer to Rome, 
 alto defluens alveo baud multum Both descriptions are given in 
 infra viam Tiberino amni misce- such detail that this diversity is 
 tur." V. 37. And Westphal ac- rather perplexing, 
 cordingly says that " something 33 Livy, V. 38. Diodorus, XIV. 
 less than eleven miles from Rome, 114. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 There seems in all these dispositions nothing of 
 overweening rashness or of folly ; it is doubtful what 
 was really the disproportion of numbers between the 
 two armies; if the Gauls had but recently been re- 
 inforced, the Roman generals may have supposed the 
 enemy's numbers to have been no greater than they 
 were at Clusium ; and to fight was unavoidable, if 
 they wished to save their country from devastation. 
 But the Gaulish leader showed more than a bar- 
 barian's ability. With the bravest of his warriors 
 he assailed the right of the Roman position : the 
 soldiers of the poorer classes, unused to war, and 
 untrained in the management of their arms, were 
 appalled by the yells, and borne down by the strength 
 of their enemies ; and their wooden shields were but 
 a poor defence against the fearful strokes of the 
 Keltic broadsword. The right of the Romans was 
 broken and chased from its ground; the course of 
 the river had obliged the left of the army to be 
 thrown back behind the right, so that the fugitives 
 in their flight disordered the ranks of the regular 
 legions ; and the Gauls pursuing their advantage, the 
 whole Roman army was totally routed. The van- 
 quished fled in different directions ; those on the left 34 
 plunged into the Tiber, in the hope of swimming 
 across it and escaping to Veii ; but the Gauls 
 slaughtered them in heaps on the banks, and over- 
 whelmed them with their javelins in the river, so 
 that a large part of the flower of the Roman people 
 
 34 Livy, V. 38. Diodorus, XIV. 114, 115. 
 
THE COMMONS FORSAKE ROME. 539 
 
 was here destroyed. The fugitives on the right fled CHAP. 
 towards Rome ; some took refuge in a thick wood 35 -. - 
 near the road, and there lay hid till nightfall ; the 
 rest ran without stopping to the city, and brought 
 the tidings of the calamity. 
 
 The Gauls did not pursue the fugitives far : we The 9 auls 
 
 pass the 
 
 hear as yet nothing of that cavalry for which they $ n tll( 
 were afterwards so famous ; probably because they battle - 
 had not yet been long enough in Italy to have sup- 
 plied themselves with the horses of that country : 
 and the breed of Transalpine Gaul, like that of 
 Britain, was too small to be used except for the 
 drawing of their war-chariots. Besides, they were 
 themselves wearied with their march, and with their 
 exertions in the battle ; and it was of importance 36 
 to each man to collect and exhibit his trophies, the 
 heads of the enemies whom he had slain : for these 
 were the proof that the warrior had done his duty in 
 the battle, and was entitled to his share of the spoil : 
 these were to be carried home, and preserved to after- 
 
 35 Festus in " Lucaria." The 36 Diodorus, XIV. 115. V. 29. 
 wood according to this statement Strabo, IV. p. 197. The practice 
 was between the Salarian road of cutting off the heads of their 
 and the Tiber. This shows that enemies, and of preserving them 
 Sir W. Cell has rightly marked in their houses, is ascribed directly 
 the old Salarian road on his map, to the Gauls. The presenting them 
 where he makes it turn to the to the general, as a title to a share 
 right over the hills away from the of the spoil, is mentioned by Hero- 
 Tiber, about two miles beyond dotus as a Scythian custom (IV. 
 Castel Giubileo. Had the road 64) ; but as in other respects the 
 followed the low grounds near the Scythian customs with regard to 
 river, there could scarcely have the heads of their enemies re- 
 been a wood between it and the semble what is related of the 
 Tiber, for the ground must have Gauls, I have ventured to transfer 
 been then as now, nothing but a to the latter people this custom 
 great expanse of meadows. also. 
 
540 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, ages iii his family, as a memorial of his valour. Thus, 
 v -/ ' according to the account of Diodorus, the Gauls 
 
 passed the night after their victory on the field of 
 
 battle. 
 The Romans B u t the Romans found it impossible to defend 
 
 resolve to 
 
 defend the their city ; as the flower of the citizens of the military 
 
 Capitol. 
 
 age, who had escaped from the battle, had retreated 
 to Veii. It is probable that a large proportion of 
 these were not sorry to have this opportunity of 
 effecting what they had before attempted in vain, 
 and wished to remain at Veii as their future country. 
 Of the remaining inhabitants of Rome, the greater 
 part dispersed, as the Athenians had done before the 
 approach of Xerxes 37 ; they took refuge with their 
 families, and such of their effects as they could 
 remove, in many of the neighbouring cities. But it 
 was resolved, as at Athens, to maintain the citadel 38 , 
 for this, as in all the cities of the ancient world, was 
 in a manner the sanctuary of the nation : it was the 
 spot in which the temples of the nation's peculiar 
 gods were built; and to this every feeling of pa- 
 triotism, whether human merely or religious, was 
 closely connected. This was the home of the true 
 gods of Rome, and the citadel of the true Roman 
 people, before the stranger commons, with their new 
 gods, had pretended to claim the rights of Roman 
 citizens ; and many a patrician, indignant at the 
 
 37 Diodorus, XIV. 115. Livy, which garrisoned the Capitol did 
 V. 40. not exceed a thousand men, 
 
 38 Diodorus, XIV. 115. Livy, I. 13. 
 V. 39- Florus says, that the force 
 
THE VESTAL VIRGINS, ETC. REMOVED. 541 
 
 retreat of the legions to Veii, and regarding this de- CHAP. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 sertion as another proof that the commons were no * ^> 
 genuine sons of Rome, retired into the Capitol with 
 a resolution never to abandon that country and those 
 gods, which he felt and might justly claim to be 
 indeed his own. 
 
 But the citadel might be taken ; the genuine The Vestal 
 
 i i / -i -i i -i t Virgins with 
 
 Romans who defended it might be massacred ; the the eternal 
 temple of the three guardian powers of Rome, Jupi- draw to 
 ter, Juno, and Minerva, of the Capitol, might be 
 profaned and destroyed. Still there had been a time 
 when other gods had possessed the Capitol, and yet 
 even then there was Rome, and there were Romans. 
 Other powers and other rites were the pledge of 
 Rome's existence, and if they failed, she must be 
 lost for ever. The flamen of Quirinus 39 , the deified 
 founder of the city, and the Vestal Virgins, w T ho 
 watched the eternal fire, the type and assurance of 
 its duration, must remove their holy things beyond 
 the reach of the enemy, or if all could not be re- 
 moved, what was left must be so hidden, that no 
 chance should ever betray it. Accordingly the fla- 
 men and the Virgins of Vesta buried some of their 
 holy things in the ground, in a spot preserved after- 
 wards with the strictest care from every pollution ; 
 and whatever they could remove, they carried with 
 them to Agylla or Caere. They went on their way, 
 said the story 40 , on foot; and as they were ascend- 
 ing the hill Janiculum, after having crossed the 
 
 39 Livy, V. 40. Livy, V. 40. 
 
542 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, river and left the city, there overtook them on the 
 v-I-L.Lj ascent a man of the commons, L. Albinius by name, 
 who was conveying his wife and children in a car- 
 riage to a place of safety. But when Lucius saw 
 them, he bade his wife and children to alight, and he 
 put into the carriage in their room the holy virgins 
 and their eternal fire ; " For it were a shame," said 
 he, " that I and mine should be drawn in a carriage, 
 while the Virgins of Vesta with their holy things were 
 going on foot." So he conveyed them safe in the 
 carriage to Caere. 
 The Gauis Meantime the Gauls, it is said, hesitated for one 
 
 enter Rome. 
 
 whole day 41 to attack the city, suspecting that the 
 apparent absence of all preparations for defence was 
 but a snare to entice them to venture on an assault 
 rashly. Thus the Romans gained a respite which 
 was most needful to them; and when, on the third 
 day after the battle, according to the ancient mode 
 of reckoning, the enemy did force the gates and 
 enter the city, the mass of the population had already 
 escaped, and the Capitoline hill was, as well as cir- 
 
 41 Diodorus makes them hesi- small, as to make him afraid to 
 
 tate for two whole days, and thus commence an attack upon so large 
 
 to enter the city on the fourth day a city. But it seems certain that 
 
 after the battle, according to the the delay was of one day only, 
 
 ancient manner of reckoning. The and not of two. Polybius says, 
 
 cause of the delay may indeed be that the Gauls took Home three 
 
 a little misrepresented ; after so days after the battle ; that is, after 
 
 great a victory, the conquerors in- the interval of one whole day. II. 
 
 dulged themselves for one whole 18. And the statement of Verrius 
 
 day, as we can readily suppose, in Flaccus, preserved by Gellius, V. 
 
 excess, and in plundering all the 17, and which has all the precision 
 
 surrounding country ; and if their of a quotation from some official 
 
 leader had pushed on to Rome, record, says, " post diem tertium 
 
 yet the force which he could in- ejus diei urbera captam esse." 
 duce to follow him might be so 
 
AGED PATRICIANS DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO DEATH. 543 
 
 cumstances would allow, provisioned and garrisoned. CHAP. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 When the Gauls entered, their chiefs, it appears, esta- v ' 
 
 blished themselves on some of the houses on the Pa- 
 latine hill 42 , exactly opposite to the Capitol ; and in 
 the rest of the city the work of plunder and destruc- 
 tion raged freely. 
 
 The mass of the commons had fled from Rome The old 
 
 11- 11-11 i- i P atr i c i an s 
 
 with their w r ives and children, or, having escaped devote 
 from the rout at the Alia, had taken refuge at Veii. to death 
 The flower of the patricians, and of the citizens of country. 
 the richer classes of an age to bear arms, had retired 
 into the Capitol, to defend to the last that sanctuary 
 of their country's gods. The flamen of Quirinus and 
 the Vestal Virgins had departed with the sacred 
 things committed to their charge out of the reach of 
 danger. But there were other ministers of the 
 gods 43 , whom their duty did not compel to leave 
 Rome, whom their age rendered unable to join in 
 the defence of the Capitol, and who could not endure 
 to be a burden upon those whose strength allowed 
 them to defend it. They would not live the few 
 remaining years of their lives in a foreign city, but 
 as they could not serve their country by their deeds, 
 they wished at least to serve it by their deaths. So 
 they, and others of the old patricians who had filled 
 the highest offices 44 in the Commonwealth, met to- 
 gether ; and M. Fabius, the chief pontifex, recited a 
 
 42 Diodorus, XIV. 115. Virgins. Camillus, 21. 
 
 43 Of roiv dAXcoi/ 6ewv lepe'is, is " Qui curules gesserant magis- 
 Plutarch's expression, after men- tratus. Livy, V. 41. 
 
 tioning the departure of the Vestal 
 
544 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, solemn form of words, which they each repeated 
 v '> after him, devoting to the spirits of the dead and to 
 the earth, the common grave of all living, them- 
 selves and the army of the Gauls together with 
 themselves, for the welfare and deliverance of the 
 people of the Romans and of the Quirites 45 . Then, 
 as men devoted to death, they arrayed themselves in 
 their most solemn dress ; they who had held curule 
 offices, in their robes of white with the broad scarlet 
 border 46 ; they who had won triumphs, in their robes 
 of triumph overlaid with embroidery of many colours 
 and with palm-branches of gold, and took their seats 
 each on his ivory chair of magistracy in the gateway 
 of his house. When the Gauls saw these aged men 
 
 45 Plutarch, Camillas, 21. Livy 
 mentions this account, though he 
 does not expressly adopt it. V. 
 41. I have borrowed the " car- 
 men devotionis," the form in 
 which the old men devoted them- 
 selves, from the story of Decius in 
 the great Latin war. He who de- 
 voted himself to death for his 
 country, intended to offer him- 
 self to the powers of death, as a 
 willing victim on the part of his 
 own countrymen, that the other 
 victims required by fate might he 
 taken from the army of the ene- 
 my. To have prayed for victory 
 simply, without any sacrifice on 
 the part of the conquerors, was a 
 tempting of Nemesis ; but if the 
 sacrifice was first offered, then the 
 wrath of Nemesis would be turned 
 against the enemy, that they too 
 might have their portion of evil. 
 The devoted offered himself " diis 
 manibus tellurique." Livy, VIII. 
 9. Strictly, the dii manes were the 
 spirits of a man's own ancestors, 
 
 but they are addressed here as 
 representatives of the powers of 
 death generally. Tellus is of course 
 the notion of the grave. 
 
 46 The toga prsetexta, or bordered 
 toga. The toga, it is well known, 
 was rather a shawl than a robe, 
 but the word shawl would suit so 
 ill with our associations of ancient 
 Rome, that it would not be worth 
 while to introduce it. The trium- 
 phal toga, toga picta, was like a 
 rich Indian shawl worked with 
 figures of various colours ; it was 
 thrown over the tunica palmata, 
 the coat or frock worked with 
 figures of palm-branches, probably 
 in gold. The sella curulis was, 
 as its name imports, the seat or 
 body of the chariot, Stypos, and 
 when used by the curule magis- 
 trates at their tribunals, implied 
 that they shared in the imperium 
 or sovereign power held of old by 
 the kings, one mark of which was 
 the being borne in a chariot in- 
 stead of walking on foot. 
 
THE GAULS BLOCKADE THE CAPITOL. 545 
 
 in this array of majesty, sitting motionless amidst CHAP. 
 the confusion of the sack of the city, they at first ' ^ ' 
 looked on them as more than human 17 , and one of 
 the soldiers drew near to M. Papirius, and began to 
 stroke reverently his long white beard. Papirius, 
 who was a minister of the gods, could not endure 
 the touch of profane barbarian hands, and struck 
 the Gaul over the head with his ivory sceptre. In- 
 stantly the spell of reverence was broken, and rage 
 and the thirst of blood succeeded to it. The Gaul 
 cut down the old Papirius with his sword ; his com- 
 rades were kindled at the sight, and all the old men, 
 according to their vow, were offered up as victims to 
 the powers of death. 
 
 The enemy now turned their attention to the Blockade of 
 Capitol. But the appearance of the Capitoline hill 
 in the fourth century of Rome can ill be judged of 
 by that view which travellers obtain of its present 
 condition. The rock, which is now so concealed by 
 houses built up against it, or by artificial slopings of 
 the ground, as to be only visible in a few places,, 
 formed at that time a natural defence of precipitous 
 cliff all round the hill ; and there was one only 
 access to the summit from below, the clivus or as- 
 cent to the Capitol. By this single approach the 
 Gauls tried to storm the citadel, but they were 
 repulsed with loss 48 ; and after this attempt they 
 contented themselves with blockading the hill, and 
 extending their devastations over the neighbouring 
 
 47 Primo ut deos venerati deinde Auctor de viris illustr. in Camillo. 
 ut homines despicati interfecere. 48 Livy, V. 43. 
 
 VOL. I. N n 
 
546 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 country of Latium. It is even said that they pene- 
 trated into the south of Italy ; and a Gaulish army 
 is reported to have reached Apulia 49 , whilst a por- 
 tion of their force was still engaged in blockading 
 the Roman garrison in the Capitol. 
 
 Night as- Meantime, the Romans who had taken refuge at 
 capitofre- Veii had recovered from their first panic, and were 
 M. ManLs. daily becoming more and more reorganized. It was 
 desirable that a communication should be opened 
 between them and the garrison of the Capitol ; and 
 a young man named Pontius Cominius 50 undertook 
 the adventure. Accordingly he set out from Veii, 
 swam down the Tiber, climbed up the cliff into the 
 Capitol, explained to the garrison the state of 
 things at Veii, and returned by the same way un- 
 hurt. But when the morning came, the Gauls 
 observed marks on the side of the cliff, which told 
 them that some one had made his way there, either 
 up or down; the soil had in places been freshly 
 trodden away, and the bushes which grew here and 
 there on the face of the ascent had been crushed or 
 torn from their hold, as if by some one treading on 
 them or clinging to them for support. So being 
 thus made aware that the cliff was not impracticable, 
 they proceeded by night to scale it. The spot being 
 supposed to be inaccessible, was not guarded ; the 
 
 49 Diodorus, XIV. 117- It was and these were perhaps the very 
 
 apparently this portion of the Gauls Gauls whom he afterwards sent 
 
 which offered its services to Diony- into Greece to aid the Lacedaemon- 
 
 sius, while he was engaged in his ians against Epaminondas. Justin, 
 
 war with the Greeks of southern XX. 5. 
 
 Italy. He enlisted some of them, 50 Diodorus, XIV. 116. 
 
NIGHT ASSAULT OF THE GAULS REPULSED. 547 
 
 top of the rock was not even defended by a wall. In CHAP. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 silence and in darkness the Gauls made their way up v ./ - 
 the cliff; no sentinel perceived them; even the watch- 
 dogs, said the story 51 , heard them not, and gave no 
 alarm. But on the part of the hill by which the 
 enemy were ascending, stood the temple of the three 
 guardian gods of the Capitol and of Rome, Jupiter, 
 Juno, and Minerva ; and in this precinct there were 
 certain geese kept, which were sacred to Juno ; and 
 even amidst their distress for food, the Romans, said 
 the old story, had spared the birds which were pro- 
 tected by the goddess. So now, in the hour of dan- 
 ger, the geese heard the sound of the enemy, and 
 they began to cry in their fear, and to flap their 
 wings ; and M. Manlius, whose house was in the 
 Capitol, hard by the temple, was aroused by them ; 
 and he sprang up and seized sword and shield, and 
 called to his comrades, and ran to the edge of the 
 cliff. And behold a Gaul had just reached the 
 summit, when Marcus rushed upon him and dashed 
 the rim of his shield into his face, and tumbled him 
 down the rock. The Gaul as he fell bore down 
 those who were mounting behind him ; and the rest 
 were dismayed, and dropped their arms to cling 
 more closely to the rock ; and so the Romans, who 
 had been roused by the call of Marcus, slaughtered 
 them easily, and the Capitol was saved. Then all 
 so honoured the brave deed of Marcus Manlius, that 
 each man gave him from his own scanty store one 
 
 51 Livy, V. 47. Diodorus, XIV. 1 16. 
 
 Nn2 
 
548 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, day's allowance of food, namelv, half a pound of 
 
 .A..A. 1 V. 
 
 ' v ' corn, and a measure containing five ounces in weight 
 
 of wine 5! . Historically true in the substance, these 
 stories are yet in their details so romantic, that I 
 insensibly, in relating them, fall into the tone of the 
 poetical legends. 
 
 The Gauls gj x months 53 , according to some accounts, seven 
 
 receive a 
 
 sum of or even eight months 54 according to others, did the 
 
 money from 
 
 the Romans, Gauls continue to blockade the Capitol. The sick- 
 
 and raise the 
 
 blockade. ness o f a Roman autumn did not, we are told, shake 
 them from their purpose ; the plunder which might 
 be gained in other yet unwasted districts of Italy 
 did not tempt them to abandon it. But is it possible 
 to believe that barbarians could have shown such 
 perseverance, or that in one day of preparation pro- 
 visions could have been carried into the Capitol in 
 sufficient quantities to hold out, even for a small 
 garrison, during a siege of six or eight months 5 '? 
 Thus much however may safely be believed, that the 
 garrison of the Capitol was at last reduced to extre- 
 mity 56 ; they offered to ransom themselves by the 
 payment of a large sum of money, and the Gauls 
 
 58 " Quartarios vini." Livy, V. vius, JEa. VIII. 652, says "eight." 
 
 57. The quartarius, or the fourth M If the Gauls stayed in Rome 
 
 part of the sextarius, was the for so long a time, they must have 
 
 twenty-fourth part of the congius ; left it in the middle of winter, 
 
 and as the congius contained ten Now it is said, that they hastened 
 
 pounds weight of water, the quar- on their way homewards, because 
 
 tarius contained five ounces, it their own country was invaded 
 
 was a little more than the half of by the Venetians; but barbarians 
 
 the Greek cotyle. would scarcely choose the depth 
 
 53 Florus, I. 13. of winter for an enterprize of this 
 
 54 Polybius, II. 22, and Plutarch sort. 
 
 in Camill. 30, say "seven." Ser- 56 Diodorus, XIV. 116. 
 
DEPARTURE OF THE GAULS. 549 
 
 were disposed, it is said 57 , to accept the offer, be- CHAP. 
 cause they heard that the Venetians, that nation of " / ^ 
 Illyrian blood who dwelt around the northern extre- 
 mity of the Adriatic, had made an inroad into their 
 own country beyond the Apennines. They consented 
 therefore to the terms offered by the Romans ; and 
 a thousand pounds' weight of gold were to be col- 
 lected from the offerings in the Capitoline temple, 
 and from the treasures which had been carried into 
 the Capitol before the siege from every part of Rome, 
 that for this ransom the blockade might be raised. 
 Even in accepting these terms, the Gaulish leader 
 felt that he w r as admitting to mercy enemies whom 
 he had wholly in his power. His weights, said the 
 Roman story 58 , were unfair; the Roman tribune of 
 the soldiers, Q. Sulpicius, complained of the fraud, 
 but the Gaul threw his heavy broadsword into the 
 scale ; and when the tribune again asked what he 
 meant, he replied in words which may be best repre- 
 sented by an analogous English proverb, " It means 
 that the weakest must go to the wall 59 ." 
 
 Thus, according to the true version of this famous Corruptions 
 
 _ . . . - of the true 
 
 event, the Gauls returned from their inroad into story of ti>e 
 Italy loaded with spoil and crowned with glory, the Gauls. 
 That as soon as they were known to be retreating, 
 the nations whom they had overrun should have re- 
 covered their courage, and have taken every oppor- 
 tunity to assail them on their march home, is perfectly 
 
 87 Polybius, II. 18. 59 "Vae victis esse." 
 
 58 Livy, V. 48. 
 
550 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, probable ; nor need we doubt that these attacks were 
 
 XXIV 
 
 v sometimes successful, that many stragglers were cut 
 off, and much plunder retaken. These stories were 
 exaggerated, as was natural; and by degrees the 
 Romans claimed the glory of them for themselves. 
 We can almost trace the gradual fabrication of that 
 monstrous falsehood which, in its perfected shape, so 
 long retained its hold on Roman history. After the 
 retreat of the Gauls from Rome, their countrymen 
 who had advanced into Apulia returned from their 
 expedition, and found the Romans in too weak a 
 condition to do them any harm ; but as they were on 
 their march through the Roman territory, the people 
 of Caere, or Agylla, laid an ambush for them, and cut 
 off, it is said, the whole party 60 . To enhance the 
 merit of this success, the Gauls who were cut off 
 were next made to be the same party who had 
 besieged the Capitol 61 ; and it was added, that the 
 people of Caere recovered the very gold which had 
 been paid for the ransom of Rome. But the glory 
 of such a trophy could not be left to strangers; the 
 victory was soon transferred to the Romans ; and it 
 was Camillus who found the Gauls, a long time after 
 their retreat from Rome, employed in besieging a 
 city 62 in alliance with the Romans, who defeated 
 them utterly, and won from them all their spoil. 
 Lastly, the story was to be more entirely satisfactory 
 
 60 Diodorus, XIV. 1 17. name of the city is wholly corrupt, 
 
 61 Strabo, V. p. 220. 
 
 62 Diodorus, XIV. 117. The 
 
CONCLUSION. 551 
 
 to the Roman pride; Rome 63 was never ransomed at CHAP. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 all ; Camillus appeared with the legions from Veii ..-^-> 
 just as the gold was being weighed out ; as dictator 
 he annulled the shameful bargain, drove the Gauls 
 out of Rome at the sword's point, and the next day 
 defeated them so totally on their way home, eight 
 miles from Rome, on the road to Gabii, that he left 
 not a single man alive to carry to their countrymen 
 the tidings of their defeat. Such a falsification, 
 scarcely to be paralleled in the annals of any other 
 people, justifies the strongest suspicion of all those 
 accounts of victories and triumphs which appear to 
 rest in any degree on the authority of the family 
 memorials of the Roman aristocracy. 
 
 What was the real condition of Rome and the Conclusion, 
 neighbouring countries after this first Gaulish tempest 
 had passed away ; how the second period of Roman 
 history begins in a darkness almost as thick as that 
 which overhangs the beginnings of the first, but a 
 darkness peopled by few of those forms, so beautiful 
 though so visionary, which give so great a charm to 
 the times of the kings ; how faintly we can trace 
 the formation of that great fabric of dominion and 
 
 63 Livy, V. 49 If the Gauls tages over these last in their re- 
 
 who were besieging the Capitol treat, and may have obtained a 
 
 received their ransom, and with- triumph. In this case the exag- 
 
 drew from Rome before the end geration or confusion was easy, 
 
 of the autumn, while others of that the Gauls, after a stay of 
 
 their countrymen remained in eight months in Rome, were at 
 
 Italy through the winter, and did last driven out by Camillus ; the 
 
 not return home till the first be- period of their stay in Italy being 
 
 ginning of spring, Camillus may mistaken for that of their occupa- 
 
 then have obtained some advan- tion of Rome. 
 
552 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAP, polity which, when the light of day breaks, we find 
 , '-> wellnigh in its complete proportions, it will be my 
 
 endeavour to make appear in the second volume of 
 
 this history. 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES, 
 
 'ROM THE BEGINNING OF THE COMMONWEALTH TO THE TAKING 
 OF ROME BY THE GAULS. 
 
554 
 
 CONSULS AND 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Year of 
 Rome: 
 common 
 reckoning 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 JEra.. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capitolini. 
 
 1 
 
 2i5 
 
 508 
 
 68 1 
 
 
 2 
 
 246 
 
 50? 
 
 68-2 
 
 
 3 
 
 247 
 
 506 
 
 683 
 
 
 4 
 
 248 
 
 505 
 
 68-4 
 
 M. Valer. . . . Cos. . . . CCXLVlll 
 P. Post .... Cos. . . . CCXLVIII 
 
 5 
 
 249 
 
 504 
 
 69 1 
 
 P. Valerius . . . Poplicol . . . 
 
 6 
 
 250 
 
 503 
 
 69-2 
 
 P. Postumi . . . Cos. 11. ... Ann. CCL 
 Agrippa M . . . Cos. . . . Ann. CCL 
 
 7 
 
 251 
 
 502 
 
 69-3 
 
 Sp. Cassius . . . Cos. . . . Ann. CCLI 
 
 8 
 
 252 
 
 501 
 
 69 4 
 
 9 
 
 253 
 
 500 
 
 70-1 
 
 10 
 
 254 
 
 499 
 
 70-2 
 
 11 
 
 255 
 
 498 
 
 70-3 
 
 
 12 
 
 256 
 
 497 
 
 70-4 
 
 
 13 
 
 257 
 
 496 
 
 71-1 
 
 14 
 
 258 
 
 495 
 
 71 2 
 
 
 15 
 
 259 
 
 494 
 
 733 
 
 16 
 
 260 
 
 493 
 
 71-4 
 
 
 17 
 
 261 
 
 492 
 
 72 1 
 
 
 18 
 
 262 
 
 491 
 
 722 
 
 
 19 
 
 263 
 
 490 
 
 72-3 
 
 
 20 
 
 264 
 
 489 
 
 724 
 
 
555 
 
 ILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 LIVY. 
 
 DioDonus. 
 
 DlON'TSIUS. 
 
 
 [The tenth book of Diodorus 
 being lost, we have no lists 
 
 L. Junius Brutus 
 L. Tarquinius Collatinus 
 
 
 of Consuls from him earlier 
 than the 21st year of the 
 
 P. Valerius II. 
 T. Lucretius Dionys. V. 20. 
 
 L. Junius Brutus 
 L. Tarquinius Collatinus, 
 afterwards, in the same year, 
 P. Valerius Publicola 
 M. Horatius Pulvillus 
 
 to Livy's Fasti."] 
 
 P. Valerius III. 
 M. Horatius II.' V. 21. 
 
 P. Valerius II. 
 T. Lucretius Livy, II. 8. 
 
 
 Sp. Lartius 
 T. Herminius V. 36. 
 
 P. Lucretius 
 P. ValeriusPublicolaIII.il. 15. 
 
 
 M. Valerius 
 P. Postumius V. 37. 
 
 M. Valerius 
 P. Postumius II. 16. 
 
 
 P. Valerius IV. 
 T. Lucretius II. V. 40. 
 
 P. Valerius IV. 
 T. Lucretius II. II. IB. 
 
 
 Agrippa Menenius 
 P. Postumius V. 44. 
 
 Agrippa Menenius 
 P. Postumius II. 1C. 
 
 
 Opiter Virginius 
 Sp. Cassius V. 49. 
 
 Opiter Virginius 
 Sp. Cassius II. 17- 
 
 
 Postumus Cominius 
 T. Lartius V. 50. 
 
 Postumus Comiuius 
 T. Lartius II. 18. 
 
 
 Ser. Sulpicius 
 M'. Tullius V. 52. 
 
 Ser. Sulpicius 
 M'. Tullius II. 19. 
 
 
 P. Veturius 
 P. ^Ebutius V. 58. 
 
 T. JLbutius 
 C. Veturius II. 19. 
 
 
 T. Lartius 
 Q. Clcelius Siculus V. 59. 
 
 Q. Clcelius 
 T. Lartius II. 21. 
 
 
 A. Semproiiius 
 M. Minucius V. 77- 
 
 A. Sempronius 
 M. Minucius IT. 21. 
 
 
 A. Postumius 
 T. Virginius VI. 2. 
 
 A. Postumius 
 T. Virginius 11.21. 
 
 
 Ap. Claudius 
 P. Servilius VI. 23. 
 
 Ap. Claudius 
 P. Servilius II. 21. 
 
 
 A. Virginius 
 T. Veturius VI. 34. 
 
 A. Virginius 
 T. Veturius II. 28. 
 
 
 Postumus Cominius 
 Sp. Cassius II. VI. 49. 
 
 Sp. Cassius 
 Postumus Cominius II. 33. 
 
 
 T. Geganius 
 P. Minucius VII. 1. 
 
 T. Geganius 
 P. Minucius II. 34. 
 
 
 M. Minucius 
 A. Sempronius VII. 20. 
 
 M. Minucius 
 A. Semproiiius II. 34. 
 
 
 Q,. Sulpicius 
 Ser. Lartius VII. 68. 
 
 1 Dionysius agrees also with Livy in making P. Valerius and M. Horatius consuls in this 
 year, after the banishment of Collatiuus and the death of Brutus. 
 
556 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth 
 
 Year of 
 Rome. 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 JEra. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capitolini. 
 
 21 
 
 265 
 
 488 
 
 73-1 
 
 
 22 
 
 266 
 
 487 
 
 732 
 
 
 23 
 
 267 
 
 486 
 
 73-3 
 
 
 24 
 
 268 
 
 485 
 
 73-4 
 
 
 25 
 
 269 
 
 484 
 
 741 
 
 
 26 
 
 270 
 
 483 
 
 74-2 
 
 
 27 
 
 271 
 
 482 
 
 74-3 
 
 
 28 
 
 272 
 
 481 
 
 74-4 
 
 ... N ... .... Fusus 
 
 29 
 
 273 
 
 480 
 
 751 
 
 .... ibulanus II. 
 
 30 
 
 274 
 
 479 
 
 75 2 
 
 . . . T.N. . . . Tricost Rutil. . . . 
 
 31 
 
 275 
 
 478 
 
 753 
 
 ctus Ahala 
 
 32 
 
 276 
 
 477 
 
 754 
 
 Lanatus 
 
 33 
 
 277 
 
 476 
 
 76-1 
 
 .... lift US 
 
 34 
 
 278 
 
 475 
 
 76-2 
 
 .... utilus 
 .... eisque Ann. CCLXXIIX 
 
 35 
 
 279 
 
 474 
 
 76-3 
 
 ... urn F VIII 
 .... Ann. CCLXXIX 
 
 36 
 
 280 
 
 473 
 
 76-4 
 
 .... lulus 
 
 37 
 
 281 
 
 472 
 
 77-1 
 
 .... sus 
 
 38 
 
 282 
 
 471 
 
 77-2 
 
 
 39 
 
 283 
 
 470 
 
 77-3 
 
 
 40 
 
 284 
 
 469 
 
 77-4 
 
 
 41 
 
 285 
 
 468 
 
 78-1 
 
 A.CCXX .... 
 
 42 
 
 286 
 
 467 
 
 78-2 
 
 
 43 
 
 287 
 
 466 
 
 78-3 
 
 Sp. Postumius A.F.P.N. Albus Regi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 557 
 
 LlVY. 
 
 DlODORUS. 
 
 DIONYSIUS. 
 
 Sp. Nautius 
 Sex. Furius 
 
 II. 39. 
 
 
 C. Julius 
 P. Pinarius 
 
 VIII. 1. 
 
 T. Sicinius 
 C. Aquillius 
 
 II. 40. 
 
 
 Sp. Nautius 
 Sex. Furius 
 
 VIII. 16. 
 
 Sp. Cassius 
 Proculus Virginius 
 
 II. 41. 
 
 
 C. Aquilius 
 T. Siccius 
 
 VIII. 64. 
 
 Ser. Cornelius 
 Q. Fabius 
 
 11.41. 
 
 
 Proculus Virginius 
 Sp. Cassius III. 
 
 VIII. 68. 
 
 L. ^Emilius 
 K. Fabius 
 
 II. 42. 
 
 
 Q. Fabius 
 Ser. Cornelius 
 
 VIII. 77. 
 
 M. Fabius 
 L. Valerius 
 
 II. 42. 
 
 
 L. ^Emilius 
 K. Fabius 
 
 VIII. 83. 
 
 Q,. Fabius 
 C. Julius 
 
 II. 43. 
 
 
 A.U.C. 270, according to Dio- 
 nysius 
 M. Fabius 
 L. Valerius VIII. 87. 
 
 K. Fabius 
 Sp. Furius 
 
 II. 43. 
 
 
 C. Julius 
 Q. Fabius 
 
 VIII. 90. 
 
 M. Fabius 
 Cn. Manlius 
 
 II. 43. 
 
 Sp. Cassius 
 Proclus Virginius XI. 1. 
 
 K. Fabius II. 
 Sp. Furius 
 
 IX. 1. 
 
 K. Fabius 
 T. Virginius 
 
 II. 48. 
 
 Q. Fabius Silvanus 
 Ser. Cornelius XI. 27. 
 
 Cn. Manlius 
 M. Fabius II. 
 
 IX. 5. 
 
 L. ^Emilius 
 C. Servilius 
 
 IT. 49. 
 
 K. Fabius 
 L. .(Emilius XI. 38. 
 
 K. Fabius 
 T. Virginius 
 
 IX. 14. 
 
 C. Horatius 
 T. Menenius 
 
 11.51. 
 
 M. Fabius 
 L. Valerius XI. 41. 
 
 L. ^Emilius 
 C. Servilius 
 
 IX. 16. 
 
 A. Virginius 
 Sp. Servilius 
 
 II. 51. 
 
 Kseso Fabius 
 Sp. Furius XI. 48. 
 
 C. Horatius 
 T. Menenius 
 
 IX. 18. 
 
 C. Nautius 
 P. Valerius 
 
 II. 52. 
 
 M. Fabius 
 Cn. Manlius XI. 50. 
 
 Ser. Servilius 
 A. Virginius 
 
 IX. 25. 
 
 L. Furius 
 C. Manlius 
 
 11.54. 
 
 K. Fabius 
 T. Virginius XI. 51. 
 
 P. Valerius 
 C. Nautius 
 
 IX. 28. 
 
 L. ^Emilius 
 Opiter Virginius, or "\ 
 Vopiscus Julius ) 
 
 II. 54. 
 
 L. ^iiniilius Mamercus 
 C. Cornelius Lentulus XI. 52. 
 
 A. Manlius 
 L. Furius 
 
 IX. 36. 
 
 L. Pinarius 
 P. Furius 
 
 II. 56. 
 
 T. Minucius 
 C. Horatius XI. 53. 
 
 L. jErailius 
 Vopiscus Julius 
 
 IX. 37. 
 
 Ap. Claudius 
 T. Quintius 
 
 11.56. 
 
 A. Virginius Tricostus 
 C. Servilius Structus XI. 54. 
 
 L. Pinarius 
 P. Furius 
 
 IX. 40. 
 
 L. Valerius 
 Ti. ^Emilius 
 
 11.61. 
 
 P. Valerius 
 C. Nautius Rufus XI. 60. 
 
 T. Quintius 
 Ap. Claudius 
 
 IX. 43. 
 
 T. Numicius 
 A. Virginius 
 
 II. 63. 
 
 L. Furius f Mediolauus-(- 
 M. Manlius Vaso XI. 63. 
 
 L. Valerius II. 
 Ti. JEmilius 
 
 IX. 51. 
 
 T. Quintius 
 Q,. Servilius 
 
 II. 64. 
 
 L. YEmilius Mamercus 
 L. f Studius f lulus XI. 65. 
 
 A. Virginius 
 T. Numicius 
 
 IX. 56. 
 
 Ti. ^Eniilius 
 Q. Fabius 
 
 III. 1. 
 
 L. Pinarius Mamertiuus 
 P. Furius t Fifronf XI. 66. 
 
 T. Quintius Capitolinus 11. 
 Q. Servilius Priscus IX. 57- 
 
 Q,. Servilius 
 Sp. Postumius 
 
 III. 2. 
 
 Ap. Claudius 
 T. Quintius Capitolinus XI. 67. 
 
 Ti. ^Emilius 11. 
 Q. Fabius 
 
 IX. 59. 
 
558 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Year of 
 Rome. 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 JEta.. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capitolini. 
 
 44 
 
 288 
 
 465 
 
 784 
 
 Q,. Fabius Al.F.K.N. Vibulan 
 
 45 
 
 289 
 
 464 
 
 79-1 
 
 A. Postumius A. F.P.N. Albus Kegill 
 
 46 
 
 290 
 
 463 
 
 79-2 
 
 P. Servilius Sp : F.P.N. Prise. 
 
 47 
 
 291 
 
 462 
 
 79-3 
 
 L. Lucretius T.F.T.N. Tricip.tiuu 
 
 48 
 
 292 
 
 461 
 
 79-4 
 
 B. Volumnius M.F.M.N. Amintin. Callus. 
 
 49 
 
 293 
 
 460 
 
 80-1 
 
 P. Valerius P. F. Volusi N. Poplieola II. 
 in Mag. Mortuus est. In ejus L.F.E. 
 L. Quinctius L.F.L.N. Cincinnatus 
 
 50 
 
 294 
 
 459 
 
 802 
 
 Q. Fabius M.F.K.N. Vibulanus III. 
 Maluginesis V 
 
 51 
 
 295 
 
 458 
 
 80-3 
 
 C. Nautius Sp : F. Sp : N. Rutilus II. 
 . . . Carven . . . 
 In M .... Mortuus est. In ejus L. F. est 
 L. Minucius P.F.M.N. Esquilin. Augurin 
 
 52 
 
 296 
 
 457 
 
 804 
 
 C. Horatius M.F.L.N. Pulvillus II. 
 Q,. Minucius P.F.M.N. Esquilinus 
 
 53 
 
 297 
 
 456 
 
 81-1 
 
 M. Valerius M'. F. Volusi N. Maxumus 
 Sp. Verginius A.F.A. . . . Tricost. Cseliomont. 
 
 54 
 
 298 
 
 455 
 
 81-2 
 
 T. Romilius T.F.T.N. Rocus Vaticanus 
 C. Veturius P Cicurinus 
 
 55 
 
 299 
 
 454 
 
 81-3 
 
 Sp. Tarpeius M.F.M.N. Montan. Capitolin. 
 A. Aternius .... Varus Fontinalis 
 
 56 
 
 300 
 
 453 
 
 81-4 
 
 Sex. Quintilius Sex. F.P.N 
 
 
 
 
 
 P. Curiati . . . . N. Fistus Trigemin 
 
 57 
 
 301 
 
 452 
 
 82-1 
 
 P. Sestius Q..F. Vibi N. Capito . . ticanus 
 
 
 
 
 
 T. Menen F. Agripp. N. Lauatus 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 58 
 
 302 
 
 451 
 
 82-2 
 
 Ap. Claudius Ap. F.M.N. Crassin .... gill Sabinusll. 
 T. Genu Augurinus 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ap. Claudius, Ap. F.M.N. Crassin : T. Genucius 
 L.F.L.N. Augurin : Sp. Veturius, Sp. F.P.N. 
 Cr. . . . sus Cicurinus, C. Julius C.F.L.N. 
 lulus. A. Manlius, Cn. F.P.N. Vulso 
 Decemviri Consular rio Le<*ibus S 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 59 
 
 303 
 
 450 
 
 82-3 
 
 Ap. Claudius .... Crass ; n Regil. . . Sabin. 
 M. Cor r. N. Maluginesis 
 
 
 
 
 
 .... Esquilin . . . 
 .... linus Augurin . . . 
 .... Mere .... 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 559 
 
 LlVY. 
 
 DIODORUS. 
 
 DlONYSIUS. 
 
 Q. Fabius 
 T. Quintius III. 2. 
 
 L. Valerius Publicola 
 T. ^Etnilius Mamercus XI. 69. 
 
 Sp. Postumius Albinus 
 Q. ServiliusPriscus II. IX. 60. 
 
 A. Postumius 
 Sp. Furius III. 4. 
 
 A. Virginius 
 T. Minucius XI. 70. 
 
 T. Quintius Capitolinus III. 
 Q. FabiusVibulanusII. IX.61. 
 
 T TI, * f Kal. Sext. 
 L.^EbutuiF 1 . . . 
 oc -i- \ meunt magistral. 
 P.Serviliu*^ <J II6 
 
 T. Quintius 
 Q,. Servilius Structus XI. 71 
 
 A. Postumius Albus 
 Ser. Furius IX. 62. 
 
 L. Lucretius J A. d. III. 
 T. Veturius lid. Sext. 11 1. 8. 
 
 Q,. Fabius Vibulanus 
 Ti. ^EmiliusMamercusXI.74. 
 
 L. uEbutius 
 P. Servilius Priscus IX. 67. 
 
 P. Volumnius 
 Ser. Sulpicius III. 10. 
 
 Q,. Servilius 
 Sp. Postumius Albinus XI. 75. 
 
 L. Lucretius 
 T. Veturius Geminus IX. 69. 
 
 C. Claudius 
 P. Valerius III. 15. 
 
 Q,. Fabius 
 T. Quintius Capitolinus XI. 77- 
 
 P. Volumuius 
 Ser. Sulpicius Camerinus X. 1. 
 
 Q,. Fabius Vibulauus 
 L. Cornelius Malugin. 111.22. 
 
 A. Postumius Regulus XI. 78. 
 Sp. Furius + Mediolanus f 
 
 P. Valerius 
 C. Claudius Sabinus X. 9. 
 
 L. Minucius 
 C. Nautius III. 25. 
 
 P. Servilius Structus 
 L. yEbutius Alvas XI. 79. 
 
 Q. Fabius Vibulanus III. 
 L. Cornelius X. 20. 
 
 Q. Minucius 
 C. Horatius III. 30. 
 
 L. Lucretius XI. 81. 
 T. Veturius -f- Cichorinus -f- 
 
 C. Nautius 11. 
 L. Miuucius X. 22. 
 
 M. Valerius 
 Sp. Virgin ius III. 31. 
 
 Ser. Sulpicius XI. 84. 
 P. Volumnius Amentinus 
 
 C. Horatius 
 Q. Minucius X. 26. 
 
 T. Romilius 
 C. Veturius III. 31. 
 
 P. Valerius 
 C. Clodius Regillus XI. 85. 
 
 M. Valerius 
 Sp. Virginius X. 31. 
 
 Sp. Tarpeius 
 A. Aterius III. 31. 
 
 Q. Fabins Vibulanus 
 L. Cornelius Curitinus XI. 86. 
 
 T. Romilius 
 C. Veturius X. 33. 
 
 P. Curiatius 
 Sex. Quintilius III. 32. 
 
 C. Nautius Rutilus 
 L. Minucius -f- Carutianus + 
 XI. 88. 
 
 Sp. Tarpeius 
 A. tTermeniusf X. 48. 
 
 C. Menenius 
 P. Sestius III. 32. 
 
 [This year is wanting.] 
 
 P. Horatius 
 Sex. Quintilius X. 53. 
 
 Ap. Claudius 1 ^ , . 
 m *V, . > Loss, design. 
 T. Genucms / 
 
 A p. Claudius, T. Genucius, P. 
 Sestius, L. Veturius, C.lulius, 
 A. Manlius, Ser. Sulpicius, 
 P. Curatius, T. Romilius, Sp. 
 Postumius. Decemviri Legg. 
 scribendis. III. 33. 
 
 L. Postumius 
 M. Horatius XI. 91. 
 
 L. Menenius 
 P. Sestius X. 54. 
 
 Ap. Claudius, M. CorneliusMa- 
 luginensis, M. Sergius, L. 
 Minucius, Q. Fabius Vibula- 
 nus, Q. Puetelius, T. Anto- 
 nius Merenda, K. Duilius, 
 Sp. Oppius Cornicen, M'. 
 Rabuleius. Decemviri Legg. 
 scribendis. III. 35. 
 
 L. Quintius Cincinnatus 
 M. Fabius Vibulanus XII. 3. 
 
 Ap. Claudius ^Coss. design. 
 T. Genucius J X. 56. 
 Ap. Claudius, T. Genucius, P. 
 Sestius, P. Postumius, Ser. 
 Sulpicius, A. Manlius, T. 
 Romilius, C. lulius, T. Ve- 
 turius, P. Horatius. Decem- 
 viri legibus scribendis. 
 
560 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Year of 
 Rome. 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 ^Era. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capitolini. 
 
 60 
 
 304 
 
 449 
 
 82-4 
 
 . . . tius M.F .... Barbatus . . . Sabin . . . 
 Ann: CCCIV VII K. Sept: 
 . . . . ius P.F.P.N. Poplicola Potit .... 
 De ^Equeis Idibus Sextil. Ann : CCCIV. 
 
 61 
 
 305 
 
 448 
 
 83-1 
 
 
 62 
 
 306 
 
 447 
 
 83-2 
 
 
 63 
 
 307 
 
 446 
 
 83-3 
 
 
 64 
 
 308 
 
 445 
 
 83-4 
 
 
 65 
 
 309 
 
 444 
 
 84-1 
 
 
 66 
 
 310 
 
 443 
 
 84-2 
 
 nius M inns .... De .... 
 Ann. CCCX .... nis Sep . . . 
 
 67 
 
 311 
 
 442 
 
 84-3 
 
 
 68 
 
 312 
 
 441 
 
 84-4 
 
 
 69 
 
 313 
 
 440 
 
 85 1 
 
 i 
 
 70 
 
 314 
 
 439 
 
 85 2 
 
 
 71 
 
 315 
 
 438 
 
 853 
 
 
 72 
 
 316 
 
 437 
 
 5-4 
 
 US 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ann CCCXVI Idib Se . . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 317 
 
 436 
 
 86-1 
 
 
 7* 
 
 318 
 
 435 
 
 86-2 
 
 
 75 
 
 319 
 
 434 
 
 86-3 
 
 
 76 
 
 320 
 
 433 
 
 H6-4 
 
 
 77 
 
 321 
 
 432 
 
 87-1 
 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 561 
 
 LlVY. 
 
 DlODORUS. 
 
 DlONYSIUS. 
 
 The same Decemvirs. III. 38. 
 
 M. Valerius Lactuca 
 Sp. Virginius TricostusXII.4. 
 
 Ap. Claudius, Q. Fabius, M. 
 Cornelius, M. Sergius, L. 
 Minucius, T. Antonius, M'. 
 Rabuleius, Q. Poetilius, Kse- 
 so Duillius, Sp. Oppius. De- 
 cemviri Legg. scribendis. 
 X. 58. 
 
 L. Valerius 
 M. Horatius III. 55. 
 
 T. Romilius Vaticanus X1I.5. 
 C. Veturiusf Cichoriusf 
 
 The Decemvirs as before. 
 X. 61. 
 
 Lar Herminius 
 T. Virginius III. 65. 
 
 S|>. Tarpeius XI 1.6. 
 A. ( Asterius ( Fontinius -f 
 
 L. Valerius Potitus 
 M. Horatius Barbatus XI. 45. 
 
 M. Geganius Macerinus 
 C. Julius III 65 
 
 Sex. f Quintius -f- 
 Trigeminus XII 7 
 
 Lar Herminius 
 T. Virginius XI 51 
 
 
 
 
 T. Quinctius Capitolinus IV. 
 Agrippa Furius III. 66. 
 
 T. Menenius 
 P. Sestius Capitolinus XII. 22. 
 
 M. Ge[gauius XI. 51. 
 C. Julius] The names are 
 
 almost lost in the MS. 
 
 M. Genucius 
 C. Curtius IV. 1. 
 
 Decemvirs : names given cor- 
 ruptly. XII. 23. 
 
 [This year is wanting.] 
 
 A. Sempronius") 
 L. Atilius ^ Tribb. Milit, 
 T. Cloelius J IV. 7. 
 
 Decemvirs : names again cor- 
 rupt. XII. 24. 
 
 M. Genucius 
 C. Quintius XI. 52. 
 
 M. Geganius Macerinus II. 
 T. Quinctius Capitolinus V. 
 IV. 8. 
 
 f- Caucus ( Horatius 
 L. Valerius f Turpinus } 
 XII. 26. 
 
 A. Semprouius Atrat. i Tribb. 
 L. Atilius Longus Milit. 
 T. Clcelius Siculus J XI. 62. 
 
 M. Fabius Vibulanus 
 Postumus ^Ebutius Cornicen 
 IV. 11. 
 
 Lariims Herminius 
 T. f Stertinius f Struc-tus 
 XII. 27- 
 
 M. Geganius Macerinus 11. 
 T. Quinctius Capitolinus V. 
 XI. 63. 
 
 C. Furius Pacilus 
 M. Papirius Crassus IV. 12. 
 
 L. Julius 
 M. Geganius XII. 29. 
 
 Here the regular history of 
 Dionysius breaks off; the 
 rest being lost, with the ex- 
 
 Proculus Geganius Macerinus 
 L. Menenius Lanatus IV. 12. 
 
 T. Quintius 
 Agrippa Furius XII. 30. 
 
 ception of fragments. 
 
 T. Quintius Capitolinus VI. 
 Agrippa Menenius IV. 13. 
 
 M. Genucius 
 Agrippa CurtiusChilo. XI 1.31. 
 
 
 Mam. ./Emilius ~) Tribb. 
 L. Quinctius Cincin- j>Milit. 
 L. Julius [natusj IV. 16. 
 
 A. Sempronius] 
 L. Atilius Tribb. Milit. 
 T. Quintius J XII. 32 
 
 
 M. Geganius Macerin. 111. 
 L. Sergius Fidenas IV. 17. 
 
 T. Quinctius XII. 33. 
 M. Geganius Macerinus 
 
 
 M. Cornelius Maluginensis 
 L. Papirius Crassua IV. 21. 
 
 M. Fabius XII. 34. 
 Postum. ^Ebutius -f- Vulecus f 
 
 
 C.Julius 11. 
 L. Virginius IV. 21. 
 
 Q. Furius Fusus 
 M'. Papirius Crassus XII. 35. 
 
 
 M. Manlius] fC,'JuliuslII. 
 ! or< L. Virginius 
 Q.SulpiciusJ [_ II. 
 IV. 23. 
 
 T. Menenius 
 Proclus Geganius Macerinus 
 XII. 36. 
 
 
 M. Fabius Vibulanus | Tribb. 
 M. Foslius }>Milit. 
 L. Sergius Fidenas J IV. 25. 
 
 T. Quinctius 
 f Nittus f Menenius XI I. 37. 
 
 ' 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 O O 
 
562 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Year of 
 Ilome. 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 ./Era. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capi:olini. 
 
 78 
 
 322 
 
 431 
 
 87 2 
 
 
 79 
 
 323 
 
 430 
 
 873 
 
 
 80 
 
 324 
 
 429 
 
 87-4 
 
 
 81 
 
 325 
 
 428 
 
 88-1 
 
 
 82 
 
 326 
 
 427 
 
 88-2 
 
 
 83 
 
 327 
 
 426 
 
 88-3 
 
 
 84 
 
 328 
 
 425 
 
 884 
 
 
 H 
 
 32!) 
 
 424 
 
 89-1 
 
 
 86 
 
 330 
 
 4*3 
 
 89-2 
 
 
 87 
 
 331 
 
 422 
 
 89-3 
 
 .... Mugillan 
 
 88 
 
 332 
 
 421 
 
 89-4 
 
 .... to) in Bar bat. 
 N. Fabius . . . 
 
 89 
 
 333 
 
 420 
 
 90-1 
 
 .... Ciiichmatus 11. 
 M. Maul .... 
 dullinus III. 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. Sempro .... 
 
 90 
 
 334 
 
 419 
 
 90-2 
 
 .... ripp. N. Lanatus 
 Sp. Nautius .... 
 .... Tricipitinus 
 C Servilius 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 91 
 
 335 
 
 418 
 
 90-3 
 
 Mu'nllanus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 C. Servilius Q.F.C.N. Axilla II. 
 L. Sergius C.F.C.N. Fidcnas III. 
 Q. Servilius P.F. Sp : N. Prisons Fidcnas II. D ... 
 C Q.F.C.N. Axilla Mag 
 Cens. L. Papirius M'. F. 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 563 
 
 LlVY. 
 
 DlODORUS. 
 
 DlONYSIUS. 
 
 L.PinariusMiimerciaus~) T ., , 
 L. Furius Medullinus > 1 J/. 1 ,., ' 
 Sp. Postumius Albus } Mlllt ' 
 IV. 25. 
 
 M'. ^Emilianus Ma- ; 
 mercus ( Tribb. 
 C. Julius f Milit. 
 L. QuintiuB ) IV. 38. 
 
 
 T. Quiutius Cinciumitus 
 C. Julius Mento IV. 26. 
 
 M. Geganius 
 L. Sergius XII. 43. 
 
 
 L. Papirius Crassus 
 L. Julius IV. 30. 
 
 L. Papirius XII. 46. 
 A. Cornelius -^ Macerinus -f- 
 
 
 L. Sergius Fideuas II. 
 Hostus Lucretius Tricipitinus 
 IV. 30. 
 
 C. Julius 
 Proclus Virgiuius Tricostus 
 XII. 4!>. 
 
 
 A. Cornelius Cossus 
 T. Quintius PenuusII. IV. 30. 
 
 M. Manlius "j 
 Q. Sulpicius Praetex- [ Tribb. 
 tatus f Milit. 
 Sor. Cornelius Cossus J IV. 53. 
 
 
 C. Servilius Ahala 
 L. Papirius Mugillanus. IV. 30. 
 
 M. Fabius ") 
 M. f Falinius f J Tribb. Milit. 
 L. f Servilius f ) XII. 58. 
 
 A. Cornelius Cossus II. 
 T. Quintius II. 
 XII. 3. Frag. Vatican. 
 
 T. Quintius | 
 C. Furius [ Tribb. 
 M. Postumius f'Milit. 
 A. Cornelius CossusJ IV. 31. 
 
 L. Furius ~) 
 Sp. Pinarius }>Tribb. Milit. 
 C. f Metellus fj XII. 60. 
 
 
 A.SemprouiusAtratinus \ 
 L.Quintius Cincinnatus ( Tribb. 
 L. Furius Medullinus I Milit. 
 L. Horatius Barbatus J 1V.35. 
 
 T. Quintius 
 C. Julius XII. 65. 
 
 
 Ap. Claudius "j 
 Sp. Nautius Rutilus ( Tribb. 
 L. Sergius Fidenas ( Milit. 
 Sex. Julius J IV. 35. 
 
 C. Papirius 
 L. Julius XII. 72. 
 
 
 C. Sempronius Atratinus 
 Q, Fabius Vibulanus IV. 37. 
 
 Opiter Lucretius 
 L. Sergius Fidenas XII. 73. 
 
 
 L. Manlius Capitolinusl Tribb 
 Q,. Aiitonius Merenda Milit. 
 L. Papirius Mugillanus J IV.42 
 
 T. Quintius 
 A. Cornelius Cossus XII. 75. 
 
 
 N. Fabius Vibulanus 
 T. Q,uin tius Capitolinus. IV. 43. 
 
 L. Q,uintius 
 A. Sempronius XII. 77- 
 
 
 L. Quinctius Cincinna-" 
 tus III. 
 L. Furius Medul- Tribb 
 linus 11. >Milit. 
 M. Manlius 
 A. Sempronius Atra- 
 tinus J IV. 44 
 
 L. Papirius Mugillanus 
 C. Servilius Structus XII. 78. 
 
 
 Agrip. Menenius La-i 
 natus T ., , 
 P. Lucretius Tricipi- ?vflT 
 tinus 
 Sp. Nautius Rutilus J IV. 45 
 
 C. Furius "J 
 T. Quintius 1 T ibb MiH 
 M. Postumius ( 
 A. Cornelius J XII. 80. 
 
 
 o o 2 
 
564 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Year of 
 Rome. 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 ./Era. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capitolini. 
 
 92 
 
 3:iG 
 
 417 
 
 90 4 
 
 P. Lucretius Hosti F . . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 A^rippa Menenius T.F 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 337 
 
 n<; 
 
 91-1 
 
 A Sempronius L.F.A.N 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Q. Fabius Q.F.M.N 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 94 
 
 338 
 
 415 
 
 91-2 
 
 P. Cornelius P.N 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 C. Valerius L.F. Volusi N 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 339 
 
 414 
 
 913 
 
 Q. Fabius Q..F.M.N 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 P. Postumius A.F.A.N. ..... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 340 
 
 413 
 
 91-4 
 
 
 97 
 
 341 
 
 412 
 
 U-2-l 
 
 
 98 
 
 342 
 
 411 
 
 92-2 
 
 
 99 
 
 343 
 
 410 
 
 92-3 
 
 
 100 
 
 344 
 
 409 
 
 92-4 
 
 A.F.M.N 
 Medullin : II. 
 
 101 
 
 345 
 
 40H 
 
 93-1 
 
 TR. MIL Vopisci N. lulus 
 
 
 
 
 
 A.F M N Census 
 
 
 
 
 
 F.Q.N. Aliala 
 
 1U2 
 
 346 
 
 407 
 
 ti3-2 
 
 Potit Volusus 11 
 
 
 
 
 
 C. Servilius P.F.Q.N. Aliala II. 
 TR. MIL. 
 
 
 
 
 
 N. Fabius Q.F.M.N. Vibulanua 1 1. 
 
 103 
 
 347 
 
 400 
 
 93-3 
 
 .... tilus Cossus 
 L. Valerius L.F.P.N. Potitus II. 
 
 
 
 
 
 N. Fabius M.F.Q.N. Ambustus. 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 565 
 
 
 LlVTf. 
 
 DtODORUS. 
 
 DlONYSIUS. 
 
 L. Sergius Fidelias 
 M. Papirius Mugilla- Tribb. 
 nus f Milit. 
 C. Servilius Priscus J IV. 45. 
 
 L. Fui'ius I 
 L. Quintius xTribb. Milit. 
 A. SeinpronitisJ XII. 81. 
 
 
 Agrip. Menenius La-" 
 natus II. 
 
 L. Servilius Structus , ., . 
 jj 1 Tribb. 
 
 P. Lucretius Tricipi- f Mlllt ' 
 tinus II. 
 Sp. Rutilius CrassusJ IV. 47. 
 
 T. Claudius 
 Sp. Nautius 
 L.fSentiust 1Vlbb - Mlht - 
 Sex. Julius J XII. 82. 
 
 
 A. Semprouius Atra- 1 
 tinus III. T -1 i 
 M. Papirius Mugilla- J 
 
 Sp.NautiusRutilusII. 1 IV. 47. 
 
 f Sergius Lu- 
 
 M^P&rin. Tribb. Milit. 
 M. Serviiius J 
 XIII. 2. 
 
 
 P. Corndius Cossus -i 
 C. Valerius Potitus \, r ... 
 Q. Quintius Ciiicin- [H,., 
 natus 
 N. Fabius VibtilaimsJ IV. 49. 
 
 P. Lucretius 
 C. Servilius 
 Agrippa Mene- Tribb. Milit. 
 nius 
 Sp. Veturius XIII. 7. 
 
 
 Cn. Cornelius Cossus | 
 L. Valerius Potitus 
 Q. Fabius Vibulanus 1 Tribb. 
 II. (Milit. 
 M. Postuniius Regil- 1 
 lensis J IV. 49. 
 
 A. Semprouius j 
 M. Papirius |m .,, ,..,.. 
 Q. Fabius f Tribb " Mlht ' 
 Sp. Nautius J 
 XIII. 9. 
 
 
 A. Cornelius Cossus \ n 
 L. FuriusMedullinus/ Loss - 
 IV. 51. 
 
 P. Cornelius 1 
 C. Fabius Ti . bb Mnit- 
 
 \ XIII. 34. 
 
 
 Q. Fabius Ainbusius 1 r 
 C. Furius Pacilus J f Coss ' 
 IV. 52. 
 
 T. Postumius 
 C. Cornelius Tribb> Mnit 
 C. Valerius ( 
 K. Fabius 1 XIII. 38. 
 
 
 M.PapiriusAtratinus ( Coss. 
 C. Nautius Rutilus / IV. 52. 
 
 M. Cornelius , r 
 L. Furius i^ ss - XI 1 1. 43. 
 
 
 M'. ^Emilius \Coss. Q,. Fabius 1 p 
 C. Valerius Potitus / IV. 53. C. Furius / W SS- XIII. 54. 
 
 
 Cn. Cornelius Cossus "] 
 L. FuriusMedullinus Coss. 
 II. J IV. 54. 
 
 M. Papirius \ c 
 Sp. Nautius / ooss - 
 XIII. 68. 
 
 
 C. Julius lulus ~) T ., , 
 P. Cornelius Cossus ^SSr 
 C. Servilius Aliala J Mlllt ' 
 IV. 56. 
 
 C. fManiusf | 
 ^Emilius JCoss. 
 C. Valerius J 
 XIII. 76. 
 
 
 L. Furius Medullinus ] 
 III. 
 C.ValeriusPotitusII. 1 Tribb. 
 N. Fabius Vibulanus 1 Milit. 
 II. 1 
 C.Servilius Ahala II. J IV. 5?. 
 
 L. Furius 1 
 Cn. fPora- [Coss. 
 peius f J 
 XIII. 80. 
 
 
566 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Year of 
 Rome. 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 ./Era. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capitolini. 
 
 
 104 
 
 348 
 
 405 
 
 93-4 
 
 lulus II. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 M' Aimilius Mam. F.M.N. Mamercinus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L. Furius L. F. Sp : N. Medullinus II. 
 .... nnatus. TR. MIL. 
 A. Manlius A.F. Cn : N. Vulso Capolin. 
 
 
 105 
 
 349 
 
 404 
 
 94-1 
 
 .... ugmensis 
 Sp : Nautius Sp : F. Sp : N. ... utilus III. 
 .... sus II. 
 C. Valerius L. F. Vol : N. Potit : Volus : III. 
 F.Q.N. Ambustus 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 M' Serg Fidenas TR. MIL. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 106 
 
 350 
 
 403 
 
 94-2 
 
 . . . ius Mam. F.M.N. . . n. 11. 
 M. Fur Fusus 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 .... dius P.F. Ap : N s. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 TR. MIL. 
 L. Juli . . . lulus 
 .... nctilius L.F.L.N s. 
 L. Valer . . . P.N. Potitus III. 
 , . . ens. M. Furius L.F. Sp : N.C 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Postumius A.F.A.N. Albinus Regillens. L.F. XVI. 
 
 
 107 
 
 351 
 
 402 
 
 94-3 
 
 . . . rvilius P.F.Q..N. Ahal . . . 
 Q,. Sulpicius Ser : F. Ser : N. Camerin. Cornut. 
 Q.F.P.N. Fiden. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. Manlius A.F. Cn : N. Vulso Capitol : II. 
 . . irginius L.F. Opetr. N. Tricost : Esqui . . 
 M' Sergius L.F.L.N. Fidenas II. 
 TR. MIL. 
 
 
 108 
 
 352 
 
 401 
 
 94 4 
 
 . . . urius L.F. Sp : N. Camillus 
 L. Julius L. F. Vopisci N. lulus 
 . . . rnelius P.F.A.N. Cossus III. 
 M' Aimilius Mam : F.M.N. Mamercinus III. 
 . . . rius L.F.P.N. Potitus IV. 
 K. Fabius M.F.Q.N. Ambustus II. TR. MIL. 
 
 
 109 
 
 353 
 
 400 
 
 95-1 
 
 . . . lius M.F. Cn : N. Vulso 
 P. Maelius Sp : F. C.N. Capitoliuus 
 us P.F. P.N. Calvus Esouilinus 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sp. F ... ius L.F. Sp : N. Medullinus 
 us L.F.M'N. Pansa Saccus 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L. Poblilius L.F. Voler. N. Philo Vulscus 
 TR. MIL. 
 
 
 110 
 
 354 
 
 399 
 
 95-2 
 
 . . . cius M. F.M.N. Augurinus 
 C. Duilius K.F.K.N. Longus 
 s L.F.L.N. Priscus 
 M. Veturius Ti. F. Sp : N. Crass. Cicurin. 
 . . . onius L.F.L.N. Rufus 
 Voler. Poblilius P.F. Voler. N. Philo 
 TR. MIL. 
 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 567 
 
 LlVY. 
 
 DlOBORUS. 
 
 DlONYSIUS. 
 
 P. Cornelius Cossus 
 Cn. Cornelius Cossus 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 C. Julius 
 P. Cornelius 1 
 
 Vibb. Milit, 
 
 
 N. Fabius Ambustus f Milit. 
 
 C. Servilius J 
 
 XIII. 104. 
 
 
 L. Valerius Potitus J IV. 58 
 
 
 
 
 T. Quintius Capitoli- 
 nus 
 Q. Quintius Cincin- 
 
 
 C. i'urius j 
 C. Valerius f 
 
 'ribb. Milit. 
 
 
 natus 
 
 
 N. Fabius J 
 
 XIV. 3 
 
 
 (/'. Julius lulus II. 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 
 
 
 A. Manlius 
 
 'Milit. 
 
 
 
 
 L. Furius Medullinus 
 
 
 
 
 
 III. 
 
 
 
 
 
 M'. yEmilius Mamer- 
 
 
 
 
 
 cinus 
 
 IV.61 
 
 
 
 
 C. Valerius PotitusI 11. 
 
 
 P. Cornelius -\ 
 
 
 
 M'. Sergius Fidenas 
 
 
 N. Fabius 
 
 
 
 P. Cornelius Malugi- 
 
 
 L.Valerius j Tribb. Milit. 
 
 
 nensis 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 f- Terentius 
 
 
 
 Cn. Cornelius Cossus 
 
 Milit. 
 
 Maximus -^J 
 
 XIV. 12. 
 
 
 K. Fabius Ambustus 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sp. Nautius Rutilus 
 
 
 
 
 
 II. 
 
 IV.61. 
 
 
 
 
 M'. ^Emilius Mamer- 
 
 
 T. Quintius 
 
 
 
 cinus II. 
 
 
 C. Julius 
 
 
 
 L.Valerius Potitus III. 
 A p. Claudius Crassus 
 
 Tribb 
 
 A. Manlius ,, 
 
 ribb. Milit. 
 
 
 M. Quintilius Varus 
 
 A 1 1UU. 
 
 'Milit 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 L. Julius lulus 
 
 l>J.iill. 
 
 ... 
 
 XIV. 17. 
 
 
 M. Postumius 
 
 
 
 
 
 M. Furius Camillus 
 
 
 
 
 
 M. Postumius Albinusj 
 
 V. 1. 
 
 
 
 
 C. Servilius Ahaia 111. 
 
 
 P. Cornelius 
 
 
 
 Q. Servilius 
 
 
 K. Fabius 
 
 
 
 L. Virginius 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 Sp. Nautius 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 
 Q. Sulpicius 
 
 'Milit, 
 
 C. Valerius 
 
 'Milit. 
 
 
 A. Manlius II. 
 
 
 M'. Sergius 
 
 
 
 M'. Sergius FidenasII. 
 
 V. 8. 
 
 f- Junius Lucullus 
 
 f- XIV. 19. 
 
 
 L. ValeriusPotitus 1 V... 
 
 M'. Claudius 1 
 
 
 
 M. Furius CamillusII. 1 
 
 M. Quintius 
 
 
 
 M'. ^Emilius Mamer- 1 , n -, , 
 TTT I "ribb. 
 emus III. f VTTt 
 
 L. Julius JTribb. Milit. 
 M. Furius 
 
 
 Cn.CorneliusCossusI I. 
 
 L. Valerius J 
 
 XIV 35. 
 
 
 K.FabiusAmbustusI 1 . 
 
 
 
 
 L. Julius lulus J V. 10. 
 
 
 
 
 P. Licinius Calvus , 
 
 C. Servilius 
 
 1 
 
 
 P. Mivnius 
 
 L. Virginius 
 
 
 
 L. Titinius Triblj 
 P. Mtelius 11,1:1:* ' 
 
 Q. Sulpicius 
 A. Manlius 
 
 [ Tribb. 
 f Milit. 
 
 
 L. Furius Medullinus 
 
 *U11U. 
 
 f-Capitusf Claudius | 
 
 
 II. 
 
 
 M. f Ancus f 
 
 J 
 
 
 L. Publilius Volscus V. 12. 
 
 XIV.38. 
 
 
568 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Year of 
 Rome. 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 JEr*. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capitolini. 
 
 
 Ill 
 
 355 
 
 398 
 
 95-3 
 
 s L.F.P.N. Fotitus V. 
 L. Furiu . . F. S|> : N. Medullin. III. 
 M.F.M.N. Lactucin, Maxum. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ... us II. 
 Q, Sulpicius Ser 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 TR. MIL. 
 
 
 112 
 
 356 
 
 397 
 
 95-4 
 
 s II. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L Serous M'F.L.N 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 nus IV. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 P Cornelius P.F 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 nsis 
 A. Mauliua A.F.C 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 357 
 
 396 
 
 96-1 
 
 . . . accus 11. 
 . . squiliuus II. 
 Q,.Manlius A. F 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cn. Genuciu 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Capitolinus II. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L. Atilius L 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 N Camillus Di . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 .... F.M.N. Maluginensis Mag .... 
 
 
 114 
 
 358 
 
 395 
 
 96-2 
 
 Cossus 
 L. Fu 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Scipio 
 .... stus III. 
 
 
 115 
 
 359 
 
 394 
 
 96-3 
 
 8 III. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 116 
 
 360 
 
 393 
 
 96-4 
 
 
 
 117 
 
 361 
 
 392 
 
 97-1 
 
 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 569 
 
 LlVY. 
 
 DlODORUS. 
 
 DIOKYSIUS. 
 
 M. Veturius 
 M. Pomponius i 
 
 L. lulius 
 M. Furius I 
 
 
 
 C. Duilius (.Trihh Milif 
 
 tr * iii 1*1* A llUU.iJLlllt. 
 
 VoleroPubhhus 
 
 M. yEmilius 1 , ., , A i-v* 
 r, f, i- >lnbb. Milit. 
 Cn. Cornelius [ 
 
 
 Cn. Genucius 
 
 K. Fabius 
 
 
 
 L. Atilius V. 13. 
 
 Sex. f-PaulusfJ 
 
 XIV. 44. 
 
 
 L.Valerius Potitus V. 
 M.Valerius Maximus 
 
 
 P. Manlius 
 
 Sp. fManiusf 
 
 
 
 M. Furius Camillus 
 III. 
 
 
 L. Furius , 
 
 bb. Milit. 
 
 
 L. Furius Medullinus 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 
 
 
 III. 
 
 'Milit. 
 
 ... 
 
 XIV. 47- 
 
 
 Q,. Servilius Fidenas 
 
 
 
 
 
 II. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Q,. Sulpicius Cameri- 
 
 
 
 
 
 nus II. 
 
 V. 14. 
 
 
 
 
 L. Julius lulus 11. 
 
 
 Cn. Genucius 
 
 
 
 L. Furius Medullinus 
 
 
 L. Atilius 
 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 
 M. Pomponius 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 
 L. Sergius Fidenas 
 A. Postumius Regil- 
 
 .Tribb. 
 
 Milit 
 
 C. Duilius 
 M. Veturius 
 
 plilit. 
 
 
 lensis 
 
 flUUm 
 
 f ValeriusfPublilius J 
 
 
 P. Cornelius Malugi- 
 
 
 
 XIV. 54. 
 
 
 nensis 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. Manlius 
 
 V. 16. 
 
 
 
 
 P. Licinius Calvus 
 
 
 L. Valerius 
 
 
 
 L. Tittnius 
 
 
 M. Furius 
 
 
 
 P. Maenius 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 Q,. Servilius 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 
 P. Mtelius 
 
 'Milit. 
 
 Q. Sulpicius 
 
 'Milit. 
 
 
 Cn. Genucius 
 
 
 Claudius f Ugo -\- 
 
 
 
 L. Atilius 
 
 V. 18. 
 
 ( Marius Appius-f- 
 
 XIV. 82. 
 
 
 P. Cornelius Cossus 
 
 
 L. Sergius 
 
 
 
 P. Cornelius Scipio 
 
 
 A. Postumius 
 
 
 
 M. Valerius Maximus 
 
 
 P. Cornelius 
 
 Tribb. 
 
 
 II. 
 
 TrihVi 
 
 Sex. -f- Censius ) 
 
 'Milit. 
 
 
 K. Fabius Ambustus 
 
 . Jll IUU. 
 
 Milit. 
 
 Q. Maulius 
 
 
 
 III. 
 
 
 f Anitius + Camillu 
 
 i 
 
 
 L. Furius Medullinus 
 
 
 
 XIV. 85. 
 
 
 V. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Q. Servilius III. 
 
 V.24. 
 
 
 
 
 M.FuriusCamillusIV.,. 
 
 L. Titinius "j 
 
 
 
 L. Furius Medullinus 
 
 P. Licinius 
 
 
 
 C V imilius I- 
 
 P. Mselius 1 , ., , .*!, 
 Q. Manlius [Tribb.Miht. 
 
 
 L. Valerius Publicola 
 
 CJn. Genucius 
 
 
 
 
 Sp. Postumius 
 
 Atilius 
 
 XIV. 90. 
 
 
 P. Cornelius II. -'V. 26. 
 
 
 
 
 L. Lucretius Flavus j 
 
 P. f Sextusf 
 
 1 
 
 
 Ser. Sulpicius Cameri- J Coss. 
 mis J V.29. 
 
 + Cornelius Crassusf 1 
 K. Fabius [Tribb. 
 
 
 
 L. Furius 
 
 [ Milit. 
 
 
 
 Q. Servilius 
 
 
 
 
 M. Valerius 
 
 , XIV.94. 
 
 
570 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Year of the 
 Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Year of 
 Rome. 
 
 Year 
 before the 
 Christian 
 JEra. 
 
 Olym- 
 piads. 
 
 Fasti Capitolini. 
 
 118 
 
 362 
 
 391 
 
 97-2 
 
 
 
 119 
 
 363 
 
 390 
 
 973 
 
 
 120 
 
 364 
 
 389 
 
 97-4 
 
 
 121 
 
 365 
 
 38 
 
 98-1 
 
 
 122 
 
 366 
 
 387 
 
 98-2 
 
 
 123 
 
 367 
 
 386 
 
 98-3 
 
 
 124 
 
 368 
 
 385 
 
 98 4 
 
 
 125 
 
 369 
 
 384 
 
 99-1 
 
 
 126 
 
 370 
 
 383 
 
 992 
 
 
 127 
 
 371 
 
 382 
 
 9!J-3 
 
 
 128 
 
 372 
 
 381 
 
 99-4 
 
 
CONSULS AND MILITARY TRIBUNES. 
 
 571 
 
 
 Livr. 
 
 
 DlODORUS. 
 
 DlONYSIUS. 
 
 
 L. Valerius Potitus 
 M. Manlius Capitoli- 
 nus 
 
 Coss. 
 J V.31. 
 
 M. Furius "] Tribb. 
 C. vEmilius SMilit, 
 f Catultis Verus f | XIV. 97- 
 
 
 
 L. Lucretius 
 Ser. Sulpicius 
 M. ^Emilius 
 L. Furius Medullinus 
 VII. 
 Agrippa Furius 
 C. ^Emilius II. 
 
 Tribb. 
 Milit. 
 
 V.32 
 
 L. Lucretius \p 
 Ser. -f- Casson ( J 
 XIV. 99. 
 
 
 
 Q,. Fabius Ambustus 
 Fabius Ambustus 
 Fabius Ambustus 
 Q. Sulpicius Longus 
 Q. Servilius IV. 
 Ser. Cornelius Malu- 
 ginensis 
 
 y Tribb. 
 Milit. 
 
 V.36. 
 
 L. Valerius \ r 
 A. Manlius / Loss - 
 XIV. 103. 
 
 
 
 L. Va leriusPublicolal I. 
 L. Virginius 
 P. Cornelius 
 A. Manlius 
 L. -flSmilius 
 L. Postumius 
 
 Tribb. 
 [Milit. 
 
 IVT.I. 
 
 L. Lucretius \ 
 
 Ser. Sulpicius 1 m ,. i,,-,-, 
 ,-, jp, .!. VTribb. Mint. 
 C. ^Ennlius ( 
 
 C. f Rufus f J XIV. 107. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Q. )- Kteso f 
 + ^Enus f Sulpicius 
 K. Fabius Tribb. 
 Q,. Servilius Milit. 
 P. Cornelius 
 M. t Claudius f XI V.I 10. 
 
 
 
 
 
 M. Furius ~) 
 f Cains f ^ Tribb. Milit. 
 f JEmilius + J XV. 2. 
 
 
 
 
 
 L. Lucretius 1^, 
 Ser. Sulpicius / Cc IS ' XV. 8. 
 
 
 
 
 
 L. Valerius 1 r 
 A. Manlius / C< ' XV. 14. 
 
 
 
 
 
 L. Lucretius j 
 fSentiusf Sulpicius (Tribb. 
 L. ^Emilius r Milit. 
 L. Furius JXV. 15. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Q. Suipicius 
 C. Fabius 
 Servilius Cornelius (Tribb. 
 P. f Ugo f 4 Milit. 
 Sex. ) Anius-f- 
 Caius f Marcus f | XV. 20. 
 
 
 
 
 
 P. Cornelius 
 L. Virginius 
 L. Papirius 
 M. Furius iTribb. Milit. 
 A. Valerius 
 L. Maulius 
 Q. Postumius J XV. 22. 
 
 
EXPLANATION OF THE TABLES. 
 
 THE preceding tables exhibit a view of the lists of consuls 
 and military tribunes from the beginning of the Common- 
 wealth to the Gaulish invasion, according to four distinct 
 authorities ; the remains of the Fasti Capitolini, Livy, Dio- 
 dorus Siculus, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. And 1 have 
 endeavoured to arrange each list according to the chronology 
 adopted by its own particular author ; so that as this chro- 
 nology varies, the same year will be found marked by the 
 names of different sets of consuls, according as we prefer 
 one of these four authorities to the other. 
 
 I. The principal fragments of the Fasti Capitolini were 
 discovered in the year 1546, in the course of some exca- 
 vations which were then being made on the ground of the 
 ancient Forum. They have been preserved in the museum 
 of the Capitol, and their contents have been long known to 
 the world, as they have been often published. My extracts 
 have been taken from the edition of Sigonius ; and I have 
 been careful to give them in their genuine state, without 
 noticing the additions by which Sigonius attempted to supply 
 from conjecture the lost or effaced words of the original 
 marble. 
 
 It happened, however, that about two hundred and 
 seventy years after the discovery of these fragments, two 
 other fragments of the same marble were brought to light 
 in the course of a new excavation in the Forum, on the 
 very spot where the former remains had been found. This 
 was in the years 1817 and 1818 ; and Signer Borghesi, an 
 
EXPLANATION OF THE TABLES. 573 
 
 eminent Italian antiquary, published a fac-simile of these 
 new portions of the Fasti, and illustrated them in two able 
 memoirs published at Milan in the year 1818. The new 
 pieces joined on exactly with those discovered before ; so 
 that in several instances a word, of which only one syllable 
 had been preserved in the former fragments, was now com- 
 pleted by the discovery of the remaining syllable, after an 
 interval of nearly three centuries. Both of these new por- 
 tions of the marble relate to the period of Roman history 
 contained in the present volume : I have therefore copied 
 their contents from Borghesi's edition, and incorporated 
 them with the older fragments published long ago by 
 Sigonius. 
 
 These Fasti do not notice the Greek Olympiads ; but 
 they preserve in several places notices of the years from the 
 foundation of Rome. Thus the consulship of Sex. Quinc- 
 tilius and P. Curiatius is placed in the year 800, and the 
 triumph of the consuls who immediately succeeded the de- 
 cemvirate, M. Horatius and L. Valerius, is assigned to the 
 month of August, 304. It appears then that these Fasti 
 only allow two years to the decemvirate, and not three ; and 
 moreover, that they place its commencement in the year 
 302, agreeing in that respect with the chronology of 
 Livy. 
 
 II. Livy also makes no mention of the Greek chronology ; 
 but he too, from time to time, notices the years from the 
 building of Rome. Thus he places the first institution of 
 the military tribuneship in 310 (IV. 7.), and the beginning 
 of the decemvirate in 302. (III. 33.) Taking these two 
 dates for my starting points, I have calculated from them 
 the dates of the years before and after them, according to 
 Livy's list of consuls. This brings the date of the expulsion 
 of the Tarquins to the year 247 ; but then it seems probable 
 that Livy has omitted the consuls of the fourth year of the 
 Commonwealth by accident ; and it seems as if he had 
 
574 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 omitted those of one or two years more at the beginning of 
 the great Volscian war of Coriolanus. With the addition of 
 these three years, the first year of the Commonwealth would 
 become the year 244, which would agree with Livy's own 
 calculation of the reigns of the several kings ; but as my 
 object in these tables was rather to give the actual chrono- 
 logy of the several authorities than to endeavour to correct 
 it, I have reckoned no greater number of consulships in the 
 table of the Fasti according to Livy, than Livy himself 
 allows for. 
 
 III. Dionysius regularly gives the Olympiads along with 
 the Roman consulships, so that the synchronistic part of his 
 chronology can be ascertained with certainty. "With him, 
 the first year of the Commonwealth is the first year of the 
 sixty-eighth Olympiad (I. 74.) ; and the Gaulish invasion 
 falls in the first year of the ninety-eighth Olympiad ; so 
 that there were just one hundred and twenty years between 
 them. Again, the first year of the Commonwealth is the 
 two hundred and forty-fifth from the foundation of Rome 
 (I. 75.) ; so that the Gaulish invasion falls, according to 
 Dionysius, in the year of Rome 365, and the intermediate 
 years can therefore be determined without difficulty. But 
 as the remaining part of Dionysius' history ends at the year 
 of Rome o!2, we cannot compare his lists of the consuls 
 and military tribunes, from 313 to 365, with those of the 
 Fasti Capitolini, of Livy, and of Diodorus. 
 
 IV. Diodorus gives the Olympiads also, but his synchro- 
 nistic system does not agree with that of Dionysius. We 
 have not his list of the early consulships, because his tenth 
 book which contained them is lost : but the seventy-fifth 
 Olympiad falls, according to him, in the consulship of Sp. 
 Cassius and Proculus Virginius, whereas that same consul- 
 ship is by Dionysius placed five years earlier, in the last 
 year of the seventy-third Olympiad. Accordingly, if the 
 list of consuls in the two writers had continued to agree 
 
EXPLANATION OF THE TABLES. 575 
 
 with one another, the invasion of the Gauls would have 
 fallen, by Diodorus' reckoning, in the second year of the 
 ninety-ninth Olympiad. And yet he does place it in the 
 second year of the ninety-eighth Olympiad. This is the 
 date assigned to it by Polybius (I. 6.), and it was probably 
 so generally agreed upon, that Diodorus thought himself 
 obliged to conform his reckoning to it. He had already 
 introduced into his list several variations from the Fasti fol- 
 lowed by Dionysius. For instance, he had omitted the 
 consulship of C. Julius and Q,. Fabius, which Dionysius 
 places in Olymp. 74-4 ; and he had then inserted two con- 
 sulships unknown to Dionysius, to Livy, and to the Fasti 
 Capitolini, in Olymp. 82-2, and 82-3. Thus the first year 
 of the decemvirate, which according to Dionysius was 
 Olymp. 82-3, is with Diodorus Olymp. 84-1. The dif- 
 ference is then reduced by one year, because Diodorus 
 assigns only two years to the decemvirate instead of three : 
 and thus the famous consulship of L. Valerius and M. Ho- 
 ratius is placed by him five years later than by Dionysius, 
 in Olymp. 84-3 instead of Olymp. 83-2. But after this he 
 inserts another consulship in Olymp. 90-1, so that the dif- 
 ference is again raised to six years, and the Gaulish invasion 
 ought consequently to have been placed in Olymp. 99-3. 
 To prevent this, and to bring it to Olymp. 98-2, he strikes 
 out the consulships and military tribuneships of five years 
 from Olymp. 91-2 to Olymp. 92-2 inclusive, so that the 
 tribunes whom he places in Olymp. 91-2, are L. Sergius, 
 M. Papirius, and M. Servilius, whom he ought, according 
 to his own system, to have placed in Olymp. 92-3. The 
 object desired is thus accomplished, and the Gaulish invasion 
 is in this manner thrown back to Olymp. 98-2. But so re- 
 solved was Diodorus to follow his own system in his general 
 chronology, although he had felt himself in a manner forced 
 to depart from it in giving the date of the Gaulish invasion, 
 that in order to return to it he fills up the five years follow- 
 
576 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ing Olymp. 98-2 with the very same consulships and tri- 
 buneships which he had already given for it and the four 
 years preceding it ; so that the military tribunes of Olymp. 
 99-4-, are in fact the tribunes of the year next after the 
 Gaulish invasion, and those of Olymp. 99-3, are evidently, 
 although the names are grievously corrupted, the very same 
 with the tribunes whom he had before placed in Olymp. 
 98-2, and under whose tribuneship he had given his account 
 of the Gaulish war. 
 
 Thus much will suffice for the present, in illustration of 
 the table. It may be observed, however, as a proof of the 
 confusion of the early chronology of Rome, that the only 
 instance in which the Roman annals of this period attempted 
 any synchronism with the events of foreign history, tends 
 but to perplex the subject still more. The annals of the 
 year of Rome 323, according to Livy's reckoning, that is, 
 the year of the consulship of T. Quintius and C. Julius, had 
 recorded that in that year the Carthaginians first crossed 
 over with an army into Sicily, having been invited to take 
 part in the domestic wars of the Sicilian states. Now this 
 year, accordingto Dionysius, was Olymp. 87-4, and accord- 
 ing to Diodorus it would be Olymp. 89-1. But the Car- 
 thaginians crossed over into Sicily, for the first time since 
 the reign of Gelon, in Olymp. 92-3, according to Diodorus, 
 XIII. 43, and this is confirmed by Xenophon, Hellenic. 
 I. 1. ad finem, so that the true date of this event is nineteen 
 years later than the date assigned to it in the Roman annals, 
 if we follow the reckoning of Dionysius, and fourteen years 
 later, if we follow that of Diodorus. Niebuhr supposes that 
 the Roman annalists confused the Carthaginian invasion 
 with the first appearance of an Athenian fleet in Sicily, 
 namely, with the expedition of Laches, in the fifth year of 
 the Peloponnesian war (Thucydides, III. 86), that is, in 
 Olymp. 88-2. But this is one of the very few conjectures 
 of Niebuhr which appear to me quite improbable. The 
 
EXPLANATION OF THE TABLES. 577 
 
 expedition of Laches consisted only of twenty ships, and 
 its operations were so insignificant that it cannot be con- 
 ceived to have attracted the attention of the Romans. But 
 the Carthaginian expedition which Hannibal led against 
 Selinus consisted, according to the lowest computation, of 
 one hundred thousand men, and sixty ships of war; and his 
 great success in the destruction of so powerful a city as 
 Selinus, was likely to have spread terror through all the 
 neighbouring countries. Yet how is it possible to make the 
 ninety-second Olympiad synchronise with the consulship of 
 T. Quinctius and C. lulius, that is, with the year 323 or 
 of Rome? 
 
 Note. I have said that Livy places the beginning of the 
 decemvirate in the year 302. His words are " Anno tre- 
 centesimo altero quam condita Roma erat." III. 33. But 
 Sigonius understands this to mean the year 301, although 
 he finds it difficult to make out nine years in Livy's nar- 
 rative between the first decemvirate and the institution of 
 the military tribuneship, which Livy places beyond all dis- 
 pute in the year 310. As to the grammatical question, 
 although I am aware that the point has been contested, yet 
 it seems to me certain that " Anno trecentesimo altero " 
 must signify the year 302 and not 301. For " alter" must 
 immediately precede " tertius," and there can be no doubt 
 that "Anno trecentesimo tertio" would signify the year 
 303. The confusion seems to have arisen from such ex- 
 pressions as " alter ab undecimo," which, although Servius 
 interprets even this to mean the " thirteenth," may yet, I 
 suppose, be fairly understood to be the twelfth, because 
 here the inclusive system of reckoning is followed, and the 
 eleventh year itself is counted as the first, the twelfth as the 
 second from the eleventh, the thirteenth as the third, and so 
 on. Thus the thirteenth of March is, according to the 
 Roman reckoning, the third day before the Ides, or fifteenth, 
 
 VOL. I. P p 
 
578 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 because the fifteenth itself is reckoned as the first. But in 
 abstract numeral expressions, such as "trecentesimo altero," 
 it is different ; for here the inclusive system is not followed, 
 and " alter " is therefore the " second " in our sense of the 
 word, and " trecentesimo primo" would be the date of the 
 year preceding it. The usage of the Greek word 
 is exactly analogous to this. Asurtpo^ trtt jitsra rfiv 
 would be the year next after the battle, which we should 
 more naturally call the " first year " after it. But 'OXu/*7rme 
 Sfurepa irpbg TOIQ Ifcarov is not the one hundred and first, 
 but the one hundred and second Olympiad. If Sigonius' 
 interpretation could be shown to be right, it would only 
 embarrass his system still more ; for if " trecentesimo altero" 
 means what we should call " the three hundred and first," 
 then " trecentesimo decimo" in Livy, IV. 7, must be what 
 we should call the " three hundred and ninth," it being 
 certain that in all reckonings " alter " is immediately fol- 
 lowed by " tertius." 
 
CORRECTION OF NOTE 15. PAGE 96. 
 
 I might have spared the first part of this note, had I known, 
 when I wrote it, that the reading, " Turrianum a Fregellis accitum," 
 is undoubtedly corrupt. The Bamberg MS. reads " vulcaniveis 
 accitum ; " one of those at Paris (called by Harduin and Brotier 
 " Regius II.," and numbered at present in the Catalogue of the 
 Library, 6797) reads "at vulgamulis accitum :" both show that the 
 common text, like so many others in Pliny, is merely a false restora- 
 tion of a passage which in the oldest and best MSS. is unintelligible, 
 but which clearly contained a meaning very different from that ex- 
 hibited in the later MSS. Sillig, in his Dictionary of Ancient Artists, 
 had conjectured that the true reading was " et Volsiniis accitum : " 
 but in his edition of Pliny he approves rather of Jahn's conjecture, 
 " Vulcanium a Veiis accitum," as agreeing more nearly with the traces 
 preserved in the Bamberg MS. At any rate, Pliny is relieved from an 
 apparent contradiction, and Turrianus or Turianus should no longer 
 be quoted as an artist on Pliny's authority. I find that Mr. Millingen 
 had already anticipated me in correcting " Fregenis " instead of " Fre- 
 gellis ;" he not knowing, I suppose, any more than I did, that we were 
 but fighting with a shadow. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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