ra*anH :'"-.■:■■,• ; ,v. HISTORY OF ROME. 3 Claudius in his disgust at finding such a mass of impos- ture, lie overlookt that there was no external reason to warrant his rejecting the genealogies of those patri- cians whose ancestors had their Lares on the Capitoline hill, like the Manlii and Quinctii, as spurious during the earlier ages: and how could he examine them in detail? Had he, or had Livy attended to constitutional law, they must have perceived that its excellent historians had drawn information from the books of the pontiffs, the authenticity of which was quite as indisputable as that of the twelve tables, of the compacts between the estates, and of other laws and treaties belonging to that period. Equally well establisht is that of the returns of the cen- suses, were it only because their statements must in later times have sounded utterly incredible and incon- ceivable. It is true, the copies of most of the censorian families must have flowed originally from transcripts of a few, preserved in the Capitol, or in neighbouring towns: but it was enough for their coming down in a genuine form to posterity, if a single one remained and was mul- tiplied. It cannot be doubted that, as these rolls were pre- served for memorials in the censorian families, so those who had the image of a consul among their ancestors, kept consular fasti, wherein memorable events, at least of the year they were interested in, were noted down: and many others must have been in possession of similar documents. These were original annals, which arose independently of those of the pontiffs, and were drawn up by various persons; not always contemporaneously, but in their earliest parts from the recollections, some- times no doubt erroneous ones, of the writer himself, or of his neighbours, touching past events. Hence the dates are often contradictory : the Auruncian war for instance is placed in the years 251, 252, or 258; the battle of Regillus in 255, or 258 ; discrepancies only to be ac- counted for from there having been sundry annals of A 2 4 HISTORY OF ROME. different origin. It is impossible to pronounce whether any contemporary ones were preserved or not, which be- gan any number of years before the insurrection of the commonalty. That none of them can have gone back so far as the origin of the consulate, is clear from the confusion in the Fasti for the first years of the repub- lic, and from the disappearance of every trace of a ge- nuine history during this period. To preserve the recol- lection of events, and to give the memory a hold, they were noted in the Fasti under a year of the Capitoline era, and of the consuls; in the same way as the calendars recorded, under a certain day, that on that same day the dictator Tubertus had gained a victory, as well as what days had become inauspicious by the defeats on the Allia, at Trasimene, and at Cannae. Neither these accounts, nor the former gave any detail of occurrences, but merely mentioned them. Of the notices so recorded some few have come down to us, manifestly handed from very an- cient times, with scarcely an alteration even in the wording 5 . I will not however by any means deny that some sort of narrative may have been mixt up with them very early : in which case they must have resembled the chronicle of Marcellinus and the like. But the appropriate place for narrative was in the funeral orations peculiar to Kome, the use of which was derived from time immemorial : for women were admit- ted to a share in this honour even before the Gallic war, or immediately after. These writings, in which as- suredly it was no less vain to look for an accurate re- presentation of facts, than for eloquence, Livy, if they crost his thoughts, would hardly have deemed a histori- cal source ; since in another passage he concurs with 5 For instance in Livy, II. 19: His consnlibus Fidenae obsessae, Crnstnmeria capta, Praeneste ab Latinis ad Romanes descivit. What a contrast between this and the prolix delineation of resultless bat- tles in other passages ! HISTORY OF ROME. > Cicero in reprehending their want of truth 1 '. Yet they cannot have been liable to this charge from the first. Only in course of time, when it became customary to enumerate the ancestors of a house up to its origin, along with their honours and their exploits 7 , could va- nity indulge in inventions concerning them. One may easily satisfy oneself that, in the history prior to the taking by the Gauls, many stories, for instance about the Valerii, the Claudii, the Fabii, the Quinctii, and the Servilii, have ilowed from this source. Several among them, such as those concerning the Servilii, are worthy of full faith: those too more in detail about the Fabii contain matter of undeniable authenticity. With others the case is very different. I am sorry to say that those of the Valerii are less deserving of credit than any others; just as their pedigree betrays singular carelessness s . These documents, as well as the former, were deposited in the hall of the house; and they were probably lost and then restored together. Those living traditions how- ever, by means of which the times of their ancestors be- came the common property of the Romans, were pre- served by those who escaped the sword of the CJauls: and if Livy was speaking of these, he was unquestion- ably right in saying that the record of events was trusted to memory. The same thing has happened among every people whose annals were a mere dry catalogue of events: and not only does the imagination in such cases mould a subject taken from history with the same freedom and 6 vni. 40. Cicero, Brutus, 16 (62). 7 The account of the Claudii in Suetonius, at the beginning of his Tiberius, was drawn from the orations of that house, and exem- plifies the nature of such enumerations. 9 C. Valerius Potitua is described as L. F. Vol. N ; although his first military tribunate was in tin- year 340, that is, 71 years after the consulship of his pretended father, and 96 after the first consulship of Publieola, who would be his uncle. 6 HISTORY OF ROME. plastic power as one created by poetry; but the cha- racters have incidents, which elsewhere are told of others, transferred, and often purely arbitrary fictions ascribed to them; which gain credit, like Charlemagne's pretended expedition to the Holy Land. Such legends, whether concerning the personages of history, or those of poetry, were equally termed fabulae. That at Eome as elsewhere they shaped themselves in verse, — that the virtue of Coriolanus, and the victories of Camillus, were sung in the same manner as the first Punic war, — does not to my feelings admit of a doubt. If the bards are nameless, so are those of the Nibelungen and the Cid. But the rhythmical form is a secondary matter. The main point is, that we should recognize how the very stories which speak to the feelings, are those which tradition treats freely and creatively; how it does not give back the chain of incidents one by one, as it re- ceives them; and how, in proportion as a story is listened to with general interest, it is the more liable to be transformed without any limit, until it becomes fixt in some book: while on the other hand such facts as ex- cite no emotion come down just as they were recorded, to the historian who likes to employ himself in putting some life into them. This is not disputed by scholars, whose concurrence I should be loth to forgo, yet who think it hazardous to build on the assumption that the Romans had a body of popular poems now lost: and so I will not disturb the consciousness of our being substantially agreed, by labouring to make them adopt the whole of my own conviction. Besides I am far from asserting that all those traditions were originally cir- culated in song : nor do I doubt that some, which began in verse, were turned into prose-tales, when writing be- came more and more an employment; just as the popu- lar storybook of Siegfried arose out of the Nibelungen. Among the legends of the class I have been describing, those of Coriolanus, of Cincinnatus, of the fall of the HISTOKY OF ROME. 7 Decemvirs, of Oamillus, are not to be mistaken. Of the same kind, with some excursions into the region of the marvellous, are those of Curtius and Cipus*. Long before there is any such thing as a national literature, many a man will write down an account of what has befallen him, for the use of his family. In the progress of things almost every one will aim at surpass- ing his predecessors, will go more into detail, take in more objects, and make approaches to a complete narra- tive of contemporary events: and as every chronicle must begin from the beginning, a new one subjoining itself as a continuation to a repetition of some older annals already extant, attempts are made to render these too less meagre, by incorporating popular traditions. At Rome the funeral orations likewise were drawn upon; though there was a difficulty in making such insertions, owing to the form of the Annals, which required that everything should be set down under a particular year. In this way a variety of popular books must have grown up, which, before a different taste and standard became prevalent, were great favorites, and which in the fifth and sixth century of the city must have spread the more widely, in proportion as the old legends lost the fresh- ness of their original colouring: in aftertimes however they were neglected by literary history, for this among other reasons, that their authors were unknown. The oldest remaining Florentine annals 9 are themselves pieced together out of some no less dry and meagre than the original Roman ones, along with fables and traditions. In the history ascribed to Malispini they are enlarged, and prolonged by a series of continuations. This work, by which they were superseded, and which itself has been thrown into oblivion by Villani, is of the same kind as those fuller Roman chronicles I have been speaking & * Valerius ftlaximus, v. 6. 3. ' Which have been publish! by Lami. 8 HISTORY OF ROME. of: the existence of which however was totally forgot- ten by the classical writers of Eome, as the sayings of Appius the Blind would have been, unless Panaetius had spoken of them*. In such books Coruncanius and the Marcii read the story of their fathers; and later writers added little of importance, any more than Villani could do to what Dante had read in Malispini. The Fabian house, as they were eminent for their skill in the arts, and their familiarity with Greek lite- rature, would probably be especially careful in keeping such a chronicle: the account of the campaign of the great Q. Rullus in the year 451 is evidently taken from contemporary sources. Out of this house came the his- torian whom Polybius censures for his partiality to his countrymen f; a partiality occasioned by the hostile feel- ings of the Greeks, for whom, and not for his fellow- citizens, he wrote in Greek, like Cincius and Acilius, in order that they might think more worthily of Roman story. Though this might be sufficient for foreiners, it did not satisfy the' Italians, who were already desirous of becoming Roman citizens, and were acquainted with the Latin language: which may have been one of the causes that at length in the seventh century Roman authors wrote the history of their country for readers in their mother tongue 10 . That the Romans had a general know- ledge of their ancient history, is proved by the fact that Cincius treated of chronology, of constitutional law, and of sundry antiquarian questions, which imply such a knowledge; and yet did not think it necessary to write his history in Latin. For the same reason Cato only handled the Roman history as part of that of Italy. After the time of Cassius Hemina however the historians of Rome were numerous. The perpetual discrepancies * Cicero, Tusc. IV. 2. t I. 14, 15 : in. 9. 10 The poem of Ennius indued was earlier ; but its object not to teach history. HISTORY OF HOME. 9 in them shew that there was a great variety of old chro- nicles: and their all thinking it their business to tell the whole of the ancient history anew is a sign that every one of them, on finding any chronicles previously neglected, incorporated fresh matter from them. For as- suredly no notion of distinguishing himself by any pecu- liar merits in his views or style was ever entertained either by Fabius Servilianus or by Vennonius; or by writers who lived considerably later, indeed after the time of Sylla, Cn. Gellius 11 and Q. Quadrigarius. To the same class belongs Q. Valerius Antias; who however ob- tained a scandalous notoriety by his falsehoods, and by fabricating circumstantial narratives and definite numbers. L. Piso had a peculiar object in view. He fancied that the ancient legends, however contradictory and in- credible, were only history run wild, and that he was the person destined to restore them to their genuine form. Men's minds however in his days had still so much of poetry in them, that his ungenial efforts pro- duced no effect. Notwithstanding the old censor's great personal respectability, his annals were not more suc- cessful than any others in attaining to the reputation enjoyed among the Greeks by the work of Ephorus; which was recognized to be the basis of their national history, and as such was continued by one writer after another. Even after the time of Piso the early history was the subject of fresh investigations: for men had learnt to make use of ancient documents; and as Philochorus 11 It has been assumed that there were more than one Gellius, owing to the expression of Dionysius, I. 7 : ATXtot koi IV AXtoi am KaXnoCpviof which however means nothing more than when the English talk of their Clarendons and Humes. Nor has anybody taken it into his head that there were several Calpurnii. In Cicero, de Leg. I. 2 (6), Gellii has only been introduced by a conjecture, probably suggested by the spurious Origo Gentis "Romanae, where a Sextus Gellius has been fabricated; apparently after the passage of Dionysius. 10 HISTORY OF ROME. corrected the history of Athens by their means, the same service was rendered to that of Rome by C. Licinius Macer, a contemporary of Cicero, with whom the list of the annalists properly so called closes. Macer's influence on the history that has come down to us is very import- ant. We cannot suppose that Dionysius and Livy did anything for the speeches they insert, except work them up as pieces of oratory. Those speeches however are frequently something more, and contain allusions to cir- cumstances of which their narratives shew no knowledge, but which cannot possibly have been brought in at ran- dom 12 . Where such is the case, they must have found something of the kind in some annalist whose imperfect work they were remoulding 13 . Now it is not likely that those who wrote in the simple old times would have em- ployed so much art: whereas of Macer we are told by Cicero that he was immoderately fond of speeches 14 . He may not have been successful in them : but we can easily conceive that the only one among all the annalists after Piso who had taken part in public life, wherein he had displayed a very honorable character, would like to dwell on those points where he was in his own element. Of him too we may believe that he would trace the changes in the constitution with intelligence and interest. The oldest Roman books, of which the names have been handed down, were collections of statutes : and I have already mentioned the writings of Cincius on constitu- tional law. Eighty years after his time, C. Junius, who from his friendship with the younger Gracchus was sur- named Gracchanus, wrote a history of the constitution and the great offices of state, which went back to the 12 As in the passage quoted in Vol. I, note 1341 . 13 Indeed one may assuume that Livy took every circumstance in his narrative from some one of his predecessors, and never added anything of his own, except the colouring of his style. '• De legibus, I. 2 (6). HISTORY OF HOME. 1 1 time of the kings; and which from the establishment of the consulate enumerated, under the years of the Capi- toline era, what new magistracies had been instituted, and what changes made in the duties of the old ones. Copious remains of this invaluable work, which must have been entirely compiled from the writings of the pontiffs, and the other most authentic sources, have come down to us, owing to the circumstance that Gaius pre- fixt a history of the Roman magistracies to his books on tlie twelve tables; of which history much has been pre- served in the honest extracts of Lydus, and in what Pomponius has appropriated. Had Livy and Dionysius, some statements in whose works can only have come originally from Gracchanus, themselves made use of him, there are a number of other things that they would not have left out. But they might easily pass them over, if Macer, who assuredly was not similarly negligent, was the source whence they drew these solitary passages, not considering the information of this sort as of higher va- lue than the other matter derived from the Annals, a great deal of which they omitted. And if, as would appear from hence, they did not directly make use of that admirable teacher of constitutional law, unquestion- ably the nameless chronicles were to them a mere dead letter. A proof how rapidly Latin books disappeared after the rise of a classical literature, for the sake of which that of the primitive ages was utterly despised, is that in the beginning of the eighth century the memoirs of Scaurus and the elder Q. Catulus were as completely forgotten * as those of J. J. Moser are nowadays in Ger- many. The only works used by the two ingenious au- thors who wrote histories of Rome contemporaneously under Augustus, were those of Fabius and the later an- nalists; the contents of which they moulded into a uni- form body, without any regard to their origin. As Poggius * Cicero, Brutus, 29. 35. 12 HISTORY OF ROME. and Leonardus were cast into the shade by Machiavel, in like manner the annalists of the seventh century were so eclipst by the excellence of Livy, that they were never brought forward again till after the time of Hadrian, when the partisans of antiquity affected to be fond of them. Nor did this last long: for no fashion can be durable, which runs counter to the real inclinations of mankind. Thenceforward the history of Rome was re- ceived and related exclusively under the shape those two writers had given to it: although Dion Cassius emanci- pated himself from this state of dependence, and returned to the most genuine form of the old tradition in Fabius. Nor can he have neglected Gracchanus, who at that time was known to every jurist: for the history of the constitution was his main and constant object. It is also mine: and the highest aim of my researches is to approach to the notion which Fabius and Grac- chanus had of the constitution and its changes. Beyond a doubt their views concerning it were unqualifiedly right. Surely however we may hold that our age can distin- guish fable from reality more successfully than theirs. Nor is it an audacious undertaking to try to make out in the narratives of the historians, what part is due to their misunderstandings, prejudices, or arbitrary inser- tions, — what part rests on authentic documents, — and, to distinguish, among the materials which they found in the annalists, how much comes from each of the before- mentioned sources, — and moreover, with regard to the time before the destruction of the city, whether the state- ments were borrowed from earlier sources, or fabricated. Yet even if we had the books of the seventh century, on which no art had been exercised in softening the most glaring inconsistencies, this analysis could not be so successful as to extract an unbroken history from them in the simple style of a chronicle. For though that which really happened has often been recorded in the Annals along with the legend, and though the latter, HISTORY OP ROME. 13 having been engrafted on the record, may be separated from it easily and perfectly '\ the legend still oftcner, hi id probably very early, entirely occupied the place of the brief statement of the truth, and has so completely supplanted it that no trace of it remains, and no inge- nuity can effect its palingenesy. It is easy to shew that the taking of Veii by a mine is a sheer fable: but we cannot divine the real state of the ease, as in some other instances we may without difficulty or uncertainty. It is in the history of the constitution that we may feel the greatest confidence in restoring many of the steps that are wanting. Those which precede and follow enable us to determine them, like the data in a pro- blem. On the other hand we here meet with a peculiar difficulty, from the circumstance that not a few of the most important statements, among those too which are derived from the very highest authorities, sound utterly unmeaning, because the persons who have handed them down to us were quite unable to understand them. Dio- nysius excogitated the most erroneous representations, which pervert whatever they exhibit ; because he never suspected that he wanted the fundamental idea of the constitution, and did not resolve to abandon all attempts at making out the enigma. Lydus stammers words with- out thoughts. If we discover the delusive medium how- ever, by which objects were distorted before the eyes of the acute historian, and can guess what the simple com- piler must have heard of, these enigmas turn into valid evidence, and so form grounds for further results. I cannot disguise from myself that these inquiries touching the changes of the constitution, and still more those about other insulated occurrences, can hardly produce 15 The battle of Regillus for instance, from the genuine state- ment inserted above in note 5, — the expedition of Coriolanus against Rome, from that of Attius Tullius, — the dictatorship of Cincinnatus, from the authentic account of the campaign of Minucius on the Algidus. 14 HISTORY OF ROME. the same kind of general conviction as the investi- gation of what the constitution originally was. The forms of the latter may be traced through centuries in their operation, and even in the modifications they underwent: and what we do not find recorded in one people, we learn from the analogy of a kindred one. The former are events that stand alone, depending on accident and ca- price, or at least on the will of individuals: and the true account, it must be owned, is not always the most probable. But when an inquirer, after gazing for years with ever renewed undeviating stedfastness, sees the his- tory of mistaken, misrepresented, and forgotten events rise out of mists and darkness, and assume substance and shape, as the scarcely visible aerial form of the nymph in the Sclavonic tale takes the body of an earthly maiden beneath the yearning gaze of love,— when by unwearied and conscientious examination he is continually gaining a clearer insight into the connexion of all its parts, and discerns that immediate expression of reality which ema- nates from life, — he has a right to demand that others, who merely throw their looks by the way on the region where he lives and has taken up his home, should not deny the correctness of his views, because they perceive nothing of the kind. The learned naturalist, who ha9 never left his native town, will not recognize the ani- mal's track, by which the hunter is guided: and if any one, on going into Benvenuto's prison, when his eyes had for months been accustomed to see the objects around him, had asserted that Benvenuto like himself could not distinguish anything in the darkness, he would surely have been somewhat presumptuous. The portion of history comprised in this volume has been given up and cast aside, ever since the multitude of impossibilities and contradictions in the current nar- rative were noticed. Indeed a sensible man could not hesitate how to choose, were there no other alternative, except to defend what has been made of it, or to get rid HISTORY OF ROME. 15 of it altogether. The best things in the world degene- rate in course of time, and often in no long one; and worthless appendages attach themselves thereto: and then, if a foolish zealot would force us to do homage to them, as before they were degraded and corrupted, he repells reason from them, which might otherwise restore their character, and thereby revive the feelings they formerly excited: for reason can forgo knowledge, but cannot put up with absurdities. Historical criticism, by merely lop- ping off what is worthless, replacing tradition on its pro- per footing, demonstrating its real dignity, and thus se- curing it from ridicule and censure, will render the story of Eome during the period following the league with the Latins no less authentic and substantial than that of many much later periods, where we are in like manner left without contemporary records. 10 THE LATIN STATE. In the same year in which the orders adjusted their quarrel, the Romans ratified a perpetual league 16 with the Latins. Peace had already been restored three years before, and had brought back a definite federal relation between the two states 17 . But the league of Sp. Cassius did not merely confirm and explain this. It was a new treaty 18 , substituting an acknowledgement of complete equality for the subjection introduced by Tarquinius, or else for the easy dependence to which Latium had sub- mitted under Servius. We are not told which of these was the relation renewed at the peace: but the latter supposition is the more probable. Though it is certainly possible that the Latins, through a timidity which the scantiness of our information does not permit us to ex- plain, and because they were not so far heated by passion as to prefer an alliance with the Volscians, may have re- turned to their former vassalage; and yet, two or three years after, have been able to extort a recognition of their absolute equality, and even cessions of land and subjects, from the distress of the government, as the price of their goodwill against the insurgents. Dionysius is 16 It was to be in force so long as heaven and earth should keep in their place : Dionysius, vi. 95. 17 Ttju apxaiav (pi\lav Kai wmia^'iav — avevewaavro. Dionysius, vi. 21. According to Livy it fell in 259 : he does not expressly mention the concluding of a peace, but relates the release of the prisoners : n. 22. 1S 2wd))kai Kawai piff opKu>v. Dionysius, VI. 95. HISTORY OF SOME. 17 aware that these sacrifices were connected with the agree- ment between the senate and the Latins to oppose the rebels 19 . He considers them as a reward bestowed on the Latins for their good spirit; which is the view Roman pride would take of them, and is assuredly the sole reason why the date of the league was placed after the peace of the Sacred Mount 20 . As there is no historical ground to settle this point, we may allow internal pro- bability to do so, and may suppose that the senate and the houses granted the great concessions in the new treaty, as the price of succour so powerful that it in- duced the seceders to content themselves with very mo- derate terms. The Latin state, which now leagued itself as an equal with Rome, was but a small part of the Latium men- tioned in the treaties with Carthage. In the list of its thirty cities 21 one name is doubtful: of several the site ,9 'Ett(i8>) tov noKt'pnv roii np6s tovs anno-rarcis t'roi'/xcos f86icovv rrvvdpacrdai. VI. 95. 20 This is done by Dionysius, vx. 95, expressly ; and by Livy, when he supposes that at the time of the treaty Cominius had taken the field against Antium. 21 The principal passage where the Latin townships are enume- rated, — Dionysius, v. 61, — is mutilate in our editions, because the first editor of the Antiquities unfortunately lighted on a very bad manuscript, though the majority of those preserved have generally a good text. From the Vatican manuscript, and from Lapus, the names that have dropt out of this passage, and the corrupt ones too, with a little aid from conjecture, maybe restored as follows: ol irpo- (3ov\oi airo Tovrav TbiV TTokfcav r}(TaV 'ApSeciTwv, ' ' ApiKTjvap, BovjSevTa- vatv, Kopvcov, Kapvevravwv, KipKat^Tcoii, Kopio\avopTiveiu>v, Ya$ia>v, Aavpevrlvav, Aavovijtcov, AajBiviarav, Aa- fiiKavajv, Nc0/x€fTaya>J>, Nupfiavcov, Tlpaiufo-T^vcov, Ilebavcov, KopKorov- \avwv (Querquetulani), SarpiKaviov, ^Kanrivoiv, "2rfriva>v, T(\\r)vii>, Tokfpivcov, 'VpiKpivcov, Ovt\iTpava>v. The Corni are the same as the Cornicidi, the people of Corniculum : .see "Vol. I. note 219. But, though K6pwsv must not be changed into Kopai/wf, Ka/3ni>a>i> must. For Cora, which occurs as a Latin town in Cato, quoted by Priscian, iv. 4 (21), and in Dionysius (in. 34), VOL. II. B 18 HISTORY OF ROME. is unknown: in fact they are not named anywhere else. Still the boundary of the country may be traced with sufficient certainty. It began by the sea, west of Lauren- turn, thence ran along parallel to the Tiber, crossing the Anio, and stretching to the northwest of Nomentum ; then took in the territory of that city, as well as of Corniculum, Tibur, and Praeneste; after which it past over the bights forming the watershed between the two seas, so as to include mount Algidus and Velitrae; and then trended eastward, along the southern range that overlooks the Pomptine marshes, comprehending the hills on which Norba, Cora, and Setia stood, and reacht the sea again to the east of Circeii. Antium, which at this time was undoubtedly still occupied by Tyrrhenians, was encompast by this Latium on the land-side, but was se- parate from it. Thirty places are enumerated in the passage just quoted: and the notion that this number was an essen- tial characteristic of the Latin people was so deeply rooted, that Dionysius uses the expression the thirty towns cannot have been separated from Latium at the time when Norba, and Setia which lay yet further off, still belonged to it ; although one of these passages relates to an earlier period than the list ; and the other can only be applicable to a later. Norbani for Mapeavol may be merely a conjecture of Lapus and Gelenius, but is quite certain, being confirmed by the order of the names, which obviously follows that of the Latin Alphabet. The substitution of Kapvevravbs for Kopaevravbs is derived from Stephanus under that word. Corbintes is the name for the citizens of Corbio. So that the only one still un- certain is QopriveioL As this name stands between C and G, F was clearly its initial : and since this letter often interchanged with H, the place meant might be the same which in the manuscripts of Livy, in. 30, is written Hortona, in Dionysius, x. 26, Biprcw : but the name of the Albian town Foretii (Vol. I. note 570) seems to come still closer to it. Of the places destroyed in early times, Carventum must have been situate in the eastern district, in the neighbourhood of Lavici or Bolae ; Corbio in that of mount Algidus ; Toleria not far from Bolae ; Satricum between Lanuvium and Antium ; Scaptia near Velitrae. HISTORY OF ROME. 19 as tantamount to the Latin nation 22 . Such he conceives to have been the number of the Latin towns depend- ent on Alba while it flourisht; a notion, the correct- ness of which is attested by the numbers of the Roman curies and tribes, by the thirty Albian townships, and still more decisively by the tradition about the six hun- dred families* who converted Lavinium into a joint co- lony of the Albans and of their Latin dependents 23 . But he is mistaken in considering all those thirty places, which became free after the fall of Alba, as colonies sent out from that capital : though the same opinion lies at the bottom of the legend, which reach t the Greeks, that Aeneas built thirty castles in the land of the Bo- rigoni 24 ; where this number again appears as essential — III. 34, of Tullu.S Hostilius: Trpecrfias (inocrreiXas (h rnt ano'i- kovs T( Ka\ i'nrjKonvs avTrjs (ttjs "AAjSr;?) Tpumnvra 7roXfiy. * See Vol. I. pp. 200, 201. 23 There are some heavy ases without inscriptions, having on one side a well-drawn head of a youth with a Phrygian bonnet, on the reverse a wheel with six spokes. In the former I x-ecognize Ascanius, in the latter the six centuries of the Lavinian colony, the settling of which at the common sanctuary of the Albans and Latins may be regarded as a historical fact. Having often exprest my hearty dis- gust at the process of distilling a history of primitive times out of words, names, and mythological rubbish, I hope lam not sliding into the same track myself (Parthis mendacior), when I believe I have discovered that the worship of the Penates belonged to the Tyrrhe- nians ; and that Alba, a name which occurs on the Fucine lake in the original seats of the Priscans, was founded by these Sacranian con- querors (see Festus, Sac rani), who, at a period when they acknow- ledged a Latin state of thirty towns as their free confederate, joined with it in founding a city near their common temple, after having for a time usurpt the custody of its gods. The most obvious way of ex- plaining the current story is, to suppose that, when the Tyrrhenian Latins had recovered their strength, and overpowered Alba, tradition took the shape of representing Alba as having originally been a co- lony from Lavinium. To return to the coins: 1 will not dispute with any one who should ascribe them to the Lavinians alone : their weight however supplies a good reason for dating them earlier than 410, and assigning them to the united states of Latium. 2< Lyeophron, v. 1253. See Vol. I. p. 81. B2 20 HISTORY OF ROME. to Latium. I shall revert to this subject presently, and shew that several places may have been at once Alban colonies and original townships of the Latin people. But I have first to meet the question, how there came still to be thirty cities in the year 261, if Apiola, Cameria, Col- latia, Crustumerium, Ficana, Medullia, Politorium, the conquests of the Roman kings, were reckoned in the primitive number : and that they were so can as little be doubted, for instance in the case of Medullia, as in that of Corniculum, Nomentum, and Tellena, which are con- tained in the list. The influence of numerical forms in the states of antiquity solves this puzzle. A state was not considered as an aggregate of parts joined together, but as though its internal arrangement were determined by the nature of the whole, and by a hereditary law belonging to each particular people. A violation, whether by excess or deficiency, of the exact proportion peculiar to it was deemed intolerable: and since there was no preventing such breaches from being made by time, they were re- medied by the remodeling of the whole body, by adopt- ing new members, by splitting one part into several, or tacking several together. Twelve was the fundamental number of the Ionians 25 ; which appears in their towns in the Peloponnesus and in Asia, as well as in the Attic rpiTTves. But we find two different lists of the Pelopon- nesian cities, after they had become Achaean 26 : and the later of them names Leontium and Cerynea, instead of Aegae and Rhypes : not that either list is incorrect ; but the old towns had gone to decay and were lost" 7 , and their places were filled up, that the number might be 25 Their primary number was four : then each quarter was sub- divided into three. 28 In Herodotus, I. 145, and in Polybius, n. 41. 27 Strabo, vm. p. 386. a, expressly says this of Aegae, and re- marks that it had been united with Aegira. BISTORT OF ROME. 21 kept complete. Smyrna foil, into the hands of the Ionians early*, and soon left most of the twelve cities far be- hind her in splendour and influence: but as no place fell vacant, she continued excluded from the honour of being one of the Ionian cities; till at length the force of prejudice so far relaxt, that a thirteenth city was no longer deemed an impossibility-!/. The same change of views in Achaia rendered it unnecessary to replace Helice and Olenus. On a principle like that of the ancient states, the division of the Frisian nation into seven sea- lands was retained, though their southern boundary re- tired from the Scheldc to Kenheim, and at last as far as the Vlie. Thus Latium, as long as the old forms were deemed inviolable, continued to be divided into thirty townships: and this list underwent several changes. The two king- doms of Latinus and Turnus, the latter of which reaches from Ardea to Terracina, are not an arbitrary fiction of Virgil's, only the scholia are unfortunately wanting, which would have told us whether this division of the Latins into two states, like the Samnite cantons, rested on Cato's, or on what other authority. We may assume that, as Ardea was the capital of the second state, so Laurentum was that of the first; and that the Latini, who are op- posed to the Turini 28 , were already divided into thirty cities before the Priscan conquerors founded Alba. Virgil assuredly had an equally good warrant for naming No- mentum, Gabii, Fidenae, Collatia, Pometia, Castrum Inui, Bola, and Cora, as colonies of Alba' J, - ) . These colonies must not be confounded with the Albian townships; which * Herodotus, I. 150. t Pausanias, vn. 5. 1 ; Strabo, xiv. p. 633. d. » Vol. I. p. 44. 29 Aeneid, vi. 773, foil. Livy terms thorn Latin colonies, n. 16: which may be considered as an inaccuracy of expression. Cora was originally a Siculian or Pelasgian town: for its foundation was re- ferred to Dardanus : Pliny, in. 5. 22 HISTORY OF ROME. were undoubtedly nothing but the tribes of the plebs of Alba, as the genuine Albans were the populus: and yet two of these names, Fidenae and Bola, occur in the list of those townships; while Nomentum, Gabii, and Cora appear among the thirty Latin towns in Dionysius; and Pometia also was at one time included in the Latin state. Here again analogy lends us light. The most ancient Roman colonies disappear, because they are in- corporated in some of the regions, and their inhabitants in the plebs; others become Latin cities: and thus it may be supposed that among the Alban colonies, some became part of their plebs, and that others were ceded to the Latins, to repair the diminisht number of the thirty townships, at a time when the Latins were independent, although not on a footing of perfect equality with the Albans. These were thirty cities of a second period. Subsequently, after the destruction of Alba, the Latins framed a third republic, again consisting of thirty cities, but with very different boundaries. Alba must have fallen, before the five or six places in the list of Dionysius, which so long as she stood were denies in her terri- tory 30 , were numbered among the thirty Latin towns: and several previously included among them, the inhabit- ants of which, together with part of the commonalty of Alba, formed the original stock of the Roman common- alty in the reign of Ancus, had been separated from them, whether by conquest, or by exchange of territory*. It was with this Latin state that Servius Tullius en- tered into alliance, a fact which must be considered as resting on a historical foundation, however little this can be admitted in general as to the accounts of alledged transactions between the Roman kings and the Latins: and it probably retained the same boundaries, until Tar- quinius subjected it to the kingdom of Rome. But, of the towns named in our list, Gabii cannot have been a 311 Vol. I. note 570. * See Vol I. p. 355. HISTORY OF KOME. 23 member of the Latin union, since it concluded a sepa- rate alliance, as an independent state, with the same Tarquinius. Circeii may have been annext to the num- ber by that prince, if the colony he founded there was a Latin one: until then it had continued a Tyrrhenian city, and from the remoteness of its situation can have had no connexion with the Latins. On the other hand, Pometia, before its capture and consequent destruction, must have been one of the thirty towns: and accord- ingly it appears among those which dedicated the grove at Aricia 31 . Crustumeria too must at that time have been in the number; whereas in 261 it could not be so any longer: for it had been conquered, and its citizens formed the tribe named after it 3 ?. Hence it is clear that the list in Dionysius, on which I must still dwell a little longer, is erroneously described by him 33 as a list of the cities which decreed the war against ltomc. In fact it is utterly inconceivable that the original in- strument containing this declaration of war should have been extant even in the days of the earliest annalists. The list was undoubtedly found in the record of the league with the Latin union, which so late at least as when Cicero and Macer were young men, was to be read on a column at the back of the rostra 31 : in such a document an enumeration of the cities was in its place. But Dionysius found it more suitable to his mode of treating the subject, to prefix this long muster to the ai Cato, Orig. II. quoted by Priscian, IV. 4 (21). 32 Livy, ii. 19. Vol. i. p. 501. n v. 61. " Cuni Latinis omnibus foedus icturo Sp. Caasio Post. Cominio eoss. — nuper in columna aenea meniinimus post rostra incisuxn el perscriptum fuisse : Cicero, pro Balbo 23 (53); where cum Latinis omnibus may perhaps refer to the enumeration of all the towns. This column, which after the Julian law lost all value except as a piece of antiquity, was probably removed in the time of Sylla, when even statues were taken away from the CQmitium : we need not construe nuper strictly. 24 HISTORY OF ROME. history of the war. It roused expectations of important events, and gave the narrative an air of authenticity. He was deceived by the seemingly safe assumption, that the cities which began the war, would of course be the same which concluded the alliance. But if the list be derived from the treaty of Sp. Cassius, we need not be surprised to find Corniculum, Nomentum, and Tellena in it; though these places are said to have been reduced by the Romans long before. And so undoubtedly they were; since the dominion of the kings stretch t far beyond them. But they may have been ceded, partly to indemnify the Latins for the loss of Crustumerium, partly as the price of their assistance. Perhaps Circeii too came then for the first time into the possession of the Latins. This accordingly was a third change in the composition of the same number of towns: and thus on the revival of the alliance with Rome, toward the end of the fourth century, the Latin state was again enlarged and remodeled. The passage in which the list is given, might easily lead one to suppose, that the Latin cities did not form one really united state, like the Achaeans; that they were not more firmly associated than the Dutch Provinces, which were also designated by their number, were by the Union of Utrecht, and the thirteen North American States by the old federation: and that, although their deputies met to deliberate, the final decision was still reserved for the particular towns: so that the connexion would in reality be no more than a permanent offensive and defensive alliance. It is the better worth while to investigate this matter because the states with which Rome came into conflict in Italy, were all composed of several distinct republics : and the uniformity in the main outlines of the constitutions of the Italian nations gives us a right to assume, that, if we can ascertain that of the Latins, it will teach us those of the rest, which must else remain an inscrutable secret. HISTORY OF BOME. 25 The conclusions deduciblc from the blending of the Lutin army into a uniform body with the Roman may not, it is true, be so generally applicable. But in the case of the Latins this is decisive evidence of the real unity of the state. For the purpose not only of pre- venting them from bringing separate legions into the field, but of placing every division of their troops under the orders of a Roman commander, Tarquin united every century of each people with one of the other into a maniple 35 ; in which it follows of course that the Roman centurion led the urdo, and was the real captain : whereas, after the revival of the league in the year 391, the cen- turies were again united, but the command was taken by turns. This implies that the Latins were divided into classes, just like the Romans, that the same number of centuries went into the field from each class, and that a foot-soldier for every century was raised in the one state from each town, as in the other from each tribe. Such a constitution is inconceivable unless all the towns were united in the assembly of the classes. It would be ridi- culous to imagine the citizens of each of the thirty divided in the same way, so that a century of the seniors would have numbered only one or two men. The form of the national council however may be supposed to have been common to the Latins with the other Italian nations. On this head Dionysius seems purposely to express himself with ambiguity: for he calls the assembled counsellors irpofiovXoL* 6 , the term which 35 This would have been a much simpler way of saying what Livy expresses stiffly and obscurely, 1. 52 : miscuit manipulos ex I,a- tinis Romanisque, ut ex binis singulos faceret, binosque ex .singulis. The classical passage on the most ancient flexible form of the legion, vm. 8, shows that the maniple consisted of sixty men, and of two centuries ; for it had two centurions. 36 Ta ^Tjv Trpo/3otiXa>i/ : V. 52. oi iyypa^antvoi Tcivra npotfouXoi : v. 61. In both passages lie is speaking of the Latins. Of the Samnite senate, the constitution of which he knew 26 HISTORY OF ROME. Herodotus applies to deputies sent on a special mission by confederate cities 37 . It cannot however be inferred from this, that Dionysius conceived that the Latin dele- gates were confined to this footing, and bound to receive the instructions of their respective towns, and that these were as independent as the Ionian ones : for he uses the same word in speaking of the senate of Romulus 38 . It denoted the ordinary council, which met in oligarchal states for the dispach of everyday business, and prepared weightier matter for the decision of the great coun- cil 40 : and it is probable that the clearness with which some Roman author may have exprest himself, on the original relation between the senate and the houses, in- duced Dionysius to select the term on this occasion, though the transient insight thus communicated to him soon escaped him again. But the precision, which was probably wanting in his views no less than in his words, is supplied by Livy's account, that the Ten First of the Latins came with their pretor as envoys to Rome, before the breaking out of the great war 41 . So that the Latins to be similar, he writes: ol 7rp«cr/3eij — i\d6vrts evl tovs npofiov^ovs Ttov ZavviTwv : exc. de leg. p. 739. c. 37 Of the Ionian deputies, in vi. 7 ; of those assembled on the Isthmus, in vn. 172. It is not probable that he had any essential difference in his mind, when he elsewhere calls such ministers ayye- \ovs, v. 91 : as Thucydides calls them 7rpeV/3etr, I. 1 19. 38 To (Tvvebpiov twv npofiovXaiv : II. 45. 40 This is the notion we are led to form of their office by the way in which Aristotle mentions it : Politic, v. 14, 15. The great council could discuss no subjects but what they laid before it ; as the houses could only deliberate on what was proposed by the senate : and since the senate itself was confined to such matters as the pre- siding magistrate submitted to it, Dionysius elsewhere not inaptly calls the consuls rrpofiovXovs, IV. 76. v. 1 ; as he does the two chiefs of the twenty tribunes in the second insurrection, xi. 44. 41 Livy, vni. 3 : Decern principes Latinorum Romam evocave- runt. The term given to the fact by Roman vanity, that they were summoned to Koine, does not affect the argument. HISTORY OP liOME. 27 had then a senate, of which the Ten First by virtue of their office were deputed on embassies 42 , as the same body were by the Roman senate, and by those of the municipal towns and the colonies : and we are warranted in extending this notion to the earliest times by the high- est authority, that of L. Cincius; who considered the Latin state subdued under the consulship of P. Decius, as one with that which attained to independence on the destruction of Alba 43 : though he certainly did not over- look the long period of calamity, during which its unity was dissolved. These Ten First, like those in the Roman senate, were clearly the first persons in the same number of decuries 44 : and the reader can scarcely need to be re- minded that each of these decuries represented a city in Latium, as it did a cury at Rome. The deputies may have been chosen by election, or summoned by virtue of their office. The latter supposition is favoured by an expression of Dionysius 45 , and is more than probable in itself. The senates of the Latin cities consisted beyond a doubt each of a hundred men: as was the case at Rome originally, and in the colonies and municipal towns 46 . How essential the division into ten decuries was, is clear from the very name decurions: and it may be conjectured that the foreman of each of the ten 42 By the senate to the seceders, Vol. I. note 1345 ; by the coun- cil' of Ameria to Sylla, Cicero, pro Sex. Roscio, 9 (25) ; from the Latin colonics, Livy, xxix. 15. On the Decemprimi see Noris, Cenotaph. Pis. I. p. 59, 60, and Otto, de aedilib. p. 149. cd. 2. The practice of sending them on embassies gave rise to that of assigning ten legates to the generals out of the senate. 43 Festus, Praetor ad portam : on which more hereafter. 44 Vol. I. p. 340. 45 "Hkciv tls Trjv — dyopav roiis uwduras imtp roii koivov twv XaTLvoav crvvfbjKveiv. IV. 45. 46 Cicero, adv. Rullum, EL 35 (96), and a Veicntine inscription in Savigny's History of Roman Law. i. ± note 153. 28 HISTORY OF ROME. decuries in the senate of each town was deputed to the diet, whether ordinary or special; which would supply a further application of the principle of employing the Ten First on missions. Accordingly the Latin senate, like that of Rome in its complete state, must have consisted of three hundred members; the leading men of each of the little senates, who might with strict propriety be termed principes Latinorum : though I would not posi- tively assert that Livy found this expression deliberately selected, and therefore used it, but without a distinct no- tion of its force 47 . It is also observable that Dionysius says of the Volscians, whose constitution he certainly conceived, with very good reason, to be exactly like the Latin, that they deputed the principal men of every citv as embassadors 48 . Those ten Latin embassadors came each from a different city: his only mistake seems to be in speaking of all the cities, whereas it is most probable that in every case a part only had this honour. Like the curies and the plebeian tribes, the townships in all the Italian republics were assuredly distributed into classes originally differing in rank. Dionysius himself however, in using the expression I have quoted, seems in reality to have referred to the magistrates, the pretors, or dic- tators of the towns : at least in the only passage remain- ing, that appears to convey his opinion unequivocally, he mentions them and the people as assembling at the diet 49 . Now, though I am fully convinced that they did 47 In the assembly convened by Tarquin, he speaks of the prin- cipes and proceres of the Latins: I. 50, 51 : as in xxix. 15 he calls the same persons decern principes and primores. In the council of the Acarnanians also he makes a distinction between the magistratus and the principes, xxxni. 16, applying Roman terms to different relations. 48 'E£ iiaicrTrjs noXeas tovs cTri) ; and when referred to that date, it is probably ge- nuine. This justifies the ancient story, but not those who allowed it HISTORY OF HOME. 39 the treaty contained the following terras, which were rati- fied by the sacrifice 71 . There shall be peace between the Romans and the Latins so long as heaven and earth shall keep their place. Neither state shall war against the other, or instigate forein powers to do so; or grant a passage through its territory to forein armies against its ally : but when either suffers damage or vexation, the other shall loyally render it protection, help, and succour. The booty and everything gained in a joint war shall be shared equally 72 . Private suits shall be decided within ten days, in the place where the cause of litigation arose. No article shall be crazed from this treaty, or added to it, except with the common consent of the Romans and the commonwealth of Latium. Our report of the treaty indeed is certainly not so full as it is accurate. We miss one provision which was indispensable, to wit, how public quarrels between the two republics, or complaints of individuals against either state, whether of a Roman against a Latin town, or of a Latin town against a Roman commonwealth, were to be brought forward and decided. Nor is it specified which party was to command in joint expeditions; whether that to stand, when carried so far back, without suspecting that the state of affairs had changed between 266 and 291. Livy, who passes over the contents of the treaty, is more excusable in persuading himself that the Latins were even prohibited from defending themselves in case of an attack : vni. 4. But see below, p. 50. 71 Dionysius, vi. 95. 72 This too escaped the recollection of Dionysius in the sequel, where he makes the questors say, that Cassius had first granted one- third of the booty to the Latins, and then a second to the HiTiiicans vni. 77. All such mistakes are to be imputed to annalists •whom Dionysius scrupled to abandon: and they were thinking of the undoubted fact, that before the last Latin war the Latins received a, third (Pliny, xxxiv.ll : Prisci Latini quibus ex t'oedere tertias praedae populus Romanus praestabai ); without reflecting that, when the Hernieans joined the confederacy, the share of the former parties would of course sink from half to a third. 40 HISTORY OF ROME. which sent the summons, or each in turn every other year 73 . For these are the only alternatives: it cannot be imagined that the Latins should have had an equal share in the spoils of war, and none in the command of the army. The conclusion, to which we are led from the nature of the relation, is confirmed, as often happens, by direct testimony. Scarcely a hundred and fifty years after the destruction of the Latin state, L. Cincius wrote 74 , that after the fall of Alba, so long as Latium was independent, in the year when the Romans appointed the general, the Latin towns sent deputies to observe the auspices on the Capitol; and that the Latin army waiting at the gate saluted the person elected with the name of pretor, as soon as it heard that his election was confirmed by the augury. The referring of this state of tilings to the whole period from the fall of Alba down to the final ex- tinction of the Latin commonwealth in 412, and without any exception, either for the period when Latium was in a state of dependence under Tarquinius and the earliest consuls, or for that when such towns as were still un- conquered took shelter under the protection of the Ro- mans, — this is probably an oversight of Festus, if not of Verrius himself: although even Cincius may not have thought it necessary to guard himself against censure by subjoining a qualification which was then familiar to every well-informed reader. For times like those which fol- lowed the years 261 and 392, his statement is a satisfactory proof that Rome had not always the supreme command of the combined forces; so that the Roman legions must at times have been under the orders of the Latin dictator as pretor of the confederacy: and the most probable con- jecture is, that the command alternated yearly. 73 A clew to guide us in conjecturing the points that must have been noticed here, is afforded by the treaty of the Athenians with the Argives and their allies, in Thucydides, v. 47. ;4 Festus, Praetor ad portain. HISTOBT OP BOME. 41 The combination of the centuries into maniples might have continued during the period we are now considering, as it subsisted after 392, if the command of the ordo had shifted annually. ]>ut that this wa9 not the case, that the Latin legion at this time was kept apart, must be considered as an attested fact ; unless we reject a state- ment, which, though it belongs to a highly overcharged description, seems to be of considerable antiquity 75 . Our information concerning this period is so scanty, that little stress can be laid on the rare occurrence of any allusion to a junction between the forces of the two states: in itself however it is credible enough that they may only have been bound to aid each other in defensive wars. The fruits of victory to be shared between the allies consisted not merely of money and movables, which the soldiers were bound by the military oath to deliver in to the questor, and which he put up to auction, but also of land 76 . Latium at the time of its destruction had a domain, which the conquerors seized : and so there must always have been an ayer Latinus, to which everything capable of being conveniently held in common was annext. This domain lay in scattered parcels 77 . In cases admitting 75 Dionysius, IX. 5 : Ado (KUTepos ayav 'Pa>p.aia>v Ta.yfj.aTa — ovk eXaTTO) 8 «r avTrjs X ( ~ l P a T *l v V7T0 T ^ v niroiKaiv re ku\ vnrjKitav inrocrTa- Xtlo-av. dtfiiKfTO 8e avTois napa tov Aarivcov re ko\ 'EpvtKwv edvovs dnrXdaiov tov K.\r]6evTos fmKovpiKov. At this time four legions must have been 12000 men: add to this 12000 from the colonies and sub- ject towns, and 24000 for the double contingent of each allied state, and the whole assembled force will be 72000 men. The legend peeps through in this wantoning with typical numbers, which it is fond of multiplying enormously: its antiquity is proved by the mention of the troops from the subject towns, the remembrance of which cannot long have survived the twelve tables. Livy too says, m. 5: Cohortes Latin ac llernicaeque reniissae domos. r6 rrjr Te »cai \eias fie pis, in the similar treaty with the Ilcrni- cans: Dionysius, vm. 77. 77 One of these was the Ager Latinus between Rome and Fi- denae, which was separated by the Tiber from the Vatican district. Pliny, in. 9. 42 HISTORY OF ROME. of an actual partition, the confederates would forthwith set out their respective shares : for the promiscuous oc- cupation of the same district by the citizens of both states would have led to confusion and variance. A like dis- tribution may have been adopted in the case of small towns: and when the inhabitants of larger ones were allowed to retain possession of their city and its terri- tory, subject to a tax, this would be levied on the com- mon account, and divided equally. But when the object was to secure a fortified place for the league, the inha- bitants of which aimed at shaking off the yoke, and when a colony was planted there for that purpose, the allied states took equal shares in it. Of this the Roman books have recorded an example in the case of Antium, un- doubtedly because it was the first colony composed of Romans, Latins, and Hernicans 78 . What name was given to a colony thus bound by the ties of blood and duty to the whole confederacy, we have no means of divining. Only the negative is certain, that it cannot have borne that, which subsequently became so important, of a Latin one: there was nothing that could give rise to such a distinction. Its character and constitution however may be made out with precision and certainty. 78 The statement in Dionysius, ix. 59, is only distorted by a misplaced attempt to account for the fact, and by the fixt idea of Rome's supremacy : 'OXrycoi/ dTroypayj/afxepwv e'8o£e rjj ftovXjj, eweiSfj ovk d£i6xpea>s 17 o a7r6(TTo\os, iniTpcfyai Aarlvav re Kal Upviicav rols ftov\op.evois ttjs dnoiKias p-ere^eiv. i;; OF THE COLONIES. The colonics with which the Romans strengthened their empire were not of a kind peculiar to them. We read of Alban, Volscian, Sabellian colonies; which, as well as even the Etruscan ones, there can be no doubt, were of exactly the same nature. If our information were some- what more copious, all these would range under one ge- neral head as Italian colonies. To avoid the appearance of an arbitrary assumption, I will speak only of the Roman, and of the contrast between them and the Greek. The latter were in general newly built towns 79 : or, if the colonists settled in cities already founded, the old population was mostly exterminated: in the surrounding territory it survived, but in bondage; from which con- dition it generally rose in course of time to that of a commonalty. They were planted at a distance from the parent state, usually by persons who emigrated to escape from commotions and civil feuds, and not under the 79 Even the most important Dorian cities in the Peloponnesus were so. Does Sparta really form an exception? As to most of those within the compass of the Argolis conquered byTemenus, my posi- tion will not be disputed : but the case was assuredly the. same with the capital Argos itself. The Argives were unwilling to allow that it had sprung up in later times, by the side of old Mycenae; and so it was said to have subsisted before, and that too within four or live miles of the capital of the king who ruled over many islands and all Argos: and it was assigned to a dynasty which was spoken of in tradition as ruling over the land of Argos. 44 HISTORY OF ROME. direction of the government at home. Or, if a colony went forth in peace, and with the blessing of the parent state, and the latter retained honorary privileges, still the co- lony from the beginning was free and independent, even when founded to serve as a safe mart for commerce. The totally opposite character of the Roman colonies is de- scribed in a definition, which is certainly very ancient, and merely needs some explanation and addition 80 . A co- lony, it is said, is a company of people, led at the same time, and in one body, to a certain place furnisht with dwellings, in order to live there under certain legal con- ditions: they may either be citizens or dependents, sent out to form a commonwealth, according to a decree of their state, or of that to which they are subject; but not such persons as have seceded during a time of civil dis- sension. Besides this last class, the definition excludes gradual settlements, such as often grow up into market- towns from the notion of a colony, and indeed all such as did not occupy a city already standing. This qualifi- cation however had ceast to be observed even at the time of the colonizing of Cisalpine Gaul; where there were scarcely any towns properly so called; and where the Roman setlers kept aloof from a population which was quite forein and hostile to them, and with which 80 Servius, on Aen. I. 12. Sane veteres colonias ita definiunt. Colonia est coetus eorum kominum qui universideducti sunt in locum certum aediticiis munitum, quern certo jure obtinerent. Alii: colo- nia — dicta est a eolendo : est auteni pars civium aut sociorum missa ubi rem publicam habeant ex consensu suae civitatis, aut publico ejus populi unde profecti sunt consilio. Hae autem coloniae sunt quae ex consensu publico, non ex secessione sunt conditae. Coetus is Koivmvia, a company : the word occurs frequently in Cicero, de re p., being undoubtedly taken from the phraseology of the jurists : the above definition is at least not later than his times, and may have appeared in that work. The use of consensus for a decree, though very rare, is also not uncommon with him. Munitus, which Cicero wrote moenitus, in the old way, refers not to the walls, but to build- ings within the city, which were properly denoted by moenia: Di- vidimus muros, et moenia pandimus urbis. HISTORY OF ROME. 45 they could not Mend for several generations: anil there may have been an exception or two in Italy itself" 1 . There however the rule was in general steadily observed; the colonists being mostly settled as garrisons in fortified towns taken from the enemy, and having assignments of land, instead of pay and provisions 82 . The old inhabitants were not ejected ; nor was the whole mass of landed pro- perty confiscated by the ruling state. Several stories, in which the ancient usage is exprest, however devoid of historical truth, prove clearly that, in the case of a ge- nuine Roman colony, the general rule was, that a third of the territory of the town it occupied should be confis- cated and allotted to it, and that the rest was restored to the former owners 83 . Of course this partition ex- tended to the domain; unless this, as the publicum, past entire into the hands of the new body, which represented the populus of the place: and assuredly what was left to the old inhabitants was not enjoyed by them free from burthens; though the confiscation of the third might serve as a redemption of the land-tax. A state of servitude it was after all, and doubly galling, because endured in a home that had once been free. Accordingly the old ci- tizens often attempted to expcll their lords, and, not satis- fied with liberating themselves, to quench their hatred with blood 84 . These insurrections, which occur frequently S1 For instance Interamna on the Liris. 82 At Fidenae (Dionysius, n. 53) a>v K(iT(i\ina)i>, rrji re \iopat po'ipav iinarepopevos f/v Tins , aiTOiKov (iT(uT)cre 'Voipalcov. At ( 'ainciia, in the B&me passage, it is called (ppovpa. In vi. 34, of ip Kpovtrroptptq (fipovpol are tho colonists. s3 Such is the account given ofCaenina and Antemnae in Diony- sius, ii. 3."> ; of Cameria, a. 50: compare o4. The law-books had transferred their statements to the age of Romulus. At Cameria a second third is then Baid to nave been confiscated as the penalty of an insurrection : but it was no doubt the share of the Latins. M So at Sora : Livy, in. 23. This accounts also for tho murder of tho envoys at Fidenae : iv. 17. 46 HISTORY OF ROME. in early Roman history, are absurdly related as revolts of the colonies 85 . For the name colonia can only be applied strictly to the body of colonists 86 ; who depended on the parent state for their preservation, and among whom there cannot have been more than a very few traitors. When one of these places revolted, the colony must always have been expelled. The meaning of the term however was suitably modified, when the colonists and old inhabitants were blended into one civic corporation ; as at Rome the burgesses and the commonalty were into a united Roman populus. But this could not happen until the change had taken place at Rome: and so long as the patricians would not recognize the civil validity of mixt marriages, they can have allowed no connubivm, and scarcely so much as a commercium with the old inhabit- ants in the colonies, founded as they were according to the forms of their ancient law. In those times the rul- ing body derived no advantage from these dependents, beyond what subjects, however hostilely disposed and bent on revolt, must afford to a government which has the means of keeping them under. But when Rome had attained to domestic peace, an entirely opposite spirit spread likewise into the legislation of the colonies. The colonists were Romans, Latins, or Italians: all who might have taken part in the first planting, were at liberty to settle in the colonies as they chose: and assuredly nothing now prevented the old inhabitants and their descendants from recovering the civic franchise in the cities of their forefathers. These were the Latin colonies, which reacht such a brilliant eminence under the soverainty of Rome: and though not a few of the later military ones, having been planned with happy foresight, have continued to 85 In the passage just quoted, of Fidenae : of Antium, in Livy, ill. 4 ; Dionysius, x. 20 ; where the express assertion that the colo- nists took part in the revolt is unpardonable : of Velitrae, in Livy, vi. 13. 21. viii. 3. 14. 86 According to the definition in note 80. HISTORY OF ROME. 47 flourish to this day, still these are more especially deserv- ing of the praise which Machiavel bestows on the Roman colonies, — that by them the empire was consolidated, the decay of population checkt, and the unity of the nation and of the language diffused. These however must be treated of in a future page, when they begin to make a figure in history. In their capacity of garrisons, colonies served not only to maintain conquests, but also to defend subject towns, which, whether from loss of inhabitants or naturally, were too weak to repell an advancing ene- my 87 . In such case they were solicited as a benefit; as they were even by colonial towns already subsisting, when their position was so dangerous that their safety required a numerous population HH , or when, their numbers having begun to decline, the burthens imposed by the principle of their institution prest too heavily upon them. Even if they had remonstrated against such a measure, Rome might have enforced it, when her interest seemed likely to suffer: though the sending new colonists not only in- volved the assignment of vacant allotments, but, as results from the principle of the agrarian law, a general reparti- tion, and a retrenchment of such property as had been acquired beyond the original measure. This power was derived from the supremacy of the parent state; to which the Roman colonies, like sons in a Roman family, even after they had grown to maturity, continued unalterably subject: whereas those of Greece were abandoned to their fate, but at the same time to freedom. This essential dependence of the colonies, as well as their being settled to serve as garrisons, is left out in the definition. In another ancient passage it is observed, that the 87 Such was the case at Velitrae, Dipnysius, vn. 13 ; at Norba, [ivy, ii. 34 ; at Ardea, xv. 11 : ut coloni praesidii causa adversus V ol.scos scriberentur. 89 Livy, xxxvir. 46. 48 HISTORY OF ROME. colonics were miniature likenesses of the Roman people 89 : which is perfectly correct as to those of the earliest pe- riod, and those only. At Rome, from the time of the most ancient allotment 90 , every cury had a separate tract. This was a century of two hundred jugers, markt out by formal metes and bounds. It was assumed that each cury contained a hundred householders 91 , and that each of these received two jugers, that is, one of arable and one of plantation, without reckoning the enjoyment of the common domain 92 . In the colonies of this ancient class likewise the setlers received two jugers of plough- land: in one case it is expressly mentioned 93 ; and there is no room to doubt that this was the universal standard. The number of the colonists was three hundred 94 : thus the allotments of a hundred of these also would form a distinct tract, or century ; which however answered to a third part of their body, while at Rome it answered to the thirtieth. What was here the measure of the cury was in the copy that of the tribe: the hundred in the latter was in the former a tithing 95 . The colonists were 89 Effigies parvae simulacraque populi Eomani : Gellius, xvi. 13. 90 Romulus (Kaari] (ppdrpa KXfjpov cmtbaxev tva : Dionysius, II. 7. 91 That is, the original Rome of the Ramnes contained a thou- sand homesteads : Plutarch, Ronml. c. ix. 92 Such a hereditament, heredium, was a garden, as Pliny ob- serves, xiy. 19 : in xn. tabulis nusquam nominatur villa, semper in significatione ea hortus ; in horti vero heredium. Even with the most industrious cultivation it could not suffice to maintain a wife and children, without the use of the common. On the centuries of land, so called from the number of the proprietors, and on the heredia, the important passages may be found in Gessner and ForceUini. 93 That of Anxur : Livy, vm. 21. 94 This is related of Caenina, Antemnae, and Fidenae, in Diony- sius, n. 35. 53 ; and is historically recorded, so late as the year 421, and even 551 and 554, with regard to maritime colonies of Roman citizens founded according to the old law. 95 It is a gross mistake to be sure to talk of three hundred colo- nists, when the Ramnes were the only citizens. Such anachronisms HISTORY OF ROME. 49 the populus, the old inhabitants the commonalty : an Verrius Flaccus was already so far advanced in age and reputation, that his great work on the signification of rare words may be regarded as nearly contemporary: and in this he treated at length of the terra municipes ; which for a hundred years before had been used familiarly in a sense quite different from the one it bore in the old constitutional law, namely for all such Italians as were neither settled at Rome nor in military colonies; as municipium was for their country- towns. He therefore gave a definition of municipium, illustrated with examples, by a jurist of the last age of the republic ; to which he added remarks of other antiquaries on the condition of the municejjs 109 : and the 109 The definition forms the articles municipium in Festus and Paulus, which I shall insert piece by piece in the following notes. It has been preserved by a remarkable accident. It was contained in one of the columns of Festus which were burnt off ; and Paulus omitted it ; but some grammarian of Rome or Ravenna, one of the solitary shoots from the old schools, annext it in the 10th or 11th century to his copy of the epitome. For it is wanting in many of the manuscripts, and where it occurs is out of its place : and it is as plainly distinguisht by its integrity and copiousness from the meagre shriveled articles that have past through the hands of Paulus, as those of the abridgement of Stephanus by Hermolaus are from the still more compendious abstract, which unfortunately for the most part occupies its stead ; or the Fulda Servius on the first two books of the Aeneid, from the commonplace commentary that goes under the same name. Paulus had also omitted an article on municeps : and on this again we may congratulate ourselves ; for it was contained in one of the leaves severed from the manuscript, and now lost, but had been transcribed by Pomp. Laetus. This article consists of three parts, by as many different hands. First comes an account taken from Aelius Gallus, how the franchise of the municeps might be ac- quired in three several ways, — by birth, by exercising isotely, and by manumission by a municeps: this is followed by two definitions of the isopolitan municipium, one anonymous, the other by Servius, the son. 1IISTOKY OF HOME. 57 original accuracy and completeness of the information he afforded are manifest, even in the clumsy abridgement that has preserved it. Municipium beyond doubt, like mancipium, was ori- ginally the right itself; but, as happened at least in one sense to the latter word, was transferred to the object to which the right was attacht; in this instance to the class who posscst it. This class, with the above-mentioned exclusion of the genuine tVoTeXet?, is the subject of the definition referred to, which distinguishes three kinds of muniripia. The first and most ancient 110 of these is defined with great precision. It comprised those persons who, if they came to Home, shared all the rights and burthens of Koman citizens, without being such, but were excluded from the elective franchise and from honours 11 . Another definition, expressly ascribed to an ancient jurist l2 , notices it as a necessary condition, that the natural country of 110 Initio fuisse, says the definition by Servius. 11 Municipium id genus hominum dicitur, qui, cum Romam ve- nissent neque cives Roman! essent, participes taiuen fuerunt omnium rerum ad munus fungendum una cum Romanis civibus, praeterquam de suffragio ferendo aut magistratu capiendo ; sicut fuerunt Fundani, Formiani, Cumani, Acerrani, Lanuvini, Tusculani, qui post aliquot annos cives Romani effecti sunt. Fest. Epit. Municipium. Item municipes erant qui ex aliis civitatibus Romam venissent, quibus non licebat magistratum capere, sed tantum muneris partem. Festus, Municeps. 12 At Ser. filius aiebat initio fuisse qui ea condicione cives Ro- mani fuissent ut semper rem publicam separatim a populo Romano haberent : Cumanos videlicet, Acerranos, Atellanos, qui aeque cives Romani erant, et in legione merebant, sed dignitatea non capiebant. Festus, Municeps. This Servius, the son, can scarcely be any other person than the very promising son of the learned and eloquent jurist Servius Sulpicius, the same who is several times mentioned by his father's friend: Cicero, Epp. ad Div. iv. 3. What is reported in Festus, was his oral doctrine (aiebat). As he probably left no work behind him, it is natural enough that he should be past over in the Enchiridion of Pomponiua : D. 1. 1. 2. 2. 58 HISTORY OF ROME. such municipals should be a completely distinct state from the Roman: it terms them however, according to the franchise they enjoyed, Roman citizens, though in- eligible to honours. Three Campanian towns are taken as instances: and it is added that their citizens served in the legion. The meaning of this must be, that their contingents were not considered as auxilia, but at least formed one legion, which was numbered along with the Roman; as the Campanian legion was in the war with Pyrrhus*. In the genuine Roman legions there can never have been a place for emigrant municipals, since they were not enrolled in any tribe. This relation corresponds to that of isopolity, as exactly as the Roman tribes of houses to the Greek. As the Roman definition speaks of participation in all things, so does the Greek inscription of participation in all divine and human things m . Nor was the relation of a proxenus forein to Roman usages 14 : and as a person who contracted this relation with the republic, enjoyed the same privilege as one who was municeps by virtue of a treaty with his state, isopolity is called by Livy a hospitable relation entered into with a whole people 15 . I will not maintain that the story which represents Coriolanus as having been privileged to sit in the senate of every Volscian town 16 , is to be received as * Octava legio : Orosius, iv. 3. ; compared with Livy, xxvni. 28, Polybius, I. 7, Appian, de Reb. Sainnit. Exc. 9. Valerius Maximus, II. 7. 15. 113 Mero^av na\ deicw Kai avQpanrivav Travrw'. Inscription in Rei- nesius, p. 491. 1.13. Participes omnium reruru : Festus. 14 Hospitium cum (Timasitheo) ex senatusconsulto factum : Livy, v. 28. 15 Cum Caeretibus hospitium publice fieret : Livy, v. 50. 16 Dionysius, viii. 9. By the side of the Comitium were two places called by the perplexing names of stationes municipiorum and graecostasis. Be it remembered that in Verrius municipium means the whole body of the municipals : these names, I conceive, desig- nated two places, one allotted to the municipals, the other to the Greeks from allied cities, that they might hear the debates, like the HISTORY OF BOMB. 59 an authentic tradition: but it assigns no other honour to him than what the magistrates in Crete enjoyed in iso- politan towns: and this might be granted on similar grounds to a pruxenus of high estimation. Here again is a feature belonging to ancient tradition, which no late writer could have invented. The second class of municipals is merely defined, by a description equally unsatisfactory and obscure, as per- sons whose whole state had been united with that of Rome 117 . For this applies no less to the third class, described in a way just as unintelligible in itself, as cor- porations of towns and colonies, which, by their adop- tion into the Roman state, had become ?nunicipia lH . But in both cases the examples supply what is wanting to the explanation in the epitome. The Caerites and Koa-fxoi in the Cretan cities (above, p. 52), — places resembling privi- leged seats in the hall of a parliamentary asseml ily. 117 Alio modo cum id genus hominum definitur quorum civitas universa in civitatem Romanam venit ; ut Aricini, Caerites, Anag- nini. Festus, Municipium. 18 Tertio — qui ad civitatem Romanam ita venerunt uti muni- cipia (perhaps municipes) cssent sua (perhaps sitae) cujusque civitatis et coloniae ; ut Tiburtes, Praenestini, Pisani, Urbinates, Nolani, Bononienses, Placentini, Nepesini, Sutrini, Lucenses. Urbinates is commonly given only as a various reading, and the text has Arpi- nates: which I do not reject because it would assert anything false; for Arpinum became a municipium in 560, just as the others did in 660: but I prefer Crbi nates ; because then all the places mentioned are such as acquired the full franchise at the same time ; and all equally formed the strength and core of China's party : Appian B. C. I. 65. Arpinum would stand insulated among them, though it would naturally occur to a scribe, instead of an indistinctly written word that lookt like it. The very learned author of the definition has introduced, in one or other of the three' classes, the five towns that were of chief note at the destruction of the Latin state: of which Lanuvium and Tusculum were then admitted to the full franchise ; Aricia was kept for a time in the rank of a subject ; and Praeneste and Tibur continued to he isopolitan towns, though not on an equal footing, for two centuries and a half after. 60 HISTORY OF ROME. Anagnians arc mentioned as instances of the second class: of whom the former represent all such municipals as were incapable of holding offices at Rome 119 ; and the latter, when they were degraded by way of punishment into the class of subjects, received the name of Roman citizens*. The places in the third class are all either Latin colo- nies, or Italian towns, such as by the Julian law, or by those which followed and gave it a wider application, became municipia in the later general sense. The situa- tion of the subject towns of the second class was that of a dependent sympolity 20 , that of country- towns in a can- ton under a soverain city, precluded from every inde- pendent relation to others, and unconditionally subject to the will of the ruling state. But the Roman country- towns of this class were more fortunate ; inasmuch as they enjoyed all the privileges of isotely in the capital. The colonies of the ancient sort were on the same foot- ing with these communities, subject to the same personal disabilities, and equally incapable of legislating for them- selves; though the whole body of their inhabitants possest the Roman franchise. The last class answers to the equal sympolity of the Greeks: but they made a more com- plete sacrifice of independence than a town that became a member of the Achaean state: and whatever may have been the definition Verrius gave of it, the right one would 119 One should not expect to find the Caerites here, but among the isopolitan towns (see note 115): in which case, whatever maybe said, it would be a puzzle that their franchise was held degrading. The Romans unquestionably conferred honours upon them after the Gallic invasion, as Livy relates ; so that Strabo is unjust in censuring Rome for want of gratitude on that score (v. p. 220.c.) : nevertheless the definition is correct, as I shall shew under the year 397. 4 * Livy, ix. 43. 20 This is the noXiTeia koivt] with which, according to the speaker in Dionysius, viii. 77, the Latins might have been content ; the same that Romulus grants to the cities he conquers, and that the people of Eleutherae sought from the Athenians: Pausanias, 1. 38. 8. BISTORT OF SOME. 61 be, that it embraced those towns and Latin colonies, the (icemen of which were so united with the citizens of Rome, as to enjoy the highest franchise, be admitted into Roman rustic tribes, have votes, and be eligible to offices. After so complete a union, the term municeps was as illsuited to them as to a patrician. But the want of a word to designate the newly formed relation caused the name of an extinct one to be applied to them, as was the case with Quirites, populus, plebs, Latinus. Scarcely any mu- nicipal towns of the oldest class were remaining, when the Roman franchise was extended over Italy by the Julian law : and if a few places, like the Camertes and Heraclea, still retained that high privilege, yet no general name was any longer current for relations that had become so rare. The word however had continued in use for the towns in the west of Latium, and for Fundi, Formiae, and Arpinum, after they were admitted into the tribes: and so it came to be applied to the new provincial towns, which stood on just the same footing with reference to the whole republic 121 , 121 As I am not writing a book on this subject, I shall spare my- self the task of exposing the absurdity which runs through the whole of the wretched chapter (xvi. 13) where Gellius tries to correct the harmless errour made by his contemporaries, in calling the citizen of a military colony, as of any other provincial town, a municeps. Ab- sunia Gellii verba, says Roth (de re municipal!, I. 20); who, though the object of his work permitted him to go round the thorny thicket, through which I have been forced to seek a path, will not deem an inquiry connected with his own unworthy of an attentive examina- tion. One can scarcely believe one's senses, when one finds out that the colonies spoken of by Gellius are those of the very earliest times, the bodies of three hundred householders, subject as sympohtes to Rome; while his municipia are the old isopolitan towns; and that he knows nothing about the municipal towns of his own time, nor about the Latin colonics, nor even about the flourishing military co- lonies, such as were still founded in his day: like the boy in Goetz of Berlichingen, who from sheer learning does not know his own father. But in fact even those antiquated colonies ami municipal towns only float before him like figures in a heavy dream. Never did man reach 62" HISTORY OF ROME. In ancient Greece the isopolites, who settled in an allied city, were not reckoned among its freemen; because they were not members of any of the tribes, or of the subordinate corporations. But in the Italian states those who exercised the liberties of the civic franchise, and shared the common burthens, though they were not re- gistered in any such division, appear everywhere to have been accounted citizens; at Rome under the name of erarians. Now, when it came to pass that Roman citi- zens without a tribe were scarcely to be found, at least in ordinary life, and indeed according to the actual state of things appeared impossible 122 , those who were writing about ages long past, were led by analogy to deny that the municipals had been citizens. But that the author of the instructive definition I have quoted was mistaken on this point, is sufficiently evident from the casuistry by which Sp. Postumius wanted to turn the curse attacht to breaking the peace upon the Samnites. He was de- livered up to the people of Caudium, whose canton bor- dered immediately on Campania, and was undoubtedly a higher pitch of pedantry than Gellius in this passage : where, at a time when the will of the emperor, the ordinances of the senate, nay the edicts of the pretors, had long been the fountains of law for everybody throughout the Roman world, and no trace of independ- ence was left, except here and there a few provincial customs, he still ascribes a legislative power to the municipal towns : while of course he lookt upon the Roman people, whose ghost was raised once at the beginning of every reign to pass a lex curiata, as its own law- giver. His world was not a past world, revived in the memory and the imagination : it was only found in the pages of obsolete books. There was not a scribe in a country-town, but would have laught at his blindness to the existing state of things ; which is not merely childish, but, like every dereliction of nature, has something fright- ful in it. 122 So early as in 580 C. Claudius opposed his collegue's rigorous treatment of the freedmen ; saying that to exclude them from all the tribes was to deprive them of their freedom and their civic franchise : Livy, XL v. 15. HISTORY OF BOMB; 03 the district united by an isopolitan relation to Rome 123 . Now, had it not been sufficient for making him a Sam- nite citizen 21 , that he had abandoned Rome, and ap- peared in Samnium, with the avowed purpose of exercis- ing his municipal franchise there, his conduct would have been as silly as it was revolting. According to the pha- risaical letter, it 'mattered not whether he or C. Pontius committed the impious outrage on the fecial. But the great Samnite, who was above superstition, like Hector, bad the Romans take shame to themselves for their fraud: for the gods would not be mockt. As to the letter of the law however he made no objection. 25 . This same instance shews that the civic franchise was taken up by the mere will of the municipal, and the transfer of his residence, without any need of an admis- sion by the state to which he attacht himself. This is the jus exulondi" 6 . It was in force till just before the Social war, even with respect to Rome, though it had become very rare and obscure. Exilium, as Cicero rightly ob- serves, was not banishment; which was entirely unknown to the Roman law. It was nothing but the act whereby a man renounced the freedom of his own city, by taking up his municipal franchise: and the liberty which a per- son, bound by sureties to stand his trial before the people, had of withdrawing from the consequences of their ver- dict by exiling himself, was only an application of the general principle. If the accused staid till sentence was 123 For the grant of the municiphim to a portion of the Samnites, see Velleius, 1. 14: for the delivery of Postumius to the Caudines, n. 1. Compare Livy, IX. 10: traditi fecialibus Caudium duceiuli. 24 Se civem Samniteni esse : Livy, IX. 10. 25 Ita Dii credent Samnitem civem Postumium, non civem Ro- manum esse — ludibria religiouum — vix pueris dignas ambages: Livy, ix. 11. 26 Cicero, do Orat. I. 39 (177): Qui Romam in exiliuni venisset, cui Romae exularejus esset. See Vol. I. p. 324. 64 HISTORY OF ROME. past 127 , he was condemned as a Roman; and it would be executed upon him wherever he was taken. But if he availed himself of his municipal franchise in time, he had become a citizen of a forein state, and the sentence was null and void. The ground of this exemption was not his migrating, but his attaching himself to a city which had a sworn treaty of isopolity with Rome 28 . They who settled in a place without such a privilege, needed a decree of the people, declaring that their settlement should operate as a legal exilium 29 . The old practice of dressing up every legal right in the shape of an incident gave birth to the story, that in the year after the treaty of Cassius, during a severe famine, many families retired to the neighbouring cities, and accepted a franchise there ; that some remained ; others after a time returned home 30 . This right of be- coming a Roman again belonged undeniably to an emi- grant of this kind. Perhaps he had that of recovering his old place in his tribe postliminio, but at all events that of entering among the Romans as an erarian, as had every other freeman of his new country 31 . Now, had no limits been set to the exercise of this privilege, this great birthright of every Roman would have enabled him to 127 Not merely till the majority was decided, but so long as a single tribe had yet to vote : Polybius, vi. 14 : so that he might de- part even after 34 tribes had condemned him. 28 'Et> ttj 'Sfa7To\iT(ov,IIpaiv((TTiva)V — Ktii rals ciXXais npos ovs e\ov- ilium the home he had chosen in a forein state'', so in this he was an inquilinus; a derivative from a word which undoubtedly was once in use, of an Oscan form, inquil. The Latin language, so rich in law-terms, can- not have wanted a peculiar word to denote the muni- cipal who had made use of his right. In Sallust, who preserves the old phraseology with a predilection guided by learning and judgement, Catiline calls the provincial, Cicero, inquilinus civis 3i ; as though Arpinum had still been a municipal town forein to the republic. We are surprised however at finding the same writer term a Latin officer in the Roman army a citizen from Latium 35 ; not indeed at his considering the Latins and 132 Cicero, pro Caeeina, 34 (100). On the interdictio aqua et igni all that is essential may be found in Heineccius, Antic], i. 16. 10 ; though it is very important to rectify the erroneous notion, that the object of this process was to force a condemned person to tly his coun- try. Cicero certainly had not lost his franchise by this interdict. 13 Qui nullo certo exilio vagabantur: Sallust. 31 Catilin. 31. — Sallust ius, proprietatum in verbis retinentissi mus: Gellius, x. 20. 35 Sallust, Jugurth. 69, says of T.Turpilius, who was scourged and beheaded, nam is civis ex Latio erat. VOL.11. F. 66 HISTORY OF ROME. Italians as municipals of the ancient class ; but because the Latin officer, as appears from his not being protected by the Porcian law, had not chosen the Roman franchise instead of his own. Yet here again the historian con- formed to a mode of speaking, which, though unquestion- ably incorrect, was sanctioned by its high antiquity. The contracting a municipium with towns and cantons, where sympolity was out of the question, and some of which are adduced as examples of isopolity, is spoken of as a grant of the franchise without a vote 136 . The Campanians, and the citizens of Acerrae, are described as having be- come Romans 37 , because every individual had the power of becoming so as soon as he chose. Now, when it is stated of an independent community of this kind, that its members had been made Romans by a law, such a law only held good so far as Rome was bound by it: with regard to the Acerrans it was void, unless they adopted it 38 . This they would do by enacting a corre- sponding law of their own. The proceeding was the same as when a treaty of peace was introduced among the Greeks by a decree of either party. The case was dif- ferent with conquered states, such as Anagnia and other Hernican cantons. These were fain to accept the fran- chise and subjection which the soverain people assigned 136 To the Campanians, the citizens of Fundi, Formiae, dims, Suessula, in Livy, vm. 14 ; to the first three and a part of the Sam- nites, in Velleius, 1. 14 ; to Acerrae, in the same passage, and in Livy, vm. 17 ; to the latter, Cuma, and Atella, by Servius, the son, in Festus, under Municeps. The Hernicans are described as 7rpoa- \t](j)dcvTcs els tt)v rro\iTfiav in Dionysius, vm. 69 ; and as ttoXitoi, 77. On the other hand the consul C. Varro speaks correctly, when he says to the Campanians (Livy, xxill. 5) civitatem magnae parti ves- trum dedimus ; for this civitas was nothing more than the liberty of exercising the municipium, of which only a part availed themselves : he does not even mean that they were admitted into tribes. 37 Cives Romani tunc facti sunt Campani : Ennius. " Nisi fundi facti essent. HISTORY OF ROME. f>7 to them; a lot so unwelcome that the Aequians took up arms to avoid it 139 . Still the register of the Caerites, in which till the citizens of such towns were enrolled, would not have been a book of dishonour, had not the names of those freemen, enjoying the highest franchise, who forfeited their right of holding office, been transferred into it. At Athens likewise a citizen, who incurred the highest degree of drifiia, sank to a level with the tVoreX?;?. The equality between a degraded Roman and an inquilinus was still more exact, and extended even to the name of citizen. Of course the isopolites who made use of their franchise, were enrolled like the sympolites among the erarians. But I also hold it certain, that the Caerite tables were only a part of the general register containing that class of citizens. Nor are we to look upon them as a list of the citizens of all the isopolitan towns: Rome had con- nexions of this kind to a great extent, before Agylla be- came an Etruscan city: and those towns can never have been mentioned but with honour. It may easily be con- ceived however that, when the citizens of Caere had them- selves been brought down from that respectable rank, their list might serve to receive degraded freemen ; and that their name might stand for the whole class of sym- politan subjects, if that class was revived in them, after the old towns of the same order had long been admitted into the tribes 40 , 139 Civitas sine suffragii latione data : says Livy, ix. 43, of the punishment inflicted on the Anagnians and other Hernicans ; the same expression which described the isopolitan franchise. For tin- indignation of the Aequians see Livy, ix. 45. Of the Caerites Strabo says, v. y.220.c.iro\iT(iav 86vres : and Dionysius always speaks of 7roAIrni and noXireia in mentioning the incorporation of the con- quests made by Romulus. 40 I shall revert to the degradation of the Caerites, when I come to the epoch at which it happened. That they obtained the isopolitan franchise after the Gallic war, is no less certain than that the defini- tion of the municipium, which ranges them in the same line with E 2 G8 HISTORY OF ROME. But still lists of all the freemen in every town with which an isopolitan relation had been contracted, were indispensable to keep strangers without a title from in- truding as municipals : and if, according to the looser mode of expression, all the citizens of these states were considered as freemen of Eome, and the amount of all those lists was added to that of the three Roman orders, the result, though for the present it is merely hypotheti- cal, would coincide with the conjecture already suggested, which explained the numbers of the Roman citizens in the tables of the census as being the aggregate made up of the Romans and their isopolites 141 ; and would thus throw some light on those numbers, which otherwise, when one perceives the absurdity of supposing that they refer to the Romans in the strictest sense, are a puzzle scarcely paralleled in ancient history. I w r ill remind the reader of the unexampled ebb and How of those numbers, fluctuating between 104000 and 150000, which the annals afford us no means of explain- ing, for the sake of observing, that the present case is not an instance of changes such as may occur in modern states, through vicissitudes of fortune, from the enlarge- ment or contraction of their territories, but of a sudden increase and decrease in the number of citizens by many thousands at once. Besides the numbers reported, whether they be taken for the adult males, or, in a sense some- what narrower and correcter, for the serviceable men 42 , are, when so understood, utterly incredible. The mean Anagnia, deserves unlimited credence. Even Strabo's censure of the Romans, v. p. 220, coming from so clearheaded a writer, confirms it : only he confounds things that happened at different times. 111 Vol.1, p. 552. 42 Oi eV 17/3,77 'Pcofiaioi : Dionysius, v. 20, 75. ix. 25, 36 : numerus eorvm qui anna ferre possent: Fahius, in Livy, I. 44 : that is, from the time of putting on the manly gown to the end of the sixtieth year. Pliny, who speaks of libera capita, xxxiii. 5, is entitled to no regard in a case where he must have felt the same difficulty, and spent little time in thinking how to remove it. HISTORY OF HOME. <>9 of the returns preserved is about 130000, the amount quoted from the last census before 280: and allowing only an equal number for aliens and slaves, this would give a population of 650000, for a territory which, be- tween Oustumcria and Ostia, the Etruscan border and that of the nearest Latin towns, scarcely covered 200 square miles. But say 300 : for how many months in the year can this surface have yielded the means of sub- sistence? how would the deficiency be supplied, without trade and commerce ? how could a merely agricultural population multiply so enormously? These same 130000 able-bodied citizens, with the serviceable aliens and slaves, are to be blockaded within the walls of Rome by the Veientines, who just before had been hard prest by the Fabii, and to suffer from hunger without making a sally ; like the cowardly, but not equally numerous multitude, which 1000 years after allowed itself to be reduced to extremities by Vitiges. Moreover, immediately before the battle of the Allia, above 152500 heads were registered. But in that battle there were at the utmost 28000 Ro- mans, including the proletarians and erarians, and all the elderly men up to the age of sixty : and so certain is it that these were all who could be mustered, that, when this army was disperst, there was nobody to guard the walls. To fill up the measure of absurdity, after a re- turn of only 10-4000 in 289, a dreadful pestilence rages in 291, which must have swept away at least a third of the population : this is followed by many years of the most disastrous wars, in which thousands of Romans must have fallen, or been led into slavery : and now comes a new return in 295, amounting to no less than 117000. After weighing all these points, one can hardly refrain from regarding the returns as no less unworthy of serious attention, than the extravagant numbers of the slaves at Corinth and Aegina 143 . But we cannot throw them aside 143 Nor is the wellknown pretended return of the aggregate population of Attica worthier of credit, at least in respect of tlu 70 HISTORY OF ROME. with the same contempt. For they were recorded in the original censorian rolls, which Dionysius speaks of as extant when he wrote 144 : and even assuming that they were fabricated after the Gallic invasion, still nobody would have devised such an absurdity as the increase of an eighth after the pestilence. In this strait, others as well as Pliny have probably had recourse to the shift of sup- posing, in spite of the "express statements to the con- trary, that the returns might include the whole popula- tion. But this cannot be the case : for the statement of the number of serviceable men during the Cisalpine war coincides with the census of the same period 45 . This statement raises my conjecture to certainty. For it couples the Romans with the Campanians: so that the slaves. Yet one can more easily conceive how even ingenious men might be deluded by it, if not in the habit of looking at philological traditions by the light of actual experience. 144 He had seen them himself : I. 74, rv. 22. 45 Polybius, II. 24. The Roman and Campanian infantry amount to 250000, the cavalry to 23000. In Orosius, iv. 13, the former are stated at 348200, the latter at 26600, on the authority of Fabius. Nothing is commoner in Orosius than mistakes in numbers : and so here we have a C too many ; and the total 274800 differs only by 1800 from that in Polybius, who had no need to be very precise. The statement belongs to the year 523, in which a census was taken. Livy, in order to devote a whole decad to the second Punic war, crowded the occurrences of more than five lustres, 21 years, into his twentieth book : the author of the epitome records the returns in two of them, which fell, as is plain from the place where they stand, about the time of the Cisalpine war. All the manuscripts have : lustrum a censoribus bis conditum : primo lustro censa sunt civium capita CGLXXrnillia: then some proceed with CCXIII, others with CCXIII millia; others insert alio before these words. The number of the second census has either dropt out by mistake, or been wilfully omitted : it would not be a violent change to write altero CCLXXIII millia. We have sustained no material loss however from the cor- ruption of the text ; for the 270000 differs only by 3000 from the number in Polybius. The Campanians, that is, the citizens of Capua and their dependents, amounted to no less than 34000 ; the number specified by Livy, xxm. 5, who did not state it without authority. HISTORY OF ROME. 71 latter must likewise be included in all the returns pre- served by Livy from the time of the Samnite war; and not only the Campanians, but all the other isopolitan states. Vclleius mentions'* at the same epoch, and in the very same terms, that the freedom of Rome was gi-anted to the Campanians and to a Samnite canton : and the two returns of the census in the time of Alexander, — one of them 130000, the other 250000 14(3 — are fully accounted for, if the former be considered as the last before the beginning of his reign, the latter as that of the year 418, after those nations had entered into a rela- tion of isopolity with Rome. The same remark applies to the earliest ages: and so the rising and falling of the numbers in the census during the third century indicate, not an increase and decrease of the Roman nation, but a change in these peculiar connexions : which certainly corresponded in general to real alliances and confede- racies, but are also perfectly conceivable without them. They were probably contracted in some instances with states so far off, that Rome could reap nothing but the assurance of their goodwill from the association. If it be true that the second Q. Fabius was lawfully married to the daughter of an eminent citizen of Maluentumf, this must have been an isopolitan town; and the people of Massalia would be included in the census of the year 362. Thus the fluctuation in these numbers does not afford a safe measure even of the power that accrued to Rome from its alliances. Nevertheless a right conception of the state- ment in Polybius is important; because it places beyond doubt and clears up several accounts of the relations be- tween Rome and the neighbouring states, and renders * 1.14. Abhinc annos CCCL...Campanis data est civitas, par- toque Samnitium, sine sttfrragio. uc Plutarch, de fort. Roman, p. 32U. c. Livy, ix. 19 : the latter is only a round number. t Pestus, Numerius. 72 HISTORY OF ROME. statements instructive, which would otherwise be absurd 147 . It also enables us to comprehend how the number of the metics in a strict sense came to be so trifling, that no such class seems ever to be spoken of. Had the amount of the census in the Cisalpine war been taken according to the same rule as two centuries before, it would perhaps have been the same as that given by Fabius* for the serviceable men of all Italy. But the case was altered. As long as there were seve- ral independent states, each would add the census of its 147 Even in the history of the Greeks to the west of the Ionian gulf, who adopted so many Italian institutions. There is a state- ment, scarcely less absurd than those about Eome, according to which the Agrigentines, when the Carthaginians appeared before their walls, were only a little above 20000, but the whole number of inha- bitants including the forein residents amounted to no less than 200000 (Diodorus, xiii. 84). By these, as the number of the free- men proves, are likewise meant adidt males: and so the account must have been understood by a writer, who, though an impostor, is perhaps more ancient than Diodorus, when, under the name of Pota- milla, he spoke of 800000 freemen at Agrigentum : see Wesseling's note. Can we suppose those 200000 men, though they were not all completely armed, to have been such whitelivered wretches, as to allow the Carthaginians to take up a position before the city, and even to starve them into a surrender? But here again the ] 80000 consisted partly of sympolites scattered over an extensive territory, partly of isopolites ; and not merely Greeks, but also Sicanians and Sicelians : for these tribes were not so forein to the Greeks, whose blood at this time was far from pure, as we are apt to imagine. The same explanation applies to the enormous numbers of the Italian Greeks, as at Croton. The story of the 300000 Sybarites however I should not consider as historical ; since it relates to a period prior to the abolition of royalty at Borne ; and the number is one which through all the stages of its multiplication by ten, is no more to be taken strictly than seven or seventy among the Jews (see Beimar's masterly treatise De assessoribus synhedrii lxx linguaruni gnaris) ; or than six, and its multiples by ten, among the Latins : for instance in the story of the setting free the six thousand captives : Livy, u. 22. Such statements, when they spring up naturally, do not deserve to be called false any more than true. * Eutropius, in. c. 5. HISTOItY OF ROME. 73 isopolites to its own; so that the members of the same people were counted several times over. But, when Home had become the center of the whole, this practice would have defeated the purpose of surveying what forces of its subject states the senate could command. It is even extremely probable that the allies were in many cases H8 forbidden to contract a municipal relation with one an- other, like the towns in the territory of a people that had provoked the anger of Rome. An equal alliance seems to comprehend isopolity, indeed to be equivalent to it 49 . But the example of the Campanians, who are said to have had such an alliance with Rome, though they deferred to her majesty, and indeed had often recog- nized her soverainty, proves that the name had ceast to be taken in the literal sense. According to the ancient meaning of the word, the Romans were still in a muni- cipal relation with Tibur, Praeneste, and all the allied towns in respect of which Roman citizens had the right of exile; even with the Neapolitans, who paid them tri- bute: and so were the Latins and the Italian allies with the Romans; since they were at liberty to make election of the Roman franchise, though under restrictions granted for the relief of their own necessities*. But, as these two classes were subject to peculiar laws, which distin- guisht them from each other, and from the municipals of the old stamp, this title was withdrawn from them 50 : 148 The Pelignians and Samnites had it with Fregellae. 49 Foedus aequum — of the Carnpanians : Livy, xxm. 5. As a reward for the faithful assistance rendered by Massaliots in the Gal- lia war, immunitas data, et locus spectaculorum in Senatu decretus, et foedus aequo jure percussum : Justin, xliii. 5. This was undoubt- edly described at Massalia as arfketa ica\ irpotbpla iv toIs dyaxri ica\ la-onoXiTfla. The inferior franchise enjoyed by the Transalpine Gauls before the reign of Claudius, when they were still excluded from the senate and public offices, Tacitus tennsfoedera ft civitatem Romanam : Ann. xi. 23. * See above, p. 53. i0 The classical passago for this distinction occurs in Livy, xxvi. 15. The senate is to inquire num(Campani) communkassent consilia 74 HISTORY OF ROME. and none but the isopolites strictly so called were coupled with the Eoman citizens. Since the Latins in the sixth century, whenever they came up to Rome, enjoyed the honour, one indeed con- nected with little power, of giving their votes in a tribe selected by lot, it is highly probable that this was meant to indemnify them for the loss of an elective franchise, which, so long as the old constitution of the centuries lasted, had been exercised by resident municipals: and this may have been the foundation for the story, that Cassius had hoped to carry his law by the votes of his Latin and Hernican partisans 151 . In fact that obsolete institution had become so strange to the later Romans, that the statement in our definition, — which, with this unimportant qualification, was perfectly correct, after the tribes had become the basis of every franchise, — may not be an absolute proof that the municipals did not an- ciently vote in the classes: which the clients undoubt- edly did, while they too were merely erarians. If the latter practice, as I am ready to admit, was an innova- tion upon the law of Servius, the municipals would scarcely be neglected ; since their votes might likewise be turned against the plebeians. But when Cassius is represented as having sent for the Latins and Hernicans to come to Rome and vote, the errour is palpable : and it is so plain that some late annalist had been deluded cum aliquibus sociorum, Latini nominis, miinicipiorum : for so the words ought to be stopt, that the names of the three classes may be connected in the old style by juxtaposition, and in a scale answering to their rank, — the Italian allies, the Latins, and the free confede- rated municipia, such as Cuma, Fundi, and Formiae. Gronovius rightly saw that the last noun does not govern the preceding ones : but the conjunction he wishes to prefix to it disfigures the old ex- pression, and destroys the distinction between the Italians and La- tins. I will observe by the way that immediately after, where the common text has : num ope eorum in bello forent et municipionim ad- juti, the true reading is et adminictdo, discernible in the manuscripts which give et admxmicipiorum. 151 Dionysius, viii. 72. HISTORY OF ROME. 75 by his recollection of the stormy scenes of his own age, — when the tribunes sought to terrify the senate, by calling in the Latins and Italians, and by threats of violence, — that it almost leads us to question the story altogether, credible as it is when taken with reasonable qualifications. In treating of subjects very remote from modern con- ceptions, it is advisable to avoid expressions that may suggest vague or erroneous accessory notions. But in future, when speaking of isopolites, I shall often use terms drawn from the old Germanic institutions. That the sym- polite, with his inferior franchise, answered to the citizen of the pale * in the German towns, is certainly clear enough 152 . But I conceive that, between a person of this class and an outburgess t> there was this distinction, that the latter could only be called by the former name when he removed into the city. When a single individual obtained the franchise of an outburgess, he was always a person of consequence, a knight or a prelate. He re- sembled the 7rp6i;€vo<; of antiquity. It was not however solely on individuals that the freedom of a city was be- stowed; but likewise on whole towns or districts: and it appears to me that this relation J, of which the history of Switzerland, especially throughout the fifteenth century, is perpetually speaking, without explaining it, can be no other than that of the ancient isopolity. All the citizens or other members of the privileged community would be- come outburgesscs, say of Zurich ; in the same sense as the Campanians became freemen of Home: the individual who made use of this franchise, became a citizen of the pale. The same relation might be contracted with a rural canton §. The entering into such relations had always a * The Pfahlbiirger: see Vol. I. p. 405. 1,2 See Hullmann, Geschichte der Staende, 2nd Edit. p. 582, foil, t Ausbiirger. X Burgrecht. § The name for this relation was Laadrecht : the author ob- serves, that he docs not know whother there was a terra to denote 76 HISTORY OF ROME. defensive alliance connected with it : it is not surpris- ing therefore that the names which properly belonged to them, were applied to cover treaties which the cantons were not at liberty to conclude apart from the confede- racy 153 , and that, owing to this, the isopolitan relation was at length forgotten. the same relation toward a rural community, as Pfahlbiirger exprest with regard to a city. 153 That the Burgrechte mentioned in the later history of Swit- zerland were nothing but alliances, screened under that name, for the reason abovementioned, I have learnt from a Swiss jurist: instances in which the possessing the Burgrecht led to the franchise of the pale, are furnisht by German records. 77 ON THE FRANCHISE OF THE LATINS. Some privileges might be exercised by an outlying freeman, without changing his relation to his native coun- try : but of others he could not avail himself without becoming a citizen of the pale : and these were deter- mined not by the higher dignity of the privilege, but by the nature of the case. Without quitting Capua, Pacuvius Culavius had wedded a Claudia, and had given his daugh- ter in marriage to a Roman *. This bred no confusion : but if he had purchast Roman lands subject to the land- tax, the republic would have lost the tribute due upon them, which was assest, not on the objects, but on the persons liable to it. Thus the higher right, the connubium, was open to every isopolite : the commercium was reserved for those who settled in their adopted country. It is mentioned as one feature in the relation be- tween Rome and Alba, that the connubium subsisted between them 151 : and though all pretended statements concerning the earliest times are generally rejected, per- haps with needless rigour, this at all events was meant to explain the origin of the same right among the La- tins, and therefore deserves attention. The right of in- termarriage with Alba is exprest in the legend of the mothers of the Iloratii and Curiatii ; that with the Priscans * Livy, xxiii. 2. 154 Strabo, v. p. 231. b. Wap\s rrvyxavoif ovhtv S' i)ttov imyapui Ti r\oav (read f'niyapta re >)v) teat Upa Koiva tci eV"AA/3a nal «XXa binata nokiTiKii (isopolity). 78 HISTORY OF ROME. and Latins, in the story of the matrons who before the battle of Regillus were allowed to part from their hus- bands 155 : and on such matters tradition cannot deviate from the truth. The marriage of the last king's daughter with the dictator Mamilius may certainly pass for a his- torical fact. To these wellknown instances, we may now add the account that the armies under C. Marius and Q. Pompaedius, when standing in array against each other, were sad at heart, because, intermarriages having been legally sanctioned, many were linkt together by the ties of friendship and affinity 56 . Now that this evidence has come to light, the notion that the genuine Latins had no right of intermarriage may be considered as entirely refuted. For it is surely incredible, that they who had the advantage of the Italian allies in the honorary admission to the elective franchise, should have been worse off on a point so important as intermarriage. If this had been so, they would have had no fellowship of rights with the Eomans, so long as they continued outburgesses, with the exception of the twelve colonies, which had the right of contracting nexa and re- ceiving inheritances 57 . With regard to the condition of these colonies I shall express my opinion, when my his- tory reaches the time at which I conceive them to have obtained that privilege. The cause which had barred the commercium, no longer existed : and it might have been granted to all the Latins, had not mistrust, and a wish to check their growing prosperity, just then ren- dered Rome averse to all concessions. According to the plan of my work, I should also defer speaking of the Latin colonies, whose franchise was extended to a class of freedmen so often mentioned by 155 Vol. i. p. 556. 56 Diodorus, Exc. de Senteutiis, xxxvn. 10. p. 130, ed. Dindorf : Oi 7rap' aftfporepois arpariaTai — ai'xvovs oliceiovs nai crvyyevels tcare- voovp, ovs o Trjt (Tnyafilas vofxos (TTfTrotrjicei Koivwveiv rrjs Toiavrrji 'e Romac munus faciunt, non hi tantum qui mag. gerunt etc. 164 Gains, i. 79, with Goeschen's note : the past tense refers merely to the date of the law, which, in the only passage where it is mentioned, bears the singular name of Le.r Mensia. vol. n. 82 THE LEAGUE WITH THE HERNICANS. The league of Rome with the Latins, and that with the Hernicans are parted by an interval of seven years, and by events which our history must not pass over: but it would show a slavish adherence to the order of time to let the internal connexion between the two sub- jects be broken by this separation. The same Sp. Cassius concluded both the treaties as consul ; and the tenour of both was precisely the same 165 . The alliance was com- mon to the three states; and they were all placed on an equality : so that, when their forces took the field con- jointly, a third of the spoil and of the conquered terri- tory fell to the lot of each 66 , and each took an equal share in the colonies they sent forth 67 . Now, for the subsistence of this equality, it was necessary there should be no markt disproportion between the allies in power, even if they were not exactly balanced: hence the Her- nicans must have occupied a far wider territory than their later history assigns to them. They, like the La- tins, were overpowered by the Volscians and Aequians, who conquered a part of their towns. Some of these were recovered, as was the case with Ferentinum 68 : others 165 'AvTiypacpoi tu>v npos Aarlvovs (v). Dionysius, vin. 69. 66 Dionysius, vin. 77: To «rt'/3aXXoi/ iicao-Tois (of the three states) Xdxos : 76. Hence the Latins were entitled to a third of the booty : Pliny, xxxrv. 11. See note 72. 67 Above, p. 42. «* Livy, IV. 51. HISTORY OF ROME. 83 may perhaps have been destroyed ; others, when peace was concluded, and the possessions of the parties were secured by treaties, may have remained in the hands of the Volscians. Among these towns we may reckon Trebia, which is said in the legend to have been taken by Corio- lanus ; a statement amounting to evidence that it had fallen into the power of the Aequians. Its name does not stand in the list either of the Latin or of the Albian towns 169 ; and its very situation makes it extremely im- probable that it ever belonged to the Latin state. But it may have belonged to the Hernicans, if there was a time when they bordered on the Marsians, from whom, as being the nearest Sabellian people, they are said to have derived their origin. Their connexion with their parent state cannot always have been interrupted. The imperishable hill-fortresses, founded by an earlier race of inhabitants, and occupied in remote ages, like Latium and the Tyrrhenian coast, by Pelasgians, can never have been taken by them by a sudden assault, to which they would have had to open a road through the territories of the Ausonian tribes, closing upon them as soon as they had past. It is manifest that the Aequians must have conquered the highlands from them, and thus sepa- rated the Sabellian states in this quarter from each other. That the towns of the Hernicans, which rose against Rome in 443, must have been more in number than Anagnia and the four others mentioned by name, was inferred by Cluverius from Livy's expression, that, save Verulae, Alatrium, and Ferentinum, all the Hernican cantons declared war 70 . To help us in conjecturing IM Vitellia however, which is mentioned by the side of Trebia (Livy, II. 39) among the conquests of Coriolanus, was an Albian township : see Vol. I. note 570. 70 is. 42. Concilium populorum omnium habentibus Anagninis. praeter Alatrinatem, Ferentinatemque, el Yerulanum, oranes Her- nici nomims populi (not popu/o) Romano bellum indixerunt. Frusino joined them : Livy, x. 1. F 2 84 HISTORY OF ROME. what their number was when complete, we find a clew in the discovery of that which determined the internal divi- sion of all the Sabellian states. For there can be no doubt that this division also was regulated by some funda- mental number, whether three, as among the Romans, or some other, which was multiplied either by itself, or by ten, for the sake of further subdivisions. Such forms can never be accidental: they are a law, like the Dorian music : they contain the evidence of their own truth. The Sabellians differed from the Latins in this respect, just in the same way as the Ionians from the Dorians: their regulative number was four. This appears in the military system of the Hernicans, and of the Samnites. The cohorts of the former num- bered four hundred men 171 ; those of the Samnites just as many 72 : and in the amount of their regular army, six- teen thousand 73 , the same number appears twice over: there are four legions, each of four thousand men 74 . So that the four thousand Samnites sent to defend Palae- polis 75 were just a legion: the statement of this number is not derived from any record of the amount of the auxiliaries; but the annalists were still familiar with the complement of a Samnite legion. It is less certain in- deed, but still highly probable, that the eight thousand men under Numerius Decimus, when he wrested the vic- tory from Hannibal at Larinum 76 , likewise mean two legions. The Marsian confederacy contained four states*. That 171 Livy, vn. 7 : Octo cohortes quadringenariae. 72 Livy, x. 40: Viginti cohortes Samnitium(qiiadringenariae ferme erant): the particle ferme was added by the writer, who found the language of his earlier authorities more precise than he thought him- self able to warrant ; just like Dionysius in the passage quoted in Vol. I. note 1228. 73 That of the legio linteata : Livy, x. 38. 74 So that those 20 cohorts were 2 legions. 75 Livy, vin. 23. ;6 Livy, xxn. 24. * See Vol. i. pp. 100-102. HISTORY OF ROME. 85 the Samnite was made up of the same number, is almost demonstrated by their army's consisting of lour legions. For, though the Frentanians at the period referred to had separated themselves from their confederates, the Gaudines, I'entrians, and Ilirpinians, still the fundamental form may have been preserved by the substitution of a new canton 177 . These constituent numbers, when once recognized, are such sure guides, that I have no hesitation in assuming that every independent Sabellian people, and consequently the Hernicans, were divided into four tribes: and this 1 conceive to be indicated in their case by the thousand colonists sent to Antium 78 . Here four hundred Herni- cans would represent the four Sabine tribes, as the three hundred Romans did the three tribes of the houses; and the three hundred Latins the three decuries of their towns. Thus far I feel conlidencc: but it is not without over- stepping the line, beyond which a magical charm hovers over the adventurous inquirer, and threatens to bewilder his senses, that one may conjecture that the number twelve, which recurs so frequently in Roman institutions, was composed by multiplying together the fundamental numbers of the Latins and Sabines, who were united in the nation : and possibly the same thing may have hap- pened in Attica, with respect to the Ionians and Cranaans. This may have been the reason why the institution of the year of twelve months was ascribed to Numa, after the union of the two states: though such a year must have been in use from the first; nor can it ever have been superseded by that of ten months. 1 return to the plain ground where I feel at home, '" See above, p. 20. 78 Antiates,mille milites, in I. ivy. iu.-">. i> assuredly nothing more than the echo of a statement that there were a thousand colonists at Antium. The whole share of the Hernicans was ao1 a third larger than that of each of their confederates ; bu1 each Herniean received only three fourths of the portion allotted to each Roman or Latin. 86 HISTORY OF ROME. and breathe freely. It might fairly be questioned whether the Hernicans had forty towns, or sixteen. But the num- ber must have been one of these two: and the statement that forty-seven towns took part in the Latin Holidays 179 is decisive in favour of the latter. It is not equally easy to ascertain whether Anagnia was included among the sixteen; or, whether they stood in the same subordinate relation to that rich city 80 , as the thirty Latin towns did to Alba. In this light it appears in the Fasti, in the triumph of Q. Marcius Tremulus, by the side of the other Hernicans. It is impossible to guess whether the author, whom Dionysius followed in recording the num- ber forty-seven, combined Rome, the thirty Latin, and the sixteen Hernican towns in one sum, or meant to state how many appeared on the Alban mount along with Rome. Anagnia is clearly designated as the capital of the nation, in a tradition apparently of very high antiquity; where it is said that Laevius Cispius of Anagnia com- manded the Hernican auxiliaries who marcht to protect Rome, probably against an assault from the Sabines, while Tullus Hostilius was lying before Veii, and who encampt on one of the two hills of the Esquiline, before they were cleared or built upon, as a Latin army did on the other 81 . So ancient was the alliance of the Romans conceived to be with this people also, in which the Tides recognized their countrymen, as the Ramnes did theirs in the Latins. They too, like the Latins and the Tyrrhenians on the coast, fell subsequently under the dominion of Rome; 179 Dionysius, iv. 49. The Volscians of Ecetra and Antium are mixt up with them merely through a confusion of the isopolitan and federal relations. In the reign of Tarquinius no Volscians were to be found at Antium, and scarcely at Ecetra. 80 Dives Anagnia : Aeneid, vn. 684. 81 Festus, Septimontium, from Varro. They are the hills on which the churches of S. Maria Maggiore and S. Pietro in Vincola stand. HISTORY OF ROME. 87 and they too shook off her yoke. Both as confederates, and as subjects, they too were connected with Rome by the isopolitan franchise : and if it was by the accession of the Sabines that the numbers in the census were raised between 246 and 256 from 130000 to 150700, it must have been the separation, not merely of the Sabines, but of the Hernicans also, that reduced them to 110000 in 2G1, though the Latins had been recovered. Through igno- rance and the ambition of rhetorical display it has been maintained that the league of Cassius, which in fact only renewed an ancient franchise, contained an entirely new relation, and one in which the highest boons were in- excusably lavisht 18 *. Livy's guides must have been bet- ter informed ; for he has not a word of the sort. On the other hand the stipulation, that the Hernicans were to have a third of all land conquered in future, is mis- interpreted in him to mean, that no more than this part of their own territory, or at least of their domain, was left to them, two thirds having been confiscated 83 . For he deems it certain that the league was a treaty of peace at the end of a war: and Dionysius even enters into a circumstantial relation of the campaign. This assuredly deserves no manner of credit : it is far more probable that the war is a mere fabrication, devised from the no- tion that the league was a treaty of peace, and from a misunderstanding of what was reported of its contents with regard to the division of conquered territories. The danger with which the Romans were threatened from the Volscians and Aequians, made them willing to secure a bulwark by fair concessions. On the other hand the Hernicans and the Latins behaved like staunch friends in remote wars, with which they had no personal concern; because they could count on succour from the Romans, and were acknowledged by them as their inde- pendent confederates. Iv - Dionysius, vin. (;:>, 77. M Agri partes duae ademtae . u. 41, 88 THE WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND AEQUIANS, DOWN TO THE END OF THE VEIENTINE WAR. The incessant wars with these Ausonian nations, which for more than a century occur almost every year, induced Livy to express a fear lest, as he could not write of them without weariness, he should excite a like feel- ing in his readers 184 . How much more reason then has a foreiner to expect this, living eighteen hundred years after, with very few among his contemporaries who re- flect that the glory of Arpinum and its sons belonged to the Volscian name, or who are familiar with the noble hills, the scene of those wars; and none who take in- terest in them from any of the feelings connected with ones birthplace ! Hence the endless uniformity of occur- rences, few of which are even distinguisht by the mention of the spot where they took place, and which look like mere predatory inroads, passing away and perpetually re- curring without any result, must to us be intolerably tedious. But this appearance of intrinsic insignificance has only been occasioned by the dishonesty of the Roman annalists, which has studiously thrown the conquests of these nations into oblivion; as their narrowness of mind has the wholesome and politic treaties with them, at which the vanity of the later Romans took offense. If any Roman, sprung from a Volscian municipal town, had been IM vi. 12. BISTORT OF ROME. 89 led thereby to seek alter native chronicles, he would have found the names of great men in them, such as Cicero says, and surely nut at a venture, his forefathers could boast of as well as other nations 185 : and this history, now so unattractive, might then, in spite of its narrow stage, have excited no less interest than any other, first by the splendid exploits of its early ages, and afterward, when fortune turned, by the unwearied resistance main- tained for so many years. To reproduce the image of such a history is impossible. No names, but those of Attius Tullius, Vettius Messius, and Gracchus Coelius, have come down to us: and their memory has in part been defaced by an unworthy spirit of hostility. Their victories have been expunged: the conquests which could not be totally concealed, have been transferred to a stranger. The honour of which the chiefs have been robbed, we cannot restore to them: but we may acquire a general notion of that which is due to the people. In a history of Rome it is the more necessary not to pass over the Volscian wars, because by them the power of the Latins was destroyed, and the remnant of the nation were compelled to seek safety in a state of de- pendence upon Home: so that they were the means of raising up the Roman state from its fall after the banish- ment of the kings. But repeating the statements of the annals, full as they are of misrepresentation and false- hood, cannot teach us the nature of those wars: we must view them in masses as they combine in the distance. When we take such a view, they divide into four periods. The first goes down to the peace with the Volscians in the year 295. During this the dominion of the two Ausonian nations eneroacht upon Latium, and, though they were repulst from Antium for a while, at length reacht its highest pitch. The chief part of this period, en- velopt in obscurity, and affording us but scanty information [ " Do re i). iif 4. 90 HISTORY OF ROME. on a very few definite events, is comprised in the present section. The second period extends from the peace of 295 to the victory of the dictator Aulus Postumius Tu- bertus. During this the two nations kept possession of the territory they had conquered: but the league, -to which they owed their strength, was dissolved, till the breaking out of the war which was decided by that battle, and even then was only reestablisht between the Aequians and Ecetrans. Before that war, Rome had been on terms of amity with the latter, as well as with the Antiates, though this amity had not always been undisturbed: with the Aequians her relation had not been pacific, and fre- quently she had been at open war. During the third period the Antiates continued on an amicable footing with the Romans, who were continually gaining ground upon the other western Volscians and the Aequians, until Rome fell by the hands of the Gauls. The fourth period em- braces about thirty years. The Aequians sink under the same storm which overthrew Rome: the Antiates, after seventy years of friendship, abandon the Romans, and, along with the other Volscian towns in those ad- vanced parts, join the Latins; and they come to an end by being incorporated partly with the Latin state, partly with the Roman. I am far from entertaining a doubt that the second Tarquinius waged war, and victoriously, against the Vol- scians: for the Auruncian race had already been pressing forward on the side of Latium. The destruction of Suessa Pometia however, if we must suppose it to be the same Pometia which is spoken of in the times of the republic, is a fable 186 ; just as much so as the story of the enormous 180 I almost doubt whether there ever was a town called Suessa Pometia .- see Vol. I. p. 514. The only thing really in favour of its existence is the name of Suessa Aurunca; where the epithet seems to imply that there was another Suessa, from which this was dis- tinguish : but, if the adjunct was an adjective, it should be Pomp- tina. The form of the name would infer thai two towns had been HISTORY Ol BO MB. 91 treasures taken there. The founding of Signia, and the sending a colony to Circeii, both which measures un- questionably were not ascribed to the last king without historical grounds, are evident indications that some ene- my's frontier was not far off: and it may have been with the view of obtaining protection, that Terracina, which was also included in the Roman kingdom, submitted to a state of dependence. That it was still a Tyrrhenian town at the time of the treaty with Carthage may be reasonably conjectured from its union with Rome, as well as from its not bearing its Volscian name of Anxur. On the downfall of the Roman power however immediately after, it must have fallen into the hands of its conquerors ; to whom the two Alban colonies of Cora and Pometia had already surrendered in 251 187 . These conquerors are called Auruncians, the name given at the beginning of the fifth century to the tribes of the same race on the lower Liris: and Campania was mentioned in the chro- nicles as the home of those Auruncians with whom the Romans came into conflict before the insurrection of the commonalty 88 . The war in which those conquests were wrested back from them for a while, occurs twice over in Livy, under the years 251, 252, and 259: nay, if the united into one, much as Laurolavinium was under the emperors, but that in this case, according to the usage of very early times, the two names were combined together without undergoing any modification, or being connected by a particle. 187 Surely nobody will feel any scruple at the phrase ad Auntncos deficiunt, in Livy, n. 16. Even if the event had been much more recent, a Roman might have been led to speak in the same way, by the notion that nothing could excuse a city belonging to Rome, if it did not choose to perish rather than open its gates to the enemy. That the towns which Livy in the same passage calls Latin colonies were Alban ones, has been shewn above, p. 21. 88 Dionysius, vi. 32 : Ta ti^ Kannavwv x™P as »re7ha. There is the less reason for confining this name to the district of Capua, according to the strict est Roman usage, since the Greeks called all the Oscans Campanians. 92 HISTORY OF ROME. matter be lookt at closely, it must be allowed that the two campaigns of the earlier war are also in fact one and the same, placed by one set of annals in 251, by another in 252 18 ^. The only historical facts to be ex- tracted from this confusion are, that the two places were reconquered, and Pometia destroyed: which is con- firmed by its not appearing among the Latin towns in 261, while Cora does so. Thus much too is not to be questioned, that when the town was taken by storm, three hundred men were beheaded. These men in two places are called hostages, in a third Auruncian chiefs of the town 9°. If they were hostages, the old inhabitants must have incurred the suspicion of the Romans beforehand, and, though they had been forced to give pledges of their fidelity, have revolted notwithstanding: even in this case it might be shewn that the number is not to be viewed according to our notions on such points. It is incomparably likelier however that these victims, whose number is just equal to that of a Roman colony, were an Auruncian one planted there to maintain the town: which the Romans destroyed, because it was lying waste, the ancient inhabitants having been carried away or massacred. For surely that act of cruelty is unintelligible except as an act of revenge: and from the condition of several places which I shall soon have to mention, we may clearly see with what ravages the Volscian conquests were at- tended. Nobody will doubt that these gained ground during the Latin war: and we may confidently adopt the statement 189 Livy, II. 16, 17, 22, 25, 26. The people, who in the version with the earlier date are called Auruncians, appear in 259 as Vol- scians. Dionysins had the caution to reject the former story. One has only to compare the accounts in Livy under the years 251 and 252, to see that it is the same massacre. A similar duplication will be spoken of in note 460. 90 300 obsides in the years 251 and 259 : u. 16, 22 : principes in 252: n.17. HISTORY OF ROME. 93 in Livy, whether drawn from conjecture or tradition, that the Latins preferred a peace with Home, by which at first they did not gain the ends of the war, to an alliance offered them by the Volscians lyl . The only means the latter had of enlarging their territory, except by taking Antium, was by encroaching upon- the Hernicans or the Latins : and the compensations they may have promist to make them at the expense of the Roman state, must at best have been extremely uncertain. When peace was reestablish^ the confederates did not neglect to fortify their frontier. Signia must have been lost during those years, when Rome, being at war with Latium, was unable to send any succours through that country : for it was founded anew in 259 ; and a fresh colony was sent thither 92 . Now the territory which was reconquered, had been annext to Ecetra 93 ; a town which, lying between Signia and Ferentinum 94 , seems to have been occupied about that very time by a Volscian colony and thence- forward served as the place of congress for the newly formed Volscian state on the skirts of the hills 05 . The constitution and national council of that state, we are to suppose, were just like those of the Latin towns. The Ecetrans may have applied for aid to their remoter kins- people : or else a tribe of Auruncians, who had been dri- ven northward, appeared uncalled for in Latium, and "i ii. 22. M Livy, II. 21. 93 Livy (ii. 25) and Dionysius (vi. 32) say that the Ecetrans were deprived of their domain : it was assigned KXrjpoix" 1 ^ fhl awayaydv sucli a eppovpa means a colony in a fortified city (see note 81), not scattered setlers. The connexion between these events as given in the text must be made out by conjecture, but is no way doubtful. 1,1 Livy (iv. 61) speaks of a battle that took place between Ferentinum and Ecetra. 95 That it was the place of the Volscian assemblies appears from Dionysius, vm. 4, and from Livy, in. 10: its situation from Livy. vi. 31 : laeva ad monies Ecetram pergunt. 94 HISTORY OF ROME. threatened the Romans with war, unless they evacuated that territory. They were defeated near Aricia hy the army which the consul Servilius had formed, chiefly of persons pledged for debt. But they did not march out of the country : nor was Velitrae retaken from them till the next year, 260. The notion that this town, which we also find in the list of the thirty Latin ones, was ori- ginally a Volscian settlement, is as complete a mistake as the same notion with regard to Antium. Had such been the case, Cora and the towns beyond could not possibly have belonged to Latium. The source of this errour is, that subsequently these became Volscian towns, and continued so till the whole country roundabout fell under the dominion of Rome. That the citizens of Ve- litrae cannot have been of a forein and hostile race, is clear from the desire felt at Rome to repeople that town after its desolation with Roman and Latin colonists; a measure adopted in 262. The story that only a tenth of the inhabitants were then remaining, does not look like a fabrication : but that a pestilence should have made such havoc in a single town far away from the sea- coast, without spreading over Rome and Latium 196 , is no less monstrous an absurdity, than that the Volscians should have sent an invitation to their enemies, instead of to the kindred race of the Auruncians, whose coming was spoken of even in the Annals. It was evidently by the ravages of war, that the population of Velitrae was swept away, first when it was taken by the Volscians, and then at its recapture. A like fate must have been experienced by Norba; where a new colony was settled in the same year, 262, with the view of defending the Pomptine region 97 . None of these fortresses appears in the list of the 190 Dionysius, vii. 12, 13, compared with Livy, n. 31 ; who relates that Velitrae was taken, and that the colony was sent thither after a decree of the Romans. 97 Livy, ii. 34 ; arx in Pomptino : whence it appears that the Ager Pomptinus was the slope of the hills above the marshes. HISTORY OF HOME. 95 places which Coriolanus and the Volscians are said to have taken, in the campaign placed by our historians, without any variation or scruplo, under the consulship of Sp. Nautius and Sex. Furius. One should have expected that this campaign would not have escaped that scepticism, which denies the credibility of the history of the first four centuries ; that on the contrary it would have been brought forward as a manifest confirmation of that sen- tence : but so superficially have those inquiries been car- ried on, that this is not the case. Everybody has over- looks how totally the two historians differ with regard to the towns taken ; which in Dionysius follow one another in an order pretty nearly the inverse of that given by Livy; while each names several places, about which the other says nothing 198 . Now, according to the very prin- ciples on which that general sentence of condemnation was founded, contradictions of this sort might have led to the rejecting of the whole story as a fable : and in fact nothing can be less reconcilable with truth than such discrepancies; which might not indeed startle us very much in an account of Alexander's Asiatic campaigns, but could never have found place in a history where no other year furnishes the taking of more than a single town. When compared with the incredible account, that day by day one fortress after another should have sur- rendered, without any attempt on the part of the Romans to stop the conquerors, or even to raise an army, — that, on the bare approach of the enemy, the senate and people should have abandoned all thought of defending the city, — 199 In Livy, n.39, Satricum, Longula, Polusca, Corioli, Mugilla. Lavinium, Corbio, Vitellia, Trebia, Lavici, Pedum : in Dionysius (vm. 17-36), Toleria, Bola, Lavici, Pedum, Corbio, Caroentum, Bovilla, Lavinium (of which he only Bays that it was besieged), — then, during the thirty days respite, Longula, Satricum, Cetia (?), Polusca, the Albietes (in this name the word Alben sis, which was the epithet of the Poluscans, lies disguised, probably through a blunder of Dionysius), Mugilla, Corioli. 96 HISTORY OF ROME. when compared with these accumulated incredibilities, the strangeness of the story that Coriolanus reacht a quiet old age, is of little moment. This is so undeniably evi- dent, that, were any persons still to be found in our days who put implicit faith in the common history, even they might without much difficulty be drawn to confess that the conquest of several years must have been crowded into a single one, and the defeats sustained by the Romans supprest. Not to mention however that even this solu- tion leaves a portion of those absurdities subsisting in full force, unless we choose to take up with mere evasions, little is thus effected towards explaining the history of which that war forms a part. Nobody will deem it con- ceivable that the Volscians should have evacuated the towns they had conquered; even if the army in obedience to its oath had entered upon its retreat as it was com- manded. Nor is it less impossible that those towns, from Circeii to Bovillae and Lavinium, should have been in the hands of the Volscians before the third consulship of Sp. Cassius. For if so, there could never have been any question about an agrarian law. The public domain must have disappeared, had the Roman frontier been contracted to within five miles of the city : as we see in aftertimes that, when a district in dispute had been occupied by vic- torious foes, the dissensions about the agrarian law were husht. The Latins, being confined to the few towns about the Alban hills, which a long time after were the only remaining ones of their confederacy, and the Herni- cans, being equally reduced, and surrounded by victorious neighbours, could not have sent any succours in the Vei- entine war. If these conquests were achieved in 266, how came the Aequians not to encamp on the Algidus till 25 years after ? as they did thenceforward every year. How could the Romans take Antium twenty years after, without our finding a single trace of their having pre- viously reconquered the places in front of it? I will not lay any sti'ess on the inconceivableness of HISTOKY OF ROME. \)7 the story that the Romans waged war against the Iler- nicans in the year after such a humiliation : for I do not much believe it. Nor will I answer for the historical truth of the statement that the corn, which Coriolanus proposed should not be distributed to the commonalty, except as the price for the sacrifice of their liberties, was the present of a Siceliot prince 199 . For here again a much more recent event, a largess of the first Diony- sius 200 , may have been transferred to an earlier age. It' this circumstance in the tradition be wellfounded, we have to take into account that Gelo at that time was not yet ruler of Syracuse, which, like the other largest towns in Sicily, was free: and no reason can be devised why he should have conferred a favour on the Romans in those days; though the soverain of a maritime city might be led to do so by common hatred of the Etruscans 1 . 199 I do not at all doubt the senate's having had such com : the only question is whether it was a present from Sicily. 200 In the year 344, 01. 94. 2, Livy, iv. 52, says Siculonim ty- ranni : but at that time Dionysius was the only prince in the mari- time towns ; and his was the name mentioned by the chronicles in the story of Coriolanus. 1 Dionysius, who laughs at the anachronism committed by the unlearned Romans, is so sly in this place as merely to call Gelo the most eminent among the princes in the Sicilian towns (vil. 1) ; meaning the reader to infer on his own head that he was already soverain of his large kingdom. With regard to Gelo's history, we find two totally opposite chronological statements, which turn round 01. 75. 2, as their hinge. That year, the archonship of Timosthenes, with one set of writers, of whom it is sufficient here to mention Dio- dorus, is the year of his death ; with another set (see Corsini Fasti Attici, in. p. 170) the beginning of his reign at Syracuse. The latter statement is borne out by the weighty authority of the Parian Chro- nicle, which is extremely accurate mi Sicilian afiairs, and which is supported, with an immaterial difference, by the scholiast on Pindar: that scholiast is in the habit of using Timaeus ; whom it is the more certain that the author of the Chronicle had before his eyes, inas- much as his historv ended ai the very year from which the Chronicle reckons backward. The inversion is to be explained from the story. VOL. II. G 98 HISTORY OF ROME. The impeachment of Coriolanus for these detestable propositions is said to have given rise to the ordinance of the plebs empowering tlie tribunes, if any one dis- turbed them while transacting business with the common- alty, to impose a fine on him, for which he was to give security 202 . As this ordinance was a national law, it must have been past after the Publilian law of 283: nor can it have been much prior to 293, in which year it was put into execution for the first time against Caeso Quinctius 3 . The very form of the impeachment belongs to a state of things which does not appear till after the Veientine peace in 280 : when the consuls, who had not fulfilled the enactments of the agrarian law, and soon afterward Appius Claudius, are accused before the court of the tribes, by which Coriolanus was condemned 4 . From' the very outset indeed the tribunes must undoubt- edly have been authorized to impeach any one who pro- posed the destruction of the solemn compact between the estates. But how could they make such a right good in those days? when, a few years after that in which the annals place the condemnation of Coriolanus, they which gained credit, that the Greeks won the victories of Salamis and Himera on the same day: so that 01. 75. 1 was to be included within Gelo's reign. But even on this statement the commencement of his reign at Syracuse falls about 01. 73. 3, or 4 : and Dionysius was aware that this did not tally with his comparative chronology, according to which 261 agreed with 01. 72. 1 : nor, if we correct it a whole Olym- piad, is that enough. In the 73d Olympiad however Gelo was un- questionably prince of Gela : that he was so in the preceding one cannot be proved. 202 Dionysius, vn. 17. 3 Hie primus vades piiblico dedit : says Livy, in. 13. This was the very object of the law. See below, notes 523, 659. 4 That this trial did not suit the time to which the impeachment of Coriolanus is ascribed, was perceived by Hooke, who wrote in a good spirit and with judgement, but never conceived the notion that it was possible to reduce the chaos of Roman history to order. HISTORY OF ROME. 99 could not save the champion of their rights, or preserve the plcbs from being robbed of its elective franchise. But if the transaction which brought on the ruin of Co- riolanus, were to be placed twenty years later than in our histories, these difficulties would not stand in the way of our believing it: and we should then find a famine at Rome, under such circumstances as might induce a Greek kins in Sicilv to act with kindness toward the Romans. About the year 275 Hiero began to reign at Syracuse. He was ambitious of the glory of putting down the piracies of the Etruscans, and was all his life their foe. Thus the dearth in the year 278 occurred in his time- 05 : and he had the same enemies as the Romans. Soon after arose a violent dissension between the orders, during which it is probable enough that a proposition like the one ascribed to Coriolanus, should have been brought forward in the senate: but the plebs was then sufficiently strong to punish any one who tried to do away the fundamental laws of the state. The same date agrees with certain points in the story, in themselves of no great moment, such as the hostilities against the Vol- scians of Antium, wherein Coriolanus distinguishes him- self. That his offense, his punishment, and his revenge must have followed close on one another, would be a totally arbitrary assumption: between the first and the last at all events there may have been an interval of several years. Moreover, when we find that the Volscians obtained the isopolitan franchise*, and the restoration of a district that the Romans had taken from them, it can- not be doubted that these were the terms of the peace, which Coriolanus is feigned to have imposed; terms ex- tremely well-suited to the year 295: whereas thirty years 205 About 01. 77. 4. The date assigned by Diodoms for Kiero's naval victory over the Etruscans (01.76.2) musrt be erroneous in the same manner as that of Gelo's death. It was probably dated bj the years of his reign, the fourth of which would be just 01. 77. 1. * Sec below, note 581. Q 2 100 HISTOKY OF ROME. earlier, and supposing him master of all the country be- yond the ancient frontier, it would have been absurd to talk about the restoration of conquered territory and towns to the Volscians, and the recall of the Roman colonists from them 206 . If we perceive in fine, that the list of his conquests is only that of a portion of those made by the Volscians, transferred to a Roman, whose glory was even flattering to the national vanity, all that remains to be done, — in order that the legend, being now referred to its proper date, may be freed from every absurdity, that it may harmonize perfectly with the traditions in the Annals, may form a complement to them, and infuse life into them, — is to explain how he came to war against his native city. This explanation I reserve, until the story in its ori- ginal form, the features of which are strongly markt, and still clearly discernible, is related in the place it belongs to : where it will appear, that it is not merely a genuine tradition from very ancient times, which might neverthe- less be a bare fiction, but that it conveys a substantially faithful remembrance of a great man and of great events, a remembrance kept up for centuries in the nation, with- out the slightest doubt as to the reality of the facts, and connected with the history of the constitution and the laws. And this story would be nothing but an untenable tale, if its credibility rested on its belonging to that par- ticular epoch, to which the traditional history attacht it. An oral tradition gained a fixt place in the annals, when the name of its hero occurred in the Fasti. If this was not the case, it continued in a fluctuating state, unconfined by their limits, like that of Papirius Prae- textatus*, and probably also that of Cipust; or it was 206 JLav aTTo8ido)(TL 'Pco/xaTot OvoXovaicois x<°P av re ocrr/v avroiis a(f)rjpr]PTat, Ka\ no\fis ocras KaTe'xovmv, dvaicaXecranevot rovs airo'iKavs '. Dionysius, viii. 35. * Gellius, I. 23. t Ovid, Metamorph. XV. 566-611. HISTORY OF HOME. 10 1 referred to totally different dates, as that of Curtius was to the years 310 and 385; or erroneous combinations and inferences led to its insertion in a wrong place: and thus it happened with that of Coriolanus. The source of the errour in this instance may be most satisfactorily discovered. In all countries there arc legends concern- ing the erection of buildings regarded with reverence; and thus tradition connected a temple of Fortuna Mulie- bris, which lay four miles from the city on the Latin road, with that intercession of the Roman matrons, which the goddess presiding over providential dispensations had blest. It was overlookt, that this temple after all did not stand on the spot where Coriolanus must have received the mission : for as the tradition most distinctly related, he pitcht his camp five miles from Rome on the Cluilian dyke 207 ; that is, on the ancient inaugurated boundary, which once separated the Roman territory from the Alban, and which he could not cross until the thirty-three days were over, and war declared 8 . Nor does Livy know of his having encampt in any other place. Dionysius indeed says he advanced a mile nearer during the last three days: but this is a sheer forgery, to bring him to the site of that temple 9 . It is very possible that the Roman women may there have celebrated the recollection of their successful entreaties by thank-offerings. The favour of the deity had been manifested on that happy day: and it was probably the nearest place of worship fitted for such a solemnity. Fortuna Muliebris however was not a deity first invented on that occasion, but must needs have been just as ancient as Fortuna Virilis; to whom a temple had been erected bv Servius Tullius, and of whom she was the counterpart. Not, it would seem, that we are to look in this instance to that principle of Roman theology, which contemplated every deity under a twofold -"• Dionysius, vni. 22. Livy, n. 39. s See Vol. r. p. 348. '•' Dionysius, vin. 36. 102 HISTORY Ob' ROME. personality, as male and female: for it would probably not have hesitated to designate one of the ideas by the name Fortunus qln . But For tuna, or the power that limits the general laws of nature, with regard to our variable life, by the peculiarities of individual character, and by occurrences and conjunctures, is so different in its bear- ings on the two sexes, that each severally worshipt the power which ruled its destiny. The Eoman religion seems to have enjoined that the sanctuary of that deity should be without the pomerium : for the temple of Fortuna Vi- rilis lay also before the city. The choosing a spot so far off for the other may have been a mere chance. At all events, that it was no way connected with the embassy of the matrons, is proved by the nature of the worship there : from which, had it been so, widows would never have been excluded, along with such as married a second hus- band 11 : for it was the aged mother Veturia, who is evi- dently regarded as a widow, that softened her son's stony heart. Xay everybody must allow that she or Volumnia would needs have been the first priestess, and not Va- leria : who is manifestly introduced as the suggester of the mission by a bare fiction, merely for the sake of ex- plaining how she, and not one of the other two, came to be named in the books of the pontiffs as having filled that office. For beyond doubt the statement that she offered the first sacrifice on the ground on the calends of December, 267, when nothing but the altar had been erected, and that the temple was dedicated by the consul Proculus Virginius on the eve of the nones of Quinctilis 268, must have been taken from those books: Dionysius - ,n Such was probably the relation between Vertumnus and Vol- tumna ; one of which names seems to be somewhat distorted. See Vol. i. p. 424. 11 Let it not be objected that his mother and wife might fol- low the object of their love in his misery. Their eternal sepa- ration is evidently taken for granted : nor had they gone with him hrfore. HI8T0BT OF BOM] 103 expressly quotes them in relating the miracle which be- fell the image set xip there by the matrons* 12 . As soon as the date of the expedition of Coriolanus was supposed to be ascertained, by what was regarded as its undeniable connexion with Valeria's sacrifice, his previous story was distributed through the three years immediately preced- ing that in which he appeared before Rome: for the omission of the consular years 264 and 265 in Livy is not owing to a mistake: they were excluded by the Fasti which he followed 13 . Thus the exploits of Marcius be- fore Corioli, and against the Antiates, were placed in 261; his misdemeanour in 262; his trial and banishment in 263. Corioli however in 261 was a party to the league with Rome, as one of the Latin towns, and so at that time can neither have belonged to the Antiates, nor been attackt by the Romans 14 : in fact Livy himself says clearly enough that the old annals made no mention of any war under that year. The tradition had recorded this enter- prise without any date: when these occurrences were arranged in the Annals, it was necessary to place it before 262, since Coriolanus at his trial bore the name he was '-'- VIII. 5G : 'Sis ui rmv iepocpavTaiv nepiexovcn ypa(frai. The upixpavTai are the pontiff's : n. 73 ; compare Sylburg's index. This miracle, which is also told in Valerius Maximus, I. 8. 4, is remarkable as one among many proofs of the belief that, when an image was con- secrated, the deity entered into it as into a body, and dwelt in it. 13 To my mind this is proved by Sigonius in his excellent < 'hro- nologia Liviana: Drakenb. vn. M). Should any one I e unconvinced by him, at all events he must not impute the omission to a fault of t he scribes. 14 Such stories are perpetually made use of as the groundwork for building fresh ones on. Whatever may have be< d the real state of the case with regard to the declaration, by which P. Scaptius is said to have usurpl the waste territory of Corioli (Livy, m. 71), the statement that he was then Berving his twentieth campaign was merely deduced from the assumption thai the town was taken in _t;i : for a man who in 308 was in his 83rd year, must have been horn in 226, and entered the Legion in 242. Nobody in these days will try to bolster up an impossibility with trifling of thi • sort. 104 HISTORY OF ROME. supposed to have earned by that achievement: so it was put in 261. The legend spoke only of Coriolanus: but it was inevitable that some annalists would call to mind, that a man, who had not the auspices himself, must have come into the field under those of some magistrate. Neither of the consuls in the year 261 had any expedi- tion against the Volscians ascribed to him: but the name of Post. Cominius did not occur in the Roman record of the treaty with the Latins: and hence it was inferred that he must have been fisditino; asrainst the Volscians, with Coriolanus under his orders 215 . So totally arbitrary is the structure of the current narrative. Along with it however one of the forms of the old legend has been preserved: for such is the account that Coriolanus mus- tered a band of volunteers, and marcht against the An- tiates; which Dionysius, loth to let any story escape him, relates along with the common one 16 . The true history of the year 266 has been preserved in spite of this interpolation. After Livy has related the latter in its poetical fulness, he adds, with the brevity of the Annals, that, when Coriolanus had led his army back, the Aequians and Volscians under Attius Tullius 17 made another inroad into Latium. But the Aequians refused to 2,5 ii. 33 : Nisi foedus cum Latinis rnonumento esset ab Sp. Cassio uno, quia collega afuerat, ictum, Post. Cominium helium gessisse cum Volscis memoria cessisset. See above, p. 38, note 69. 16 vii. 19. 17 Tullius and Tullium is the correct reading of the best manu- scripts of Livy ; and Tulli (n. 35) is merely the old way of spelling the genitive. Zonaras too has "Amos TuXXtoy, and Plutarch in his life of Cicero, only transposing the two names and with a slight mis- take, TvX/Wos- "Anrnos. In that of Coriolanus he had Dionysius before his eyes, who, that a gentile name might not stand in the place of a proper one, wrote TvXXor "Amos. It is unlikely he should have known that the proper names among the Oscan nations were usually gentile names among the Romans ; for instance Pacuvius, Statius, Gelliu% — to cite such only as, like Attius itself, have become cele- brated in literary history. HISTORY OF HOME. 105 obey the Volscian general, and the two nations turned their arms against each other, while the Romans lookt on with joy 218 . This is the genuine record of what happened, made to fit in with the story by which it might easily have been wholly supprcst: and this is also the reason why Attius was associated with Coriolanus as his collegue during the Roman war. On this foundation others went on building, who thought it perfectly natural that Attius should look askance on the elevation of a foreiner, and that the latter should have to expiate his mercy to Rome with his life. This is a grievous wrong to a man, with regard to whom the sullen silence of the Roman chronicles has let nothing come down to us, except a general recollection that he had reigned with glory over the Volscians 19 ; that is, as an elective king, such as we must suppose all those of the Italian nations to have been. That Cicero, where he says the Volscians had produced great men, had Attius especially in his eye, is the more probable, as he himself was deemed to belong to the same house 20 : and it can- not be accidental that his lifetime coincided with the encroachments of his countrymen upon Latium. The spleen of the Romans must not be allowed to defraud him of these laurels for ever, and to confine us to the 2,8 II. 40 : Rediere deinde Volsci adjunctis Aequis, etc. 19 BaaiXtvcravra Xafinpais (v Ovo\ovjxa v fiaaiXiKov iv nda-iv OvoKovctkois '• c. xii. That is, he was checkt by Dionysius, who makes Attius a mere citizen of Antiuni ; seeing, as undoubtedly he did well enough, how incredible it sounded that a king should have a collegue given him, and this collegue a forein exile. 20 Plutarch Cicer. i. Cicero's own silence touching this sup- posed descent is no proof of its having been devised after his time. He may perhaps have been pleased with the thought of it ; but his mouth was stopt by the unlucky reproach of being a foreiner, and by that of his acting the king at Koine ; regnare eum Romae : see the oration for Plancius. 106 HISTORY OF HOME. statement that his victory in that campaign had been frustrated by jealousy; and that he had deserved this disappointment for the artifice he used to excite his peo- ple to take up arms afresh against Rome. The great Roman games were celebrated over again after the peace with the Latins, because previously dur- ing the war they had been interrupted by a sudden cry to arms 221 . The circus had already been hallowed by the procession of the images of the gods, when, before the contests began, a slave condemned to death was dri- ven through it and scourged. Soon after the city was visited with a pestilence, and with monstrous births, and was haunted with spectres: and the soothsayers had no counsel to give. Amid this distress Jupiter appeared in a dream to a countryman, T. Latinius 22 , and commanded him to go before the magistrates, and tell them, that the preluder had been displeasing to the god. Fearful of being treated with scorn by the haughty patricians, Latinius did not obey, and was taught by the sudden death of his son, at how dear a price the higher powers, when their anger is kindled, allow any to purchase the fearful honour of being entrusted with their secrets. A second time the god appeared, renewed his command, and threatened him with a personal visitation. Still the timid man could not pluck up courage, and so lost the use of his limbs by a severe stroke of palsy. Here- upon he told his story to his kinsmen and friends: they carried him on his bed into the forum, and thence by the consuls order followed them into the senate-house. 221 Cicero (de Divinat. I. 26) tells the story in the very same manner with Livy and Dionysius. Macrobius (Saturn. 1. 11) has dif- ferent names, and places it just two centuries later : for cccclxxiv, the reading of the old editions and the manuscripts, has only an x too much. Here again we have a story, which at one time circulated without any connexion with the Fasti, or any fixt date. •>o we should read in Livy, instead of Ti. Atinius : the L slid from the name to the forename, and was changed into I. HISTORY OF HOME. ]07 Here, as soon as Latinius had announced his message, the sickness left him : he arose and walkt home stout and hale. By way of atonement for the desecration of the former games, they were repeated anew with greater pomp than ever before: and to highten their splendour the neighbouring nations far and wide were bidden to the spectacle. While they lasted there was a sacred peace. The Volscians, who, since the unhappy isssue of their ex- pedition to Velitrae and into the Pomptine district, had laid aside their arms, came in especially large bodies. They had turned a deaf ear, when Tullius exhorted them to try their fortune afresh: he devised a stratagem there- fore to rekindle the war, even against their will, and that of the Romans. He warned the consuls to beware lest his countrymen should do anything that might bring a curse upon them, and dissolve the peace irretrievably. The Roman magistrates in alarm forthwith issued a pro- clamation that every Volscian found in Rome after sunset would be treated as an outlaw. Indignant at this wanton insult, the strangers departed through the Capene gate, to meet the scorn of those who had staid at home. Their prince appeared in the midst of them, and in- flamed their anger and revenge. At the fountain of Fe- rentina, where they rested for the night, he took their oaths to wreak this disgrace. A general meeting of the nation declared war. This event is placed in the year 263. The conquest of Circeii, which is related under the year 265 or 266, apart from the others ascribed to Cori- olanus- 3 , may have been one of the first exploits in this war. The Roman and Latin colonists were driven out; but their place was taken by Volscians 24 . So that the 228 In Dionysius (vm. 11) Coriolanus after this conquest dis- misses his army till the next campaign. M Dionysius (vm. L4) states thai no one was driven out, which merely refers to the old Tj rrhenian inhabitants : Livy says, colonos 108 HISTORY OF ROME. colony there, which in the second Punic war forgot what it owed to the majesty of Koine"*, was not the one founded by Tarquinius, but that reestablisht in 362 : and I have no doubt that the same was also the case with regard to Norba. Only the founding of the colony settled there after the breaking up of the Volscian power is not no- ticed in history: perhaps it was the act of the Latins alone, during the independence of their state after its restoration, when Setia likewise received a colony 225 . Cora too seems about the same time to have become a genuine Latin colony: it is called so in 539f in a very different sense from that in 252. The situation of these places puts it out of doubt that they must all have been in the hands of the Volscians, when these were at the summit of their power. It is not necessary however to suppose that Attius Tullius must have taken them all, before he could open a passage to Antium. The chronicles which related, whether historically or after a tradition intelligently shaped, that auxiliaries from Antium fought on the side of the Latins at the battle of Regillus, and that afterward a Volscian army made its appearance 26 , markt thereby that Antium was not then a Volscian town. The limits for the date of its surrender are the year 263, when Attius Tullius began to wage war, and, if the accounts in Dionysius deserve any sort of credit, 269, in which year and 270 the seat of the war against the Volscians lay in the Antiate territory 27 . Longula, it seems, at that time had not yet fallen before them 28 . Antium was occupied by a Volscian colony, which rejoined Romanos expulit, which was a matter of course. With regard to the Volscian colony Dionysius expresses himself correctly : 6\tyf)v fiolpav €u tt) ir6\ei KaTa\nrd>v that is, colonists as a (ppovpa. * Livy, xxvu. 9. 225 Livy, vi. 30. Velleius, 1. 14. t Livy, xxvn. 9. 2S Dionysius, vi. 3, 14. v Dionysius, vm. 82, 84. 2s Dionysius, vm. 85. BISTORT OF KOME. 109 their countrymen when the town in 286 went over to the Romans 229 . It is called a garrison, as are the colonies in the old Roman law 30 : and it is ascribed to the Aequi- ans, who were still more powerful and formidable than the Volscians, properly so called, and are perpetually con- founded with them; the latter being indeed their kins- people, and undoubtedly united with them by an isopo- litan relation, as they were at that time by an alliance in arms. Of the Aequians it is said that in 273 they besieged the Latin town of Ortona. 1 shall not go over the stories told of the successive campaigns against the two nations: the incessant pretensions to victories are ridiculous, when no one of them is said to have produced the slightest fruit. On the contrary an unprejudiced examination will convince us that the enemies of Rome were progressively gaining ground. The distracted state of Rome, the usurpation of the right to appoint the con- suls, — whom the commonalty did not own as magistrates, so that at one moment the levies for the legions were obstructed, at another the troops sent into the field re- fused to serve, — and, to crown all, the Veientine war, weakened or intercepted the succour which the Latins and Hernicans lookt for from their confederates. Had there not been a truce at the time, these nations in 274 could not have aided the Romans against Veii: and they must again have relied on one in 279, when they helpt to bring the war to a decision. Meanwhile however their countrymen, who were left at home, were compelled to repulse an attack : the consul Sp. Nautius too came to their aid with a Roman Legion; and the combined armies revenged themselves by ravaging the enemy's country. *** They arc represented as people without property, while those who had any staid behind : Dionysius, ix. (50 : compare Livy, in. 4. They were no other than the Aequians v Hva tov lipidrou aTre8ti$fv ras Kara ttuXiv cocto Se'iv (wiTpeTTfiu olicopopias ore avros f^dyoi (rrpaTiav vnepopiov. DlO- nysius, n. 12. He perceives that this first senator and nine others differed from the remaining ninety, and were superior in rank ; but he worries himself in trying to make the senate of a hundred tally 112 HISTORY OF ROME. not only belonged of necessity to the decury of the inter- rexes; but the Custos urbis, as the deputy was called 235 , was the first in that decury. Hence Sp. Lucretius, who filled that office, held the comitia for electing the first consuls as interrex 36 . The difference which originally prevailed between the first two tribes, — the houses of the Tities being held to be lesser ones, — was illustrated in the lawbooks by this among other statements, that after the death of Xuma, the interrexes belonged to the greater houses, that is, in those days to the Ramnes 37 . That the person who is said to have been the first warden, and to have been chosen by Romulus, was of this order, is sufficiently at- tested by his name 38 . In like manner the account that Tullus Hostilius conferred this dignity on Xuma Marcius is ample evidence of the opinion that, in the stage of the constitution designated by his reign, the houses of the Tities were set on a level with those of the first tribe, in such a way that they too had their places in the decury of interrexes, and one of them might be first se- nator 39 . These statements come most probably from Gracchanus. Another, which however may also have been with three tribes and thirty curies, having no suspicion that this number refers only to the ten soverain curies. Lydus too says of the prefect, or rrpooTeveiv rrjs 'Pa>paia>p ytpovaias (palverai : de men- sibus, I. 19. 235 Lydus in the same place : ■npoeo-T^o-a.To (o Nou/xas) top ttjs 7roXea>y (pvXaica. De Magistrat. I. 38 : 6 wrap^os — custos urbis irpoo-- ayopevopevos. This accordingly is the genuine ancient title, used in the passages collected by Drakenborch (de praef. urb. p. m. 3), on account of its antiquity, as more dignified. 36 As interrex, Dionysius, IV. 84 : as praef ectus urbis, Livy, I. 60. 37 'Ek Tap Trpecrl3vTepo)p : Dionysius, III. 1. 38 Denter Romulius : Tacitus, Annal vi. 11. 39 Tacitus, Annal. vi. 11. Numa Marcius is mentioned by Plu- tarch as a Sabine, carried back however into an earlier age : Numa, c. v. BISTORT <)F BOMB. 1 L3 drawn from him, and which names Numa as the founder of this office- 40 , is very striking. Those who banded down these accounts, which they deliver in perfect good faith, must surely have been surprised that there should have been any occasion for it during a reign of unbroken peace. Now unless a blunder of some intermediate writer has substituted Nuraa Pompilius, as appointing to the office, for Numa Marcius who was appointed to it, the pontifical books may have intended to express by this, that, before the senators of the two tribes were placed on the same footing, the wardenship was reserved to one of the Ha ni- nes, even under a Sabine king. There is no mention of any third person filling the office under the kings, and belonging to the Luceres, as the other two do unequivo- cally to the major houses. Nor indeed could there be any such, since the senators of the third tribe were so far below the others. I know no passage in the writings of antiquity so useful in solving an enigma of perpetual occurrence, for which neither acuteness nor luck could otherwise have hit on the right answer, as Cicero's statement that the votes of the lesser houses were taken after those of the greater 41 . The scholar who has recalled to light the noble fragments of the treatise De Republica, has enabled us to interpret a number of statements contained in the two historians of Rome, very differently from the way in which they themselves understood them. In all ages there has been a prejudice in favour of elderly counsel- lors as wiser than the young. Such is the opinion of Thucydides: and Rehoboam's misgovernment is ascribed to the counsels of the young men that had grown up with him. Although the absolute validity of this propo- sition may be questionable, it is one of those which the two historians of Rome, intelligent as they were, could not but hold to be unqualifiedly true. Now since the words majores and minores from their ambiguity might be • i> TrpecrftvTepcov yvwpat rfj Meveviov TTpoaiOevro, koi KadrJKev 6 Aoyos (tti tovs veoorepovs — avurrarai ~2no- pios Naunos. 43 VII. 47 : TeXeuraiot {avia-Tavro) ol veu>Taroi t Adyov pev ovSeva Xeyovres' (Tt yap rjv 8l ala^vpqt rore Pco paiois rovro, nai ve'os ov8e\s (uvtov ao(pa>T(pov eivai t]£iov TrpecrftvTov' (TTtKvpovv 8e ras Kfipevas vita Tu>v vttutmv yvcopas. 44 Gellius, in. 18 ; who wonders with ont reason what can be the HISTORY OF BOMB. 1 lo A circumstance which may have had some influence in the transfer of this name, was, that a member of a minor house had the right of delivering his opinion, if he was a consular. For not only were they originally represented, like the plebs, among the four Romans*; but the consulship of M. Horatius, and subsequently that of Sp. Nautius, prove that there were consulate among them. Still even these did not stand on a level in point of honour with those of the major houses. The latter were the persons first called upon for their opinions in the senate; then the consulars of the lesser houses; and next the other senators of the greater: after which the common senators of the lesser houses were summoned in the last place to give their mere votes 245 . Now if we ask, who at the time we are treating of were the Ten First, out of whom the princeps senatus was chosen, thereby at the same time becoming warden of the city, it is clear that, whenever there were ten con- sulars of the greater houses, these must needs have been the persons. For it would be a contradiction, if they who were the first in the senate had not voted the firstf. meaning of the name, inasmuch as the voting in the senatehouse was often effected by the general division of the two parties. He did not reflect that it was well fitted to denote those who merely go over to an opinion, without having the right of speaking. The true meaning appears in the line he quotes from Laberius : caput sine lingua peda- ria sententia eet * See Vol. i. p. 515. V4s Dionysius, VII. 47 : Upwroi oi npto-^vTaroi ra>v iirciTiKtov (con- xxlares major um gentium), KciXovptvot Kara rbv (lutdora Kocrpov vita tu>v vnariov, dvlaravro. entiTa oi tovtu>v vTroSa'crTepoi kcit ilp(pu) ravra (consulares minorum gentium, senatoresque majorum), rcXcv- raloi Se oi vewTciToi (senator es e minoribus), k. t. X. If I were to engage in the thankless task of translating Dionysius, I would ex- press the erroneous and vague thoughts which floated before him : but here again all I have to do is with thai which he read, without understanding it. t That they did so is expressly asserted by Dionysius in the it 2 116 HISTORY OF ROME. It is unnecessary, and indeed impossible, to determine whether the curies may not still have been represented in the senate, even if the single houses were so no longer, and whether each may not still have had the right of appointing a foreman of its decury : but consul ars of the lesser houses, who rankt below the others, were by this very circumstance excluded from being the first. The Ten First, who concluded the treaty with the common- alty on the Sacred Mount, were all consulars" 46 . The list of their names, which Dionysius inserted, must have been preserved in the solemn covenant: and it would be unreasonable to deem it less authentic than that of the embassadors who signed the peace of Westphalia. In the printed text indeed three names are wanting: but two of these have been restored from better manuscripts; and I shall soon mention the third. These consulars are found in the Fasti between 249 and 260. Of those prior to 251 none seems to have been living, except M. Valerius and P. Tubertus: Manius Tullius was dead: but at least five of the seven who are not in the list were alive 47 . Of the houses of which these seven were mem- bers, the Claudii, in spite of all their arrogance, are to passage quoted in Vol. I. notes 784, 1345 : in that quoted in the last note he says the same thing of the consulars of the gentes majores. - 46 Dionysius indeed says, all but one (vi. 69). This exception does not refer to Spurius Nautius, but to the fictitious Manius Vale- rius, who was fabricated in consequence of the story that Marcus fell at Regillus : see Vol. I. p. 539. His name is found in the Vatican manuscript : he takes a great part in the debates : and he was not mentioned in the Fasti. The real person however was Marcus, the consul of the year 249. <7 The list stands in Dionysius, vi. 69. Manius Valerius (ac- cording to the view taken by Dionysius) and Titus Larcius have rightly been added : only the latter should be inserted after T. Aebu- tius, — Tirov vlos ("EXouas, Tiros AapKios, Tirov vios,) QXdovos- The five who certainly were still living in 261, were Appius Claudius, who is repeatedly mentioned afterward — one of the consuls of 257, whether it be A. Atratinus, who was consul in 263, and dictator or HISTORY OF SOME. 117 be counted among the lesser ones ; and so must the Cloelii 248 . This is ground for concluding that the consu- lars who do not appear in the list, were of the minor houses; or that, even if they were of the major, they filled, the inferior place in the consulship, which of right he- longed to the Luceres. The name, consul major 49 , im- plies that there must have been a minor opposed to him, both being denominated after the houses they represented. Now even if at the outset those of the Ramnes, as major in a narrower sense, set up a distinction between them- selves and the second tribe in the consulship, still this vanisht in the exclusive contrast between the first two and the third. I will not hesitate to declare what is clear to my own mind, even though it should be de- nounced as a piece of hypercritical refinement. Before 253 M. Horatius is the only consul of the third tribe : so that at that time they did not fare better than the plebeians. In 253 they regained possession of the in- ferior place: but they were not treated with better faith than they themselves, after their union with their for- mer oppressors, subsequently displayed toward the com- monalty. More than once they were thrust out of the interrex in 273, or M. Minucius, who was likewise consul in 263, — and Opiter Virginius, T. Virginius, P. Yetusius, who all three perisht miserably in 267. Thus if we pass over the earlier consulships of Sp. Cassias and Post. Cominius, the two consuls of the year, and one of those of T. Larcius, who likewise had been consul twice, there re- main only Q. Cloelius, the consul of 256, and T. Yetusius, the one of 260, with regard to whom we have no means of ascertaining whether tliev were still alive. - Iv The Cloelii are mentioned by both the historians among the houses incorporated by Tullus (see Vol. i.note 1)16) : and assuredly the Alban dictator Cluilius belonged to them. The Claudii, though they were Sabines, wire not on that account admitted among the Tities, but took the place of the Tarquinii : Yol. i. p. 560. Appius is expressly mentioned as one of the vevrtpoi by Dionysius, vm. 90. He also speaks of the viol tu)v '\mrlnv (rvyytvvv : vi. 69 : that is, the gentiles of Appius, belonging to the lesser houses « Sec Vol I. note 1 I 13, 118 HISTORY OF KOME. place they were entitled to : in the year 258 T. Virginius was the collegne of one of those ten consulars, though Au- lus, a member of the same house, was among them. But no member of the lesser houses could be consul major: and as in 262, 296, and 297, a Minucius is in office, with collegues whose houses are expressly enumerated among the lesser ones, while the name wanting among the ten must be that of one of the two consuls in the year 257, who were both alive, it must needs be that of M. Minu- cius 250 . I would compare the result of such inquiries to the uncovering of an old fresco painting that has been daubed over, where the colour is gone without leaving a trace, and nothing can be made out but parts of the outline, scratchtj as was the manner of the old masters, with the graver. We do not despise a discovery, which at all events enables us to guess what was once painted on the wall. While we are thus reviving the recollec- tion of what has so long been forgotten, it is delightful to perceive that in the year after the first consulship of Sp. Cassius, the Luceres were again in possession of their right. It seems impossible that this can have been an accident. The change must have been brought about by that great man, who, soaring above the envious prejudices of his own class, as he did over those of his order and of his people, deemed it nobler to have a fair and undisputed share in a large inheritance partaken by many, than to incur hatred and enmity by seizing an unjust portion of a pitiful one, along with a few partners, powerless even to defend their usurpation. The kings, whose authority lasted for life, may pro- bably have bestowed the lieutenantship for the same term; as in aftertimes the dignity of first senator abode with a person who had once obtained it. Under an annual 250 Those collegues from houses which were unquestionably lesser ones, were in 262 a Geganius, in 296 a Nautius, in 297 a Horatius. HISTORY OP ROME. 119 magistracy however it is extremely improbable that this office should have had such a duration, which, if the per- son appointed lived to a great age, might be injurious; since the Romans no longer sent their armies to a dis- tance, but were often called to take the field against hostile inroads. On this point we can only make con- jectures : for the accounts in Dionysius concerning the appointment of lieutenants under the dictatorships of T. Larcius and A. Postumius belong to the circumstantial stories of the campaigns in those years, which we read in his pages, but which have no claim to the slightest credit. On the other hand we learn from a statement, which, although it has been distorted into nonsense by the silliness of the writer at whose hands we receive it, is yet unequivocal, and assuredly flows from a most au- thentic source 2 ' 51 , that in the twentythird year of the consulate, 267, the lieutenantship was elevated into a magistracy to be bestowed by election. The official name of the lieutenant was custos urbis, agreeably to the nature of his charge 52 . That this election was reserved for the curies, like that of the dictator, will the less admit of a doubt, since soon after they even usurpt the appoint- ment of the consuls: and long afterward the censor- ship, which sprang out of this ancient wardenship, was conferred by their voice. Moreover it is related that the first elective warden, A. Sempronius Atratinus, was appointed by the senate 53 : which is tantamount to a 211 We may assume that all such statements on the history of the magistracies adapted to the years of the consular era are derived from Graccluinus. 5 - Lyilus tie Magistr. I. 38: Tw elKoara) rpirco ribi> \jndra>v erei els rpe'is poipas ra rijs apX']* SijjpeOrj, etc tovs vjtutovs, els top ttjs no\eu>s \ntap\ov, xai tov difpou' Kai oi p.ev vnarot Sioikouv rovs 7roA«- p.ovs, 6 be bijpos eaTparevero, o ye p.i)i> vnap\os ri)v ttoXiu iipvXtiTTe, custos urbis irpoaayopevopevos. The text which he read spoke of the tribunes of the commonalty, where be Bpeaks of the 8ijpos. M 'H jSovXi) o/z'fj^uniTo — rjye'tadiu tijs 8vvap.eois Tavirjs AvXop ' ArpaTlvou, "ivSpa twv vttcitikwv. Dionysius, VIII. 64, 120 HISTORY OF ROME. declaration that he was appointed by the curies. For in the first place the name of the patres was ambiguous; and besides in appointments by the curies the senate exer- cised a previous choice, which, so long as it was com- posed wholly of patricians, was absolutely decisive 254 . The eligibility was still confined to consulars : every prefect mentioned in history before the decemvirate occurs pre- viously as consul 55 : but it was now extended to embrace the lesser houses, out of which the first elective warden came. In the stormy years 292 and 295 the wardens appear as the heads of the commonwealth in the senate and in the forum. In this capacity history might have occasion to speak of them, if there was any commotion during the consul's absence: but it could never be led to mention their duty of dispensing justice and assigning judges. According to the original purport of their office, this charge ceast without doubt when the magistrate, whose place they were merely meant to supply, was at Rome. But after it became a magistracy bestowed by the burgh- ers, it may soon have become the practice for the warden to hold a permanent tribunal, before which litigants ap- peared ; an appeal to the higher tribunal of the consuls being left open to them. The same was the case with regard to the praetor urbanus. The notion that his office sprang out of that of the ancient custos urhis, is by no means an idle guess made by an ignorant foreiner in a 254 Diodorus says that, until the citizens refused to give up the Fabii, there was no instance of their rejecting a proposition of the senate: xiv. 113. Everybody will perceive that this refers to the curies : for that there could not be such harmony even in those times between the senate and the people is clear as day. See below, notes 367, 1187. 55 With the single apparent exception of P. Lucretius in Livy ) in. 24 ; which name therefore, as Duker, perceiving the rule, judi- ciously remarks, ought to be changed into L. HISTORY OF ROME. 121 late age"' . After being merged, like the consulship, in the decemvirate, the two offices grew up again out of" it, each under a new name: and we shall find the warden- ship, sometimes alongside of the military tribunate, some- times united with it, sometimes swallowed up in it, until it acquires a permanent character and a higher dignity, as the pretorship of the city. If the consuls were ab- sent during the games of the populus, the prefect without doubt presided at them, as the pretor did subsequently. In time of war the warden's province, beside the care of the city, was in case of need to levy civic legions, and to command them. These legions were totally dis- tinct from the reserve, which was raised from the seniors between the 45th and 60th year, and from such as were excused from service in the field, although within the age bound to it 57 . For these seniors, like the Spartans of the same age, were by no means entirely exempt from field-service, and merely obliged to defend the city 58 : they were also led, if it was necessary, to encounter the enemy 59 . It even became the practice in case of emer- gency to raise a fourfold force, one body under each consul, **• Lydus de mensib. 19: Toi/ rrjy noXtus (pvXaxa — bv iraXai npairwpa ovpftuvuv tXtyov. " Tertius excrcitus ex causariis senioribusque a L. Quiuctio scribatur : Livy, vi. G. So in 366 the irapr)$7)K.6T(s : Plutarch, Ca- mill. xxxiv. 5S Both the historians are mistaken on this point. Livy says, I. 43: Seniores advrbis custodiarn ut />raesto esseyit : Dionysius, iv. 66, still more positively : oin efta ttjs wotijtos eis noXepni' e£iovo-qs vnofie'vovTcis tv rj] TruXei ra evros ret^ous (fnXdrTeiv. The senwres up to 60 are the fie'x/J' irivrt K(ii TtcrcrapaKovTa «(/>' tj$qs. '"• 9 This is tlic case with the reserve collected by L. Quinctius : Livy, vi. i) : as it had been previously with that in 366 (Plutarch, Camill. xxxiv. >. and was again in 378 : Livy, vi. 32. Such too was the army sent under T. Quinctius in 200 ; Livy, in. 4. It is by 8 lucre piece of carelessness that Dionysius (ix. 63) in direct opposi- tion to the truth calls this army a select body of young men. 122 HISTORY OF ROME. the reserve just mentioned, which formed the third, under a commander appointed for the purpose, and a fourth under the custos urbis in the city 260 : and so greatly- must we contract the imaginary pictures of the enormous population of Rome, that we may look upon the four cohorts of six hundred men apiece, which were encampt before the walls in 292 61 , as at that time forming the whole of the reserve; that is, a legion, without the co- hort of substitutes, — the accensi, — for whom there was no occasion in it. The number of men fit for service in the classes and among the accensi of the military age was only sufficient for two legions. The seniors cannot have amounted even to half that number 62 : and among them many more in proportion must have been past over as disabled. The complement was filled up by men who had been let off from service within the military age. It will be easily seen that the constitution of such a legion was exactly like that of one of the juniors. On the other hand no centuries were formed by the civic le- gions, in which the proletarians and erarians, — the former 260 The most frequent mention of this fourfold army occurs after the Gallic invasion : when however, there being a college of six su- preme magistrates, the command was differently arranged. In earlier times, L. Valerius in 290 has the command within the city : T. Quinctius leads the reserve to relieve the consul whose army was surrounded : Livy, in. o. In 267 Sp. Larcius, being appointed by the consuls, covers Rome with a third army : A. Atratinus is set at the head of affairs in the city. In 274 too we find mention of these four armies (Diouysius, ix. 5), though with the same confusion between the seniors and the city-militia. In like manner Dionysius found the very same list of forces in the fabulous stories of the first two dic- tators, two legions for active service, a body of reserve, and a garri- son : though his account to be sure is sufficiently indistinct : v. 75, vi. 2. So Q. Furius in the same writer (ix. 69) ought probably to be changed, not into Q. Fabius,but into Sex. Furius ; unless Dionysius made a mistake in calling him a consular. I conceive he was the commander of the four cohorts, who is not mentioned anywhere else ; and at all events the custos urbis, Q. Fabius, could not be that. 61 Dionysius, ix. 71. « See Vol. i. p. 447. HISTORY OF HOME. 123 belonging to plebeian tribes, but excluded from the classes, the latter mostly having places in the classes, but none in the tribes — were combined with such plebeian locupletes as were not required to discharge any manner of service without the walls. Nor could they be destined to any duty which required long training, more especially when the use of the javelin became more general, and the line of battle more ilexible. The chief part of them must have been armed with missiles; some to serve in the phalanx, with spears. Perhaps Livy was only adopting the phraseology of a much later time, when he called the commander of the reserve a proconsul 263 . But when Dionysius speaks of him as having been appointed by the consuls, he at all events has a very high degree of probability in his fa- vour 64 . This office again never makes its appearance after the decern virate. Now as in the year 267, in which the wardenship became an elective office, we find Spurius Larcius acting in that proconsular capacity as commander of a detachment which was to cover the country around the city, while A. Atratinus is appointed by the senate to garrison the walls and forts, we may feel quite cer- tain that the latter was the prefect of the city, and that Dionysius was entirely mistaken in assigning that post to the former. The lawbooks assuredly had not neglected to record the name of the first person invested with this dignity by the curies. We too are under the stronger obliga- tion to rescue it from oblivion; since, notwithstanding the obscurity that hangs over this period, it is unques- tionable that Atratinus was a remarkable man, and a meritorious citizen. It was owing to his being remem- bered as such, that he was said to have been the au- thor of an equitable and conciliatory proposition in the "* ill. 4. Dionysius, too, IX. 12, calls him avTiarpuT^yos. M viii. 64 : speaking of T. Larcius. 124 HISTORY OF ROME. disputes on the Cassian agrarian law: and we know histo- rically that a few years afterward a fair compact, which quieted some very vehement commotions, was brought about by his mediation. The accounts do not agree whether it was as dictator or interrex that he interposed so effectually. If the latter, the minor houses at this time must also have gained entrance into the first decury of the senate: and undoubtedly this result could not fail to ensue, somewhat sooner or later, from the election of one of their order to the pretorship of the city. 125 THE INTERNAL FEUDS OF THE PATRICIANS. The only thing that can keep an aristocracy from splitting into hostile parties, pursuing each other with the bitterest animosity, is the existence of a formidable rustic or civic commonalty. For factions are never wanting in it; which, when it is free from disquietude, break out into irreconcilable fury against one another; as we see in the Guelfs and Ghibellines. These, as is expressly stated with regard to Florence, at the outset were merely par- ties among the houses: the commonalty had nothing to do with them. If the aristocrat ical body comprehends a narrow oligarchy with peculiar privileges, whether result- ing from prescription or usurpation, these will excite no less vehement murmurs among those who are thrown into the background, than in an opprest commonalty: and the oligarchs will display the same arrogance and ferocity toward the one as toward the other. The Bacchiads lookt upon the Dorians at Corinth as their subjects. The members of the secret council at Freyburg excluded the nobless even in our fathers days from posts of honour and of authority*. The same point did the major houses at Rome endeavour to carry against the minor. The latter however found support from individuals of the pri- vileged class, moved whether by benevolent feelings or * Meyer of Knonau, Geschichte der Schweizerischen Eidsgenos- senschaft : n. 412. 126 HISTORY OF ROME. by mortified pride, and from the commonalty; whose liber- ties were gaining ground, so long as the houses, which after their reconciliation strove to keep it under, were at variance, and vying with each other in courting its fa- vour. All mention of the quarrels among the patricians has indeed been erazed from history. But not only have I shewn that the lesser houses during this period, just like the plebeians in aftertimes, acquired more extensive rights, and that after reiterated interruptions they maintained, and gradually enlarged them : but a piece of information has been preserved, though not in a historical work, which proves that these quarrels, albeit past over in silence by the later Romans, were carried on with a savage fury, such as at the utmost was not manifested more than once in the contests between the patricians and the com- monalty. The chronicles had drawn a veil over an event, which the ritual books could not pass by in silence. In order that a spot in the neighbourhood of the Circus, which was markt with a pavement of white flagstones, might not be profaned by any one through ignorance, or at least without his expiating his offense, they recorded that it had been abandoned to the Manes, as being the place where nine illustrious men, who had conspired against the consul T. Sicinius, and had been burnt alive in the Circus for hightreason, were buried. Their names were preserved. Five of them had been consuls during the years from 252 to 261: nor among the other four was there any who does not seem to have belonged to a distinguisht house. This statement was inserted by Ver- rius in his collection; and Festus retained it: but in the manuscript of his work it stood on one of the columns more or less of which has been burnt away; and only the lesser half remains of each of the ten lines which comprised it. Ursinus in an unlucky moment tried to fill up the deficiencies, according to a notion which was IIIMOKV OF ROME. 127 utterly groundless: and when a supplement is printed along with a fragment, if it be not barbarous in language, it imposes upon us by an air of authenticity: this of Ursinus has never been examined. My restoration is like that of a statue by the hand of a sculptor who has seized its idea. Such a thing can no more be establisht by arguments than any intuition: its certainty results from its completeness : nor is its credibility impaired by our finding that these shreds of lines turn into a most unlookt for and important story 265 . 265 The passage I am speaking of occurs in Festus immediately after Novalis ager: iu the edition of Gothofredus it is part of the same article ; in that of Scaliger it is filled up with the injudicious supplement mentioned above, and begins with the words JVautii con- sulatu: according to the reprint of Ursinus it stands on the 23d column, or the third column of the sixth leaf in the Farnese manu- script. This is written on broad leaves, with double columns in every page ; and about a third part in breadth has been burnt off: the first and fourth column on every leaf are uninjured: about half, more or less, of the other two remains, containing the former part of the lines in the second column, the latter part of those in the third. The boundary line is not exactly a straight one, but waves according as the fire happened to eat into the parchment : in the present passage the part destroyed amounted on the average to about half every line, and contained from 16 to 19 letters : in the first line however only fifteen are wanting, as it comprised the two concluding ones of the preceding article. After this description, I will transcribe the pas- sage according to my own way of restoring it. Novem adversarii T. Sicinii Volsci cos. cum conjurationem inissent adversus eum, a pop. R. rivi in Circo combusti feruntur, et sepulti in ea regione qua? est proxime C'ir- cum, ubi locus est fopide albo constratus. Eorum nomina fuerunt, Opiter Verginius 7'ricostus,... Valerius Laevinus, Postumus Co- minivs Auruncus, llius Tolerinus. P. Ye- t'/s/'/s Geminus ) ...Sempromus At rat inns. Ver- ginius Tricostus,. . .Mvthis Scaevola, Sex. Fu- sius /■'//*>/■<. The article must have begun with \o, like the fifteen the ninth of which it stands. The conspirators were opponents of T. Sieiniu-. 128 HISTORY OF ROME. This narrative is no slight gain : but we cannot add anything to it, except what may be deduced from the passage itself. The event must have been connected in some way with the change in the wardenship, which had been extorted from the major houses. None of the con- sulars here mentioned appears in the list of the ten chiefs in the year 261: but we find the two Virginii, whose ab- sence from that list was before noticed 266 . This warrants our inferring that they were discontented on account of their exclusion. The name of Mucius, in a story of nine men con- demned to the stake, reminds us of another story, which we find floating about without the sphere of the Annals, of a Mucius who is said to have caused nine tribunes to be executed in the same way"*: as does the statement in the latter, that the persons condemned had been de- luded by Sp. Cassius into hindering the elections, of the great Cassius who was consul in the year after T. Sicinius. If any one therefore regards it as indisputable that nine tribunes of the people were so put to death, he must suppose that there was another Sp. Cassius, and must seek out a very different period for the event. So that in fact there would be less boldness in conjecturing that the story of the tribunes is an instance of those inver- sions so common in tradition, Mucius, instead of suffering death, being converted into the person who has the sen- tence executed. At the same time we should have to not, as might be conjectured, his necessarii ; else he too would have been put to death. The deficiency in the eighth line ought probably to be supplied with AquiWius. The Virginius whose proper name is wanting must be Titus, the consul of the year 258; since Aulus, who was consul in 260, was one of the Decemprimi: see Dionysius, vi. 69. Sex. Furius is the consul of the year 266 ; so that his surname was Fusus not Medullinus, as Ursinus conjectured. It is only in the Fasti Siculi, as they are called, that T. Sicinius has the surname of Sabinus : the Capitoline Fasti for this period are wanting. *«« Opiter and Titus: see note 247. * See the text to notes 909-9 If). HISTORY OF HOME. 12ti assume that Sicinius, whom we find after the death of Cassius at the head of an army 867 , had attempted, as his enemy, in an illegal manner to procure the election of some other person instead of him, or of Proculus Vii- ginius ; that the nine men mentioned, belonging or at- tacht to the lesser houses, withstood him, and when Cassius had fallen, were executed as his adherents. Dio- nysius says that the most illustrious members of the ma- jor houses, declared against him 08 : and since the innova- tion, the object of which was to turn the victory over him to the advantage of a particular faction, trei.cht upon the rights of the lesser houses, as well as of the com- monalty, it is manifest that both classes sided with him. That the lesser patrician houses did so has been forgot- ten: that the commonalty did has been recorded, because Cassius designed to grant it advantages, which were in- dispensable to its welfare, by his agrarian law. 2 « 7 Dionysius, ix. 12. 08 VIII. (59 : "W^Qovto oi 7r/)f. HISTORY OF ROME. 133 and solely to the public domain 271 : and guided by this remark accounts of the Gracchic troubles were written, before the revolutionary frenzy had quite spent itself*, acquitting the Gracchi of the charge of having shaken property. It is to Heyne's essay that I myself owe my conviction of this truth, which I have firmly retained ever since I began my researches on Roman history. At the same time this merely negative certainty threw my mind into as painful a state of perplexity as was ever experienced. This torment, of being utterly unable to conceive a proposition, the reverse of which I saw it Avas absolutely necessary to reject 72 , — a feeling nearly akin to the despair excited by vain efforts to fathom the mysteries of theology, — grew as I advanced to manhood, and en- gaged in public business, still, in intervals of leisure, turning my eyes toward my beloved field of antiquity; while with the ripening of experience I felt a more press- ing desire to comprehend the ancient world no less dis- tinctly than the present, more especially in those rela- tions of civil life with which my profession rendered me conversant. Appian's statement, that a fixt portion of the produce of the domain lands was paid for the use of them, stood in direct contradiction to Plutarch's, that they were farmed to the highest bidder 73 : and the more closely Plutarch's 271 In a Program written in 1793 : Opusc. iv. p. 350. * By Hceren in 1795, by Hegewisch in 1801. 72 Not only do both Plutarch and Appian expressly commence their relations of the Gracchic troubles with an account of the public domain ; but the latter says that the Lieinian law ordained ^Siva jvetf rrjcr&e rrjs •yfjy nXidpa TTtvTaKov irktiova (de Bell. Civ. I. 8) : and the epitome of the 58th book of Livy asserts no less expressly : ■acquis ex publico agro plus quam M (this is the true reading) jugcra possideret. 73 Appian, de Bell. Civ. i. 7 : that is, Posidonius : see above, note 104 : Plutarch, T. Gracch. c. 8 : 'Af^afitvcov tu>v nXovu-iw virtp- ,3d\\(iv tus anoffiopas. 134 HISTORY OF ROME. account was examined, the more impossibilities it shewed in all its parts. The rich, he says, engrost the farms by outbidding others. But a rich man can never afford to pay so high a rent for a small piece of ground, as the peasant who tills it with his own hands 274 . And how was it possible for the immense domains of the Roman state to be let out in small parcels? Supposing however that they had been so let, the limit prescribed to them might easily have been restored by a single upright cen- sor who examined the register without respect of per- sons. Leases were made for a lustre; biit in the case of the public land we hear of a possession transmitted by inheritance or purchase for centuries 75 . Possession and possessors are the terms always employed, when the use of the public lands is spoken of: but a farmer could not be said to possess a piece of ground in the Roman sense : possessing a thing, and renting it, are contradictory no- tions 76 . Thus a conception, which, though erroneous, was clear, intelligible, and productive of consequences, though of false ones, had given way to one from which for many 274 It is true, a rich man may buy up his poor neighbour's land, when the latter is reduced to distress, and can find none to lend him money except at intolerably usurious interest. In this way the small properties in the territory of Tivoli are disappearing one after another. 75 Cicero, de Off. n. 22 : Quam habeat aequitatem ut agrum raultis annis aut etiam saeculis ante possessum, — qui habuit amittat ? 23 : Ut cum ego emerim, aedificaverim, — tu, me invito, fruare meo ? Florus, ill. 13 : Relictas sibi a rnajoribus sedes aetate, quasi heredi- tario jure, possidebant. In Appian, de Bell. Civ. 1. 10, the possessors alledge their buildings and plantations ; many, that they have bought the land, accepted it as their share of an inheritance, invested their wives portion in it, given it as a portion with their daughters. Paulus, 1. 11. D. de evictionibus (xxi. 2). The extensive estate which the emperor disposed of had been bought. 76 Marcellus, 1. 19. D. de adquir. v. amitt. possess, (xli. 2.) Javolenus, 1. 21, of the same title. 1IIST0UY OF HOME. I3j years I despaired of extracting a meaning. Perhaps I never should have done so, had not the footing on which the possession of land and the landtax stand In India, supplied me with an existing image of the Roman pos- session, the ltoman vectigal, and the mode of leasing it. In India the soverain is the sole proprietor of the soil: he may at pleasure confiscate the land cultivated by the Ryot. Nevertheless the latter may transmit it to his heir, and may alienate it: he renders a larger or smaller definite portion of the produce in kind: this the state leases or sells to the Zemindars; unless it has granted the revenue of a district or of a piece of ground to some temple or pious foundation for ever, or to some of its vassals and officers for life. This state of things is not peculiar to India. Traces of it occur throughout Asia, where in ancient times it prevailed far and wide in the most unequivocal form : as it did in Egypt, where all the land was the property of the Pharaoh, and the military class merely had the land- tax remitted to them. The tetrarchs in Syria were Ze- mindars, who usurpt the rank of soverains; as, through one of the most calamitous mistakes that ever brought ruin on a country, notwithstanding the most benevolent intentions on the part of the government, the Zemindars of Bengal succeeded under Lord Cornwallis in getting themselves recognized as dependent princes and absolute proprietors of the soil. In like manner the agrarian in- stitutions of Rome must not be deemed peculiar to it. They were undoubtedly common to all the Italian states: and many of the notions connected with them prevailed even beyond the peninsula: so that there is the less reason for supposing that the coincidence between them and those of India is accidental, and therefore delusive. It would not be practicable to confine an exposition of the notion and real state of the public domain to the earliest period, to its extent, and the limit prescribed to its possessors, in the days of Sp. Cassius or of Licinius 130 HISTORY OF ROME. Stolo. The epoch, with reference to which we have the means of gaining a distinct conception of the subject, is a much more recent one; when the terrier of the re- public had grown to an enormous bulk, and included a multitude of objects, which till then had never formed part of the property of the Koman people. Nor indeed should an inquiry like the following restrict itself to any particular period : since in such matters what at one time was an essential peculiarity may have ceast to be so at another; as was unquestionably the case with regard to the public lands of the Roman state. The ager pubHcus was only a part of the publicum, or the estate of the populus. This consisted, like that of a private person, of divers objects, both productive and unproductive ones, and of revenues accruing from rights. The last head included tolls, excise duties, landtaxes paid by subject towns. The unproductive property compre- hended public buildings of every kind, whether sacred 01 profane, roads, and public places. The productive objects may be divided into two classes, according to the different modes of enjoying them. Either the soverain sought to keep as much of the produce as possible for the public, though a part was at all events to be allowed to the farmer: such was the case with houses, — and the Roman republic was the proprietor of whole cities, — with mines, quarries, saltworks. Or else the state merely reserved a small share of the produce, and gave up the larger to its citizens for the benefit of individuals. There was a by-class in the Roman system, when the republic restored a conquered territory to its old inhabitants, subject to the payment of a tithe, or some other similar tax 877 . This, so long as the precarious possession lasted, was 277 Cicero 2 in Verr. in. 6 (13) : Perpaucae Siciliae civitates sunt hello — subactae, quarum ager cum esset publicus P. R. factus tamen illia est redditus. Is ager a censoribus locari solet. See below, p. 141. IIIST011Y OF ROME. 137 like any other impost: but the republic had the right of claiming the land and turning out the possessors. The rule, by which it was settled what part of the public property ought to be productive for the state alone, and what part, while it yielded some profit to the state, should be mainly turned to the account of private per- sons, is plain. The former course was taken when the nature of the object was such that only a very small number could enjoy it, thereby reaping a large profit, in which it was fair that a much greater number should participate, through the increase of the public revenue, and a proportionable diminution of the burthens of the tax-payers. It would have been granting an unfair privi- lege, had a single person or a few been permitted to work a mine, on condition of paying a small part of the produce: whereas the aiFair would have been a scramble, if every citizen who chose had been at liberty to sink a shaft. Therefore such property was least to a company. On the other hand a tunny-fishery might be carried on by thousands, if the poorer sort clubbed together to pro- cure boats and nets: and it would have been unfair to farm it to a company, though the state might have drawn a larger revenue by doing so. Wherever there was no obstacle to an occupation for the benefit of individuals, it was preferred : indeed individuals enjoyed many kinds of public property, which yielded nothing to the state. The state shewed itself no less moderate in its claims, where it might have demanded the whole, than the gods. They contented themselves with the refuse of the victim : and the piece of ground at Scillus, which Xenophon de- dicated to Diana, was just as much her property, though he reserved the cultivation and enjoyment of it, subject to the payment of a tenth 278 . I hope my meaning will not be mistaken, if I observe that the Levites only re- ceived the tithe of the produce of the land of Canaan, ::s .Xenophon. Anak v. 3. 138 HISTORY OF ROME. though it had been consecrated to Jehovah, whom they represented, as his property 279 . So a tenth is the portion the state seems in general to have levied on corn ; as the Roman republic did, when- ever it exercised its right of ownership. Plantations and vineyards might fairly be subjected to a higher rate, as they require no seed, and less labour: hence the Roman people received two tenths from them 80 . So perhaps on the same ground did they of the young, the cheese, and the wool, of cattle kept on the common pastures, before an agistment was introduced. Now, if the persons who occupied the public domain had the supreme power in their hands, they might free themselves from this charge, and shift the burthens necessary for the service of the state upon the commonalty. In such a case the owner- ship became a bare right, as unproductive as a right of way. This however is an accidental circumstance; just as much so, as that the Delphic god let the territory of Cirrha lie waste, when his temple might have drawn a tenth from it. Properly the notion of the ager implied that the state itself reapt a profit 81 . This profit was termed fructus 6 *', the occupation, for which an individual rendered this stated due, usus S3 . For we must not be 2:9 Hence the obligation of paying a tenth did not extend beyond the borders of Palestine : and this was one ground on which the pro- ject, that such as had survived the destruction of Jerusalem shoidd go into Egypt, was deemed sinful. Jeremiah, xlii. 15, and foil. 80 Appian, de Bell. Civ. i. 7. 81 So much so, that, at the institution of the ager trientius, a no- minal rent, of an as for each juger, was laid on it, in order that it might not lose the quality of public land, but might be capable of redemption : Livy, xxxi. 13. 82 Venditiones olim dicebantur censoriae locationes, quod velut fructus publicorum locorum venibant. Festus, Venditiones : where fructus p. I. is equivalent to vectigal. 83 Possessio est, ut definit Gallus Aelius, usus agri ant aedificii. Festus, Possessio. In this sense Lucretius says : Vitaque manciple- HISTORY OF ROME. 131) led by the fragments of the jurists, in their present stato, to believe that usus fructus was equivalent to /rutins'*** : such a superfluous combination of two words would be contrary to the genius of the language: it is usus et fructus, combined in the old style without any connecting particle. On the contrary a person who had merely the fructus cannot anciently have had the usus along with it: though in private property the one might merge in the other; and when this was the case he enjoyed the usus f-uctus. The state seems never to have collected its tenths directly by its officers. The universal practice, to which I doubt whether a single exception occurs, was to farm all the branches of the revenue, except the landtax, fines, and some other things of a like nature. That which arose from the domain opened two sides to speculation; first in the amount of the tithe, as the harvest was more or less productive; next in the variations of price, if the rent was to be paid in money. This indeed was by no means necessary: and especially in wartimes, when corn must else have been bought for the public granaries, the simpler course was to require a fixt quantity in lieu of the tenth. A certain proportion of grain might even be contracted for instead of the two tenths of oil and wine: and this was actually done 85 . Farming for a money- rent however was incomparably the more usual practice. But the old technical term for it in the Roman system of finance exprest not the farming, but the sale of the nulli datur, omnibus itsu. Life belongs to the common stock of na- ture ; she withdraws ^t from the possessor at her pleasure : it never becomes his property. Mancipium was the old word for property. Usui according to its most ancient meaning was the act of pos- sessing, possess io the object possest : hence i(su capere. The con- fined sense of the phrase in the civil law cannot have obtained till late. --' See Brissonius on Ususfructus ; who himself gives instances proving that this does not hold. 85 In the second runic war by Q. Fulvius Flaccus in the case of the ager Campanus : Locavit omnem frumento: Livy, xxvn. 3. 140 HISTORY OF ROME. fructus m ; as in the case of those Sicilian lands, which had not become the property of the Roman republic, but paid a tithe as a landtax 87 . It was not a sale for the term of a lustre at a sum to be paid down once for all, but at one payable yearly. This was done in the strict- est legal form, by mancipation,— the regular mode of conveying all rights to land, among which that of levy- ing a tax from the produce was one 88 . The expression of Hyginus therefore, that the jus vectigalis was sold by mancipation, is perfectly correct, Whether this can also be said of his statement, that the contract was sometimes concluded for a lustre, and sometimes for a hundred years 89 , must be left as questionable as the value of his authority. With regard to the Roman state during the commonwealth it cannot possibly have been the case; nor probably under the emperors. Estates however may have been so let by provincial towns, and, as is still more likely, by the Vestals, the augurs, and the other spiritual corporations, to which the state had granted the right to the vectigal on certain lands. In time however the word locatio came to be com- monly applied to the censorian contracts: and certainly they bore a close resemblance to leases in the proper 6ense, which were growing more and more frequent. So the same term has prevailed in modern Europe for all 286 Festus : see note 282. w In the Verrina frunientaria, n. 3. 6, and many other places. 88 Ulpian, tit. xix. 1. For the republic the ager publicus itself was an object of mancipation ; it was sold by the questors. 89 Hyginus, de condic. agr. p. 205, ed. Goesii : Qui superfuerant agri vectigalibus subjecti sunt, alii per annos quinos, alii vero manci- pibus ementibus, id est conducentibus, in annos centenos, — Mancipes autem qui emerunt lege dicta jus vectigalis, ipsi per centurias loca- verunt aut vendiderunt proximis quibusque possessoribus. If this writer, whose conceptions were certainly not clear, attacht any dis- tinct meaning to the last sentence, it must be understood of a mo- dus, or a composition for the tenth sheaf. HISTORY OF BOMB. 141 transactions of this kind. Now it was usual not only to speak of a letting of the tax 290 , which in this case was the locatio fructua agri ; but to say, with a slight colloquial inaccuracy, censures ogrum fruendum locasse 91 : and a single step further led to the speaking of letting the land itself. This phrase is used not only by Livy 91 , but even by Cicero, where he speaks of the districts in Sicily which were the property of the republic 93 . In this very passage however he places the meaning of the expression beyond doubt, by adding that these districts had been restored to the towns they had previously belonged to. Hence the soil cannot possibly have been least: it can only have been the vectigal. We must not be perplext therefore ) find Polybius speaking of the letting of lands by the ensors; especially as he mentions harbours among the objects farmed, where the duties, not the places them- selves, were let to the farmers of the revenue 94 . Nevertheless this phrase drew Greek authors, who were strangers to the Roman system of finance, into the erroneous notion that the republic actually farmed its landed property. Hence the statement of Plutarch, which has misled all modern writers, that the rich excluded 880 Livy, xxxir. 7 : Censores portoria venalium Capuae— fruenda locarunt. ! " Livy, xlii. 19 : M. Lucretius legem promulgavit ut agrum Campauum censores fruendum locurent. The rapacity of individuals had withheld, not the farm-rent, but the tithe from the republic for thirty years : So Ulpian, 1. 1. D. de loco publ. fruendo (xliii. 9), explains the expression of the edict, locum publicum fruendum lo- care, of the conductio vectigcUis fruendi. '-'-' Livy, xxvii. 3: Capuae Flaccus agro loouido temptu tcrit. 93 See note 277. s4 Polybius, VI. 17: HoXXdn' tpyutv ovrtav rOiv fK$i5o/jeVa>i' vno tu>v TL[xi]To>v — noWcov fte 7rora/ia>r, Xtfievatv, KrjnioiV, fitraWcov, %o»pas. Appian, de Bell. Civ. i. 7, Bays, exclusively of the lands that were not laid waste, (iriirpao-Kou rj i^tpitrdovv : adding, that a tax was levied on the produce of that which was thrown out. of tillage: he seems to mean tlmt which was restored to the old inhabitants. 142 HISTORY OF ROME. persons of smaller means by outbidding them. Even Dionysius, though considerably more careful and precise than that amiable but very superficial and heedless au- thor, in reciting the contents of the pretended ordinance of the Senate about the public land, at the time of the disturbances caused by the agrarian law of Cassius, says, it was resolved that such parts of the domain as had neither been sold nor assigned should be farmed on leases for five years 295 . If we needed evidence to shew the meaning of the Koman author whom he followed, it would appear from his attributing the same destination to the produce of these leases, which according to Livy was the purpose of the vectigal, when the tribunes first endeavoured, under more favorable circumstances, to re- vive that charge on the possessors of the ager publicus ; namely, to pay the troops 96 . Let me now pass from the purchasers or farmers of the right of collecting the portion reserved to the state from the produce of the domain, and proceed to discuss the condition of such as held the estates which were the objects of the agrarian laws, subject to this charge. The technical term for these estates was possessions: the appropriate name for those who held them, possessors. The legitimate expression, employed exclusively in speak- ing of those who held a portion of the domain, which they might transfer and alienate, though the property in it^Delonged to the republic, was, that they possest it 97 . 295 Dionysius, vni. 73. 76. 9 " Livy, iv. 36. 97 It would be needless to collect all the passages that prove these assertions : the following might have sufficed before now to make the meaning of the terms clear. Cicero, de Offic. n. 22 : qui agrariam rem tentant ut possessors suis sedibus pellantur. See note 275. Livy, II. 61 : Ap. Claudio, causam possessorum publici agri sustinenti. iv. 36 : vectigali possessor ibus agrorum imposito. 51 : agra- riae legis, quae possesso per injuriam agro publico Patres pellebat. 53 : si injiisti domini possessione agri publici cederent. vi. 5 : nobiles in possessionem agri publici grassari. 14 : nee jam possidendis pablicis HISTORY OF ROME. 143 The word was no less accurate than common. They had only the usus ; the republic had the fructus and the pro- perty; and Aelius Gallus defined possession to be the use of land, in contradistinction to the property 298 . Every landed estate, Javolenus says, is a praedium ; but only one that is the property of the possessor is called in relation to him ager: that which he occupies, but which neither is nor can be his property, is termed possession. Festus gives another definition of the Roman possessions, containing several terms which designate estates held in the public lands. They are described as extensive tracts, held not by mancipation, but by use, and which had been occupied by the mere will of the holder 300 . The vast extent of these lands is purely acci- dental ; and the addition of privatique spoils the explana- tion. This fault is probably owing to Festus: Verrius agris conteutos esse. 35: ne quis plus U jugera agri possideret. Epi- tome, lviii. ne quis ex publico agro plus quain M jugera possideret. Floras, in. 13: reduci plebs in agros non (not unde) poterat sine possidentium eversione. Paulus, 1. 11. D. de evictionib. (xxi. 2) : Has possessiones ex praecepto principali partim distraetas, partim veteranis adsignatas : see below, note 311. Possessions are distin- guish^ from property in the most pointed way by Cicero, adv. Rul- lum, in. 3 (12), in the following passage among others: sunt multi agri lege Cornelia 2 J Micati, nee cuiquam assignati neque venditi, qui a paucis — possidentur. — hos privates facit; hos — Rullus non vobis assignarc vult, sed eis condonare qui possident. Again : cum ea quae vestra sunt condonari possessor ibits videatis. To these passages Sa- vigny ("Vom Besitz, p. 151, 4th edition) has added a very important one from Orosius, v. 18 : eodem tempore loeapublicx quae in circuitu Capitolii pontificibus, auguribus, decemviris, et flaminibus in pos- sessionem tradita erant, cogente inopia vendita sunt. Orosius had Livy constantly before him : though perhaps not immediately, but in a circumstantial abridgement. w See ncte 2S3. 99 1. 115. D. de V. S. In the bill of Rullus too agri and pos- sessiones were opposed to each other: Cicero, adv. Hull. in. 2 (7). 300 Possessiones appellant ur agri late patentee publici privatique, quia (read qui) non mancipations sod usu tenebantur, et utquisque occupaverat coUibebat (read coUbantar). Festus, Possessiones. 144 HISTORY OF ROME. may have said that even private lands, of which a man had only the use, were called possessions; and this is correct. But the other terms in the definition are pe- culiar to the domain. The origin of these possessions, as we are assured by various testimonies, was the occupying or entering upon territory laid waste in war 301 : as that of property, which was opposed to them in every particular, was a distinct assignment and transfer on the part of the state 2 . Still it cannot be imagined that this occupying was left to the uncontrolled choice of individuals, which would have bred violence and confusion. By what regulation these mis- chiefs were prevented, Appian omits to tell us, where he says that the citizens were invited by the state, — that is, by the edict of a magistrate, — to take possession of the waste tracts for their own use 3 . When once oc- cupied, they might be transferred, just like property, to an heir or a purchaser 4 : but property could never arise in them by usucapio. This, as against the state, was ab- solutely impossible, according to a fundamental maxim 301 This is frequently intimated in the writings of the Agrimen- sores : so at the very beginning by Siculus Flaccus, p. 3 ; nee tan- tum occupaverunt quod colere potuissent, sed quantum in spe colendi reservavere. Livy too, vi. 37, says : nee agros occupandi modum — Patribus fore ; and so Festus on Possessiones : see note 300. Sibi sumere, in the inscription of the Lex Thoria. The correlative term for the act of the state was concessio. In the bill of Eullus the ex- pressions publice data, assignata were used for property assigned, concessa for the possessions : Cicero, adv. Hull. ill. 2 (7). What Dionysius says (viii. 73) about drawing boundaries in the domain ("that is, according to his view on the lands to be farmed), is a signal instance how boldly he ventures to apply his very obscure concep- tions with regard to peculiar Roman institutions, and so introduces them in the wrong place. 2 Such lands are the agri assignati, the former the occupatorii ; the former limitati, the latter arcifinales; the latifundia arcentium vjcinos: Pliny, xxvin. 4. 3 'EnfKripiTTov. Appian, I. 7. * See note 27.5. 11ISTOKV OP ROME. 145 of the old Roman jurisprudence :,<,: ': us is intimated in the definition of Javolenus by the clause: which cannot be our properly. Sundry instances recorded or alluded to by historians, by the Agrimensores, and in inscriptions, of domain lands resumed by the state after a long usurp- ation, shew how rigidly this maxim was enforced from the earliest period down to the censorship of Vespasian. Without this security, the republic would have been ex- posed to endless losses through the negligence of her officers, and would have been obliged to abstain altogether from granting the use of the domain. She retained the property, until it was transferred by a formal act: and she had an unlimited power of terminating the pos- session, which was always precarious, and of selling or assigning the vacated land. A subject who cultivated the ground she had allowed his forefathers to retain, could not murmur if she thought fit to dispose of it otherwise 1 '. Nor was the possession of a citizen more inviolable, even within the 500 jugers which the Licinian law fixt as its limit, but which it did not guarantee: though Tiberius Gracchus respected and confirmed pos- session up to twice that amount. This is proved be- yond doubt by the following examples. The offer trien- tius tabuliusque, which was given by way of satisfaction for the third instalment of the loan in the second Punic war, lay around Rome : the creditors of the state were allowed to look out pieces of land within fifty miles of the city, which from their situation must all have been in the possession of Roman citizens 7 . So the territory of Capua was divided among a great number of small holders, Roman citizens: yet the right of the state to take it from them for the sake of founding a colony 305 Frontinus (Aggenus, as he is called), n. de oontrov. agtorum tit. de alluvione, p. 69, ed. Goesii. * Cicero, adv. Rullum, n. 21 (.">7). : Livy, xxxi. 13. VOL. II. K 146 HISTORY OF ROME. was not disputed, but only the equity and policy of such a measure 308 . When Appius the Blind sold domain-lands far and wide to defray the enormous expenses of his gigantic works, many of the families turned out to make room for the purchasers may probably have curst the under- takings which ruined their comfort: but they could not deny the republic's right. Some of the cases may have been extremely hard. Had the measure only affected estates derived by inheritance from the first occupiers, the loss of a possession acquired without expense would not have been an intolerable grievance. But even when it had been purchast, or taken in any other way as mo- ney's worth, the possessor still lost it, just as much as if it had been destroyed by some disaster. He could not claim any compensation for his eviction: nay, Paulus, in giving an opinion on a particular case, holds the ejected possessor bound to pay the remaining instalment of the purchase money 9 . There is no ground for supposing that the judges five hundred years earlier would have been more in favour of an equitable adjustment, than these late jurists, who knew of the public domain only in rare instances. The same Paulus speaks of it under the name of agri publici, laying it down that the pos- session of them, since they were least in perpetuity, could not be resumed except by the emperor immediately 10 : he however, as the case cited proves, might do so, with- out allowing any compensation 11 . 308 Cicero, adv. Rullum, n. 31 (84). It was only a temporary concession : ovk (tyovres ttu> cr^nXijv diaXa^elv, iirtKrjpvTTov iv ToaotBe roh i6e\ov(nv {Kwovdv : Appian, de Bell. Civ. I. 7. s 1. 11. D. de evict, (xxi. 2). 10 Paulus, 1. 11. D. de public, et vectig. (xxxix. 4). 11 The case on which Paulus gave the opinion cited in note 309, related to an estate in Germany, on the right bank of the Rhine, at the extremity of the Roman military frontier. This form of the ancient mode of possessing land seems at this time to have been HISTORY OF ROME. 147 It is clear that, so lung as the republic, by frequently enforcing her right, directed every one's attention to the uncertainty of all possessions, and kept the marketprice of such estates low, the loss was bearable. There may even have occurred cases, when the censors put lands up to sale in great masses, and were therefore forced to let them go cheap, where the possessor was glad to acquire confined to that province : and there it continued down to the reigns of Honorius and Theodosius the younger. Even this relic of the old law was abolisht by a constitution of the year 423, in which the em- peror converted the right of the possessors into absolute ownership (1. un. C. Th. de rei vindicat. — n. 23). It was given at Ravenna. The matter seems to have been altogether foreinto the Eastern Em- pire : and so it is not to be wondered at that not only is this consti- tution omitted in the code, but scarcely a trace of the old law appears in the Pandects themselves. The imperial domains, which are also contradistinguisht from private property, have nothing to do with this subject. But the Pandects speak frequently, and under a separate title, of town-lands, subject to a vectigal. These have been compared, by writers who came nearest to the correct notion, to possessions in the public land of the state. Yet the legal distinction between the two is no less wide than the difference in the extent and importance of the objects. Three main points are decisive on this head. 1. It has been observed (see the text to note 305) that no possessor could ever acquire the property of land belonging to the Roman people by usu- capio : town-lands subject to a vectigal could be so acquired : Savigny Vom Besitz, p. 110, ed. 2. — 2. According to Paulas (1. 1. D. § 1. si ager vectigalis. vi. 3) a possessor charged with the vectigal had an action against a town, if, while he paid his rentcharge regularly (1. 2. cod.), his land was taken from him, — just like a tenant for a term (1. 3. eod.), — on the strength of which positive authority we must with Haloander, transpose tamdiu and quamdiu (1. 1. pr.), which in the Florentine manuscript are absurdly inverted (According to this, the later possession chaired wit h vectigal differed from that under an emphyteutic contract only in respect to the Lessors, who in the for- mer case were necessarily a corporation, in the latter might be pri- vate persons.) The Roman republic had an unlimited right of turn- ing out a possessor without any indemnity.— 3. A town tanned its lands in perpetuity to any one, by contract ; the republic only to members of the soverain state, or to the old inhabitants, by con cession. K 2 148 HISTORY OF ROME. the security of absolute property, and to get rid of the tithe, by purchasing at a low price. Under the contrary circumstances, when the possession had not been shaken by the agrarian laws for a number of years, the market- price, allowing for the value of the tithe, might come very near to that of property. No less precarious than this tenure under the state was that of the clients under their patrons, who granted them small plots of lands out of their portion of the do- main, as the price of their dependence. Their patrons made these grants to them, it is said, as to their own sons 312 : and the duration of every possession that a son received from his father rested entirely on the father's pleasure. Let it not be called a modern idea to sup- pose that they were attacht to the estate for the term of their services, on a footing of mutual independence, by a cottage and a couple of acres. The law enjoined the settling of free husbandmen in proportion to the ex- tent of every estate in the public lands 13 . Such a client, a poor tenant, of Cato the elder, was Salonius, whose daughter he married. This in aftertimes needed to be prescribed by law, and still was not observed: but an- ciently, when the power of the patricians rested on the numbers of their clients, it had been the object of their ambition. It was fair however that a possessor should be able to get rid of a useless and faithless retainer: therefore no power stept in to protect the client, if the lord resumed his grant and discarded him. The transfer of possession in the public lands was divested of all the solemnities contrived to secure pro- perty, and was entitled to none of the actions and reme- dies by which the latter was maintained. It would have 312 Patres — agrorum partes attribuebant tenuioribus, perinde ac liberis propriis. Festus, Patres. They could not part with such spots from their own hereditary lands. 13 Appian, D. B. C. I. 8. HISTORY OF ROME. 149 hud no shield against violence and fraud, had not the supreme power which conferred it, and invited men to occupy it, kept one in readiness. It was secured by the possessory interdicts: for there is nothing I hold to be more certain than their original direct reference to this possession. Cicero expressly applies them to it 3u . Nor does Dionysius omit to notice them in his account of the discussions on the public lands, and of the Icilian law 1 ': only, as in numberless other instances, he mis- takes their gist. The tenour of the pretorian injunctions points directly to the possession of the public lands; not indeed the form of the interdict uti possidetis, as we now read it extracted from the perpetual edict; for this talks of houses: but one far more ancient, preserved as it was originally reported by Aelius Gallus 16 , which speaks ex- pressly of sl fundus. Though the pretor however did not permit a tenant at will (precario) to claim land as a permanent possession 314 Cicero, adv. Rulluni, in. 3 (11). Haec trib. pi. promulgare ausua est ut quod quisque — possidet, id eo jure teneret, quo qui optinio privatum? Etianme si vi ej'ecit? Etiamne si clam, si precario venit in possessionem ? Ergo hac lege jus civile, causae possessionum, praetoruin interdicta tolluntur. 18 Ei' riva e£ avrr/s k\(tttovt(s (clam) fj (Bia£6fj.evoi (vi) rti/fs iSicorai KaravffxovaiV. Dionysius, VIII. 73. ftefitatrntvoi, r) Kkonfj Xuftwres : x. 32. In both cases he supposes that such a vicious pos- session was forfeited to the republic : and though in this he may not have seized the exact purport of the Koman .statement he was following, still it is natural that, if only a part of the possessions was resumed, those which had been wrongfully acquired went first. Be this as it may, the Icilian law was preserved ; and in it mention was unquestionably made of possession vi et chnn. '•■ Festus Pnssessio. I'd a" nc possidetis eum fundum : instead oieas aedes, as it runs in the Pandects (1. i. D. xi, in. 17). It is im- possible to distinguish all the views which have been suggested l>y a friend during a lively interchange of thoughts; though in their origin they are not properly ours, luit belong to him more than to ourselves. What he has imparted however one may mention as his free eifi : the observation in the text I owe i" Savigny. 150 HISTORY OF ROME. against the donor, but only took it under his protec- tion as it subsisted (uti possidetis); he nevertheless gua- ranteed the independent petty occupiers, by declaring a forcible possession (vi) void*. One of the grievances bitterly complained of by the Gracchi, and by all the patriots of their age, was that, while a soldier was serv- ing against the enemy, his powerful neighbour, who co- veted his small estate, would eject his wife and children. With property this was manifestly impossible: in the public lands, remote as many districts were from the Roman seats of justice, such acts might frequently be hazarded. An absent possessor, whether poor or rich, might without his knowledge (clam) be ousted by his neighbours from his land, which was not protected by limitation. Here likewise the pretor granted relief: and in no case could the possession thus surreptitiously ob- tained be lost by prescription, which affected property only. The clause, one from the other {alter ab altero) precluded the applying the edict to the relation between a possessor and the state. Of course the interdicts also protected the possession of things that were articles of private property, whether the owner had meant merely to grant the use of them, or that the use was to render them quiritary property, in the place of a transfer in open court. The first case however could not often occur: nor could there be any intention to encourage the neglect of the customary for- malities, which in early times, — and in these the inter- dicts were already common, — cost very little trouble: so that this application of the interdicts, compared with that to the public lands, must then have been very in- considerable. This proportion indeed was necessarily in- verted, when the Roman law was extended to lands in the provinces, and when even in Italy the spirit of the age rendered the neglect of the troublesome forms used * See the titles 16 and 17 in D. xliii. HISTORY OF ROME. 151 in the transfer of property more and more general, while the domain there gradually disappeared. Its vast extent had been exceedingly reduced by the agrarian laws of Tiberius Gracchus before the Marsic war, and during that war by sale: and though the conquests made in this, and the confiscations in the civil wars, again added large districts to it, these were forthwith given away to military colonies. The war by which Vespasian con- quered the empire, and the rewards he bestowed on his legions, caused the last great changes of this kind, con- siderable assignments of land in Samnium to the vete- rans 317 . But then his rigid parsimony led him to resume all remnants of the distributed territories, which, not hav- ing been expressly granted away by the state, were en- joyed by the colonies and municipal towns as corporation lands: these were the subseciva. This measure shook the fortunes of almost all the provincial towns; so that Domitian became the benefactor of Italy by an edict granting all this land to the communities that had pre- viously enjoyed the use of it 18 . But at the same time the landed property of the state disappeared almost en- tirely: and a writer, who probably lived in the second century, speaks as if he knew of no land, but some in Picenum as it was then called, near Reate, that was the property of the Roman people, and paid a landtax to the treasury 19 . With such trilling exceptions, the property (publicum) of the state in the peninsula was now almost confined to streams, banks, and roads: so that the provisions of the perpetual edict itself on this head, like the elucidations of them which we read in fragments, may perhaps scarcely have treated of any other objects. Nevertheless, since, according to the order of the subjects, as well in Ulpian's 317 Aggenus do controv. p. 54. 1S Frontinus (Aggenus, u.), tit, do subsecivis, pp. 68, 69. 19 Siculua Flaccus, p. 2, Likewise some t'.>iv>ts ; Frontinus, p. 12, 152 HISTORY OF ROME. commentary as in the Pandects, the interdicts appear to have stood next to the provisions in the edict concerning the domain 320 , this may serve to confirm the opinion that they related originally to the public lands. This confirmation was communicated to me by Savigny, when I shewed him my researches on the domain, and my view of the object of the interdicts, not without un- easiness lest I might stumble in treading on such forein ground. His approbation gave firmness to my footing; and it is owing principally to the assent he openly de- clared when my researches were publisht, that their re- sults are now almost universally adopted. But for this an ungraduated stranger would have had to pay for his pre- sumption in discovering the truth. And so I ventured some years back in my lectures to propose some further inferences from the proposition, that the pre tor under- took the protection of possession in the public lands. A little attention to the spirit of the Eoman institu- tions will convince any one that an inheritance could embrace nothing but property ; that for instance a testa- ment executed by mancipation could never comprehend and transfer possession. This, without the aid of the state, would have been vacated at every demise of a tenant, and thrown open to the first person who chose to occupy it. But the soverain power which had ori- ginally conferred it, and had shielded it from encroach- ment, conferred it on the heir; who might then invoke the same protection as his predecessor had enjoyed. The pretor gave the possession of the estate to the person who, according to common law, or to the last will of the deceast, would have claimed it, if it had been property, as heir. But since the state might deal as it thought lit with its own property, the magistrate was not only 3 -° The provisions on the publicum stand in Dig. xliii. tit. 6 — 15 ; then follow the interdicts: in Ulpian the former were contained in the ssixtyninth book, the latter in the seventieth of his commentary HISTORY OF ROME. 153 not tied down by the strict rules of legal succession, but might even set aside testamentary dispositions, which on these subjects had only the force of wishes. They were open to such modifications as equity and common sense might suggest to the pretor for the time being: and one pretor might lay down very different ordinances on this head from his predecessor. That any magistrate should have been entitled to in- troduce rules of succession tending to undermine those establish t by law 321 , is a thing so monstrous that no man of sense can deem it possible, if he will only attempt to conceive it in practice. But when the possession of the property of the state, which lay entirely out of the ordi- nary jurisdiction, had become systematic, and when this possession grew to form so large a part of all private fortunes, as was the case between the end of the second Tunic war and the Sempronian law; when property in the subject countries and the provinces, which likewise did not fall under the rules of inheritance laid down in the Twelve Tables, had been placed on the same foot- ing with that possession; — a mode of inheritance grew up by custom, which it cannot surprise us to see gra- dually spreading, and supplanting the legal one. Proba- bly very few cases occurred, of estates above indigence, where the common law sufficed to regulate the suc- cession, and where the intervention of the pretor was not called for. Everybody knows indeed that the bonorum possessio in the imperial laws had a different shape and character: but changes of this kind were as familial to the civil law of the Komans, as to their constitutional law, or to the laws of modern nations. Like these the Roman civil law was affected by the gradual changes in society: nay, 3 -' 1 This most absurd opinion is delivered by Eeineccius, to men- tion only one highly respectable scholar, as if the matter wore quite clear, and contained nothing at all startling. 154 HISTORY OF ROME. it was equally exposed to the influence of misconceptions which promoted gross injustice. In Ireland, after Tyrone's rebellion, ignorance of the native law occasioned the con- fiscation of all lands belonging to the subjects of the in- surgent chiefs: the government eagerly dealt with them according to the principles of the feudal system, which was entirely forein to the nation 322 . Under equal ig- norance German tribunals have pronounced against the rights of hereditary tenants, who owed their landlord nothing but fines, easy services, and a quit-rent, and have recognized the power of rapacious landlords to reduce their interest to that of tenants for a term, and to turn them out at pleasure. A wrong precisely similar was inflicted on the provincial landowners by the Roman jurisprudence. So early as the age of the Antonines, it unquestionably ascribed the property of the soil in the provinces either to the Roman people or to the emperor, as the former or the latter was regarded as the sove- rain 23 . The free allied cities, such as Rhodes, would have been admitted by Gaius himself to be exceptions. But, beside these, Cicero names several towns in Sicily which were exempt from the landtax and other burthens though they were not allies: indeed, by speaking of the very few that had forfeited their territory to Rome by resistance, he admits that in the others, which were sub- ject to the tithe, the soil was private property 24 , though under forein and natural law 25 . He mentions a question raised, whether a district in Sicily belonged to the in- habitants or to the Roman people 26 . It is no wonder that on the one hand the acquisition of the East and of 322 This abominable iniquity is very frankly exposed by Sir Jobn Davies in his extremely instructive Historical Tracts. 23 Gaius, Inst. n. 7. 24 See note 277. 25 And though taillable et corveable a volonte. 26 Rullus had excepted a certain ager Recentoricus in Sicily from sale : si privatus est, says Cicero, it is needless to except it : adv. Hull. 1.4(11). 1IISTORY OF ROME. 155 Egypt, where the soil hud always been the property of the government, on the other hand the conquest of Gaul and the border provinces, which far exceeded the old provincial territories in extent, obscured the legal rights of the latter in the eyes of the Roman government and tribunals; just as the condition of the peasantry in the conquered "Wendish countries has bred confusion as to that in the adjacent parts of Germany. More surpris- ing is it that the truth, though recorded in books, was forgotten in the course of sixty years : for even Frontinus had spoken of the arva publico, in the provinces, in con- tradistinction to the agri privati there. The only differ- ence between these and landed property, according to Italian law, was that they paid landtax, exemption from which was an essential quality of the latter 387 . 3 -' 7 Aggenus, on Frontinus, p. 47 : Ideo publica (arva) hoc loco eum dixisse existimo, quod omnes etiain privati agri (in provinciis) tribute atque vectigalia persolvunt. 156 THE ASSIGNMENTS OF LAND BEFORE THE TIME OF SP. CASSIUS. Whether Home was considered as a colony from Alba, or as planted by the son of Mars, who stood in the place of a parent city, its foundation was supposed, and related as from tradition, to have been accompanied by all the solemnities usual in new colonies. As Romulus was made to trace the pomcrium with a plough, so to him was ascribed the assignment of two jugers a-piece to each of the citizens, as heritable property 328 ; and it cannot be doubted that in very early times the Roman territory was actually divided into such small allotments. A hundred such formed an ancient century, of two hun- dred jugers of arable 29 , inclosed by strips drawn accord- ing to the rules of augury as immovable limits. This was the district of a cury. That each possest an equal one, is among the traditions of the old law 30 : and that a hundred householders were assigned to each cury is clear, because three thousand warriors were reckoned for 328 See above, note 92. 29 Siculus Flaccus, ed. Goes. p. 15, and Varro, de r. r. i. 10 ; who here gives the correct statement : elsewhere, de L. L. v. 4. (iv. p. 10. Bip.) in the same way as the original centuries of the legion were imagined to have consisted of 100 men, he assumes a century of 100 jugers, which is nowhere mentioned, and probably never existed, as the original one. 30 AieAwi/ n)v yi'jv ds rpu'iKovra (sec note 341) KAJjpova uxus, (Knar;/ (IjfMTpa k\i]i>(w dntSioKtv eva : Dionysius, II. 7. HISTORY OF HOME. 157 the three tribes' 31 ; as the colonists of Antium are desirr- natcd as a thousand soldiers. Hence the statement that at the first there were a thousand householders in Rome, was unquestionably understood of the Ramnes 32 ; though it may originally have related to a state of things the remembrance of which was studiously obliterated. A cury is also shewn to have contained a hundred citizens by the ten declines it consisted of 33 . Each century of arable land was regarded as one mass, which was pledged to the sharers in it 3i : and so was each cury to its mem- bers. It would be an inconceivable inconsistency, that, while the property of a citizen who died without heirs past to his house, the estate of the last member of an extinct house should not have gone to his cury 35 . At the time indeed when the Potitii became extinct, the case must have been materially different. It is highly pro- bable, though it does not admit of proof, that no heredium could pass to any but a member of the same cury. But Romulus did not assign the whole district to his 331 Singulao tribus singula millia militum mittebant : Varro, de 1. 1. v. 16 (iv. p. 26). 32 See note 91. M Dionysius, II. 7. 34 On this rests the agrarian controversial de modo. If a river carried away a piece of ground, or if a landslip happened, the loss fell on all the landowners in the century in proportion to its extent. Aggenus, p. 57. 3: ' Did the estate of a man who died without heirs go to his house as a common possession, or was it divided among the individual members? I conjecture the latter: at least I have no hesitation in thinking that the general distributions in the curies are proved by these verses of Plautus : Aulul. i. 2. 29. Nam noster nostrae qui est magi ster curiae Dividere argenti numoa dixit i>> viros. It is highly improbable that this should have been translated from the Creek, if the practice was unknown at Rome: a cury indeed about the year 550 was quite a different thing from what it had been three hundred years before ; and Euclio, whom, like all similar characters in their Roman dress, the poet takes only for an erarian, could not anciently bave belonged to one ; but the distributions cannot have begun in the new-modeled curies. 158 HISTORY OF ROME. ten curies. He set apart a portion for the service of the gods, and for the royal demesnes: another portion he left as common land 336 , that is, for pasture. It has already been observed that two jugers could not possibly main- tain a family: their produce was eked out by the stock kept on the common land; and the main part of every man's substance consisted in cattle 37 . An agistment was paid to the commonwealth for the pasturage: and the statement that the populus originally received landtax only from the pastures, and that hence in the censorian regis- ters all public lands subject to landtax were called pascua, appears to refer to these earliest times 38 . In our accounts of the law on this head no notice is taken of the footing on which the other two communi- ties held their landed property, before they became tribes of the Roman people. But this much is demonstrated, that all quiritary property issued from the republic, and that communities which received the Roman franchise, surrendered their lands to the Roman state, and received them back from it. Hence the assignment of landed property is ascribed to the kings, by whom those tribes are brought forward in history, as the first act of their reigns 39 : and thus the accounts which represent the growth of the constitution under these personifications, arrive at the completion of the genuine ager Romanust 330 Dionysius, II. 7. 'E^eXwy rrjv apKovuav els lepci Kal repevrj, Kal Ttva Kal tg> koivco yrjv KaTaXnrayv. Out of the rich KXrjpos of the kings (Cicero, de re p. v. 2) they defrayed the charges of the public worship : Dionysius, in. 1. 37 Columella, VI. pr. 3S Pliny, xviii. 3. 39 To Nurna, — viritim, — Cicero, de re p. n. 14. Dionysius, n. 62 : Numa assigns d<£' !]s 'Pco/xuXoy fKeKTrjro ^copa?, Kal ano ttjs 8tj- fioalas x<*>P as p-o'ipdv Ttva (Aiyrjv, to those who had received nothing under Romulus. Tullus also (Dionysius, in. 1) distributes land among those who had no allotment : with which assignment is con- nected the founding of the town on the Caelian to afford them quarters. niSTORY OF ROME. 159 This, so far as it was the property of the houses, con- sisted of three regions named after the old tribes 840 , that is, on the whole, of thirty centuries, or 6000 jugers of arable land, markt out by limits, which was private pro- perty. But beside this, each of the three towns had its royal domain and its temple-land, and a common; and only in the course of time can all these portions have been united. This simple conception, which is sound in its way, was totally perplext, when, by a mistake which cannot have arisen till late, the final state of the populus was absurdly confounded with that in the time of liomu- lus. Romulus was said to have establish t thirty curies", and to have had three thousand citizens at the founda- tion of the city 4 '-. Now as a great deal of useless trouble has been taken to adapt the hundred senators to the thirty curies, just so has it happened with the assign- ments of land by the second and third king. The former indeed is provided with lands from the conquests of Ro- mulus: but Numa had left none such to his successor: therefore it was feigned that Tullus parceled out the royal domain. In both cases, the measure is represented as an act of charity to the poor. Since there can be no doubt then as to the existence of the thirty regions belonging to the curies, Livy is in errour when he supposes that the houses anciently had no landed property, because almost all the land had been acquired by conquest, and all that had been sold or as- signed was in the hands of the plcbs 4 - 1 . Not only was the arable field in the old ager Romanus secured, like all property, against every agrarian law: it was the same 310 Varro, de 1. 1. v. 9 (iv. p. 17). 41 See note 330. 4 - Dionysius, n. 2: he adds 300 knights, who, it is probable, were conceived to have been Included in that number: sec note 331. 43 Livy, iv. 48. Nee eniui ferine quidquam agri, ut in urbe alieno solo posit i. non armia partum erat, nee quod venisset, assigna- tumve publice esset, praeterquani pleba habebat, 160 HISTORY OF ROME. with the ancient common, and all the additions made to it, before the existence of the plebs. The founder of the plebs, king Ancus, is said to have made the fourth assignment of land 344 : and this again is nothing more than a historical form of expressing, what was a matter of course, that the Latin communities, out of which the new order was formed, surrendered their lands to the Roman state, and received them back according to the laws of the formal limitation. In such transactions trans- fers and exchanges were unavoidable; especially if there be ground for supposing that several of the newly adopted citizens changed their abode. The public lands of the Roman state must have at- tained a very great extent even before the reign of Servius. When towns were taken by storm, or the citizens re- deemed themselves from death or slavery by an uncon- ditional surrender of their persons and property 45 , their whole territory became the property of the conqueror 46 . Frequently a town ceded a part, generally a third, of its district or of its public lands, as the price of peace. The course pursued under the kings was undoubtedly similar to that in later times. Lands, the cultivation of 314 Vol. I. p. 354. 43 In the form of surrender in Livy, I. 38, the envoys give up themselves, their people, urbem, agros, aquam, terminos, delubra, utensilia (their movable property), divina humanaque omnia. 16 Publicatur is ager qui ex hostibus captus sit : Pomponius. 1. 20. D. de captivis et postliminio (xlix. 15). If the conquered land had previously been Konian, it returned to the original owner : not so if it had belonged to foreiners : of which the conquests of Gallic territories taken from the Cimbrians afford an example. The Sara- cens gave the same extent, and the same limits, to the right of con- quest as Rome. The property in land was retained in towns that had submitted, but not in those taken by storm. In the history of the conquest of Mesopotamia, which goes by the name of Elwakedi, it is related that the general declared, that conversion to Islam did not entitle the inhabitants of Circesium to retain the ownership of their land : they were to pay a groundrent for it. HISTORY OF BOMB. 161 which had not been entirely ruined, and which were not granted to farmers, or to the old inhabitants on a preca- rious tenure, would be sold 317 ; particularly perhaps olive- grounds and vineyards in good condition. For it was impossible that the persons, who, as members of the sove- rain body, had equal claims to the possession of such estates, could come to a quiet adjustment. They must have been coveted by all: and the plantations which had not been laid waste cannot have been very extensive. In Latium, as in Attica and Lombardy, in a hostile in- road, every fruit-tree and vine must have been cut down, unless some accident prevented such devastation. The waste land however might have been assigned to the citi- zens for their property. The reason why this was not done was most probably because it must then have been allotted in equal parcels to the curies; and these in the course of some generations contained very unequal num- bers: so that this absurd result would have ensued, that the members of those which were least numerous, and rendered least service to the state, would have enjoyed the largest shares. This must have been the cause which led to a practice so surprising as that of enjoying the public lands by possession, which doubtless was always charged with the payment of a tithe: for without this, and the sums raised by the sale of lands, the kings would never have been able to execute their great works. This mode of enjoyment suited the powerful citizens, who had many retainers to settle: while others, who were not anxious for a small distant property, and would only have parted with it if they had received it, made no application for a share, and were satisfied with a largess from the produce of the tithe out of the public coffer of the cury 48 . 347 On this subject Appian, t'240 and 400 jugers are a late usage, and refer to very large estates. ■""'• So Frontinus, Strateg. iv. 3. 12. says, with reference to the time of Curius, that the allotted quantity of land was given to the milites conswmmati. After the second Punic war, Scipio's soldiers are rewarded witli land (Livy, xxxi. 1. I'-M: and we already perceive a constant proportion between the shares of the soldier, the centuridn, and the knight, of which there is no trace in older times, 1. -1 164 HISTORY OF ROME. be parceled out, was determined. The plebeians were as much disqualified from sharing the use of the former by occupation, as the patricians from receiving assign- ments. But the enjoyment of the common pastures was indispensable to both: and there is no trace or likelihood that distinct tracts of pasture-land were set apart for the plebs. The sacrifice of a law like this was of course one of the first articles in the bargain made by Tarquinius with the faction that supported him. On the other hand, when the patricians aimed at effecting an incurable breach between the commonalty and the banisht prince, they de- creed a general assignment of seven jugers to each man from the royal domains. Among the tyrannical acts they committed afterward, it is mentioned, that, as soon as their monopoly of power was firmly establisht against the plebeian nobless, and the Tarquins were irrevocably ex- pelled, they turned the plebeians out of the public lands 357 : not that the latter could become occupants there; but the want of the commercium did not preclude their buy- ing pieces of land, in which the sale did not confer an absolute ownership. It is probably to this period that we ought to refer an allusion which we find to persons ejected from the public lands on account of their ple- beian quality 58 : though the patricians appear for a long time after in exclusive possession of them 59 . To expell 357 Agro pellere : Sallust, Fragm. Hist. p. 935, ed. Cort. See Vol. I. p. 572. 58 Quicunque propter plebitatem agro publico ejecti sunt : Cas- sius Hemina, quoted by Nonius, on Plebitas. 59 Hence Livy forgets his prejudices when he is contemplating this usurpation, and censures the patricians, not only in expressing the feelings of the tribunes (iv. 53. vi. 5. 37), or of M. Manlius (vi. 14), but in his own person (iv. 51). Dionysius, who as a fo- reiner is in reality much more impartial, subjects them to still more violent invectives for their shameless rapacity ; from king Servius, in iv. 9, from Sp. Cassius, in vin. 70, even from Appius, in vin. 73, from L. Sicinius Dentatus, in x. 37. HISTORY OF HOME. 1G5 fair purchasers was a tyrannical act at all events: and the claim to the exclusive occupation was unjust; for the law of Servius had not been restored. A new usurpa- tion, still more oppressive to the plebeians, inasmuch as it dried up the sources of the military pay, was that the patricians gave over paying the tithe. This cannot have been done before they secured the possession of the con- sulship. The powerful prince who built the Capitol, as- suredly did not renounce a branch of revenue so indis- pensable to his work. The exemption thus usurpt still existed in the year 331; when the tribunes insisted on having the public lands charged for the pay of the troops 360 : and we read that a like charge was imposed for this very purpose during the agrarian commotions in the third consulship of Sp. Cassius 61 . Though this may perhaps not be a tradition, so much as an inference of some annalist, it was suggested by a thorough knowledge of the circumstances of the case. 360 Livy, iv. 36. 61 It is assumed throughout the whole narrative, that at this time the possessors paid no tax ; so, in Dionysius, vin. 74, the people are willing to accpiiesce in the possession of the patricians, rav fi^/ao- vitoOivTa 'idaxri, Kal rag an - ' avrcov ivpovobovs (Is to kqivii deBanuutj- fievas. 166 THE AGRARIAN LAW OF SP. CASSIUS, AND HIS DEATH. One cannot help doubting whether, in all that is said of the agrarian law of Cassius, there is a single point that comes from any other source, than the desire of the later writers to give some account of so import- ant a measure. Since the old chronicles were totally silent about the nine nobles who were condemned to death, they must at all events have been very brief on the fate of Cassius: and what should make them deem it necessary to do more than name his agrarian law ? Its purport can have been nothing but a revival of that which I suppose to be the law of Servius. It must have directed that the portion of the populus in the public lands should be set apart, that the rest should be divided among the plebeians, that the tithe should again be le- vied, and applied to paying the army. Now this is just what Dionysius makes the senate ordain. Only by a law meant in earnest, as will be noticed presently, the carry- ing the measure into effect would have been entrusted to very different hands from those selected in that ordi- nance of the senate. In trying by induction to restore the purport of the law of Cassius, the only other thing we have to add is, that the lands divided between the orders were solely those which the state had acquired since the general assignment by king Servius, and which is still retained. HISTORY OF ROME. 107 But whether the ordinance then made be ascribed to Cassius, or to the senate, it is a most perplexing riddle that the plebs should have condemned its benefactor to death: for nobody ever doubted that the assembly of the people which tried him, was the plebeian one of the tribes 362 . And probably the story that he was pronounce* I guilty and condemned by his own father, was only in- vented to cut this knot. Others, who found a diiliculty in supposing that, after three consulships and as many triumphs, Cassius was still under his father's power, re- stricted the father's judgement to his bearing testimony to his son's guilt ; whereupon the people permitted the questor to execute the sentence against him'' 3 : a state- ment evidently framed with a clear knowledge of the old law of Tullus Hostilius; according to which the judges past the sentence of death, and the people only inter- fered judicially in case the condemned party appealed to them. Impartial judicial rigour may perhaps have been the prominent hereditary feature of the Cassian house, even before the time of L. Cassius: after he had made it proverbial the above-mentioned story sounded credible enough. Others kept simply to the account that Sp. Cassius was condemned on the charge of the questors: and they gave in to a strange misconception of the treaty with the Hernicans, as if only a third of their public lands had been left to them, and as if Cassius had meant to divide the confiscated two thirds between the Romans and the Latins, and besides even to give the Latins a part of the Roman public lands 1 ' 1 . Others, with a Dionysiufl is so entirely under this mistake, thai he says the questors ooDvened to TrXijdos to the eiuckijo-ia, and talks of the o^Xos that thronged to it ; viu. 77. G3 Quaestor euro, oedente populo morte maotavit : Cicero, de re p. II. 35. 64 Livy, II. 41. 1 will remark by the way that in the passage, fastidire munus vuhjatvm a civibus isse in socios, the word wse, 168 HISTORY OF ROME. correcter notion of the treaty with the Hernicans, alledged that he intended to parcel out the whole ager publicus between the Eomans and the two allied states 365 . Such partiality to foreiners would certainly have estranged the affections of the commonalty from him; so much so in- deed, that, to explain why they were not exasperated, and did not rise against him as a traitor, a tale was fabricated, that he had proposed repaying the money taken from the plebeians for the corn sent as a present from Sicily: a fiction which does not need to be refuted, since at this time, at all events, that present had not yet been made. It looks as if this feature had merely been borrowed from the proposition of Tiberius Gracchus with regard to the treasure left to the Romans by Attalus; just as the calling in the Latins and Hernicans to carry the law through by force forms a counterpart to the scenes witnest at Rome, when C. Gracchus and M. Drusus tried to compell the senate to pass their laws by the aid of the Latins and the Italian allies. The people before whom the questors, Caeso Fabius and L. Valerius 66 , impeacht Sp. Cassius, as soon as his year of office expired, was the populus; which Dionysius is never able to discriminate from the plebeian tribes, because the Greeks knew only of a democratical i/cKXrjcria. The Greek terms, analogous to those of the Roman con- stitution, with which Fabius designated the orders, and though it has been rightly rejected, is not to be struck out, but, as appears by the reading of the Florentine manuscript, egisse, to be changed into egenis. 365 Dionysius, viii. 77. 06 Dionysius all along confounds the quaestores classici and parri- cidii : he terms those rafx'iai, whom he ought to have termed eforat, and speaks of the accusers of Cassius as young men, because the questorship which had the care of the public purse, being the first step to honours, was filled by such. With regard to the questors who presided in trials of life and death, the reverse must have been the case : thus T. Quinctius held that office after three consulships : HISTOBY OF BOME. 109 his use of the word Brjfio tj /SodXt) TvpiiTTiiv epeWe ri : further on, ra napa ru> 7iKr)6ei Kal ra trapa tw drjpco Kal tjj j3ov\fi ypacpopfva : the nine tribunes are condemned to the flames by the SiJ/ioy, vn. 17. Exc. de sentent. p. 150. ed. M. For later times in speaking of the elections he applies the word, in like conformity to the Latin expression, to the assembly of the centuries : thus in XXIII. 47 : ol "ipxovres Xoyw pki> imo re tov ttXtjBuvs kcii imo rov Srjpov KciTio-TTjaav (under Caesar) : compare xiin. 51, where the n'Kijdos is opposed to the evnarpidai. Now that Dion owed the advan- tage of this exact language to some earlier writer, is evident from the traces of the same exactness in Diodorus; particularly in xiv. 113, where Sijpos can only mean the curies, not the plebs; and in xn. 25, on the consular elections after the decemvirate : where he himself indeed is no less confused than Dionysius often is, but evi- dently hud a text before him in which to nX^dos and 6 Brjpos were accurately distinguisht : of that I shall speak in its place. That Diodorus however used Fabius may bo presumed ; for there can scarcely have been any other Roman history in Greek, giving so full an account of the times before the war with Pyrrhus, as that of Fabius, however concise even this might be : Diodorus too quotes him by name : vn. fragm. I. 170 HISTORY OP ROME. peer, and were as ready to condemn him as his accusers could desire. Now, it being held certain that Cassius was condemned by the same people to which he had offered money and land with factious views, both our historians have deemed it indisputable that he aspired to royal power. Indeed this was the general belief long before 368 . Yet it is clear that nothing was related of any distinct criminal acts. Dion, with his characteristic independence of judgement, asserted that Cassius was clearly innocent, and was put to death out of malice 09 : though I would not infer from this that he had met with any circumstances decisive in his favour. He knew, as we do, that the curies were at once his enemies and his judges, that they saw their possession of the public lands attackt, and that they lookt to secure their usurpations by the death of the great patriot, and by a change in the law of election. If, according to the rule laid down by L. Cassius for ascertaining a criminal 70 , we ask, who was the gainer by the death of his great ancestor? the answer is, the pa- tricians. Nor would the faction, which had Genucius assassinated, scruple to murder Cassius under the forms of law, if such a crime served its ends. This however is no proof that he was innocent. Cassius may even have aimed at kingly power from pure motives, in order to restore the Servian laws, and to put an end to the iniquities of the patricians: and if the commonalty had trusted him, it would assuredly have been a gainer by 363 This was not only Cicero's judgement (de re p. II. 35, and in several other places), but that of the censors who melted down his statue in the year 590 : Pliny, xxxiv. 14. Yet must not the oppo- site opinion have prevailed previously, when the remembrance of the facts was much fresher and clearer, since the statue was allowed to stand 1 69 Dion, Exc. de sententiis, 19. ed. M. p. 150 : "Ek8i)\ov on frXo- TV7rr)6f\s d\A' ovk dSiKijtray ti dnaiXfTo. 70 Cassianum illud, cui bono 1 1L18TOKY OF ROMK. 171 the change. That he must have been an extraordinary man is proved by his three consulships, by the three triumphs lie earned in them, by the three treaties he concluded, by the compromise he effected with the com- monalty, and probably with the lesser houses. All this may have raised his views, till nothing seemed beyond his reach. The period of the sway, legitimate or usurpt, of the alavfjivrjTaL, — when youthful freedom gained strength under the guardianship of a ruler independent of the laws, and antiquated privileges were fain to reduce their pretensions within moderate limits, — this period had not yet past quite away among the western Greeks, though the constitutions in Greece itself had already left this stage behind them : among the Etruscans, and probably among the Italians generally, elective kings were still usual. It was frenzy in the son of Appius the Blind to dream of grasping the diadem of Italy. But in the four-and- twentieth year after the first consulship the kingly form of government was still generally regarded as the natural and legitimate one, and the new form as the work of a re- volution. The remembrance of a flourishing empire and brilliant victories reposed on the times of the monarchy; and it was hoped the same fortune might return if the ancient constitution were revived. The plebeians, who, amid the general humiliation of the commonwealth, were still more violently and degradingly opprest than before, when they sacrificed on the nones to the memory of their benefactor, addrest silent prayers to the gods, that they would once more send them a king and protector nl * There was no reason to fear the return of the Tarquins: the last king and his sons were in their graves. Fifty years before this the patricians favoured a re- bellion to prevent the consulships being introduced; be- cause it would then have been shared by the plebeians. They now defended that ollice; because they were in 371 Macrobius, Saturn. 1. 13. 172 HISTORY OF ROME. exclusive possession of it. Nay, so far had parties shifted their positions, the lesser houses, that had formerly been the most resolute adherents of the usurper, being now themselves opprest by a faction of the oligarchy, must have coalesced with the commonalty as partisans of Cassius. Sp. Cassius was ignominiously beheaded 372 , and his house razed to the ground. The spot where it had stood, in front of the temple of Earth 73 , remained waste un- der a curse. There was a brazen statue of Ceres in her temple with an inscription recording that it was dedi- cated out of the fortune of Cassius. It is somewhat sur- prising that patrician magistrates should have raised such a monument in a temple subject to the immediate in- spection of the ediles, a plebeian magistracy, and con- taining the coffers and the archives of the commonalty. If there be any truth in the story that another Sp. Cas- sius fell a victim to one of the tribunes of the people, that tribune, though a traitor to his order, may have consecrated his spoils there 74 . It can only have been by a descendant of the great Cassius that the statue of him, which stood till the year 590 on the site of his de- molisht house, was erected : for the questors would never have spared it 75 . The Cassii, among whom in the seventh century we find Lucius, the model of a faultless judge, were without doubt distinctly regarded as descendants of the consul. Hence it is stated that he left three sons, whose lives were spared by the senate, though there wanted not voices that urged the extermination of the 372 Scourging and beheading was the mode of execution more majorum for state offenses : so apocryphal is every particular in Dio- nysius, that he makes Cassius hurled from the Tarpeian rock ; though this belongs only to sentences past by the tribunes, and was a punishment which they inflicted in person. 73 Between the temple of Peace and S. Pietro in Vincola. 74 See the text to notes 909-915. 75 Pliny, xxxiv. 14, says that he erected it himself. HISTORY OF ROME. 173 whole house 376 . That all the Cassii who appear in later time9 should be plebeians is perfectly natural. Perhaps the patricians expelled the whole house, as they had done that of the Tarquins. Or they themselves, at least after the decemvirate, when there was nothing to prevent their going over to the commonalty, abandoned the order that had shed the blood of their father or kinsman. They were avenged by his agrarian law. That such a measure, containing all the provisions absolutely neces- sary, obtained legal validity, is unquestionable. Before the plebeian tribes acquired a voice in the legislature by the passing of the Publilian law, the tribunes had no power to bring forward a law of any kind : so that, when they made use of the agrarian law to excite violent pas- sions 77 , it must have been one that had been enacted, but dishonestly set aside. And this is the shape the commotions occasioned by it take throughout in Diony- sius: only with him it is an ordinance by which the se- nate, on the motion of A. Atratinus, tried to pacify the people. He himself decidedly considers it as nothing but an ordinance of the senate 78 . Yet, though he after- ward forgets what he has said, he has adopted a state- ment which he found in some better informed Roman writer, that it had been laid before the populus 79 , and accordingly had at least past into a law of the curies; which would have been amply sufficient as a binding re- signation of the pretensions it abolisht: and since it was a matter of course that the centuries would joyfully 376 Dionysius, vin. 80. " As they did after 2G0 every year : Livy, n. 42 to 52. 78 So much so, that he makes the consuls have recourse to an evasion, that as such it was only binding for a year: ix. 37. 79 ToOto to 8. ^Y.K^itpuv els rov bi^xov is tin.' phrase he uses mure frequently for bringing an ordinance before the soverain asseruhly of the centuries: but the other expression is not the less authentic. 174 HISTORY OF ROME. accept the justice tendered to them, even the most care- ful writer might deem it superfluous to mention their assent. Now there is no ground whatever for imagining this law to have been a different one from that proposed by Cassius. Their identity however could not be recog- nized by those who entertained delusive notions as to the latter, or supposed it to involve a crime. Only the provision that the consuls of the ensuing year, with the ten oldest consulars of the greater houses, should see the law executed 380 cannot have proceeded from Cassius; inasmuch as the necessary effect was to make it a dead letter, which it became. Yet this very clause is so closely connected with the forms of the ancient constitution, that it can scarcely be attributed to the invention even of a learned annalist. Unless therefore this was a subsequent ordinance, designed by inaction to frustrate the purpose of the law, which it had been found impossible to with- stand, Cassius, if he gave in to it, must have done so because he was tired out by opposition, and was fully convinced that the patricians would otherwise throw out his bill at all risks; so that, having at least procured a recognition of the principle, he resolved to leave the execution of the measure to better times. Indeed he could not even have brought his bill before the centu- ries, until it had received the assent of the senate: yet, if he let this impediment stop him, he can have had no intention of subverting the existing laws. It was by the very men commonly regarded as the champions who de- fended them against his treasonable attempts, that they were overthrown through an unexampled usurpation. 380 Dionysius, VIII. 76. "Avbpas e'k tS>v vnariKaiv deica tovs 7rpfaftvT(iTovs. See above, p. 115. 17.0 THE SEVEN CONSULSHIPS OF THE FABIf. It is a phenomenon to which the Fasti of the republic afford no parallel, except at their very beginning in the honours enjoyed by the Valerii, that for seven consecutive years, from 269 to 275, one of the seats in the consul- ship was always filled by members of the same house. That this cannot have been matter of chance is the more certain, inasmuch as the effect, so long as the lesser houses formed a separate body, must have been that either they, or the greater houses, as an estate, were ex- cluded. One cannot but see that this must have been connected with some revolution, by which the oligarchy designed permanently to secure the superiority they had gained, and from which, though this hope was not ful- filled, they long derived an unjust advantage, but which ended in laying a deeper foundation for the liberties of the plebeians. The sentence against Cassius may perhaps have been carried into effect according to the forms of law by Q. Fabius and Scr. Cornelius, both of them members of the older houses 381 , without any attempt made to save him; although it was an injury at once to the larger half of the ruling estate 8 -, and to the whole of the commonalty. 3,1 That the Fal>ii were of Sabine origin has been stated in Vol. I. pp. 301. 31(1, note M<>: that the t'ornelii were so likewise may be inferred with confidence from the vicus Cornelius on the QuirinaL w Had not the lesser houses outnumbered ail the rest of the 176 HISTORY OF ROME. The force which enabled the government to act thus, arose from their confederates: who perhaps were no less ready to lend their arms for putting down the disaffected, than the cantons in alliance with Bern and Lucerne were to support the burgesses, on the insurrection of the pea- sants in 1653. Nay, the oligarchy might reckon that the colonies in those days still unconnected with the plebs, would serve against it; as the subjects of Basle helpt the oligarchs to maintain their ground against the citi- zens whom they opprest 383 . The aristocracy however were not contented with their victory. They were in- toxicated by it, and gave vent to their hatred in insult- ing and maltreating the commonalty 84 . Hereupon the latter began to wake from its lethargy ; and although the veto of the curies must have kept such men as were notorious for their boldness out of the tribuneship, yet some of those who were elected may have had more firmness than was lookt for; while in others the office may have awakened powers of which they had till then been unconscious. Thus voices were uplifted from among them demanding the execution of the agrarian law. To avert this, the patricians purposely stirred up wars 85 : for, so long as the legions were in the field, the forum was empty; and the oath which bound the Roman to his colours, placed him under the unlimited discretion of his general. Thus the consul Q. Fabius led an army against the Volscians, and gained a victory with it. The booty was delivered up to the paymaster according to the mi- litary oath, and was sold by him: the produce however patricians, they would never have had one of the places in the con- sulship ceded to them, while the other two tribes had the other. 383 In the commotion of 1691 : Meyer von Kuouau, u. p. 88. 84 Dionysius, VIII. 81 : Qpaa-vrepoi re koi vTreponriKaTepoi tcov drjuoTiiccov iyeyovtrrav. 85 Oi Bvvaroi iro\ep.ovs eK iro\(p.afiiov — Ka\ t< twv iiWasv naTpiKiinv AtvKiov AlfxtXiov. — tovtcov 8e pfTLovrayv TT]V apX*)" KCiXvflV fX(V QVK olol Tf T](Tav Ot 8j]p.OTlKo\, KaTClknTOVTeS 8( tiis dpxaipfcrias u/3toy koj AjtvKlOS OiaXt'ptoj. 91 ii. 42 : Invisum erat Fabium nomen — tenuere tamen patres ut cum L. Aemilio Caeso Fabius consul crearetur. And soon after : Ea pars reipublicae (patres) — M. Fabium et L. Valerium consulea dedit, m2 180 HISTORY OF ROME. resolution of the senate. But in fact this, save on ex- tremely rare occasions, was very nearly as much a mere formality then as it was afterward when nobody appeared but the lictors: for the populus always confirmed the ordinance of the senate, which consisted entirely of pa- tricians 302 . Nor indeed was it entitled to do anything, either with regard to elections or to laws, beyond ap- proving or rejecting what the senate proposed 93 . Hence it has often been overlookt : and Livy, where he was not treading the footsteps of some older writer, certainly conceived that the patres who gave their assent were the senate 94 . Hence too Dionysius on another occasion ascribes the election of one of the consuls, which had been withdrawn from the centuries, altogether to the se- nate 95 : whereas in another passage he says, with perfect correctness, that Appius Claudius was raised to the con- sulate by an ordinance of the senate, and by the appoint- ment of the burgesses 96 . The express information that 392 Diodorus, xrv. 113, says the first instance in which the brjjios (see note 367) refused to confirm a proposition of the senate, was when the latter voted that the Fabii should be given up. This beyond all doubt is saying far too much : it is sufficiently evident however that such a rejection was extremely rare. 93 Dionysius, vn. 38. Since the building of the city ovhev Tiamore 6 drjfj.os o ti fir/ npofiovXevcreiev f) fiovKrj ovr iireKpivtv ovt «re\|/^- i>. So too in IX. 41 : ras cpparpiaKas yf/Tjcpr/cpopias e'Sei npo^ovXeva-apevrji rijs ftovXrjS, Ka\ rov Srjpov Kara rpparpias tovs y^rjCpovs eneveyKavros, — Kvpias eivai. 94 This is perfectly manifest in his account of Numa's election : i. 17. 95 IX. 1: 'AnobclicvvTai Kaicrav p.(i> ^?a^ios — inro rrjs (3ov\ijs — 27ropio? Se <$>ovpios viro tu>v BrjporiKcov. 96 IX. 42 : " Attttiov KXavdiov — 7rpoefiov\(vs (read 6s) ovk ert rrjv Xo^irtv fKKKr/aiap, dXXa t)v Kovpiunv enoLei tu>v y\ri]v Kvp'iav. 99 Dionysius, VIII. 90: SvyjeaXecras ti)v \o\lrtv tKicKijaiai', kui Tas y^rjepovs Kuril ra ripr^para ciraSovf. 09 VIII. 83. 87. 182 HISTORY OF ROME. possession of the consular elections prior to 273 400 : for the powerful, — as lie calls those from whom the appoint- ment to one of the offices was then withdrawn, — is with him a usual name for the patricians, as the eupatrids is in other places 1 . This passage has been preserved word for word, rather through the clumsiness than the faith- fulness of the writer who abridged his work. But he omitted the context: hence it is not Dion's fault, if his words should lead us to suppose that the elections had been in the hands of the patricians much longer, per- haps ever since the death of Brutus. That the change however was introduced in the year 269, is clear from the account in Dionysius of the elections from that year down to 272. Nay, we also meet with an external argu- ment in him, which, though he was far from understand- ing its purport, shews that the elections in that year were noted as a great innovation in the constitution. In speaking of the consulship of Caeso Fabius and L. Aemilius, he remarks that they entered upon their office in the year of the city 270, and in the archonship of 400 Zonaras, VII. 17: Xpopw 8e 7rore — ovk eiW Kal ap(pa> tovs vnarovs rj o-rpaTrjyovs inrb tcov 8vva.Ta>v dTrobeiKwcrdai, dXX' tjdekov Kal avrot tov erepov eK tu>v .evnarpiSaiv aipeladat. a>s 8e tovto tcarep- yacravTo Trpoe'Ckovro ^.rrovpiov Qovpiov. He says irpotiXovTo on ac- count of the reprehensio comitiorum: the curies appointed absolutely, — aTTthfiKwcrav. 1 Zonaras, Vll. 9 : , Ax0opevcoi> eiri tovtols tu>v bvvaratv (against Servius) — cos 8e )(aKe7rcos (ixov ol evTrarpibai avra>. Speaking of the dictatorship, vn. 13. p dwarcoTepaov. When the plebeians lay claim to the consulship, VII. 19, ol iVTvaT pi8ai "kiav tt/s — ( ipx*l s 7ftpiei)(ovTO — tov epyov tt)s fjyepovlas ol 8waro\ Trapex<*>prio-av. It i s after some writer in whom this expression prevailed that Plutarch, Publicol. c. I. speaks of the 8vvaroi, and Dionysius, x. 36, of those who were xPW a(TL Kat cplXois 8waToi : in both passages the word refers to the patrician estate. HISTORY OF ROME. 183 Nicodemus* 02 . Now he only mentions the years of Rome in two other places, at the institution of the consulship, and at the close of the third century; and the Athenian archons merely at the beginning of every Olympiad, ex- cept once on a similar change, the appointment of the first consular military tribunes 3 . Just as rare is the notice of the years of the city for historical epochs in Livy, occurring only at the abolition of the monarchy, and at the end of the second Punic war. There are se- veral instances however of his mentioning them where alterations take place in the forms of the consular power, as on the institution of the decemvirate, and of the con- sular tribunate, on the first violation of the Licinian law, and on the transfer of the beginning of the consular year to that of the civic 4 : our not finding the same date in him for the consulship of L. Sextius is probably owing to the imperfection of a manuscript 5 . So Tacitus tells us the year in which the questors who tried charges of bloodshedding were first appointed by the centuries: as 402 vill. 83: Ilapakanfidvovcri. ttjv liraTtiav Kara to i^hopqKoaTov Kcit SiaKotriooroj/ tros dn6 tov crvvoiKio-fiov rrji I'dofxr/i AevKios AlfiiXios Ma/j/pKov vius, koi Kaicrwv «/3ior Kauretvos vlos, "ipx 0VT0S Adijvrjai 'SiKodrjfj.ov. 3 XI. 62 : Kara tov Tpirov eviavTov ttjs n8 oXvpnuidos, t'tp^uvTos , A0rfVj)O'i Ai(pi\ov. 1 in. 33. iv. 7. vil. 18. Epitome, xlvii. 1 The seventh book begins in a very singular manner with Annua hie erit insigais etc. Now as a space was very often left in manu- scripts for the first words in a book, that an expert penman might insert them with coloured ink, and this was sometimes forgotten afterward, I conjecture that in this place the words Trecentwimu* octogesimua nonus ab itrbe condita are wanting before o mtcs, ami that /tic was inserted to disguise the mutilation. Owing to the same cause we miss the first words of the second book of Cicero's Republic, of the sixth book of Grelhus, and, in the Vatican manu- scripts, of the speech for Sextus Itoscius. In the first decad of Livy, we depend on the correctness of a single original copy, the text of which was settled by a very negligent revision. 184 HISTORY OF ROME. does Gaius every year in which the constitution under- went any change mentioned by him 4u6 : both do this ac- cording to the consular era, and so were following the same history of the constitution : and some annalist, whom Dionysius and Livy had before them, must have taken such dates from that history, and, accommodating them to the far more comprehensive and usual era from the foundation of the city, have set them down on all like occasions. Unquestionably too the transfer of the elec- tive power into the hands of the curies was so great an alteration, that a historian of the consulship could not have omitted to record its epoch, even if the effects of it had not lasted above two or three years: as he registered the usurpation at the beginning of the fifth century in the same manner, although it only kept its ground for a very short time. But in the present instance the houses re- tained the advantage of bestowing one of the posts for full thirty years, till the ancient pretorship 7 expired in the decemvirate. This event was also doubly remark- able, since the privilege conceded to the Fabian house conferred a power on these Roman Heraclids 8 , such as in the Greek oligarchies was called a dynasty 9 : though they did not possess it exclusively, like the Medontids and Bacchiads. We assuredly are not mistaken in conceiving that the cause which averted the total subjugation of the com- monalty in the year 269, was that a strong party of the oligarchy, finding themselves excluded from the consul- ship, united with it; whereupon the ruling faction must have deemed it hazardous to follow up their victory too violently. Often in aftertimes must the members of the 106 Ann. xi. 22 : see Vol. I. p. 525. Gaius, in Lydus de rnagist. I. frequently. 7 See Vol. i. p. 520. " Fest. Epit. Fovii. Ovid Fast. n. 237. 9 Aristotle, Polit. iv. 5, v. 3. niSTORY OF ROME. 185 lesser houses have rcproacht themselves, if this union was the occasion of their letting slip the irretrievable moment for getting rid of the tribunate. It may however have been spared, because its importance even at that time was not yet understood; as under the Tudors seve- ral market-towns prayed to be relieved from the burthen of sending members to the lower house. The veto of the curies kept out every one who was known to be vehement and proud: but an unostentatious brave man might be let in by them through inadvertence: or the enormity of the wrongs committed may have wrought a change in a mild character disposed to pay obedience to any endurable government. It is probable that the name of the person who first discovered the strength of his office has actually been handed down ; and that a C. Maenius first carried it beyond the bounds of merely warding off particular acts of oppression 410 : as another Maenius in the same office two centuries after cstablisht the liberty of elections. C. Maenius demanded in 271 that the agrarian law should be executed; and opposed the levies for a war, which undoubtedly had been kindled by the ruling party n . He was perfectly justified, because the consuls were ille- gitimate: and even if they had been elected in due form, yet the war not being a defensive one, the centuries were as much entitled to a voice in decreeing it, as in passing every other law which, according to the forms of the original constitution, emanated from the senate and curies 12 . But the protecting power of the tribunes 110 There can be no doubt that Geleniua was right in conjecturing MaiVios for Manor in Dionysius, vm. 87. 11 See note 385. >'-' On the right of the curies to decide concerning peace and war, see Dionysius, n. 14, iv. -20, vi. (56 : and this right must of necessity have been imparted to the centuries by the Servian constitution, as well as that of electing the supreme magistrates and of enacting laws ; more especially as the army was formed by them. 186 HISTORY OF ROME. extended only a mile without the gates : beyond the tem- ple of Mars the imperium was unlimited, and the tribune was no safer than the meanest plebeian 413 . Here the consuls erected their tribunal, and ordered all such as were bound to serve to be summoned. They who did not appear had their property seized, their farms plun- dered or burnt. The legions were raised; but the ty- rants could only compell the body: the determination of the troops not to gain any honour or booty for them appears here for the first time 14 . Derided by his soldiers, L. Valerius, one of the judges who condemned Cassius, returned home without victory. The hatred of the ple- beians was redoubled by the wounds they had sustained, and by the death of their friends and comrades who had been dragged into the field. Everything points out that the greater houses now clearly perceived the consequences of the division of their order, and that a union was con- cluded, which was never again disturbed: nay, from this time forward the lesser houses shew the bitterest hostility to the plebeians. The senate bestowed the open seat, by the side of one of the Fabii, on Appius Claudius, who must already have shewn signs that he thirsted after that blood, in which he rioted twelve years after: for the tribunes and commonalty rose to a man against his appointment 15 . The former, enforcing their general right, of barring all acts injurious to their order 16 , against 413 Livy, in. 20: Neque enim provocationem esse longius ab urbe niille passuum, et tribuuos, si eo adveneriut, in alia turba Qui- ritiuui subjectos fore consulari imperio. Dionysius, vni. 87. 14 Dionysius, vni. 89. 15 Dionysius, vni. 90 : Mergei tj)v apxh v Ke'Xevodels. See notes 389, 390. The annals which he had before hiru must have spoken clearly enough of the arrangement with the lesser houses: « twv vea>Tepa>v ifioifkovro roiis — rjiaTes vndrovs tovs peTiuvTas ttjv up\r)v (the persons nominated by the senate), ol ftrjpapxoi, tov KooXvav 6'ire? Kvpioi, 8ie\vov ra dpxatpto'ia. Snore 8' av TraXiv ettflvoi KaXo7tu &>$■ dp^aipt- o-unTovTa tov 8rjfxov, ovk (TreTpcrrov ol vrraroi. He found the words nXfjdot and 8fjpos used for the plebs and populus (see note 367), and applied the former to the curies, as in n. 60 : compare note 362. I also suspect, and have so stated it, that the consuls stopt the meet- ings of the tribes altogether. If they interrupted any elections, it must have been those of tribunes and ediles. 18 Dionysius, vnr. 90. The mention of Sp. Larcius also as in- terrex is a part of that confusion by which he, as well as A. Atrati- nus, was regarded as the first elective custot »rhis. Through a re- trospective operation of the same circumstance, the fabulous amplifi- cations of the stories of the first two dictators represented Sp. Larcius as appointed lieutenant by his brother Titus, and A. Atratinus by A. Postumius : see above, p. 123. 19 Lvdus, 1.38. Hence the statement in Dionysius that it was disputed whether a dictator or interrex should be appointed. 188 HISTORY OF ROME. persons proposed by the senate 420 . This alone can explain the importance attacht by the oligarchal party, so late as in the fifth century, to placing the elections under the superintendence of this magistracy, which continued to be the exclusive property of the patricians. A dic- tator might use force, but had no pretext for restricting the votes in the same way. However the centuries now were at least assembled in the first instance ; and C. Julius, a member of the lesser houses 21 , was proclaimed as elected by them : perhaps his collegue Quintus Fabius was so likewise. A formal arrangement, by which they regained the choice of one of the consuls, and were forced to give up the other to the curies, manifestly preceded the election of Sp. Furius for the following year, 273, when Caeso Fabius was appointed a second time by the senate and burgesses 22 . For such now continued to be the practice down to the decern virate 23 . The nominee of the patricians was deemed the superior in rank, to whom the other was attacht as his collegue: thus we find M. Fabius in 274 distinguish above his brother magistrate; and in like manner Appius Claudius in 283 24 . 420 See Vol. I. p. 341. 21 The Julii were among the houses on the Caelian: see Vol. i. note 765, and their Alban origin is demonstrated by the extremely ancient inscription discovered a few years ago in the theatre at Bovillae, where they make their offering leege Albana. Dionysius, vin. 90, fancied he had found out that they were distinguish!; on account of their party-spirit : Taiov 'lovXiov e* tcov eKciaTrji pepiBos vnaTov aipedrjvai. 23 It is at least exceedingly probable that the case was the same in the year 316 : see below, note 917. 24 Livy, II. 43 : (Patres) M. Fabium consulem creant : Fabio col- lega Cn. Manlius datur.— 56 : Patres— Appium Claudium— consulem HISTORY OF ROME. 189 But in other years also the appointment of one consul by the patricians is distinctly mentioned 425 . Of course there must have been a show of mutual concession. The patrician consul was to be confirmed by the centu- ries; as it was indispensable that the one chosen by the centuries should be by the curies. We may be equally certain that no regard was paid to the centuries, if they refused such a recognition: in such a case it was voted for the sake of form by the clients 26 . These were so numerous in the classes, that Livy fancies they were even able to decide the elections of the tribunes in conformity to the wishes of their faciunt : collega ei T. Quinctius datur. Dionysius, quoted in note 396, speaks of Appius alone as proposed by the senate : and the annalist who supplied Livy with materials for making the tribune Laetorius say, n. 56, a patribus non consulem sed carnificem ad vex- andam et lacerandam plebem creatum esse, unquestionably did not regard his election as the act of the people. At this time the nomi- nee of the curies, as at first the consul from the Rarnnes, and sub- sequently the one out of the first two tribes, was the consul major ; agreeably to both the explanations given by L. Caesar in Festus un- der Majorem consulem : he was the first appointed, and received the fasces first. 425 In the story, which Dionysius, x. 17, has utterly misrepre- sented, of the illegal appointment of Cincinnatus in the room of P. Valerius (see notes 389 and 676), the previous choice of the senate is no less clearly discernible in the secret consultations of the leaders of the senate, than the election by the curies in the pretended de- cision by the knights and the first class. The same thing is also evi- dent in Livy, in. 19: Summo patrum studio — consul creatur. — Per- culsa erat plebes, consulem habitura iratum : whereupon at the end of the year patres — et ipsi L. Quinctium consulem reficiebant : m. 21. In the year 286 plebs interesse comitiis consularibus noli' it : per patres el icntesque patrum consulcs facti : II. 64. ■ 6 The refusal of the plebeians to confirm the consul chosen by the curies is represented by Dionysius as if they had quitted the field of Mars in dismay : ix. 43, x. 17. The same thing happens in the year 269 : vin. 82. Compare Livy, n. 64, quoted at the end of the foregoing note. 190 HISTOKY OF ROME. patrons 427 . The appointment of Volero Publilius however, who for this very reason wisht to transfer the election of the tribunes to the tribes, proves that the commonalty was already able to bring in men who must unquestion- ably have had the votes of the clients against them. The truth seems to be, that the clients on their part were always able to place one or more dependents of the pa- tricians in the college. It is quite incomprehensible how- ever how Volero could attain to the office, I will not say a second time, after having moved a law dangerous to the ruling party, but even before, when the patricians had personal vengeance to expect from him, if the con- firmation by the curies had still been requisite. So that they must have given up this power previously : and this probably took place by way of compensation at the com- promise mentioned above. Henceforward, until the passing of the Publilian law, the college of tribunes embraces the most decided lead- ers of the opposition, along with profest adherents of the government; the latter often preponderating in num- ber: for, as will be shewn lower down, till the middle of the fourth century questions were not decided by a single veto, but by the majority in the college. Thus it outvoted Sp. Licinius, who in the same year, 273, wisht to prevent legions from being raised, unless the agrarian law were carried into effect. The troops under Sp. Fu- rius fought cheerfully against the Aequians for the honour of the man whom their comitia had chosen: and he re- warded them for the victory they gained by sharing the booty among them. But those whom Caeso Fabius led against the Veientines 28 , did not look upon him as a 427 ii. 56 : (Lex Publilia) quae patriciis omnem potestatem per clientium suffragia creandi quos vellent tribunos auferret. 28 Thus Zonaras, vn. 17, and Dionysius, ix. 2: so also the ma- nuscripts in Livy, n. 43 ; not the author, whose meaning unquestion- ably requires the change introduced by Sigonius, ducendus Fabio in Aequos : in Veientes etc. But that the former is the correct view is HISTORY OF ROME. 191 legitimate consul: assuredly the judge who condemned Cassius had not gained the votes of the centuries to con- firm his election. In order that he might not obtain a triumph, the infantry threw away the victory when already certain : nay, they abandoned their camp to the astonisht foe, and retreated to Kome. Hereupon the Fabii could not disguise from themselves that it was a melancholy honour to have the command over men so incenst that they chose rather to perish than to conquer. The senate and curies might again raise M. Fabius to the consul- ship for the next year, 274: but the imperium was power- less against such obstinacy. They resolved therefore to make friends with the commonalty 129 : to which the change in their relation to their order might be an additional motive; since the houses cannot possibly have been will- ing to bind themselves any longer to bestow the seat re- served for their appointment on a Fabius exclusively. It seems as if the recognition of the consul elected by the curies had again been refused this year. Yet, though one of the tribunes had opposed the levies, the impend- ing danger awakened the national spirit, and moved the soldiers to swear obedience to him as well as his col- lcgue, and to pledge themselves for the victory if he would trust them. Quintus Fabius fell among the troops, who sealed their good faith with their death: his blood, the heroism of his whole house, who in the hardfought battle set an example to the army, completed the recon- ciliation. Marcus Fabius distributed the wounded among the dwellings of the patricians: his own house took in the most. Two months before his year ended he resigned 30 . proved decisively by the superiority of the Veient ines after the cam- paign, while the Aequians were so far from this that Rome was able to turn all her forces against the others. '-'•' Neque immemor ejus quod initio consulatus imbiberat, recon- ciliandi aninios plebis: Livy, II. 47. 30 Dionysius, ix. 13. The fact is no doubt true: the clumsy explanation belongs to him. 192 HISTORY OF ROME. Without doubt the senate, as after the death of P. Va- lerius in 294, wanted to bring in a consul illegally ap- pointed in the room of Manlius, the one chosen by the centuries, who had fallen; and M. Fabius refused to act in concert with them. So totally had everything veered round within five years, that the patricians withdrew their votes from the Fabii, and the centuries of their free choice raised Caeso a third time to the consulship 431 . As a number of members of Charles the Second's long Parlia- ment were animated at its close by passions and feelings much nearer to those which they had condemned than to those which they had entertained at the beginning of it, so was it with the Fabii. Caeso, who had pronounced sentence of death against Cassius because his agrarian law was an encroachment upon the aristocracy, now, as soon as he entered upon his office, recommended that it should be carried into execution without waiting for an- other summons from the tribunes. Nobody listened to him. He and his house were reviled as traitors and apostates, a thousand times worthier of punishment than Licinius and Pontificius. This hieditened the zeal of the commonalty to shew them confidence and favour. The men of the military age gathered joyfully under Caeso's 431 That such was Dion's account may be satisfactorily ascer- tained in spite of a gross blunder in Zonaras, where, in Wolf's edi- tion, and, as I learn from Hase's kindness, in three of the Parisian manuscripts, the sentence runs : 6 Sp.tXos crTparrjyov to rpirov tov MaXXioj/ elXtTo : even Zonaras cannot have meant to speak of Man- lius, whose death is related above ; but his pen might easily slip. The mistake is so palpable that a copier might naturally try to get rid of it : hence the erroneous change in one manuscript, o-TpaTrjyop trepov etXero, which has unfortunately been adopted in the Louvre edition. The words to toltou shew that none but Caeso can have been meant, not any other person, such as T. Virginius. Dionysius had a mention of the ir\r)6os before him, which he could not under- stand: hence he says, IX. 14 : Tov fxeaofSaaiXtcos avyKa\taavTos els to nediov tovs b'x.'X.ovs. Livy believes in the reconciliation with the plebs, but not in the quarrel with the patricians : jS t o>i patnnn magis quarn plebis studiis Caeso Fabius — consul creatur. HISTORY OF ROME. L93 banners, niarcht with him even beyond the borders of the Acquians, and then speedily returning saved the army of the other consul, which was surrounded by the Vei- entines. After this glorious campaign Caeso renewed his conciliatory propositions. When every hope of ob- taining a hearing for them had vanisht, his house took a resolution, such as among the Greeks had led to the founding of some very flourishing towns, to depart with their dependents and adherents from a place where they could no longer live in peace, and to found a separate settlement, which might at least be of use to the people they were so intimately allied to by blood and birth. In the definition quoted above, a distinction is drawn be- tween such settlements formed by seceders, and the colo- nies founded according to the will and decree of the sovcrain state 132 ; which shows that the former were not unheard of in Italy. The secession of the plebs would have given birth to an independent town, if the wound had not been healed in time. For that the Fabii were not merely an advanced guard, occupying a fort in the enemy's country for the sake of ravaging the territory of the Veientines, of interrupting their husbandry, of affording a near and safe asylum to their slaves, and of inflicting manifold calamities such as a fortress of this kind, if held all the year through, like Decelea, must bring on a city, even when its walls are impregnable 33 ; — that they formed a settlement on the Cremera with their wives and children; — is unequivo- cally implied by Gellius, where he says, and assuredly not without the express authority of ancient books, that the three hundred and six Fabii pcrisht along with their families on the Cremera 31 . Even if we had not this state- ment, a candid reasoner would draw the same inference * 3 - See note so, p. 44. J3 An en-trei^Kr^dy. 34 xvii. 21: Sex et trecenti patricii Fabii cumfamiUw suis — circumvent] perierunt. VOL. II. x 194 HISTORY OF ROME. from the unanimous tradition, that but one individual, who had staid at Rome, survived the destruction of the house. For Dionysius has proved with needless minute- ness that it is impossible there should have been but one boy living in a body of families that sent forth three hundred and six soldiers; though Perizonius on the other hand is indisputably right in rejecting his explanation, that this tradition referred only to the families of the three consular Fabii 435 . Nor do I by any means believe that the progenitor of the Maximi was left at Rome on account of his youth. This can only have been a con- jecture which arose as the tradition gained ground: nor was it a happy one, since he was consul but ten years after. He must have filled this post as the nominee of the curies; for his collegue speaks in behalf of the claims of the plebeians 36 . As warden too he appears as the op- ponent of the tribunes when they bring forward a most salutary proposition. Hence it seems we may safely in- fer that he was a man in the prime of life, and of a resolute character, who persisted in the previous senti- ments of his house, and separated from them when they emigrated. It is possible however that at that time he may not have been living at Rome, but at Maluentum 37 . But though all the rest of the Fabii perisht, along with their whole families, the number three hundred and six, like the numbers in the census and all similar ones, beyond a doubt only embraced the serviceable men, not the boys or the aged, still less the females. Livy's assertion, that there was not one among them whom the senate in its best days would not readily have acknow- ledged as its chief, is a rhetorical exaggeration, the value of which everybody can perceive. So will it readily be allowed, that the clause stating they were all patricians is of no greater moment: this has been shewn already 435 Animadvers. 5. p. m. 194. Dionysius, ix. 22. 3B Livy, in. 1. 3' Festus, Numerius. HISTORY (>F SOME. \\)~> by Perizonius. But beyond a question they must all be deemed to have been Fabii properly so called, as the tradition most positively terms them, and to have belonged to the house, even if only a small part of them formed it. There may have been many among them born of marriages of disparagement, and still more freed men, who in old times were undoubtedly reckoned among the mem- bers of a gens 438 . Perizonius supposes that the Fabii in this place were as improperly called so as those in the story of Remus, and that the number mentioned included the clients, who left Rome alone; with them 89 . But though the numbers of four thousand, nay, of five thousand' 10 , at which these are estimated, may be greatly exaggerated, — unless these numbers may include the women and chil- dren, — still it is impossible that a band of three hundred men should have kept their ground as they did in the Etruscan territory, and become an object of alarm to the Veicntines. The largest part of this train were probably plebeians, who were not unwilling to defend the estates they might acquire on the borders. At the beginning of spring on the ides of February, Caeso, who was still consul, led them out of the city to their settlement. This day, as well as that on which they pcrisht, continued for ever accursed 41 . Without doubt they had previously assembled and sacrificed on the Quiri- nal, where their gens was wont to celebrate its religious ,; - To the reasons already brought forward in support of this opinion (see Vol. I. pp. 321. 324) may be added that the freedwoman Fecennia had the enuptio gentis granted to her: law. w\tx. L9. 3U Animadvers. p. 200. 10 Dionysius, ix. 15. Festus, Scelerata Porta 11 Ovid (Fast. ii. 195) must have mistaken the day of their de- parture for that of their destruction ; since the latter is universally and most, positively said by other writers to have been the same which afterward acquired a still more disastrous celebrity from the taking of Rome, and which is tikewise held to have been that of the battle on the Allia. The day on which the race of heroes left Rome was also not to be forgotten. N 2 196 HISTORY OP ROME. worship 442 , and where perhaps they all still dwelt 43 . From thence they marcht through the Carmental gate, which lay next to that hill, and at its foot 44 , along the road from which they were ne-ver to return. All the Roman gates had two arches, one for persons going out of the city, the other for such as were coming in: each kept to his right hand. Five hundred years past away, and no Roman, whose mind was swayed by the faith of his ancestors, went out of the city by this gate 45 . The story of the exploits which they achieved, sally- ing forth from their fortress on the Cremera, and of their destruction, belongs to the history of the changeful war against Veii. 442 Livy, v.46. See Vol. I. p. 316. 43 As may be inferred with regard to the Cornelii from the Vicus Cornelius, which retained its name even down to the sixteenth century. 44 Its site was on a line drawn from the corner below Ara Celi to the foot of the Quirinal, not far from Macel de' Corvi, and is now covered by rubbish to a great highth. At the laying out of Trajan's Forum the walls between this gate and the Quirinal, if not the gate itself, must have been thrown down, and so a way was opened which no superstition forbad. As the Fabii marcht out at this gate on their way to Etruria, it is clear that there were no projecting walls then going down to the Tiber ; else they would have had to enter through another to get to the bridge. 45 However near a person lived to it, he went round to another. This is the meaning of Ovid's couplet : Fast. n. 201 : Carmentis portae dextro via proxima Jano est : Ire per hanc noli, quisquis es : omen habet. Into the town, through the other arch, everybody came without scruple ; as we see by the procession in the second Punic war : Livy, xxvn, 37. 19; THE VEIENTINE WAR. This is the war which Dion charges the patricians with having excited for the sake of employing the com- monalty. The Fabii, at that time the heads of the oli- garchy, must accordingly have been the authors of this piece of statecraft: this guilt they expiated fearfully, and, as not seldom happens, after having done everything to atone for it. During the first two years, 271 and 272, the hostilities seem to have been of little importance. I have already mentioned the unfortunate turn they took in 273, owing to the internal dissensions of the Romans. The infantry under Caeso Fabius agreed together that their general, whom they did not acknowledge as consul, should gain no triumph in a war which he and his house had stirred up, and which the centuries had not decreed. The ca- valry, part of them as patricians, part carried along by the spirit which characterizes such troops, had broken the Etruscan line. But the cohorts refused to follow: in spite of the consul's vehement exhortations that they would at least maintain their ground, in spite of his entreaties, of his threats, they gave way, abandoned their camp to the enemy s and soon iled in disgraceful con- fusion to Rome. This calamitous day had all the con- sequences of a defeat. The Etruscans, who were just at the summit of their power, expected that they should completely subdue Rome, torn as it was by discord : many 198 HISTORY OF ROME. magnates came with their serfs 446 as volunteers: and in a land where forein allies were allowed to raise mercenaries, a native city might collect as many as she could pay. Against this threatening force the next consuls, in 274, called forth all the resources of the republic and of her allies. The success which Sp. Furius had gained the year before through the goodwill of his troops, seems to have led to a truce with the Aequians, without which the Latins and Hernicans could not have sent any aid. The account of this campaign looks very much as if it had been taken from the domestic memoirs of the Fabian house: nay, the statement that Marcus Fabius delivered the funeral oration over Quintus and over his collegue 47 , hardly leaves room to doubt that the annalists knew of a panegyrical speech ascribed to him. That this however had at all events undergone considerable changes, is clear from the numbers of the Koman army, and from the mention of the pilum as used in the battle. Yet these gigantic numbers are of the same nature as similar ones in the legends of the kings 48 ; while in the story there are other features, every trace of which was obli- terated in the state of things soon after the Licinian law, and which were antiquated even at the time of it 49 ; 446 2vveXrj\vdeaav et; andcrrjs Tvpprjvlas ol dwarwraroi tovs eav- tuiv ireve'aras twayofxevoi. Dionysius, IX. 5. 47 Funera — collegae fratrisque ducit, idem in utroque laudator : Livy, ii. 47. 48 See above, note 75. In the war of Tarquinius against Suessa Pometia the army is estimated, just as here, at 72000 men : Vol. i. note 1136. 49 The calling out the reserve and the city militia ; — the pro- consul (avTia-Tpdrriyos : Dionysius, ix. 12) T. Siccius (Sicinius) was assuredly mentioned as the commander of the former ; — the distinc- tion between the contingent sent by the colonies and subject towns, and that from the allies. On the other hand the calculation of the amount of the army in ix. 13, where these contingents are regarded as united and equal to the Eoman troops, and each legion is esti- mated at 5000 men, is of a late date. HISTORY OF BOMB. 199 so that history may adopt this account as being sub- stantially a very ancient monument, without however pledging itself for the truth even of such parts as do not present the slightest shade of improbability. It is related that the two consular armies had occu- pied separate camps. This probably contains a histori- cal reference to the fact, that the cohorts under M. Fabius did not recognize him as their legitimate leader in the same manner as those commanded by his col- lefme. But when a Hash of lightning had fallen on the pretorium of Cn. Manlius, had shattered the altar to pieces, and had slain his warhorse, and it was neces- sary to quit a place devoted to destruction, the camps were united. The Etruscan seers declared that the Ro- man general had hereby involved both armies in the doom which he had tried to escape. Their countless host surrounded the Romans, whose generals made no attempt to hinder them, waiting till the troops under Fabius should from their hearts confirm the compulsory oath they had taken to a person not invested with a rightful imperium. After a while this took place. When the soldiers saw themselves cut off from Rome, and heard their foes scoffing at their cowardly inaction, they im- petuously demanded to be led forth, and swore not to leave the field except as conquerors. On this day the Fabii were an example to the whole army. Quintus fell: but the wing headed by Marcus was victorious, and checkt the flight of the other, which had given way on its com- mander's receiving a wound. Meanwhile the camp had been stormed by a part of the Etruscan army. The tri- arians* 50 , who guarded it, were driven back on all sides There cannol Indeed have been any triariana In the line of battle a1 'hat time, when tin' array of the legion Mill resembled that of the phalanx : hut they may have existed ever since the institution of the Servian centuries, and have been employed in guarding the camp, and may even have borne th.' same came, as being com- posed often centuries from each of the first three olasses: see VoLl. 200 HISTORY OF ROME. to the pretorium, and would have been overpowered, un- less Manlius, who had returned into the field, after hav- ing his wound bound up, had brought them reinforce- ments. He laid a plan for the utter destruction of the intruders. While they were taken up with plundering, he posted troops at all the gates of the camp: they strove to force their way out: Manlius fell: his col- legue, whom the retreat of the enemy allowed to bring up his wing, opened a gate, through which they threw themselves into the plain. It was a victory indeed: but Marcus Fabius could not have returned in triumph, even if he had not brought home the bodies of Quintus and of his collegue. The only advantage gained was, that Caeso could be sent in 275 against the Aequians. But the single army which took the field against the Veientines was too weak. After losing a battle it was surrounded, and would have been compelled to lay down its arms, unless Caeso had come by forced marches to its relief. Soon after, when the troops were disbanded, the Etruscans unexpectedly made their appearance, and ravaged the country as far as the fort on the Janiculus. The consular year at that time coincided almost ex- actly with that of the Olympiads : and so we may under- stand how the Fabii set out to build their fortress on the Cremera under the same consulship, though it was the middle of February. They continued to be Eomans in heart: by their emigration they avoided an open rup- ture with their fellowcitizens: and they carried on a cease- less war for the good of Kome, and scoured the whole territory of Veii to its remotest corners. The Veientines p. 479. Their purpose being to defend walls and palisades, javelins would be appropriate weapons for them, along with their spears and swords: and their javelin may already have been the pilum, or but little inferior to it in excellence. Hence the name of pilani. When a guard was not needed for the camp, they would stand by their comrades in the phalanx. HISTORY OF KOMI.. 201 again raised succours from the Etruscan states, and be- sieged the fortress, but were defeated by the Consul, L. Aemilius. Hereupon a peace was concluded, or rather a truce for a cyclic year: for before the consuls for the following year, 277, went out of office' 1 " 1 , on the eighteenth of Quinctilis, the Fabii fell; and at the same time the consul T. Mencnius was in the field. While the day on which the Fabii perisht is a matter of unquestionable tradition, the manner of their destruc- tion is wholly uncertain. History tried to lighten the grief excited by a woful calamity, and perhaps to throw a veil over atrocious guilt, by adopting the splendid fic- tions of poetry. Of these we know two, the first of which Dionysius treats with contempt 52 . In order to offer up a sacrifice in the chapel of their house, as a sacred usage enjoined, the three hundred and six Fabii set off for Rome. They went to perform the pious cere- mony as in time of peace, without arms or warlike array. The Etruscans, knowing their road, had stationed a mighty host assembled out of their whole aiation on the right and left of it, placing troops in ambush to cut off their retreat. When the unsuspecting heroes reacht the spot, these rusht forth. Thus they found themselves encom- past on all sides, and fell slaughtered by innumerable darts ; not by the sword or spear : for, though they were unarmed, none dared to come near them. In this story a sacred truce is presupposed, such as took place during the Greek national festivals: the Fabii trust in the universal reverence for it; and it was an outrage in the Veientines, after being apprised of it, to impede or attack the pious procession. So that the objections of 481 Cum haec accepta claries esset. jnm ( '. Horatiua et T. Mene- niua eonsules erant, says Livy, u. 51 ; as if it had taken place at the beerinnine of their consulship. But as the new consuls entered on their office at the beginning of Sertilis, it is clear that the misfortune happened in the last month of their magistracy. >- ix. 19. 202 HISTORY OF ROME. Dionysius are groundless: nor ought he to have askt how the fortress, with its four thousand defenders, came to disappear without any mention of it. He should have remembered that only the heroes, not the bands of Achae- ans, are spoken of in the battles of the Iliad : nay, even at Thermopylae none are so but the Spartans. If the poet did not totally forget the train that staid behind, he lookt upon it as left destitute, and unable to hold out after the fall of its chiefs. I think, if Ovid had known this story, he would have chosen it for its beauty instead of the other 453 , which had enough of a historical air to satisfy both our histori- ans, though in it too the fortress is overlookt. The single house of the Fabii, as Livy tells it 54 , had gained repeated victories in the open field over the most powerful town in Etruria: they were grown secure and careless. Hence they let themselves be lured to follow some herds of cat- tle, driven under a weak escort to a mountain pasture, where many thousand men lay concealed among the woody hights around. The soldiers feigned to fly: the oxen set off running in a fright when chased by the knights ; who were thus scattered about over a large space along the skirts of the forest, when warcries and a shower of jave- lins burst from all sides upon them. Many of them fell : the rest gathered in a body. Now however the enemy started up and rusht down from the hights: the closer they drew in their circle, the deeper were the lines of the assailants. Wherever the Romans advanced sword in hand, they gave way : for who durst encounter them in open combat? Darts and stones, slung at them from afar, laid the heroes prostrate, and covered them, as Cae- neus was buried under pieces of rock 55 . 453 Fast. ii. 195-242. «* n. 50. 55 In the historians they break through the enemy, get to a hill, and do not fall till they reach it : this is a spinning out of the story which Ovid keeps clear of. The other additions with which HISTORY OF ROME. -M'.') In whatever way the Fabii may have perisht, without doubt they were sacrificed, as L. Sicinius was with hifl coliort, as Aristodemus was by the oligarchs at Cum a, and as the Samians on board the forty triremes were sent by Polycratcs where they were to be destroyed*. For the consul T. Mcnenius was encampt a short way off at the time 450 ; and he was condemned as the guilty cause of the disaster. In this instance however the punishment of treachery did not linger. Menenius himself was attackt and totally defeated"' 7 : and had not the victors delayed to plunder the camp, few of the fugitives would have reacht Rome. Such was the consternation, that even the fort on the top of the Janiculus was evacuated; and here the Etruscans pitcht their camp. But, as the bridge had been broken down 58 , the city was secure against any sud- den assault: and as soon as C. Horatius had returned from the Volscian borders, a siege was no longer to be dreaded. Fourteen days after the disaster on the Cremera, on the first of Sextilis, A. Virginius and Sp. Servilius, the consuls with whose names the year 278 is designated in the Fasti, entered upon their office"'''. The Etruscans Dionysiua turns it as far as he can into a commonplace narrative are in the very worst taste. * Dionysius, vn. 5. x. 44. Herodotus, in. 44. " G Cum haud procul inde stativa habuisset: Livy, n. 52: thirty stadia (four miles) off: Dionysius, ix. 23. 57 This defeat is mixt up with the destruction of the Fabii into one great battle by Diodorus, xi. 53, but no doubt merely through his own stupidity. 5S Assuredly the sole reason of its being constructed without iron was that it might he speedily taken t<> pieces. 59 Dionysius, IX. 25. If this date was found recorded in the old yearly registers, some alteration had taken place, and the preceding consuls must, have resigned. Perhaps however it was merely some careful annalist that mentioned the usual time of the change of otli- cers, to guard his readers from being misled, by finding two different consular years, into supposing that events, whieh beginning on the 204 HISTORY OF ROME. frequently crost the Tiber, and ravaged the country with- out opposition. The peasantry had fled into the city with all their goods, even with their cattle ; which were driven out however under an armed guard, on the side away from the river, into the stubblefields under the walls. Ere long the audacity of the Etruscans mounted so high, that they fancied they might fall upon them, and carry them off even here. But in so doing they fell into an ambush near the temple of Hope, a mile from the city on the Lavican road 400 . This skirmish put a stop to their inroads; and the Romans now took up posts before the gates 61 . One camp was before the Colline gate: that of the other consul must have been by the Porta Naevia 62 , to keep up the communication 18th of Quinctilis did not occupy many weeks of the same summer, were distributed through two natural years. Dionysius overlookt this hint: for he fancies just after, that the cause of the scarcity was that the ground had not been sown in consequence of the Etruscan ravages. 460 On the situation of the ancient temple of Hope, see Nardini, II. p. 18. I have no doubt that the ambush into which the Etruscans under Porsenna are said to have been drawn (Livy, n. 11), is this very engagement, with which, as was often the case, the other legend was enricht, though from some fuller narratives. The two battles, that by the temple of Hope and that by the Colline gate, were placed by one set of annals in the official year 277, by others in 278 : hence they appear in Livy under both years, as if there had been four of them, — the second time without mention of the places: compare p. 92, note 189. They belong to 278; most decidedly so the battle by the Colline gate, with which the attack on the Janiculus was im- mediately connected, being a rapid attempt to profit by the advan- tage just gained: but the case is undoubtedly the same with the former fight: the interval between the 18th of Quinctilis and the end of the month being so very short. 61 We are just as much entitled as our predecessors eighteen hundred years ago, to state points of this sort, which are implied in the course of events, whether we find them related or not. 62 Under the bastion of Sangallo. This appears from the state of the case, and from the mention of the Porta Naevia in the story as transferred to the war of Porsenna. HISTORY OF ROME. 205 with Ostia, and to cover the country. At the Colli ne- gate an attack made by the whole Etruscan army, which had come over on rafts, was rcpulst. But this advan- tage afforded no relief from famine. The harvest that had just been got in had been destroyed or carried off from the threshing-floors and barns: and no supplies could be brought up the river into the city, which was crowded to excess with the fugitives. The extreme dis- tress required a desperate resolution. On the day after the engagement, the two consular armies crost the Tiber. Servilius tried to storm the Janiculus; but its steepness frustrated all the efforts of his soldiers. They gave way, and would have been driven into the river, unless Vir- ginius had brought up the right wing over the hills, falling on the flank and rear of the already victorious foe 463 . Hereupon the others took courage and made an- other attack, which at last was successful. Only a part of the Etruscans had the good fortune to regain the hight of Montorio: but even these left the fort and their camp during the night. The stores found there may per- haps have alleviated the wants of the city: and this may have given rise to the tale about Porsenna's camp. After the retreat of the Etruscans, the historians speak of a peace 64 : and that hostilities were suspended is also probable from the reappearance of the tribunician com- motions, which lost all their force when the country-people were assembled under the standards, and absent from the forum. There cannot however have been anything more than a truce, probably for ten months: since P. Valerius, the consul of the next year, 279, again defeated the 463 The annalist therefore, whom Dionysius followed in saying that Virginiufl led the right wing, thought that he marchl through the city, crost the river after the army of Servilius, and then past over the hights above S. Onofrio. 61 After the battle on the Janiculus, urbi cum pace laxior anno rediit: Livy, II. 52 : and in the following year, Veiens bdhuu rena- tum : 53. 206 HISTORY OF ROME. Veientines, assisted by an army of Sabines, before the gates of Veii. Hereupon in 280 peace was concluded for forty years : and if there be any ground for the statement that they had purchast the sparing of their country previously by furnishing the Roman army with pay and provisions*, the conditions of the treaty must have exacted some com- pensation for the severe hardships of the war. Perhaps this was the time when the seven pagi were regained; the restoration of which by Porsenna must have been acknowledged to be a groundless fable, — even if the rest of the story of his war had contained any thing beside mere legendary tradition, — a fable evidently intended to soften the mortifying recollection that these districts had for a time been separated from the Roman territory. For the favourable result of the war, the Romans were without doubt indebted to that waged by Hiero against the Etruscans; the memory of which is preserved by the helmet consecrated at Olympia, as well as by Pindar's ode. Veii was equal to Rome in extent, and assuredly far richer, as its buildings were finer 465 . It could hire troops for its wars, and was compelled to do so : for its own forces would have been no match for Rome, its peasantry being serfs, its subjects opprest and disaffected. In the last campaign these mercenaries were no longer raised from their own countrymen: for all the resources and thoughts of the sea-towns were turned to their own affairs, by the decisive overthrow of their fleet, which probably took place shortly after the defeat on the Jani- culus 06 . Indeed they were so far from being able to send any succour, that their recruiters were enlisting all the freebooters who were disengaged. * Dionysius, IX. 36. 405 Both towns are compared in size to Athens by Dionysius, ir. 54, iv. 13. For the fine buildings at Veii see Livy, v. 24. 66 See above, note 205. 207 INTERNAL HISTORY FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FABII TO THE FIRST PESTILENCE. As soon as the pressing danger was removed, two of the tribunes impeacht the former consul T. Menenius for having left the Iabii without assistance. Their ob- ject was merely to get a declaration of his being guilty, not to take vengeance on an offender in behalf of whom his father's memory pleaded. Hence the penalty was fixt at only two thousand ases, not more than a knight's yearly pay: and a sum many times as large would have been raised by his gentiles and clients. Thus far there- fore his condemnation was of no importance: and in times of distraction such a sentence, pronounced by a court governed by the spirit of the opposite faction, rather raises a man in the estimation of his own. Hence we are perplcxt to find that it broke the heart of Menenius: he shut himself up in his house, and died of grief. But it is no less incomprehensible that the tribunes should have been able to accuse him before the tribunal of their order for a matter not affecting its rights: though we may easily suppose that they brought their charge be- fore the curies. And if these sacrificed him, for the sake of washing off their own guilt, if with vulgar thoughtless- ness they estimated the sentence by the insignificance of the penalty, we can conceive that Menenius, who may have known that many of his judges, as far as wishes 208 HISTORY OF ROME. and commands went, were more culpable than lie, should have sunk under his shame. Henceforward we have a succession of tribunician im- peachments, year after year. The next was aimed against Servilius, through whose rash attack on the Janiculus torrents of precious blood had flowed. He was acquitted, as was reasonable: in his case too it seems that the curies must have been the judges. It was before the commonalty however that, as soon as peace was con- cluded, in 281, the tribune Cn. Genucius summoned the former consuls L. Furius and C. Manlius, because they had refused his demand that they should give effect to the agrarian law: a demand for which there was an im- mediate occasion, if any territory was gained by the peace. In this case the plebeian estate, against which the offense was committed, was entitled by the general Italian law of nations 4Gr to decide : and perhaps there may also have been some recent arrangement expressly confirming this right 68 . The consuls defense was, that the law did not relate to them, that it had imposed a charge on the im- mediate successors of Cassius by name, for the nonfulfil- ment of which they alone at all events ought to have had to answer 69 . Even judges under no influence of passion 467 From the legend about the kinsmen of Tatius, down to the story of the young men who committed an outrage against the en- voys from Apollonia (Val. Max. vi. 6. 5), Roman history is full of instances of this rule. The first authority in favour of it that hap- pens to occur to me is in Dionysius, v. 50, referring to a period chronologically in the middle between those two events. 68 The tribune Laetorius in Dionysius, ix. 46, adduces as an in- stance that the patricians had already brought themselves to make sacrifices, cos e'8a>Kev 17 (3ov\t) tu 8i]fxa> et-ovcriav Kpiveiv ovs av avrcus So£eie tu>v 7rciTpiKia>v : this assuredly cannot be referred with certain- ty to the impeachment of Coriolanus, which is said to have occurred long before, and to the Icilian law, but like the accompanying state- ment, cited in p. 181, note 397, concerning the law of election, may allude to a fact which has disappeared out of history. 08 Dionysius, ix. 37. BISTORT OF ROME. 209 would never have listened to this: and the penalty was doubtless nothing less than outlawry. Genueius had of- fered sacrifice before the whole people in the forum 170 , and called down curses upon his head if anything upon earth should deter him from following up his accusation: the veto could not stop him, if two of his collegues were of the same mind with him. The carrying the law into effect would manifestly have got over every difficulty : but it was a point of honour with the patricians to main- tain their usurpation at whatsoever cost. The younger houses, since their reconciliation with the elder, had gone far beyond them in animosity against the commonalty: in this light we find them from the present time till the decemvirate, and moreover predominating in their order: to them the accused applied for help, and found it 71 . At a secret meeting it was settled to take a step, which, like a punishment inflicted by a secret tribunal, should spread alarm and horrour, while it put an end to the accusation. Early on the morning of the day fixt for the trial the plebeians were standing in the forum, mixt up with a number of patricians and their clients. They waited for the accuser, surprised, impatient, after a time uneasy at his not coming. At length his friends, who according to custom had assembled before his house to escort him down to the forum, brought the horrible tidings that he was lying dead in his bed. He hail been murdered 7 -. On this point Livy, whose prejudices certainly did not < : " Without doubt posito focido, winch ceremony v. tist even so lute as against ML Crassus. 71 Livy, tt. 54: Oircumeunt sordidati non plebem magis quam juniores patrum. No one assuredly will believe thai they neglect ■ ! th«' elders. Th< greater hostility of the minorea will appear re- peatedly. n Not many \ after this the oligarchal part; at Athens, finding Ephialtes troublesome, go1 ml of him by a similar crime- Aristotle, quoted by Plutarch, PericL c. x. Diodoms, xi. 77. VOL. II. O 210 HISTORY OF ROME. incline him to suspect the patricians of crimes unjustly, must have found the annals all agreed in their testimony : else he would not have talkt of the insolence and ex- ultation to which the patricians abandoned themselves, even those who were strangers to the act laying claim to a partnership in the guilt 473 . The plebeians were struck with a panic. Being unarmed, and expecting that at the word of command a thousand knives would be bared, they fled, many of them out of the gates, others to their quarters in the city to arm in defense of their lives. A promiscuous massacre however was deemed too hazardous, or too atrocious. But the consuls immediately ordered a general levy, by which they designed to get all their adversaries into their power, to put the most obnoxi- ous of them to death, and to effect a revolution. This would have been their ruin : for mutiny would have been thought rightful against the murderers of an inviolable tribune. But the levy might have been completed, if they had resisted the temptation to insult a single indi- vidual; for the tribunes were meanspiritedly silent, when the countrymen who were seized by the lictors, called upon them for aid. Volero Publilius had served with distinction as a first centurion. He was called out to enlist as a common soldier. As nobody could charge him with any fault, he refused ; but said he was ready to serve in the same post 47:i n. 54. Nee patres satis moderate ferre laetitiani : adeoque nemineni noxae poenitebat, ut etiam insontes fecisse videri vellent. — 55 : Pessimi exempli victoria. Dionysius too, in x. 38, acknowledges the murder : Ycvvkiov — eVel (pavepcos ov)( oini t fjaav dveXe'iv — d(pa- va>s dvrjpnacrai' : although in the course of his narrative, in ix. 38, he had spoken as if some wonderful dispensation of providence had interposed ; and even asserts that there was no mark of a violent death. The first person who wrote this was thinking of the death of Scipio ; as the vain folly with which C. Octavius and Lentulus Spinther tried after Caesar's death to get themselves reckoned among the conspirators (Plutarch, Caes. c. 67), may perhaps have been floating before Livy's mind. BISTORT OF ROME. 2] 1 as before. This was declared to be contumacy; and the lictors were ordered to make an example of him, and scourge him in the presence of the tribunes. They seized hold on his toga to drag him along; but Volero, being strong and active, dasht them away from him, and escaped into the midst of a thick crowd. An insurrection had now broken out. The people compared their own strength with that of the lictors, who were overpowered and mal- treated in endeavouring to disperse the assemblages. Their lords fled from the tribunal to the neighbouring curia. The levy was abandoned; and thus quiet was re- stored. As the multitude, though ineenst even to mad- ness, allowed its good genius to arrest it, before it crost the line beyond which reconciliation is hopeless, and im- mediately returned to lawful obedience, it became a pious belief in after-ages that the internal commotions in the good old times never went beyond the bounds of decency, never so far as bloodshed. Not only were the murder of Genucius, and the outrageous acts of Caeso Quinctius overlookt: but the tribunes, and the people which allowed itself to be guided by them, were robbed of the esteem that was their due, while it was bestowed upon tyrants who shrank neither from murder nor from perjury. For the following year, 282, Publilius was chosen tri- bune of the plebs. He scorned to avenge his personal quarrel by impeaching the consuls. The exertions requi- site for such a purpose might secure lasting advantages: with this object he proposed that the tribunes should in future be appointed in the comitia of the tribes 474 . On this matter the commonalty beyond doubt were ex- clusively entitled to decide; more especially now that the confirmation of the curies had been done away. To dis- pute the point was quite scandalous in men who had 474 With regard to the erroneous notion that they had pre- viously been elected bj the curies, noi by the centuries, see Vol. i. pp. (ilD--2i>. That they were no longer confirmed by the curies has been stated in p. 190. o 2 212 HISTORY OF ROME. usurpt the power of bestowing the consulship: and it was absolutely necessary to get rid of the influence which the first estate had hitherto exercised in these elections by means of the clients; since two of the college, who can only have been chosen by such votes, went so far as openly to oppose this measure 47 \ This opposition was not indeed sufficient to prevent Publilius from bringing it to the vote: for the majority in the college was with him 76 ; and everybody foresaw that it would be adopted unanimously by the tribes. The senate and curies might have taken exception to their resolution, and have refused to acknowledge the tribunes appointed according to the new system. This would have led to negociations, and to a compromise. But the patricians did not choose to take their stand on this ground: they exerted their utmost efforts to hinder the commonalty from coming to a decision. The magistrates, and every senator, if not every patrician, had the right of opposing any motion of the tribunes which concerned the republic at large : and this is the reason why the tri- bunes in speaking faced the comitium, where the patri- cians stood 77 . By such means a debate might now and then be prolonged, without any malicious trick or inten- tional delay, till sunset: this hour put a stop to all bu- siness for the day; so that the assembly was to be dis- raist without doing an)' thing. Often plans were laid for frustrating a measure in this way ; and if there was ground for expecting that the tribune meant to close the dis- cussion betimes, his opponents were prepared for using violence. They came from their own place of meeting, the comitium, and spread over the forum which was al- lotted to the plebeians; and where the clients were already 475 Dionysius, ix. 41. 70 Two of them signed his proposition, whereby he eXarTovwv ovTuiV Toiv fXT] ravra ftovkofxevcov nepcr/v : Dionysius, IX. 41. 77 Which practice was first changed by C. Gracchus : Plutarch, Gracch. c. 5. See Vol. I. note 990. HISTORY OF HOME. 213 standing amongst them. Before the votes were taken, the "round was to be cleared of all who did not belong to the commonalty, in order that each tribe might collect within the space set out by ropes for it. But, when all such persons as had no business there were desired to withdraw, whereby the patricians were only required to walk over to the other side of the rostra, they refused to move; and the attempt to drive them away by force caused a tumult, which put an end to all legal proceed- ings for the day. Sometimes probably they carried off the ballots, and so made it impossible to vote 478 . It might be supposed that the tribunes would at least have resumed the proceeding thus interrupted, on the next comitial day: and more than half the year con- sisted of such 79 : often several followed one upon the other; and after a lew stormy ones, as the leaders of the commonalty were not wanting in perseverance, their object would have been gained, or a civil war would have broken out. As the latter did not take place, one asks oneself why all this disturbance was made? But the days on which the plebs, and those on which the populus assembled, were distinct, like their places of meeting, their games, and everything else. Those of the plebs were the nundincs, on which the country-people came in to market: on these days they appeared to plead their causes with members of their own order, and held public debates on such matters as they were prescriptively entitled, or invited by the senate to 478 Such are the scenes doserihed l\y Livy, n. 56, in. 11. lie takes discedere in the sense of dividing to vote, and thus applies the words, tribuni popvZum discedere jubebant, to the commonalty : for which reason speaking in the name of Appius, in n. . r i6, he even de- nies their having anj authority over their own estate, because they made use of the courteous expressions, *i vobis videtur, disc Those words however are to be understood literally of the populus; and disd dere means to go away. ' According to Manutius there were L84. 214 HISTORY OF ROME. discuss 480 . This was settled in their original constitution by king Servius: and hence funeral sacrifices were offered to his shade on those days in after ages 81 . On the other hand it was unlawful to bring any measure before the populus, or to hold its comitia, on the nundines 82 : so that they were feriae and nefasti for the burgesses, days of business for the commonalty; and these alone were so, not those on which the populus met. This distinc- tion was done away by the Hortensian law, — the very same which gave the force of laws to the decrees of the people, — and for this very reason. By that law the nun- dines became dies fasti 83 ; and now was introduced the 480 Dionysius, VII. 58 : 'Ev ravrais (rats ayopais, St' rjptpav ivvd- Tt)v) crvviovres (K tu>v dypcov ol dr/poriKol eh ttjv ttoXiv rds re apti- ■v//fij fTroiovvTO tu>v u>viu>v, Kcu rds 8iKas nap' dWrfkoav i\dpj3ai>ov, rd Te Koiva, ocrcov fjcrav Kvpioi Kara tovs fdpovs, kcu Sera fj (3ov\r) ini- Tpeyj/eiev avrols-, ij/T)(pov dva\ap(3dvovTes iireKvpovv. The words, Sera r] j3ov\r) emrpeylfeiev, refer to a later time, that after the decernvirate, when the consuls used to be charged to arrange with the tribunes that they should bring questions before the commonalty for its de- cision. Macrobius, Saturn. I. 16, after Rutilius : Ut nono die — ad mercatum legesque accipiendas Roniam venirent, et ut scita atque consulta frequentiore popido referrentur, quae trinundino die propo- sita — facile noscebantur. 81 Macrobius in the same place, after Geminus and Varro : he quotes Cassius (Hernina) as an authority for the institution of the nundines by Servius. See Vol. I. p. 371. 82 Macrobius, a little before : Julius Caesar, xvi. auspiciorum libro negat nundinis concionem advocari posse, id est, cum populo agi ; ideoque nundinis Romanorum haberi comitia non posse. One sees that this Caesar was not the dictator, but an antiquary, who lived in a past world more than in his own time. Pliny, xvm. 3 : Comitia nundinis haberi non licebat: the next clause, ne plebs rustica avocaretur, was prompted by his ignorance of the state of things. Festus : Nundinas feriarum diem esse voluerunt antiqui, — eurnque nefastum, ne, si liceret cum populo agi, interpellarentur nundinatores. The patricians likewise had business in the market. 83 Macrobius, just after : Lege Hortensia effeetum ut fastae es- sent. Hence in the calendars now remaining it is true that the dies fasti and the nundines often coincide. HISTORY OF ROME. 215 custom of convoking the centuries also for the third nundine to pass laws or elect officers 484 . As this was a matter of daily usage, several archeologers could not per- suade themselves that those were in the right who taught, after the old lawbooks, that there was a prohibition against all transactions with the populus on those days. This however only makes it the more certain that the latter drew their information from that source. Consequently the proceedings of the tribunes were restricted to the nundines, or to one day in eight 8 ' 5 ; and it was necessary that they should be terminated in one day 86 . That is to say, if any circumstance hindered a proposition from coming to a decision, it was lost, like a bill which does not pass through every stage and receive the Royal assent in the same session. As such a bill must again be carried through every step from the begin- ning the next year, just as if it were brought in for the first time, so the tribunes were compelled to give fresh notice of their proposition, as if it had been a new mea- sure, to be discust on the third nundine" 7 . Whether this lsl It is only "by an anticipation" — as Bentley (on Phalaris) says of Polyacnus, where he calls Lygdamis tyrant of Naxos, — that Livy speaks of the trinundinvm in giving a detailed account of the ap- pointment of the decemvirs. 85 Livy's saying that the law, which the patricians endeavoured to prevent, per omacs comiticdes dies ferebatur (in. 11), is an ac- knowledgement that it could only be brought forward on stated days of meeting : his confounding them with those of the populus is an errour of no consequence. 80 DionysiuS, IX. 41: Tas (pv\(TtKiis (\^r]Cpr]Cpopuis (Set) — iv i-jfxipa tiiq reread* iaas v7ro twv cpv\(T(iv Tf'Xos fX elp - 87 Dionysins, ix. 41. The first day on which the proposition of Publilius was brought forward, was spent in violent and indecisive dil Kites: irpoOfVTdov 8f ira\iv tS>v 8t)fiUfi\ n\i)6et Ka\ KaB' tavrb crvvuvai, Kill avev CKsivtav (twv eiTTaTpi&u>i>) j3ov\(vea6ni kcu xpijfiaTt^eiv ndvff o (V;/uo) TvpaTTioOai T( Kai (TTiKvpovadai 5o'/crei, iiru twv (^vKtrdtu eVi- \}si)(pL£((T6ai Kara ravro. 218 HISTORY OF ROME. majority of a senate still made up wholly of patricians. Nay, though a just and benevolent man, such as were not wanting among the patricians, became consul, he could not even bring forward a proposition to this effect in the senate: since, when the voice of either of the two collegues was in the negative, he carried the day 491 : and the one appointed by the curies represented their pas- sions, still more than their interests. It is true, the decision to which the commonalty then came, was still nothing more than a kind of resolution, such as is entered into by a public meeting in England, and then presented as a petition to parliament. The assembly of the plebeians did not become a branch of the legislature till the year 298; when the senate ac- knowledged to the tribune Icilius that it was bound to take such a resolution of the plebs into express consi- deration. Till then it might be thrown aside unanswered. All however but the most thoughtless must have fore- seen that this acknowledgement could not fail to be made sooner or later: and the legal recognition of the tribunes right to speak daily before the whole people, on the ge- neral affairs of the state, as they had hitherto done on those of their own order, was under the circumstances of the times far more than granting the freedom of the press is now. That the rulers resisted such a 'measure, is no ground of complaint against them: but the man- ner and the fury of their opposition were equally ill- judged and criminal. The declaration on the part of the plebs indeed, that it possest such a right, was not enough to ensure its exercise. In order that such an exercise should not be treated as an act of insubordination, it was neces- sary that the resolution should be elevated into a law, like the compact on the Sacred Mount. To this the senate might unquestionably refuse its consent: it had 491 Vetantis major jjotestas. HISTORY OF HOME. 219 only to consider how much it was likely to effect by re- sistance: an opposition begun with too much vehemence, and abandoned through compulsion, would have led to a still lower humiliation. That the same party, which four- teen years before had been able to carry everything by intimidation, should not, now that the lesser houses had joined it, have been a match for the commonalty, is ex- tremely remarkable. The reasons of this however seem to lie within reach of conjecture. The Latins being prcst by external enemies, were probably unable to send the Roman government any troops: and as the lesser houses had acquired a preponderance within their own order, it was natural that an opposition to the violent party should grow up among the older houses, which held out its hand to the commonalty. Without this division of the aristocracy, the liberties of the commonalty would have been crusht in the germ, or its victory would have been bloody and destructive. The government was evidently aware of its inability to maintain its legal veto. But, instead of yielding to circumstances, it was infatuated enough to try the most dangerous of all ways of opposing the measure : it again formed the plan of preventing the plebs from passing the resolution. With this view it appointed Appius Claudius consul, or rather, as the tribune in Livy says, executioner of the plebeians 4 ''-. It was most fortunate, above all for the oppressors, that the free choice of the centuries had been able to give him a mild and soberminded collegue in T. Quinctius. On the eve of the decisive day, Laetorius, weary of 4D - See note 424. The consular year did not coincide even in those times with that of the tribunes: every tribunate was divided between two consulates ; and thus Laetorius had already given notice of his proposition before the consuls for 283 were appointed : this, as has been ivmarkt above, was the last aci of the outgoing ones. At what, time the tribunes, before the deoemvirate, entered upon their office, cannot be made cut. 220 HISTORY OF ROME. the discussion, dismist the commonalty with these words : / have no skill in prating; but tomorrow I will carry the ordinance, or die here before your eyes. Early in the morning the estates assembled as for a battle. When the matter had again been debated, and Laetorius was about to put it to the vote, one of those scenes took place, of which a general description has been given above. The patricians, in great numbers, and attended by a vast multitude of their clients, had formed into thick knots, and scattered themselves about the forum among the plebeians. They laught at the request that they would withdraw, and fell upon the messengers who were sent to carry off the refractory by force. Appius ex- claimed indignantly against the audacity of laying hands upon those over whom the tribunes had no controll. He sent his lictors to seize Laetorius, who on his side despacht his messengers to arrest the consul. The plebeians rusht forward to defend their tribune: the rods were wrested from the lictors and broken to pieces: the patricians fled: Appius was led by the consulars 493 in spite of him- self to the senate house. T. Quinctius conjured the ple- beians to preserve moderation in their victory. They did so: but they march t up to the Capitol and occupied it with armed men 94 . It cannot be questioned that Laetorius fulfilled his vow, and that the resolution of the plebs was past be- fore sunset. It is excusable in Dionysius, that, having found an express statement that the populus had ap- proved of the senate's confirmatory decree, and regarding a double decision of the people as an utter absurdity, he persuaded himself that Quinctius had succeeded in 493 Such is Livy's account in Dionysius, ix. 48, the jrpe afivraToi ck rov avveSpiov interpose : the two accounts taken together point to the decern primi, and shew, as is remarkably evident in 293, that the older houses were much the most pacifically disposed. 91 Dionysius, ix. 48. HISTORY OF SOME. 221 inducing the tribunes to leave the matter to be settled by the senate 495 . For this is the unhappy circle into which he can never step without seeing every statement in a wrong light. In the very same manner he conceives that the doubling the number of the tribunes was ordained by the senate at the request of Virginius, and then en- acted by the people 90 . On one occasion alone, that of the Terentilian law, he is compelled, by the perfect dis- tinctness of the account which he found, to mention the tribunician resolution, which was followed by an ordinance of the senate, and ratified by the populus'-* 7 . What completed his confusion, was, that the state- ments about the order in which the senate and people performed their parts in enacting a law, sounded in his ears utterly irreconcilable. The right view on this mat- ter is, that so long as there was nothing beyond the senate and populus, the latter was not entitled any more than a Greek itacXqaia, in a state which had not reacht the highest pitch of democracy, to decide on any mea- sures except those brought forward by the senate : whereas the plebs commenced its discussions independently within its own body; though till the time of the Hortensian law its resolutions had not the force of laws without the as- sent of the patricians. Subsequently however it became the practice in sundry cases for the plebs also to discuss measures proposed to it by the senate; first when they were invited to confirm resolutions of the curies, and afterward in consequence of their having occupied the place of the ancient populus. How these changes were brought about in course of time will be explained here- after 18 : but this is the place for remarking that it was « 95 ix. 49. x. 30. u ' X. 48: To nep'i (read irapa) tojv Bijfxup^ujv buy/ia Trpoefini- Xevaav. Then comes a decree of the senate, an. I the confirmation of the populus : c. 52. 98 As the place for treating of this subject is still a long way on" 1 will remark here beforehand that in the latter centuries of the 222 HISTOHY OF ROME. not till after Dionysius had written his second book, that he conceived the correct view, that the curies could never vote except on ordinances of the senate; which view he then indeed expresses with the utmost distinctness 499 . At the beginning of his work he had entertained the very opposite opinion, that the decrees of the people were primarily enacted by the curies, and then brought before the senate to be ratified; and that the inverse course was an innovation 500 . He imagined that the Ro- man constitution began with a monarchal democracy, that the curies were a democratical body, and that the aris- tocracy was introduced by the centuries; — labouring un- der an errour closely akin to that which regards the constitution of the Italian towns in the eleventh century as purely democratical, because there is no mention of anything but the houses, and these are to all appearance equal: — he transfers to the kings and the curies what is true of the tribunes and the plebs. When he had subse- quently acquired the abovementioned view, he persuaded himself that the real ground of the offense which the tribunes gave by their . propositions, was their presuming to bring them before the people without the previous deliberation of the senate; and that often there was no- thing objectionable in the measure itself, only it was necessary to insist on the observance of the legal forms: and this he thought the firmness of the fathers had enforced on Laetorius and Virginius. republic enactments touching the constitution were entirely inde- pendent of the senate : on the other hand no decree of the plebs affecting the administration could be promulgated without a previous ordinance of the senate. See Llvy, xxsvin. 36. 499 See note 393. 500 Dionysius, II. 14. "O tl rdis n-Xeiocrt bo^ete (ppdrpais (with regard to elections, laws, wars), tuvto eirl ttjv (3ov\r]v dvecpt'pero. ecp' rjpcov 8e ptiaKfiTat. to i'6os. ov yap rj (3ov\f] biayivaycncei ra y}sr)(fiio-- dtvra vtio tov brjpov, tu>v K vtto tt/s j3ov\rj$ yviocrdeyTcov 6 Srjpos i(J7l Kvpios. HISTORY OF HOME. 223 Being entangled in these errours, he could not sup- pose that the people to whom the ordinance of the scnat<- was sent to be ratified, as had been the case in the usurpt elections since 2(59, was any other than the assembly of the centuries: in fact he makes express mention of these as having adopted the Icilian law. He himself however furnishes us with the means of refuting his mis- take; inasmuch as he adds that these comitia were held before the pontiffs, augurs, and two flamens 5 " 1 . Now the presence of these priests at the meeting of the curies was essential and indispensable 2 ; but neither the pontiffs nor the flamens had anything to do with the centuries. The assent of the curies was more especially necessary to this law, since it is numbered among the solemn com- pacts between the estates. Accordingly they must have concurred to confirm the resolution of the centuries; as it was necessary that they should do, whenever the centu- ries past a law, until Publilius in his dictatorship set this rule aside. After this however the interference of the centuries would have been a most unnecessary accumula- tion of formalities; since the suffrugia voted in the curies, the plebeian knights and the rest of the commonalty in the tribes. Whatever had been decreed by the populus was law 3 : and there was nothing about which th.e ruling estate at that time can have been less anxious, than maintaining the importance of the comitia of the cen- turies. It might be argued with a greater degree of speeiouniess 501 Dionysius, x. 3-. '\(puv re TrapuvTiov, Koi oimvocrKomjov, Kai leponoia>v 8volv (See Vol. I. p. 303), Kcii Tvoii)j(us re teal dpcis. '-' The council of the curios was held ra>v Upwv (road Upo< it reset classi - tuffragia cocan- tur, creandorum magistratuum vel sacerdotum causa. Soon after he says, si translatUium sitet solitum (a matter of form) quo populus, curiatis transigitur; si amplius, trib tis. This and the next two chapters arc taken from a book written while Rome was yet under a consular government, and Maasilia was free with its peculiar aristo- cratical constitution. '• ii. 60: I an' narpiKifav eniKvptooavrw ra Su^apia tu> n^t/dti. VOL. II. P 226 HISTORY OF ROME. On the present occasion likewise the senate de- cided. The precipice lay before them; and even the most headstrong were dismayed: the proposition was si- lently adopted as a law 509 . The inconsiderate may have nattered themselves that under favorable circumstances this concession too might be resumed : the farsighted dis- cerned that more had been sacrificed than on the Sacred Mount 10 , and that the consequence and fruit of this measure, the admission of the commonalty to a full share in the legislative power, could no longer be averted. The state of things thus introduced could not be last- ing: tranquillity lay far ofT; but life and motion were awakened. The men by whose act not their own order merely, but the whole republic, was thus benefited, are not mentioned any further. No office was attainable by them, through which their names might have appeared in history. Appius rejected the peace. Full of the deepest scorn for those who had called upon him to defy hatred in behalf of their order, and then had been dastardly enough to abandon him, he burnt with a desire to avenge him- self on the despised authors of his shame. If he could but effect this, he was ready to perish, even in an insur- rection: his life had been disgraced; and the fools who tried to comfort him only embittered his indignation. Urgent demands must have been sent at this time by the allies for aid against the Volscians and Aequians: for, unless the faith of Rome had been plighted, the tri- bunes would never have allowed Appius to raise and command an army: nobody could doubt that he would give vent to his fury. Moreover he had been forced upon them by the curies; and the plebeians in the cen- turies had refused to recognize him 11 . He however cared 509 Lex silentio perfertur : Livy, n. 57. 10 Graviores accipi leges quam in sacro monte acceptae sint ; Livy, ii. 57. » See note 426. HISTORY OF ROME. 227 t not about checking the progressive advance of the enemy; he cared not for a triumph. A horrible struggle took place. The consul's mind was wholly set upon devising how he might drive the infantry to despair by intolerable commands and hardships capriciously imposed: the only thought of the soldiers was, to make him feel that all his tyranny could not bend them, that, though he might kill and torture them, he was still their scorn. Accordingly, when the armies were about to engage, the troops readily gave credit to a rumour that they were betrayed, and that Appius, acting in concert with the enemy, had stationed his cohorts so that not a man should escape 512 . The ranks broke up: all fled to the camp; to which the Volscians pursued them, but with- out attacking the intrenchments; so that there was leisure for summoning the soldiers to an assembly. To this they were to come unarmed: and they imagined that it was designed to surround them with armed troops, as Tullus llostilius was related to have surrounded the Albans 13 , but for a far bloodier vengeance. For such a purpose Appius could reckon on the patrician knights, and on the allies, who assuredly were always ready, and indeed maliciously glad, to strengthen the hands of the govern- ment. Even a madman without this force would never have ventured to persecute the legionaries as he did: they were not martyrs^ to let themselves be dragged un- resistingly to the slaughterhouse for their oath's sake. Accordingly they refused to lay aside their arms: the officers knew that the first word of offense from the mouth of the tyrant would turn those arms against him; and at length they prevailed on him to dissolve the su For instances of such treachery see above, p. SOS, and the legend of L. Sicinius lower down, in the text to note 768. It makes no difference whether explanations of the events recorded, Buch ;is are given in the text here, and a little further on, are devised by an ancient narrator or by a modern one, l! As Scipio the Great too did after the insurrection at Sucro. !• 2 228 HISTORY OF HOME. assembly. Soon after he issued orders to break up at dawn for a retreat. When, however, instead of its com- mencing in silence, the trumpets sounded, a new sus- picion arose, that this was a signal to the Volscians to occupy the road and fall upon the column during its march; and as the rearguard found itself actually at- tackt, a panic seized the troops. They flung away their arms and standards; the fugitives trod those in advance of them underfoot; nor did those who escaped from their pursuers rally till they reacht the Roman territory. Here the consul held a court: the execution of its sentence became practicable through the abovementioned forein aid, the unarmed state of the culprits, and doubtless also from their consciousness of having committed treason against the majesty of the republic. Such of the cen- turions and their substitutes as had quitted their ban- ners, and every tenth common soldier were beheaded. What Appius must have foreseen, while he was revel- ing in this spectacle, took place. When Iris year was over, in 284, the tribunes impeach t him capitally before the commonalty. In vain had the patricians raised L. Va- lerius, one of the judges of Cassius, to the consulship: he made no attempt in favour of the criminal. After such conduct no humiliation could have gained his par- don; and the pride of Appius would have loathed a gift so worthless as life granted to him by the plebs. He assailed the tribunes with abuse and scorn: the assembly quailed before him as in the days of his power: his partisans trembled for themselves. His accusers did not wish that the man whom God had markt should fall by the hand of the executioner: they postponed the day of trial, that he might arrange his affairs, and withdraw from his sentence. The Eoman religion condemned sui- cide, and denied the self-murderer an honorable burial, and the rites belonging to it 514 : hence his posterity 514 Fest. Epit. Carnificis loco, and Scaliger's note. A suicide was regarded as infamous, like an executioner. HISTORY OF HOME. 229 were at least unwilling to confess that Appius liad vo- luntarily put an end to himself; which the Greeks, enter- taining a different opinion, never questioned 615 . If he was not really releast by a providential stroke, it was contrived that his rash act should be kept secret: for his body was buried with the customary honours, and his funeral oration was not interrupted. In the same year the consul Tib. Aemilius vainly re- commended the senate to carry the agrarian law into effect 10 . Equally unavailing were the demands of the tribunes in the next year, 285. A violent outbreak of discontent was prevented by the inroads of the enemy. That feeling however must have reacht the highest pitch of infatuation, if it be true that the plebeians refused to take part in electing the consuls for 286, so that the patricians by means of their clients gave away the seat, the bestowal of which had been left to the centuries. For either this, or that the patricians again usurpt the appointment of the second consul, as well as the first, is the meaning of Livy's statement 17 : which however, it is probable, was merely bottomed on an account, that the consul appointed by the curies again this year re- ceived a formal confirmation by the clients, the plebeians refusing to grant it 18 : else the commonalty in its spleen would have punisht itself. A brilliant campaign and the surrender of Antium produced a more conciliatory «* Dionysius, IX 54 : Zonaras, vir. 17. Livy on the contrary says : morbo moritur. '" Compare Livy, in. 1, with the long-spun account in Diony- sius, ix.51 : his statement that the other consul, L. Valerius, inter- fered, is very questionable. 1: Per patres clientesque patrv/m consoles • Livy, n. 64. One of them however was T. Quinctius, the popular consul of the year 283 : and Dionysius, who never omits occurrences of this sort, though he dresses them up to suit his own views, says nothing about this eleetion. ls See note 426. 230 HISTORY OF ROME. temper. Tib. Aemilius, being again chosen consul for the year 287, repeatedly urged the execution of the Cassian law, and perhaps not without some effect. The colony sent to Antium indeed was no relief to the com- plaints of the commonalty. On the contrary, they could only be aggravated by a measure which provided for none but the burgesses: for, though the complement of the three hundred houses was no longer full, so that a man should go from each to the colony, according to the original usage, yet assuredly the setlers at Antium consisted of ten men from each cury; nor was anybody sent thither who did not belong to one 519 : the object of this colony too was unquestionably to protect the do- main, of which the patricians took possession. Thus in 312, after the founding of the colony at Ardea, the tri- bunes again call for a partition of lands. But during the five and twenty years between that year and the second consulship of Aemilius no agrarian demands were brought forward 20 ; though ever since the death of Cas- sius they had been renewed year after year, except dur- ing the calamitous war with Veii. This, unless the mis- fortunes, which soon after burst upon the republic, de- prived it of the whole district about which the two estates were contending, can only be accounted for by supposing that the present consul obtained, not indeed the honest execution of the law, but at least some kind of tolerable compromise in behalf of the commonalty. Dion, in treating of this period, abandoned the regu- lar order of the Annals, and combined the internal com- motions of several years together; so that, even if his 519 See p. 48, note 94. 20 In Livy there is no mention of them throughout this -whole period ; and though in Dionysius on one occasion, in the year 299 (x. 35), the agrarian law is brought forward along with the j>roposi- tions about the legal reforms, we may regard this as a mere interpo- lation, by which he or some annalist before him fancied he was suj>- plying an omission, HISTORY OF ROME. 231 account of it had been preserved entire, it would hardly prove that he decidedly conceived the right of appeal- ing to the burgesses against a fine imposed by the con- suls to have been establisht at the same time with the Publilian laws 521 . It is clear however that he ascribed this right to the plebeians; and erroneously so. For assuredly they had no indulgence or protection to expect from the assembly of the populus: and the first step to shield them from the abuse of the authority vested in the supreme magistrates must needs have been to fix a limit for all fines; a measure which did not take place until the consulship of Tarpeius and Aternius. For the patricians there had been such a limit ever since the time of Publicola 22 : hence it was on them that the pri- vilege was now conferred of having the same security against unjust mulcts, which both estates had within the city, and which the first no doubt ere this had in the camp, against corporal punishments; a security however which in the case of the plebeians was but ill respected. Dion forgot that, as from the passing of the Hortensian law, when there was no longer a privileged class, the people kept progressively curtailing the power of the government, so the patricians, while they were a sepa- rate body, had similar reasons for doing the like, at the same time that they were contending for their privileges with the commonalty. Thus the great council at Basle first with the help of the burgesses set limits to the authority of the little council, and then united with it 511 Zonaras, VII. 17 : Kiiv ris eir airta tivi napa twp crrpaTrjywp npo(TTip.(M>6fi, (KKkrjTov «ri tovtois t6v 8r)p.ov 8iKii£ftv (Ta^av. The in- crease in the number of the tribunes, spoken of in the same passage, does not seem to refer to the augmentation from five to ten, hut to that from two to five, which according to Piso's opinion was the con- sequence of the Publilian law: see Vol. i. p. 017. It is clear from Zonaras, vn. 15, that Dion conceived the original number of two was not enlarged till some time after. K Two sheep and five oxen : Plutarch. Publicol.c. 11. 2'62 HISTORY OF ROME. against them : and if the rural population had demanded higher rights, all the three bodies would have made com- mon cause against it. This is the place where Dion should have made men- tion of a law, brought forward by a tribune, empower- ing his brother magistrates to impeach anybody before the court of the commonalty, who interrupted them when haranguing it, and to compell him to give such bail for his appearance as they exacted: if he failed to do so, his life and property were forfeit 523 . The punishment enacted by this law was in fact always a fine, the ac- cused not being taken into custody: when the offense however was a grave one, the penalty laid in the indict- ment, as in the case of Caeso Quinctius, must undoubt- edly have been death, since the same was threatened to such as did not eive bail. This law cannot have been earlier than the Publilian, previously to which none could originate with the tri- bunes. It was requisite to secure their right of discuss- ing all matters in their assemblv. It is ascribed to a tribune named Sp. Icilius ; 24 which name occurs among those of the first five tribunes elected by the tribes 25 . I have no doubt that this was the same person, and that the law was enacted in the year 284. The ediles of the same year, Sicinius and Brutus, are also recorded 26 . I have already observed repeatedly that such enumerations only occur where some change takes place in an office: this is why we meet with the names of the five tribunes of the year 283; and there was the same inducement to mention the ediles. Their interference in the transaction however is a stupid fiction of some late annalists: indeed the whole story has been corrupted by such. Yet we still find a vestige in it showing that the proposition received the sanction of the curies, whereby it became 523 Dionysius, vn. 17. :4 Dionysius, vn. 14. 2 * Livv. ii. .58. v- Dionysius, vn. 1 4 HISTORY OF ROME. 233 law 587 . The death of Appius had excited terrour ; and the moment was a favorable one. Manifest, however, as is the connexion between this law and the time we are now treating of, it has never- theless been placed above twenty years too far back, in company with the legend of Coriolanus, in which the author of this law, Icilius, comes forward as edile at his iinpeachment C8 . I see no reason for rejecting this statement, on the contrary I regard it as a valid ground for confidently dating the condemnation of Coriolanus in the middle of the ninth decad of the third century, and for transferring his story, which, at its insertion in the chronicles, slipt so many years out of its place, to a period when, instead of being irreconcilably at variance with the evidence of facts and with all probability, it harmonizes with the traditional history as completely as a story so fully workt out can possibly do ; the historical record having been expunged out of the oldest annals no less entirely than that of the execution of the nine conspirators: although a mention of the affair of Corio- lanus seems also to have been preserved in the law- books. I shall relate this legend, so far as its genuine fea- tures can be discovered. The rhetorical details, with which it has been workt up and lengthened out with • w: In the mention of the Vulcanal when the matter is brought before the people : Dionysius, vn. 1 7 : for this place was connected with the Comitium, and the assemblies of the curies ; anil from it Appius the decemvir addresses them : Dionysius, xi. 39. See VoL I. notes 120"). 1343. M According to Sylburg's emendation of Dionysius, vn. 26, about which no doubt can be entertained. Along with this Ieilius the lawbooks in their notes on this trial probably mentioned L. Unit us ainl M. Decius, whom Dionysius, vi.88, to enliven his story of the secession, brings forward on that occasion also. As they were in office two years after, he conceived that they must needs have attracted notice then. 234 HISTORY OF ROME. more than usual prolixity, I shall pass over in silence 529 ; pointing out such parts however as are connected with the unquestionable facts of history, as well as those which are poetical and cannot have had any real foun- dation. 529 By such details the account in Dionysius is insufferably spun out, so as to be the worst part of his whole history ; he has preserved some important features however of the old legend, which are want- ing in Livy's concise and admirable representation. Plutarch has transcribed Dionysius, adding all else that he could scrape together. References are needless here, except where any of the accounts con- tains peculiar touches, which are not additions of later times. 235 THE LEGEND OF CORIOLANUS. Cnaeus 530 Marcius was in the camp before Corioli, when the Vulscians came from Antium to relieve it. While the two armies were fighting, the garrison made a sally: Marcius attackt them, routed them, rusht through the gates with them, and took the place. The cries of the defenseless captives, and the llames that rose from the town, announced the result to the armies ; and the Antiates retreated from the bootless conflict. Thus Rome was indebted for two victories in one day to Coriolanus; which surname was supposed in afterages to have been derived from that conquest. Henceforward he was greatly lookt up to by the senate and burgesses: but his haughty hearing offended the commonalty. On one occasion, when the tribunes prevented the consuls from levying troops, he called his clients together, and invited volunteers to join him. With this body he made an inroad into the territory of the Antiates, carried olf much booty, and divided it among his followers. Hence the plebeians s3o q u the difference with regard to his proper name see Duker on Floras, i. LI, and the commentators on the epitome of the second book of Livy. Caiva in reality rest- on the Bingle authority of Dio- nysius ; for Plutarch merely treads in his footsteps: in favour of Cii'H '■<. beside Dion, is t lie groat majority of the manuscripts of Livy : and in fact it is only by an arbitrary act of the editors t hat it has been expunged from the Latin authors. 236 HISTORY OF ROME. dreaded him, and refused him the consulship 531 : this in- flamed him with implacable anger. After this it came to pass that there was a famine in the city : many of the commonalty sold themselves along with their children ; others threw themselves into the river ; not a few went into forein lands : the patri- cians did not suffer, and took care to provide for their clients. At length some corn came over the sea from Sicily : part of it had been bought ; part was a present from a Greek prince. A debate arose in the senate, whether it should be given to the commonalty gratis, or sold to them. Coriolanus advised that the stores should be kept lockt up, unless they abolisht the tribunate. This got abroad, and the fury of the people was kindled. The offender would have been torn to pieces, but that the tribunes summoned him before the court of the tribes : hereby he was left free under the guard of the laws till the third market-day. He himself breathed de- fiance and scorn : his kinsmen and gentiles implored in- dulgence for him. Many hearts were softened ; many were toucht by the remembrance of his knightly feats: nine tribes acquitted, twelve condemned him. Coriolanus now turned his steps toward Antium, the abode of his friend Attius Tullius, the king of the Vol- scians, to live in exile there as a municeps. He promist the Volscians the aid of his arm against Rome ; and they granted him the highest civil rights, with a seat in the council of every city 32 , and appointed him their ge- neral. The first town he marcht against was Circeii: the Tyrrhenians opened their gates to him; the Roman colonists were forced to retire : their place was taken by 531 2rpaTT]y^(Tai cnrdhcuv Kai jxtj reAeo-^ei'y : Zonaras, VEC. 16 : Dion, Exc. de sent. p. 147. Plutarch, Coriol. c. 14. 32 BovXrjs fifTovaiav iv andarj Tro^et, Kai ap^as t^tTvat irnvra- X<>cre peruvai, Kai ratv ciWoov 6ir6(ra Tifi.ia>TaTa rjv 7rap' tavrois peTt- Xfiv : Diony.siu.s, vin. 9. See above, p. 58. HISTORY OF HOME. 237 Volscians, the old inhabitants remaining uninjured"' 33 . In the next campaign he attackt the Latin towns between the sea and what was afterward called the Appian way, Satricum, Longula, Polusca, Corioli. Mugilla: every place before which he appeared was overpowered, or surren- dered; even Lavinium, the sacred seat of the Latin re- ligious worship. After this he led his army against the towns on the Latin way, along the crossroads which sub- sequently united it with the Appian way, and which cut through the territory of the Latins 34 : there Corbio, Vi- tellia, Trebia, Lavici, Pedum fell before his arms 35 : the whole of Latium joined him 30 . Thus the Romans were left without a single ally in the world, and at home were distracted by suspicion and irritation, over and above their old grudges. The patricians reproacht the plebs with having driven Coriolanus to become an enemy to his country; the plebs charged the patricians with abet- ting his designs and betraying the republic to him. He pitcht his camp where the Marrana crosses the Latin way, i33 Sec p. 10S, note 224. 31 This is the simple meaning of transversilimites or tramites in Livy, n. 39. 34 On the incompatibility of the accounts given by Dionysius and Livy see p. 95, note 198. In the former the list seems to begin from the A equian frontier: it proceeds toward Rome in the direction of the Latin way, then turns aside and goes byBovillaeto Lavinium : after which come the towns to the south of the Appian way. I have chosen to follow Livy, in whose account Antium is regarded as the central point : only his words sound as if Satricum and the four following places had lain on the Latin way. It is possible that he himself did not kuowthe situation of these towns, whichhad long been destroyed: but his earlier predecessors could not mistake on such a point ; and as one cannot see what should have induced him t<> deviate from them, it seems pretty nearly certain that the words, vn Latinam viam traru- versis tramitibus transgress u,<, have been misplaced, and might t<> he inserted between deinceps and Corbionem. At all events one must understand the account as if he had written thus. 36 Kul rovs \artvovs 7TputT(i\T]cfxWis : Zonar&B, vn. 16. 238 HISTORY OF ROME. five miles from the Capene gate 53 ", on the spot where the Horatii fought with the Curiatii, and through which the procession of the Ambarvalia past 38 . Within this ancient inaugurated boundary between Rome and Alba lay the landed property of his order : on the further side of it he had commanded the farms of the plebeians to be burnt down, but had protected those of the patricians. He had not yet cast off his allegiance to the populus. It was impossible to raise an army against him. The plebeians loudly exclaimed that the purpose of the pa- tricians was to give them up to the enemy : nor did the honest citizens deem themselves safe against the treach- erous opening of one of the gates in the wide circuit of the walls 39 . The senate ordained, the curies con- firmed his restoration to the rights of a Roman citi- zen 40 : the assent of the commonalty was not withheld. Severe as the expected retribution might be, the chief part of the multitude might hope to escape it; but even the lowest had reason to dread the fate of a city taken by the sword. Five consulars carried the decree to him. But Coriolanus thought not of himself alone. He de- manded that the territory taken from the Volscians should be restored to them, that the colonies settled there should be recalled, and that the whole people should be received 53; Ad fossas Cluilias quinque ab urbe millia passuum : about four miles and a half from the Porta S. Giovanni. 33 See Vol. I. p. 348. 39 The stories of the impatience of the commonalty to get rid of the war by the recall of Coriolanus rest in part on the commonplaces about the insolence and timidity of an ignorant multitude, in part on the confounding of the ir\r)6os with the 8ijfxos. The SrjfxuTiKol, who threaten that, if the senate does not recall Coriolamis, they will do so without waiting for a irpo(3ov\evna (Dionysius, viu. 22), are the bur- gesses, and cannot possibly be the plebeians. 40 'H yepovaia KaOobov tw Kopio\civa> e\j/i]f such a kind, it is evident, are the names, Camerinus, Carventanits, CoUatirwu, MedvMinus, Toleri- nus: the same thing is equally certain of Mugillan is, Vibulamus, us. Such names, when taken from an independent town. mi id by its npogevos, when from a dependent town, by its pat run «*Seep.97. Compare Livy, II. 34, and rv. 52. On both occa- sions the purchasers of corn meet with hostile interruption atCuma; the Siceliot princes afford assistance ; the immediate pressure is re- lieved by an importation from Etruria down the Tiber. o 2 244 HISTORY OF ROME. have corn. Soon after the famine of 278, the only one that can be meant, the impeachments of powerful delin- quents by the tribunes begin : and that of Coriolanus, which was grounded immediately on the mutual rights of the two estates, may have been one of the first. Sp. Icilius may perhaps have appeared there before his tri- buneship, as edile. A good number of years may have elapst between the condemnation of Coriolanus and the peace of 295: in which it is extremely dubious whether he actually took any leading part. At least the two enu- merations of his pretended conquests are nothing else than two imperfect lists of the towns taken by the Aequi- ans, along with those taken by the Volscians after the fall of Antium and of the fortresses in the Pomptine dis- trict. We may conjecture with great confidence, that the vanity of the Romans tried to console itself by represent- ing the recall of the colonists as a concession made to their magnanimous and injured fellowcitizen ; and that Coriolanus only attended the Volscian standards as leader of a band of Roman exiles. Since a recollection how- ever, like that which remains of him, cannot rest on a mere fable, we may deem it certain that his generosity resigned the opportunity of taking the city when Latium was almost entirely subdued, and Rome brought to a very low ebb by the pestilence. 245 THE WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS AND AEQUIANS, DOWN TO THE PEACE OF 295. Prior to the unspeakable calamities which befell Rome in these wars, several years had past with great vicissitudes of fortune. The disastrous campaign of 283 must without doubt have added very much to the power of the Volscians. On the other side the Sabines were still carrying on the hostilities, which the Yeicntines had engaged them to commence. Down to the year 285, the Romans were merely fighting for the defense of remote insulated districts, and of their confederates. But now the Ausonian tribes had spread so far, that the territory of Rome itself was subject to their ravages; the Sabines even crost the Anio, and advanced to the gates of the city. Dissensions had prevented the sending out any legions. They were now raised with the utmost haste 555 ; and the plunderers retreated before them. I shall pass over the main part of the occurrences related of these campaigns: for even if they were more attractive, who would give room to stories which may very probably be nothing but the idle inventions of some chronicler! This is not the case however with the account, that the Vol- scians were overtaken and defeated in the same year, 555 Thu correction of a passage so scandalously corrupt as that in Livy, ii. 63 — consules, coacti extemplo ab S ! i beUum, educta ex urbeja .—is a good office one may take any opportunity of performing. Livy unquestionably wrote: consules, coacto eatemplo Senatu, ad beUv 246 HISTORY OF ROME. when they were retiring upon Antium, and that the people of Ceno, a seaport in their territory, went over to the Romans. In the next year, 286, fortune continued to favour Rome; and the Volscians at Antium, after a battle in which they were worsted by the consul T. Quinctius, found themselves so hard prest, that they sent to the Ecetrans and Aequians for succour. At the same time the consul was joined by some cohorts of Hernicans. It was naturally expected that a decisive engagement would soon take place. As the Aequians marcht to Antium, the Latins were no longer able to block the pass over mount Algidus. The enemy surrounded the Roman camp with an army far superior in number: being deceived by a stratagem, which led them to expect a sally, they watcht under arms through the night, while the Romans were strengthening themselves by rest. In the morning the latter boldly began the attack, drove the enemy out of positions almost unapproachable up the rugged side of a hill to the very top. Here the allies betook themselves to flight, and left Antium to its fate. The Volscian colon- ists there had excited the hatred of the old inhabit- ants 556 ; a great part of whom, though they may pre- viously have received the conquerors without compulsion, from their reluctance to be subject to Rome, had now been irritated by their conduct. The colony capitulated on condition of being allowed to leave the place 57 . The confederates having become masters of the town, not by its voluntary accession, . but by its surrender, treated it as a conquest, and to secure their possession planted a colony of a thousand men taken from the three na- tions 58 . The old Antiates had a part, perhaps the largest part, of their district left to them 5y , but must have been 556 See pp. 46. 109. Antium surrendered voluntarily ; which would be inconceivable if it had been wholly a Volscian town. 57 Dionysius, ix. 58, where they are called an Aequian (ppovpd. 58 See above, p. 42, note 78, and p. 85, note 178. M ' Dionysius, ix. 59 : Karevepov rfjv yrjv, poipav twci £% avrrjs II I stow v OF ROME. 247 degraded into the condition of a commonalty: they became municipals of the ruling nations. So many places how- ever had revolted or been wrested from Rome, that the next census of 289 contains 26000 heads fewer than that of 280 56 °. We read that in the year 287, the same in which the colony was settled at Antium, the Aequians concluded a peace with Rome. But they appear again in the field in the same year, and so are said to have violated their faith G1 . This however is undoubtedly an instance of the confusion perpetually occurring between the two allied nations 62 : the people that made peace were the Ecetrans, who in the year 290 were prevailed upon to take up arms again 63 . Nor is there any mention of hostilities with the Volscians during the three preceding years: the war is carried on by the Aequians alone. The troops who fought with the greatest zeal under their standards, rots 'AvTidrais dnoXeinofKvoi. Livy, in. 1 : Adeo pauci nomina de- dere, ut ad explendum numerum Volsei adderentur. This passage contains a threefold errour : he takes the native Antiates for Volscians and their condition for that of burgesses in the colony ; and he fancies that the reason of their admission was, that the plebeians slighted the offer of going to settle there, which however was never made to them. Such distorted statements only need to be set to rights. 5G0 104114 (not 214),— see Livy, in. 3, — compared with 130000 as the Vatican manuscript reads, instead of 1O3000, in Dionysius, ix. 36. The great increase in the latter number beyond that of 261 was owing in the admission of the Hernicans as isopolites. *'' Livy, in. 1. Dionysius, IX. 60. It is a pity that the latter let himself be taken in by the conditions of the treaty, which only come from the brain of an annalist of the wretchedest description. 62 For instance in the account of the peace of ^:t."» : Livy, in 24,25. The charge of perfidy however is a calumny which it was just as much a matter of course to bring against the enemies of Home, as that of cowardice, which they did not scruple to impute even to the bravest nations. 63 Livy. in. 1 : Aequi ah Ecetranis Volsois praesidinm petiere. — Hemici — praedicunt Romanis Ecetranos ad A.equos descisse. 248 HISTORY OF HOME. were the colonists expelled from Antium: and no doubt many of the Tyrrhenian Antiates accompanied them, to escape from the rule of the opposite faction, who had delivered up their native town to the Romans: these exiles arc said to have been very numerous. Allies, who have been sacrificed, are always an object of dislike: the sight of them is a reproach. Hence they must have baen deemed a burthen by their nearest kinspeople, the Ecetrans : their true home was among those who had not thrown aside their arms 5&i . The Aequians carried theirs into the Latin territory; and in the third campaign, that of 289, their camp is said to have been pitcht on mount Algidus: as it con- tinued to be every year until Rome regained the supe- riority. That name was given to the high land by which the waters flowing through the country of the Hernicans to the Liris are turned off from Latium; a barren, rug- ged, extensive hill-country, covered with a black forest of evergreen oaks 65 , lying between Tusculum and Velitrae, between Velitrae and the Aequian territory, and between the Latins and Hernicans: who, when that mountain was occupied by the Aequians, were separated; whereas, so long as the Romans and Latins were masters of it, the Aequians and Volscians could not unite their contingents except by a very long circuit. I do not feel called upon to repeat and compare the contradictory narratives of 564 Livy, in. 4 : Magna vis hominuin — is miles per bellum Aequi- cum vel acerriraus fuit. Dionysius, ix. 58. 60 : see note 229. When Ecetra goes to war again we meet with them there : Livy, in. 10: Ecetrae Antiates colonos palam concilia facere. es Nigrae feraci frondis in Algido. This is the description my friend Bunsen gives of the country at this day : I did not visit it, because, when I was at Rome, it was the seat of the banditti. Here lay the town of Algidus, which Dionysius usually mentions, instead of the country ; and which must probably be the town he means when he talks of the town of the Aequians. Its situation is correctly stated in the itineraries. HISTORY OF ROME. 2 I!) these wars, since that which looks the most probable may perhaps be nothing more than a judicious modifica- tion of the others. It is certain however that while the two armies were encampt in face of each other on mount Algidus, a body of Aequians made an irruption into the Roman territory; where the countrymen, who had no suspicion of any danger, thought themselves fortunate if, by leaving their property behind them, they could escape with their families into the city, or to one of the villages in the district. These places of security were the pagi, the establishment of which, as of everything permanently beneficial, was ascribed to king Servius 506 . If a hostile inroad was not altogether unexpected, they served, not only to protect the countrymen, but their movables, like the castles upon the hills in Attica: whether we suppose them to have been places surrounded like these with walls, or merely with a ditch, a mound, and palisades, like a Servian palanka. There were persons among the later annalists, whose childish vanity was so much hurt by the story of any misfortune befalling Rome, even in remote antiquity, that, if it was impossible to suppress it, they did not scruple to invent some occurrence to follow it, by which the enemy was to be stript of his whole advantage, and to suffer ample retaliation. These falsehoods, being related in the same tone with the parts that rested on tradition, imposed on the writers who drew up a complete classical history of Rome: this was owing to their want of faith in the merits of the simple old chronicles, and in the existence of any genuine tradition. .Among the numerous examples of these delusive phan- toms 07 , which vanish the moment one is prepared for 568 Dionysius, iv. 15. He calls such a pagtu a nepm6\iov. i.\. 56. •' The victory of T. Qumctius is an instance in point in the very next year: so is the taking of Antiuin in 295 after its revolt, of which conquest Dionysius gives a circumstantial narrative: but which 250 HISTORY OF ROME. them, is the story that Q. Fabius overtook the plunder- ers, defeated them so completely that very few fugitives escaped, and retook all the booty they had carried off. Such assuredly was not the closing event of the year 289, the first of that unfortunate period which brought Rome to the brink of destruction. The next year the Ecetrans declared war again 568 . A legion under the con- sul A. Postumius endeavoured to cover the Roman fron- tier: a second was led by his collegue Sp. Furius to the assistance of the Hernicans. But he was unable to resist the enemy's very superior forces, and was so closely be- sieged in his camp, that it was only through messengers from the allied towns that the Romans heard of the ex- treme danger their army was in. From the beginning of the campaign they had made such preparations as the difficult emergency required. The walls were manned by the civic legion. T. Quinctius was at the head of the veterans, and the other troops that formed the reserve; which he strengthened with some auxiliaries from the Latins and from Antium, though the inhabitants of that town had openly manifested their wish to get rid of the colonists. Meanwhile the consul, who seems to have been wounded in the previous battle, had ordered his brother P. Furius to attack the enemy with fifty centuries from the first three classes, while he himself with the triarians and the light-armed troops guarded the camp. The re- sult of this enterprise was very disastrous. Being lured on by the success of their first charge till their retreat was cut off, the whole thousand were slain along with Livy (in. 23) rejects because the older annals said nothing about it. Of the same kind in a much later age is the capture of C. Pontius in the year after the disgrace at the Caudine forks, the victory of L. Marcius after the fall of the Scipios : such too in the poetical tradi- tions is the victory of Cincinnatus on mount Algidus, that of Camil- lus over the Gauls. Even the fiction about Eegulus has a similar origin. ; ' 68 See note 5(i:3. HISTORY Ol KOMI.. 'J.',\ their leader 669 . The consul too, with the rest oi' his army, would have been destroyed or taken prisoner, unless Quincfcius had come immediately to his relief. He was successful. Postumius was not equally fortunate 70 . The peasantry lied anew into the city, as those of Attica did in the Peloponnesian war: and it was summer, when the cattle, if they are to thrive, must be driven from the parent and scantily watered Campagna into the moun- tains, or else at the utmost can just be kept alive on the dry grass and the water that lies in pools in the marshy country toward the sea. Now, however, they could not even be pastured before the walls, and were attackt with a general murrain; which past from them to the 50 ' J In most instances I cannot possibly enter into a justification of the narratives which I form out of those of Dionysius and Livy, with the same freedom as they used toward their predecessors : the present is one of the exceptions in winch it is worth while to do so. The reader will call to mind that according to the old system there were thirty centuries of triarians, ten from each of the first three classes, those of the hoplites : they were separated from the rest, for the defense of the camp, in case of need : see note 450. Now the total amount of the heavy-armed troops was eighty centuries : so that in each legion the number employed out of the camp was fifty centu- ries, that is, a thousand nun, or, to speak with minute precision, there being one and twenty tribes, lO.Vt. The same fifty centuries formed the two cohorts ofthe hastates and principes in the flexible legion: hence Dionysius, though by anticipation indeed, talks of two cohorts amounting to a thousand men: ix. 63. One sees clearly that only one legion is here spoken of; and assuredly this was all that a single consul in those days had under him. This modest num- ber (3300 men, including the lighl armed troops and the cavalry) did not satisfy the writer from whom Livy took his account: so he made the consul also sally from the camp, — that is to say, with fifty centuries of a second legion. 7,1 The lies of Valerius Antias, with regn-d to the victories by which he represented the Roman generals as more than making amends for their losses, were betrayed, even to I". ivy's natural good sense, by his ridiculous statements about the numbers of the enemy slain. Every reader who is free from prejudice must perceive that the whoh stor\ of those successes is a wretched fiction. 252 HISTORY OF ROME. inhabitants and became a pestilence, or perhaps only in- creast the previous susceptibility to a contagion already widely spread, a susceptibility hightened by distress and despondency. The Consuls, whose names are affixt to the year 291, entered upon their office on the first of Sextilis. In the month of September, when fevers at Kome are usually the most dangerous, a decided pestilence broke out 571 . The Hernicans made fresh suit for aid: but the Romans could scarcely have defended their own walls. The Vol- scians and Aequians encampt three miles from the Esqui- line gate, on the road to Gabii, amid ruins and traces of the conflagrations kindled in their former invasion, with unburied corpses and heaps of cattle lying around. They found nothing more to destroy. Their not attempting to storm the city was assuredly not owing to any feelings of compassion 72 . They may probably have been afraid of the contagion: or they lookt upon the result as more uncertain than it would have proved; for the pestilence was in every house; and such as had not yet been at- tackt, or had recovered from it, were called out, with- out regard to rank or age, to mount guard at the gates or upon the walls. Hence they broke up, to ravage every corner of the Latin territory which could still supply them with booty. They marcht unresisted up the well- cultivated hights about Tusculum, which four centuries after were covered with Roman villas, and over the hill of Frescati itself: thence they descended into the rich low-grounds of Grottaferrata 73 . In order to protect these from devastation, the weak army, which the remaining towns of the Latins and Hernicans had assembled, riskt a battle; which ended in their being defeated with great 571 Dionysius, ix. 67. 72 As the prefect Q. Fabius says in Livy, III. 9. 73 In Tusculanos colles — descendentibus ab Tusculano in Alba- nam vallem : Livy, in. 7. HISTORY OF BOMB, 253 slaughter. Our histories are silent on the consequences of this unfortunate day. On the other hand they concur in representing the campaign of the next year, 292, as a victorious one : nay, they tell us that the consuls triumpht. This indeed would decide the point, if they had drawn their statement from contemporaneous triumphal fasti. But Cicero speaks of it as notorious that there were fic- titious triumphs 571 : how welcome must these have been to the vanity of the silly annalists! Nay, why should not they themselves \enture on fabricating one? since after so great a calamity a signal retaliation was required. To have placed this in the year of the pestilence would have been too audacious a forgery even for them : but when it was put off a year they no longer felt a scruple. We however, without denying that circumstances may bring the most unexpected events to pass, must say that here, according to all appearance, we encounter an abso- lute impossibility. Nor can we get over it even by as- suming that the pestilence ccast among the Romans, and transferred its ravages to their enemies; since they are still acting on the offensive in the same manner as be- fore 75 . But if we leave the occurrences of this cam- paign to themselves, and merely assume what must ine- vitably have happened, we may account for the cessation of hostilities during the two following years. The spreading w * Falsi triumphi : Cicero Brut. 16 (62). We shall soon meet with an instance : see note 579. 75 The course of this campaign is little else than a repetition of others. The Roman army on its way back from the Hernican terri- tory falls in with the plunderers : compare Livy, ill. 5. 8. The men- tion of the territory of Praeneste, as yet independent of the Ae^uians. although they were already establisht on mount Algidus, seems to betray that the story is by a recent annalist. That it is a piece of patchwork is also manifest from the statement that Lucretius mi his return to Rome engaged in disputes with the tribunes, and then triumpht ; in violation of the unalterable rule, that a general who claimed a triumph was not to set foot within the city beforehand. 254 HISTORY OF ROME. of the pestilence must have made it a matter of necessity on both sides. It must have been confirmed by a treaty: else assuredly Tusculum could not have ventured to send succour, when the Capitol was in the hands of Appius Herdomus. We may conjecture therefore, that it was by a per- fidious attack that the citadel of Tusculum was seized in the next year, 295, by a body of light-armed troops, who held it for several months against the Tusculans, aided by Roman cohorts. The sides of the hill on which that fortress stood, are steep and very high toward the open country: a narrow path, easily defensible, led up to it from the forum: a plentiful spring of good water supplied the wants of the garrison 576 : but the failure of provisions compelled them to surrender their arms and depart. The consul Q. Fabius laid an ambush on their road homeward, and put them all to the sword: an atrocity which is unaccountable, unless the unfortunate men had also broken their faith, and so been guilty of an inexpiable offense. In the same year Antium was lost by what is repre- sented as a revolt 77 ; so that it might look as if the co- lony had been driven out by an insurrection of the old inhabitants, who invited their former masters to return. But the amicable relation maintained between this city and Rome from this time forward till after the Gallic invasion is not reconcilable with an event which could not easily have been overlookt: and here the legend of Coriolanus comes in to clear up the difficulty, by stating that he demanded that Rome should recall her colonists from the towns she had conquered, and should give them back to the Volscians, — a demand with regard to which 576 The very ancient channel by which this water was conducted to the lower city, was discovered in 1817. Beyond a doubt it is the aqua Crabra. 77 Eodeni anno descisse Antiates apud plerosque auctores inve- nio : Livy, in. 23. HISTORY OF ROME. 255 1 have already rcinarkt, that it is owing solely to the nature of the story we have received, that we hear nothing of its having been accepted. Probably it referred to Antium alone, and it is through mere accident that we find several places talkt of. If other towns were also ceiled at the same time, which had defended themselves with difficulty in the midst of the conquered territory, as Auvergne and Soissons, though surrounded by barbarians, long maintained their allegiance to Rome, their case was a different one, and the demand as to them could not be that they should be given back. The annalists might indeed regard a pacific cession as such an utter impossibility, that to their minds it was self-evident that Antium must have revolted, because from this time forward it continues independent for near a hundred and twenty years 578 . Others again closed their eyes to this very circumstance, and, assuming the fact of the revolt, invented an expedition of the consul L. Cor- nelius, who was not employed before Tusculum, making him reconquer the rebellious city, and chastise it accord- ing to custom 7 -'. Others, recollectino- that it remained in the enemy's hands, were at least determined not to part with the victory before Antium, though a fruitless one, and transferred it to Q. Fabius 80 . Both these ac- counts seem equally destitute of historical foundation. On the contrary, we may assume that the peace with the 578 It is with a view to this assumption, and as preparatory 1" it. that repeated mention is made oft he disalleeted state of the Antiates, whom Livy absurdly takes for the colonists, that is, the principes who were i eealled to Rome. : '' This is the account of Dionysius, x. _l : and also of the tri- umphal Fasti, which with regard to these ages prove nothing ; since they were compiled in the time of Augustus out of such notices as were then to he met with : their ant hor was no less liable to err than a historian. Livy expressly tells us that the earlier annalists did not say a word about it : m. 23. M Such was the statement of the annalists whom Livy followed. 256 HISTORY OF ROME. Volscians arose without any interruption out of the truce; since we find that in this year its terms had already been fully executed. For another condition of the treaty ascribed to Corio- lanus is, that the Romans were to enter into a league and a municipal relation with the Volscians 581 . Now in the census of 295 we find an increase of the numbers, as has already been noticed 82 , from 104114, the numbers of the year 28 9, to 117319; which increase, immediately aTter the pestilence and the destructive war, can only be accounted for by supposing that the Soman census had been augmented by the returns of some isopolitan people. This people was the Volscians, those of Ecetra and An- tiura: for from this time forward Antium was a Volscian colony, but independent, like those of the Samnites. The annalists must also have found a statement of a census of the preceding year with a much lower number. Assuredly it was only an inference of theirs, that the numeration was begun in that year, but not completed 83 : the cause of the difference was, that the amount of the new muni- cipals was now added to the former sum. Our historians too make mention of this peace; only that, as before, they erroneously refer it to the Aequians 81 , who this time also reappear as enemies of Rome the year after. In another passage of Livy, however, we find a trace, though certainly one strangely distorted, that he had read works which stated, as the truth was, with re- gard to the Antiates and western Volscians, that they had been in alliance with Rome for seventy years, when 581 Dionysius, VIII. 35 : 'Eai* 'Pcofialoi — (piklav Troirjo-ovrai els tov ae\ xpovov, Kai laonohiTtias fi€Ta8cocrovai,y cos Aarivois. 82 See p. 69. R3 Census, res priore anno inchoata, perficitur : Livy, in. 24. 84 Aequis pax petentibus data: Livy, in. 24. More than usual importance is attacht to this peace : Consilium magna — gloria fuit quod — pacern peperere. See Dionysius, x. 21, who, following some silly guide ; writes that the Aequians submitted to the Roman yoke. HISTORY OF SOME. 257 they left her after the Gallic invasion. This he could not but regard as absurd, having had to tell so frequently, and but a few years before, of Volscian wars. Hence he introduces the statement in such a manner, that one cannot well doubt that he understood it of the length of the war 5 " 5 . The annalist however cannot possibly have meant anything else than what has just been stated. The mention too of the Antiates and Ecetrans as having taken part in the holidays of the three confederate nations, refers, if there be any foundation for it, to the period of this long alliance, which may have been sealed by such a communion 86 . According to the feelings of the annalists, Rome un- der all circumstances, was to bear herself haughtily and unbendingly. Hence her having evacuated one of her colonies was a scandal they thought themselves bound to suppress. They did not perceive the wisdom of her resolution to dissolve a league, whose power was far su- perior to hers, by sacrificing a place, which at all events could not have been maintained much longer, and so to confine the war to the Aequians alone. Nor was this object all she attained. Unexpected advantages accrued to her with regard to her relations to Latium from the misfortunes of the preceding years. After the great Vol- scian war the Latin state was totally broken up. If there had still been a national assembly, the Ardeates and Ari- cines would have resorted to this, and not to Rome, for a decision of their claims to the waste territory of Corioli : 585 Ad deditionem Volscos septuagesimo demum anno subegit: vi. 2. Eutropius and Orosius also understood this statement of seventy years of war ; which however it is impossible to make out by any cal- culation : hence critics have resorted to the rashest alterations of the text. But there were exactly seventy years between this peace and the taking of the city ; and the Volscians who left Rome in her mis- fortunes were the very same who became her allies in 295. 86 Dionysius, iv. -i!>. Though he carries this back to the time of king Tarquinius, we need not bake that into our consideration. VOL. II. B 258 HISTORY OF ROME. the Latins would have been the natural mediators in the dissensions at Ardea ; and this town would not have con- cluded a separate treaty with the Romans. The larger half of the thirty towns was no doubt in the hands of the conquerors, or lying in ruins. Some of them may have sought safety in a treaty, or even entered into a league against their former confederates, who were un- able to afford them protection. Tusculum, Bovillae, Aricia, Lanuvium, Laurentum, Tellena, and probably some others besides, evidently betook themselves to a relation of clientship under the Romans, in lieu of the equality the whole state, of which they were the remaining fragments, had previously stood on : and in truth that equality would now have been unsuitable even to their collective body. Henceforward, when the Latins are mentioned, they ap- pear in a state of dependence on the authority and pro- tection of Rome, till they throw off this dependence after the Gallic invasion: and thus we can understand how the historians could persuade themselves that the condition of Latium was never legitimately any other than this, and that its claim to an equality was an act of insurrection. The power of the Aequians did not last; and when it gave way, many places, which had previously fallen into their hands, were conquered by the Romans, who now fought for themselves alone. Thus the Roman state grew out of the wreck of Latium, until its restored greatness was a second time overthrown for a while on the Allia. The Aequian dominions comprised mount Algidus 587 ; but not the hills to the west of it; since the Romans marcht so often to encounter them on its hiffhts. Veli- trae, which lies on its southern foot, was at this time unquestionably in the hands of the Volscians, who must have settled there in great numbers: for in the sequel we find it regarded as altogether a Volscian town. As- suredly there is no ground for doubting that the places ihT They encampt there iv oiKfla ytj ; Dionysius, x. 21. HISTORY OK ROME. \i~>'J enumerated in the twofold list of the pretended conquests of Coriolanus were all actually taken by the Volscians and Aequians, only not in the course of a single cam- paign. Of the towns there mentioned, which are found among the thirty Latin ones, Lavici belonged to the Aequians in 336, when it was reduced 588 : so did Corbio in 296 89 . Satricum in the later wars after the Gallic invasion is in the hands of the Volscians, and not as a recent conquest 90 . Corioli, after the time of the decem- virs, was lying in ruins; and the neighbouring towns were quarreling about its waste domain 91 . Circeii must have ceast to be a Latin town, as a colony was sent thither in 36 1 92 . Carventum, the town probably spoken of in a passage of Dionysius, where the text is evidently corrupt 93 , was repeatedly defended with success by the Aequians, even so late as about the middle of the fourth century, when their power had already greatly declined 94 . Of the Albian towns named among these conquests, Longula and Polusca are spoken of as belonging to the An- tiates 95 . At Bolae, which is said to have been reduced 588 Livy, IV. 45 89 Livy, in. 28. 30. *> Livy, VT. 8. and foil. 91 Livy, in. 71. 92 Diodorus, xiv. 102. 93 In Dionysius (vin. 19 and 36) the KopioKavoi appear as the citizens of two different towns taken by Coriolanus, one of which must be lookt for in the neighbourhood of Corbio, the other in that of Satricum, Longula, and Polusca. Now this is exactly the situ- ation of Corioli ; so that the mistake must be in the first passage. The change of Kopio'Xavoi into Kopvcvravol is very slight ; and the arx Carventana, from the manner in which Livy speaks of it, must have been in the same country. 94 Livy, iv. 53. 55. '•" Livy, n. 33. Dionysius, vin. S"). The latter found these places called Albian, out of which name, in viil 30, he has made a distinct people of Albietes. Kermis probably a mistake in his text: Mugilla has been restored in Livy by an excellent conjecture of James Gronovius. In reply to the delusive argument brought for- ward in defense of the common reading, I will remark that JVucelti, in Livy, xli. 5, is the surname of the Gavillii. K 2 260 HISTORY OF ROME. to ashes at its capture, the conquerors must have settled a colony: for the Bolans in 339 are called an Aequi an peo- ple, and appear conjointly with the Aequians immediately after the Gallic invasion 596 . Vitellia 97 fell into the hands of the Romans about the same time with Lavici and Bolae; and they sent colonists thither, who were driven out in 361 by the Aequians 98 . With these examples before us, we may not only regard the statement of the taking of Toleria and Pedum as a piece of historical in- formation, but also that with regard to Bovillae and La- vinium 99 : only Bovillae, which blockt the road from Rome to Aricia, cannot have continued long in the hands of the Volscians; nor can Lavinium have been subject to them at the time when Ardea sought an alliance with Rome. These towns may perhaps have been given back in return for the evacuation of Antium. To what extent the original authors of those enumera- tions intended to give a view of the Volscian conquests, it is impossible to conjecture. They evidently assume that part of them had already been achieved: for neither An- tium and Velitrae, nor Fercntinum occur in the list; which latter town however the Romans had to retake 600 . If this mountain-fastness was not safe, Signia, which lay at the same distance from the Volscian capital, Ecetra, and which, since the loss of Velitrae and mount Algidus, was cut off from the remaining states of Latium, was assuredly un- able to hold out. Its recapture, and the establishment 596 Ljyy IV# 49, V I. 2. 97 This and Trebia (Trevi above Subiaco, which assuredly was a Hernican town : see above, p. 83) are wanting in Dionysius. The latter of them at least lay without the circle, to which the account he selected confines itself. 98 Livy, v. 29. 99 Dionysius leaves it undetermined whether Lavinium surren- dered or not : he seems to have thought this too hard a fate for the sacred seat of the Latins. Livy, following the uniform tenour of the old annals, positively asserts it. 600 Livy, iv. .51. HISTORY OF BOME. 26 1 of a Latin colony within its walls, Livy passes over; just as he takes no notice of the same events with regard to Circeii. As it is certain that the colony in the latter town, which we read of in the second Punic war, was a different one from that founded by king Tarquinius, the same thing may be pronounced with equal confidence concerning Signia; and the more so as the original co- lony there must have been a Roman one; since Signia is not reckoned like Circeii among the Latin towns in the year 261. That the still remoter and still more insulated towns of Cora, Norba, and Setia, must inevitably have undergone the same fate, has been remarkt already 601 . Tibur and Praeneste are never mentioned in the his- tory of these times. It is manifest however that the Aequians could not possibly have been masters of mount Algidus, if these strong towns had been their enemies. When that people, soon after the Gallic invasion, sud- denly disappears from the stage, we hear of Praeneste ruling over a population in a state of bondage, and se- parated from the collective body of the regenerate Latin state*: so do we of Tibur at the end of the fourth cen- tury, when the Latin state was completely reestablisht. Both these towns a hundred years before must either have been dependent on the Aequians, or in alliance with them. As Lavici belonged to these conquerors, Gabii too must assuredly have been alienated from the Romans. This town must have sunk into insignificance previously to the decision about the fate of Latium after the war of P. Decius; since no notice is taken of it on that occa- sion. It must evidently have been destroyed in the days of the preponderance of the Aequians, or during the ir- ruption of the Gauls. That its pristine greatness was no fable, was discerned by Dionysius from the ruins of the extensive walls that had surrounded it, as well as of its vast buildings: even at the present day it is attested by M > See p. 108. 262 HISTORY OF ROME. the walls of the cella of Juno. It could never have hap- pened that such a town, unless at one time or other it had been so devastated that it could never recover again, should only be mentioned once after the reign of the last king; namely in the year 371, when the Gabines com- plain that the Praenestines have been pillaging their ter- ritory 602 . This merely shews that it was not quite de- serted in those days; as it was in the time of Cicero 3 : perhaps a still smaller proportion of the ancient circuit was inhabited, than at Olbia, Pisa, or Soest. ™ Livy, VI. 21. 3 Cicero, pro Plane. 9 (23). i>(;:; THE AEQUIAN WAR DOWN TO THE DECEMVIRATE. There was the stronger necessity for trying to dis- solve the union between the two Ausonian nations, since the Sabines were continually making inroads into the Roman territory. Nay, the Aequians by themselves were strong enough to bring the Romans to repent that they had deemed a single consular army able to withstand their power. L. Minucius was defeated on the Algidus in 296, and besieged in his camp. From this state he was rescued by aid sent to him from Rome, his collegue being in the field against the Sabines. As the battle however had been lost through his fault, he was forced to resign; and Q. Fabius took the command of the army in his stead. This colourless outline is the utmost share that his- tory takes in the narrative of this campaign. One annalist indeed ascribes the command of the troops that relieved the army to T. Quinctius 604 : but this assuredly is merely 60< In Dionysius, x. 23, the custos urbis, Q. Fabius, sends the best part of his troops under T. Quinctius. Cincinnatus indeed after- ward, in x. 24, takes these troops under his command : this however is merely another attempt to combine two diil'ei cut stories, instead of choosing between them. In the fragment of tin- Fasti belonging to this period, which was discovered in 1M7, we find the usual inver- sion : Minucius is not consul for the whole year, not however from being forced to resign ; but he is auffectua in the room of another, whose name is lost. 264 HISTORY OF ROME. a transfer of his name to this year from 290. According to the system explained above, the reserve, which must have brought the relief, was headed by a general with consular authority. But it is exceedingly improbable that this command should have been committed to one of the questors of blood, which office T. Quinctius filled at this very time. Either a dictator was actually appointed, or Q. Fabius, who afterward took the command of the army, was also the person who saved it. His office assuredly cannot have been that of warden of the city, if either at the time or subsequently a charge was imposed on him which detained him at a distance from Rome. If the later annalists had met with nothing beyond this simple record, they would have enlarged it with sun- dry additions, probably ill-judged ones, of the usual kind. Valerius Antias too and other writers of his class would have supplied us with statements of definite numbers, and with other fictions. But the task of relieving the besieged army had been transferred to a celebrated name by a very highly wrought poetical legend. This was adopted, and no further trouble was taken about the an- cient record: so that, being cast aside, it has been pre- served in its original simplicity: for those annalists were too parsimonious to throw anything entirely away, that could be turned to the slightest account. The contents of this poem are unquestionably very old; and Livy has preserved it with so fine a feeling for its beauties, that there are only a few unimportant features, which need to be completed or restored, as they may be with in- dubitable certainty. The Aequians had concluded peace with Rome. Nevertheless Gracchus Cloelius led them again to mount Algidus, and they renewed their yearly ravages. A Ro- man embassy came to his camp to complain of this breach of faith: they were received with scorn. The Aequian general bad them not trouble him, but utter their grievances to the oak, under the broad shade of BISTORT OF KOMI- 'J r >'> winch his tribunal was erected. The embassadors ac- cepted his insolent speech as an omen. The spirit which animated Jupiter's sacred tree, heard them tell of the outrages of the proud, and the sighs of the opprest. But the punishment lingered. Minucius was defeated and surrounded. Five horsemen, who made their escape before the lines of the Aequians formed a complete circle round the Roman camp, brought the tidings to Rome. Straightway the patres invested L. Cincinnatus with the dictatorship. The appointment was announced to him by a beadle 605 in the Vatican district 6 , where he tilled a hide of four jugers. It was summer; and the man whom his countrymen were raising to kingly power, was driving his plough, with no other garment than an apron. 7 This was the way the peasants used to work in the heat of the sun. The messenger desired him to clothe himself, that he might hear the commands of the senate and bur- gesses. Racilia, his housewife, brought him his toga. A boat lay ready at the bank. On the other side he was received by his kinsmen, and all his friends among his gentiles, and by his three sons: his favorite son was not among them ; he had fled before his trial into misery. The next morning before daybreak the dictator was in the forum. He appointed L. Tarquitius master of the knights, a man noble, brave, and poor as himself. He ordered that all shops should be shut, that all exemptions from service should be suspended, and that everybody should be enrolled under the banners; and further that all the serviceable men were to stand in readiness at sun- set in the field before the city 8 , with food for live days, « 0i A viator: Pliny, xviii. 4. In Livy it is a deputation ; and much more pompous still in Dionyaius. 6 Pliny, x\ ui.-l. According to Livy it was below Trastevere. 7 A ccumpettre. 9 Martio in campo is the common reading in Livy, in. 27 : in the Florentine manuscript a leaf is wanting here : a good manuscript, 266 HTSTORY OF ROME. and each with twelve palisades. While the troops that were to march were resting, after having cut their poles and got ready their arms, they who were to stay at home had to prepare provisions for them. His orders were fulfilled. While they were on their march, the com- manders called upon the legions to remember that their countrymen had already been surrounded for three days: and of their own accord the standardbearers and foot- soldiers exhorted each other to redouble their pace. At midnight they had reacht mount Algidus, and were near the enemy's camp, which enclosed that of the Romans in the midst. The dictator made his troops march on- ward in column 609 , till a circle was formed about the Aequians. Then they halted, and began to dig a trench, and to heap up a mound, atop of which the palisades they had brought with them were driven in. When they were setting to work, they raised the Roman battle-cry. This announced to the consul's troops that the wisht-for succour was arrived; and they delayed not to burst forth from their camp. The Aequians fought with them dur- ing the whole night, till the first break of dawn 10 , when they beheld the intrenchment around them, which by this time was completed and insurmountable: and now Cin- cinnatus led his cohorts against the camp, while its inner Leid. 2, omits Martio; and very properly so: for as they were going to the Algidus, the place here referred to must be the Campus Caeli- montanus, the Campus Minor: see Scaliger on Catullus, lv. 609 The agmen longum is the march in column, in which, at the age we are speaking of, we must suppose that one century of the first class followed another, each ranged with four men in front and five deep : after them came the centuries of the second class. The Hue of battle was formed with the utmost simplicity by wheel- ing round. The agmen quadratum was the march in battle-array before the enemy. 10 Luce prima. The alba before the morning redness; for which our language has no word. Our northern regions are un- acquainted with its beauty ; as the south is with the charm of our evening twilight. HISTORY OF ROME. 207 circle was stormed by Minucius. In extreme dismay the Aequians implored that he would not utterly destroy them. The dictator commanded that Gracchus Cloelius and his captains should be given up in chains: to the common soldiers he granted their lives. The town of Corbio, with everything found in it, was the price of his mercy. They laid down their arms and weapons before the con- queror. An opening was made according to usage in the line by which they were imprisoned, where two spears were set up, with a third fastened across to the tops of them: here they marcht out. Their camp, their horses and beasts of burthen, all their utensils and baggage, all the property of the men, except the tunic worn by each, remained in the hands of the victors. No share, either in the booty or in the triumph was allowed to Minucius and his troops. But they did not murmur: on the con- trary they saluted the dictator, when he returned to Rome, as their patron 611 , and gave him a golden crown, a pound in weight 1 ' 2 . This triumph, which cost no mo- ther a tear, was a day of exultation. Tables spread with provisions were standing before all the houses be- tween the Capene gate and the Forum. The troops, as they marcht in heavily laden with booty, refresht them- selves with the food that was offered them: the rejoicing citizens arose from the festive meal, followed the proces- sion to the Capitol, and joined in the jovial songs of the soldiers. 6,1 It is a striking coincidence, that the army under M. Minucius salutes the legions of the dictator, Fabius, in the very saint' way : Livy, xx. 29, 30. "Was this story transferred in a very late age from Marcus to his gentile Lucius ? or did their being of the same gens revive the recollection of the fact, and occasion its repetition? 12 A pound of gold is 10000 ases: that is, as the legion in those days consisted of 3000 men, three aaea and a triens apiece: a ge- nuine old legendary number, and one day's pay. Dionysius passes over this present, he would have thought bis hero imperfect, unless he had abhorred riches; and so he also makes him reject a share of the booty at Corbio. 268 HISTORY OF ROME. This legend will not stand the test of historical cri- ticism, any more than those which refer to the time of the kings. But such a test must not be applied to it, any more than to them. The poet, whether he sang his story or told it, had no need to reflect that, if five pa- lisades were a heavy load for a soldier inured to his duties, men called out in a general levy must have been quite crusht by the weight of twelve; that so great a number of them could not be made use of, unless the circle was so large that, if all the soldiers stood in a line, they had a fathom of ground apiece; in which case, to say nothing of the time it would have required be- fore each had finished his piece of wall and ditch, an attack in any quarter from the Aequians, who were far superior to Minucius, would have burst through the whole fortification; or that no scout could have walkt the dis- tance between Rome and mount Algidus, more than twenty miles, betwixt sunset and midnight; yet here it is done by a column of men heavy-armed and heavy- laden. The poet however neither counted their steps nor the hours. Still more might he smile at any one who objected, that the Aequians must have been struck with blindness and deafness, if they allowed the Romans to march round them, and inclose them in a net, with- out offering any impediment, or ever interrupting them while throwing up their intrenchments. For this was not wrought by human means. God had smitten them, so that they neither saw nor heaid, and could not per- ceive the battle-cry, which pierced to the ears of the army inclosed by their lines. This was the fruit of the scorn which had bidden the opprest seek succour from him. He had strengthened the limbs of the Romans, so that they completed their rampart between midnight and the first break of dawn, after a night-march of more than twenty miles, added to the labours of the foregoing 'lay : and after all, they were still fresh enough to make an irresistible onset on the enemy in his intrenchments, HISTORY OF ROME. 269 where he hud been remaining at rest till the besieged army attackt him. Dionysius has allowed himself to strip the tale of these marvellous features, and so gets a story, which at best is not quite impossible, ns the skeleton and ground- work of a legend, the composition of which may be fully explained. The Aequian general Cloelius is again sur- rounded and taken prisoner twenty years after near Ardea; and this story has a much more historical air 613 . It is impossible however that the same person should have experienced this fate twice over; for assuredly nobody, who had been led in triumph in those days, ever escaped the axe. There is a like repetition, — so meagre was the invention of the Roman story-tellers, — in the descrip- tion of the manner how Cincinnatus learnt his elevation while working in his field in the heat of summer. Dio- nysius had already given it on his election to the con- sulship 11 , to which it evidently belongs. Even the mis- sion of Q. Fabius with his two collegues had already occurred in 289 15 . The epical mode of preparing the way for the result by the speech of Cloelius in mockery of the gods, for which sin an ignominious death was not too severe a punishment, does honour to the poet. In reality the Aequians did not violate their oaths: they had not concluded any peace. The giving up Corbio was invented, according to all appearances, by the an- nalists, on the ground that it was taken by the Aequians 613 Livy, iv. 10. An intrenchment newly raised, together how- ever with the fortress of Ardea, makes it impossible for him to re- treat. It is executed in a night ; Cloelius is given up by his troops, who are allowed to depart on laying down their arms: all the same thing over again. 11 Dionysius, x. 17: it is inconceivable how he could write it twice over : (Tv\e *ai t6tc : x. 24. Cicero, de Senect. 16 (56), refers this story to the dictatorship of 315: one sees how famous it was, and how, after the manner of legends, it shifted about. " Compare Dionysius, ix. 60, with Livy, in. 25. 270 HISTORY OF ROME. the next year, and yet is already found among the con- quests of Coriolanus. Out of this whole story therefore nothing remains as an undeniable historical fact, except at the utmost that Cin- cinnatus as dictator delivered the beleaguered army. This, I say, is all at the utmost. What however if this ex- ploit was achieved by Q. Fabius, and only attributed to Cincinnatus, to conceal the melancholy recollection that his dictatorship procured the expulsion of the accuser of his guilty son? that its real object had been to intimi- date the plebeians into relinquishing their project for a reformation of the laws? 616 . That Corbio and Ortona were retaken from the Aequi- ans in 297, and that the former was destroyed, seems to be a well-grounded statement. On the other hand the account in Livy of a glorious campaign of the two con- suls on mount Algidus in the year 299 has all the air of having been invented by the annalists. Another nar- rator, weary of the perpetual conflicts on those hights, transfers the battle to the neighbourhood of Antium, bringing only one consul into the field : and the betrayal of the heroic L. Sicinius, the black crime of the decem- virs, is inserted here by anticipation 17 . There was a lack of military events during the years immediately pre- ceding the decern virate: the Annals seemed to be de- fective: why should they not be completed? Probably however nothing of importance was undertaken during 616 The triumphal Fasti, which place his triumph on the ides of September, are only apparently a weighty authority : if we conceive that the author was imposed upon by the false statements he met with (see note 579), he may have found this date recorded and be- lieved it. On these matters he must either have believed every- thing, or laught at everything : since he even tells us on what days the first Tarquinins and Servius triumpht. This is not the only puzzle with regard to the honours of Cincin- natus. In Diodorus, whose fasti are by no means to be neglected he is consul two years after : xu. 3. " Dionysius, x. 43, compared with Livy, ill. 31. HISTORY OF HOME. 271 this period. At Koine everybody's thoughts were occu- pied by the Terentilian law: and if there was no impe- rious necessity for a levy, the tribunes may have stopt it, and persisted in their opposition. That this could be done without danger was at first the consequence of the isopolitan league entered into with the Volscians: in the latter part of this period it arose from a terrible pesti- lence, which in 301 fell upon the Auruncian nations and the Sabines along with the Romans. 272 DISASTERS AND EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA. For twenty years before tlie institution of the de- cemvirate, Rome was visited by all imaginable scourges, mortalities, earthquakes, calamitous defeats, as though heaven had resolved to exterminate the distracted nation from the face of the earth: and manifold signs, betoken- ing an inward coil and stir of nature, announced that the times were out of joint. A similar combination of all natural horrours with the last extreme of human mi- sery came again upon the city, after the lapse of a thou- sand year6, and left it desolate as a grave, three hundred years after Rome had experienced the first pestilence, the ravages of which can be compared with those of this earlier period. The first of these epidemic disorders makes its ap- pearance in the year 282. Its peculiar character is not described; only that it attackt every one without dis- tinction of age or sex; that it rolled over the city like a torrent or a lava-stream, and would have swept all be- fore it, had it made a longer stay. This sickness is expressly said to have visited the rest of Italy 618 . The same thing is not stated of the second, which raged nine years after, in 291, though it is impossible to doubt that it was no less widely spread: an account has been pre- served of its victims, sufficient to give a notion of its Ms Dionysius, ix. 42. HISTORY OF ROME. '27'.'> ravages, and deserving unqualified credit. It carried ofl both the consuls, three out of the five tribunes, two of the four augurs, the chief curio, and the fourth prut "I the senators'' 1 ' 1 . Now, though medicine has no resources against the real plngue, yet the mortality is always far greater in the lower ranks than the higher 20 : because the former cannot retreat from the contagion ; and they perish for want of attendance and nourishment, while a strong constitution will save many who are provided with these appliances. Such a proportion appears on the return of the same sickness ten years after, in 301. Among the dead on this occasion the Annals specially enumerated one of the consuls, and the one elected to supply his place, four out of the ten tribunes, an augur, and one of the three great flamena: many senators, half the free inhabitants, and all the slaves are said to have perisht 31 . As to the nature of the disease here again nothing is stated. When Dionysius paints the misery it brought with it, he is evidently borrowing from Thucy- dides, or indulging in rhetorical invention. The utmost he can have found on the subject in the Annals is, that the calamity and distress were greatly hightened by the prac- tice of throwing the corpses into the sewers, or directly into the river, when hands and means for burying them failed. ITencc I am just as little inclined to copy his description, as to attempt myself, after the model of Thu- cydid.es or Boccaccio, to portray the choerlcssncss, the 619 ix. 67. Ldvy, in. 6,7. 20 In the plague of 1628, 40 members of -the greal council died at Bern, and :^< >» >< > persons on the whole; Meyer, I. ]>. 532. Tin- great council "ii an average certain 1\ reckoned 250: the city at thai time had not above 12000 souls al the utmosl ; probably much fewer. -' Livy, in. X-2. Dionysius, \. 53. The fact, thai Lucretius did not describe these domestic plagues, even if he had been obliged to draw his materials from the Attic historian, proves how com- pletely the Romans in the time of < laesar were strangers to their own early history. VOL. 11. ( I HISTORY OF ROME. despair, the giddiness, the superstition, the recklessness, the heartlessness and licentiousness of such a horrible period. This pestilence attackt the neighbouring states, the Volscians, Aequians, and Sabines, with equal fury 626 . We are not to suppose however that its ravages were confined within the horizon which at that time bounded the view of the Roman annalists : they undoubtedly spread over the whole peninsula, and produced or promoted many changes. From its pi'opagation in the inland, and even in the mountainous districts, it may be conjectured to have been of a different kind from the Attic, which broke out only sixteen years later: for this, like the yel- low fever, appears not to have moved far from the sea or great rivers. Thus much is certain, that the distress was such, the fields were left uncultivated, which gave rise to a famine the next year 23 . No occasion is stated for the eruption of the pesti- lence in 301 : that of 291 broke out, like the Attic one, when the city was thronged with the peasantry who had taken refuge in it with their property from the enemy. The dejection generally prevalent may have acted as a predisposing cause, as at Cadiz in 1800. The want of fodder and even of water for the cattle driven within the Avails, could not fail to breed diseases among them : which rendered the men likewise more susceptible of contagion, and even promoted its development: and the fugitives, who, for want of a hospitable roof, past their nights un- der porticoes or in open places in the dogdays and Sep- tember, were liable to the malignant fevers of the season, even within the inclosure of Servius. The same causes operated at Athens- Thucydides however does not trace the disease to them : on the contrary he is persuaded that it came from Ethiopia and Egypt. Thence it was c2 ~ Dionyshis, x. o3. 23 Dionysiua, x. 54. It was just the same after the plague of 1348 : Matteo Villani, i. 4. BISTOBY OF HOME. 275 brought on board a ship to the Piraeus; where, like the yellow fever, it quickly broke out with violence under the favorable circumstances just mentioned. The real origin both of these Italian pestilences and of the Attic one was probably connected with the volcanic convulsions that took place about the same time. Con- temporary writers deemed it, unquestionable that such a connexion existed between the second Attic pestilence and the dreadful earthquakes of the same period*; which however affected Attica but slightly. The cause there- fore must lie deeper than that infection of the air and waters, which takes place in an extensive region, shat- tered by volcanic action, as in Calabria in 1783. I will not indeed venture to assert that extraordinarily violent and farspreading earthquakes and eruptions of lava are always attended with a great mortality: this conjecture may be reserved for the decision of a future age better furnisht with the means of examining it. On the other hand we know that the black death, the progenitor of the present Oriental plague, arose in China, in 1347, after terrible earthquakes, and on the soil which they had rent and shattered 62 *; at a time when the world had been quite free from this scourge for more than seven hundred years; that is, ever since the extinction of the pestilence which appeared in the reign of Justinian, dur- ing a period of incessant terrible earthquakes, selfcngen- dered, like an immediate angel of death 05 . The dread- ful mortality too, which prevailed in Italy and Greece about the year of Rome 460, fell out at least very near a time of unusual volcanic convulsions. If we look about for such at the period of the two Roman epidemics, and * Thucydides, i. 23. tii. 87. C2t Desguignes, Histohv dea Huns, v. p. 223, toll. 25 The village near Pelusium where it first appeared was well known ; as in India, Sir Gilbert P.kne Bays, they point out that in which the cholera sprang up a few years ago. S 2 AW> HISTORY OF ROME. suppose that even the first, though rapid in its passage, was really a pestilence, and that the statement of the general mortality was not an addition made by Dionysius, Avhile perhaps the Annals merely spoke of an influenza, we find that it occurred only three or four years before the earthquake in Taygetus, by which Sparta was de- stroyed 62 ' 5 : and the history of that period has reacht us so imperfectly, that the records of contemporaneous shocks of very destructive force may easily have been lost. As to the year 291, if that date be not still too early for an accurate comparative chronology, and if the eruption of Etna which took place in 01. 81, fell in the first year of that Olympiad 27 , this eruption coincided exactly with the pestilence. At any rate the two events lie very close to each other. As to the epidemic of 301, it probably sprang like the second Attic pestilence, from the em- bers of the preceding one, which, fanned by favorable circumstances, again burst out into a blaze. The northern lights too, which were seen at this pe- riod, were evidently connected with the ferment in the bowels of the earth. In the years 290 and 295 the firma- ment seemed on fire 28 , broken by flashes of lightning: armies and the tumult of battle were seen in the sky; and sounds were heard, which rarely highten the ter- rours of this phenomenon except in the arctic regions 29 . G - B This happened in 01. 79 : see Wesseling on Diodorus, xi. 63. I think I can come still nearer to the point : for the fourth year of Archidamus in Plutarch (Cinion, c. 16) is confessedly a wrong num- ber : if the correct one is id instead of S we get 01. 79. 2 : that is, — if 365 fell in 01. 99. 3, according to the approximate synchronism with which we must content ourselves for these early times,— the year of Rome 284. 27 Aelian, in Stohacus, Florileg. lxxix. 38, a passage to which I was directed by Scaliger, on Eusebius, mdxc. 28 Caelum ardere visum est plurimo igni : Livy, in. 5, and 10. 9 Dionysius, X. 2 : 'Ef ovpavco aeXa (pepopeva, Km nvpos avoids i<\> ei/os fxevovcrai tottov, pnpcpnl r elSuiXcoj' S'iWot nAAoitu fit' aepos (pfpopfuat Kill (puivdi TapaTTiivaat Stdvoiai' iivfipmnav. BIBTOBY OF ROME. 27 i The keepers of the Books of Fate were undoubtedly con- sulted about these appearances, and registered the above mentioned facts in their commentaries, which are expressly cited by Censorinus as extant for the year 298 C3 °. As they were certainly kept in the Capitol, they may very well have been preserved. It is no doubt from the same authentic source that we draw our information of another phenomenon, which is said to have occurred in the year 295 : therefore, however incredible it may sound, it ought not to be rejected as an idle talc. There fell, we are told, a shower of Hakes, like flesh, which the birds de- voured: what remained on the ground did not rot 31 . Per- haps nothing of the kind has been remarkt, since physical phenomena have been generally and carefully observed: yet how short is the time during which such observations, as did not seem intelligible and rational according to the system of the day, have been faithfully registered ! But even if no such appearance had ever occurred again, would this warrant us in denying the truth of a statement at- tested by contemporary authority? No more than we have any ground for scoffiug at the Mosaic law, because no such thing is now known, or even conceivable, as a leprosy affecting clothes and walls: since we can merely compare that horrible disease in its present state with what it once was, as we do Vesuvius with the volcanoes which of yore filled whole regions of the earth. tm c. 17. 31 Dionysius, x. 2. Livy, in. 10. It i- not even -aid to have been literally flesh. Was it worms? 278 CIVIL HISTORY OF THE ELEVEN YEARS PRECEDING THE DECEMVIRATE. The population of the greatest part of Italy was probably as much lessened by the two great pestilences, as it was forty years after Charles VIII undertook* his disastrous expedition across the Alps, in comparison with its state at that epoch. But depopulation is everywhere soon repaired by an increase of births and a diminution of deaths, except where the vital energy of a people is checkt by the influence of deeprooted general distress. Thus at Rome it was not so lasting as the effects which the mortality had on the proportion between the two orders. It affected the close body far more sensibly than that which was open to fresh supplies; and thus it neces- sarily weakened the houses in comparison with the com- monalty. Many of them must have become utterly ex- tinct at this time, as in the fifth century was the case with the Potitii at a similar season. After these years of mortality no Larcius, Cominius, or Numicius, no patri- cian Tullius, Sicinius, or Volumnius occurs in the Fasti. Three of the houses have a consul at the end of the third century for the first and last time 632 : for the first, perhaps, because the decay of such a number of houses had made room for theirs; for the last, because theirs too had been reduced to a single representative, or a few ,;32 Roniilins, Tarpeius, Aternius. HI8TOEY OK lto.MK. 27!' more, and soon afterward failed. Several others, though they are found in the Fasti till toward the time of the (Jallic invasion 033 , disappear then, or shortly after; so that they probably numbered very few families. Thus the patricians more and more lost the character of a body of citizens, and shrank up into an oligarchy, whose pretensions to the privileges of their forefathers were as groundless as their strength was inadequate to maintain them. The clientry of the extinct houses were releast from their independence: and only a few individuals, who entered into new connexions, would be preserved to the order. Most of those who had thus become free inhabit- ants, would seek admission into the commonalty. Another inevitable consequence of the calamity was a degeneracy of manners, such as shews itself in the affair of Caeso Quinctius. Pestilences, like inhuman mi- litary devastations, corrupt those whom they ruin. No alllictions make men better, except such as lead the suf- ferers to cast away their follies and to grow manly, such as rouse their energy to encounter the evil at least, if not to overcome it. Very calamitous times however serve to awaken a sense of the defects of existing institutions: many cheer themselves with the belief that the correc- tion of these would restore their lost prosperity, and this motive unquestionably seconded the proposals made at Rome, after the pestilence and the military reverses, for the reformation of the laws. The first of these bills was brought before the com- monalty in the year 292 by the tribune C. Terentilius 34 . " 3i The Aebutii, Aquillii, Ilerniinii, Horatii, Lucivtii, Menemi, Virginii. 34 This, or Tereutilliux, is the name in almost all the manuscripts of Livy, in. 0, especially in the lust : ami according to analogy, — as Quinctffiua comes from Quinctius, Publilitu from PuHitts, — Terenti- lius must be preferred. TeremtiUua is a firm quite inadmissible in a no men, and arose from the shape of the / in what is called the Lom- bard hand, which is scarcely distinguishable from /: therefore in 280 HISTORY OF ROME. Whether in the following years it was merely revived, perhaps with alterations, or whether new ones were tackt on to it ; cannot be collected from the fluctuating lan- guage in which the matter is spoken of: and history must now consider all those, which led to the institution of the decemvirate, as a single whole. What this con- sisted in may safely be inferred from the result. For, though the tribunes may have wisht for more than the decemvirs effected, the latter must have had directions to guide them to the objects of their task. The plebeians desired a compilation and revision of the laws. Now among the ancients every body of laws like those of Solon, comprised a political code as well as a civil and penal one. That the legislators were to be appointed to draw up enactments on all these sub- jects, was perceived by Dionysius 635 : and Livy expressly declares that the Twelve Tables were the fountain-head of all law, public and private 36 . Yet in spite of this assertion, from the revival of letters down to the first publication of these researches, they were regarded as merely a civil code, like what the institutes of Justinian would be if they were in the form of laws. The object aimed at was threefold; to unite the two orders, and place them as nearly as possible on an equal footing; to institute a supreme magistracy in the room of the consul- ship, with less power, and to limit its arbitrary authority ; and lastly to frame a national code for all classes of Romans without distinction. Of these objects, which were all suggested by the same spirit, one or other has been taken up exclusively by each of the historians we now read. Dion seizes the first 37 ; which indeed, if correctly in. 10 also we must read lex Terentllia. His surname should be written Harsa. r,3o Dionysius, X. 3 : 2uyy/.»a\|/-ai/ras Tot's vnep cnravTotv vo/xovs rwv T€ KdlVUlV KQL TWV l8lO>V. Ldvy, in. 34 : Fons omnis publici privatique juris. 7 Zonaras, vn -28: Tqv ttoXitcuw Ivoripav noujarao-Oat ityr)(pl- aavro. HISTORY OF HOME. 281 understood, might serve as a general expression for the whole. Livy holds the second to have been what the tribunes had in view; namely, that the consular power should be curtailed, and restrained by laws 038 . He is also aware that the deccmviral legislation accomplisht the third object 39 ; which Dionysius distinctly conceives to have been originally the sole one 40 . According to his view indeed, the defects in the state of the law, as it then existed, were, that it was unwritten, like a mere custom, and that in many cases the decision was left to the discretion of the consuls, as it had an- ciently been to that of the kings 41 . This may certainly have been the case with the penal law: and the same offense may sometimes have been punisht lightly, at others with excessive rigour. But there was no absolute want of written laws. Those ascribed to the kings were col- lected in the Papirian digest; and there is no ground to suppose that this was kept secret. The evil to be re- medied was the diversity of rights. The state of things was exactly like that which led to the framing of the statutes in modern Italy. When the German conquerors and the Eomans had grown up together into one nation, with a common language and manners, the universal ten- dency of circumstances was to mould the two classes into civic communities, with new civil rights, in which those previously kept separate should be blended. a3S in. 9 : Legibus de imperio consulari acribendifl. 24: Lex rui- nuendae suae niajestatis causa promulgata. 39 ill. 34; Appius says, so omnia suniniisinfnnisque jura aequasae 40 X. 50: Tit pi tu>v vupcov ovs e(nrovSa£ov o'i 8r]pap\oi koipovs eVt navi 'Poipaiois ypucptjvcu. Perhaps Dionysius meant to signify this want of equality in personal as well as civil rights, when be said (x. 1) that at that time there was neither laowfua nor la^yopiu. properly however (in Herodotus and Thucydides) Imvofun is thai state of freedom where no man is without or above the law. neither a Tvpavvis nor a Swaareia, icrrjyopla (in Demosthenes) that state where evei\ free citizen is of equal rank. " x.l. 282 HISTORY OF ROME. The orders in the Roman state likewise are spoken of as being each a distinct people 642 : and they were sundered by a greater chasm than many locally distant from one another. Between such there often subsisted a connubium and commercium: between the patricians and plebeians the former most certainly did not, and the lat- ter can scarcely have existed, at least in respect to arable land. I have already observed that every cury guaranteed the integrity of its century of arable, and must have had a right to every piece of it in case of a vacancy 43 : and though the plebeian allotments were not in the same cir- cumstances, nothing was more natural than retaliation. Had it been possible, before the legislation of the Twelve Tables, for the land, which from the time of king Servius down had come into the hands of the ple- beians by assignment or sale, to be transferred to the patricians, very few would have been able to save the inheritance of their ancestors through the seasons of ge- neral distress and debt; just as in the sequel the small possessors of the domain were unable to keep their land from the rich, who were aware of their wants 44 . It is stated however, and not accidentally or vaguely, that so late as the year 339 the patricians possest no property in the plebeian district 45 ; that is, none worth mentioning, M2 Ta i!6vT), Dionysius, x. 60 : id genus, of the plebeians, instead of gens (see Vol. I. p. 315, note 807), Livy, vi. 34. 43 See above, p. 157. 44 The same thing has happened within the last three centuries in the ancient territory of Latium. Before the year 1 590 the vale of Aricia was divided among a very great number of small proprietors : during the scarcity the house of Savelli bought them all out but four : and these under Alexander Vll were also reduced to straits, and compelled to sell to the Chigi family, which had acquired the ba- rony. The few that are still left, in the district of Tivoli for instance, are disappearing one after another; since, after any misfortune, they have no choice but to sell, either immediately at any price they can get, or after having for a time been a prey to the usurers. 45 See above, note 34:5. HI8T0BT of koaik. 283 lor from the time of the deccmviral legislation the com- mercium unquestionably subsisted. But such calamities as might have occasioned extraordinary transfers of pro- perty had rarely prevailed, and never long together: and without such the quantity of land which passes annually into new hands by sale, is very trifling 646 . The view here taken seems to be confirmed by the fearful severity of the ancient law of debt: which being analogous to those enacted for securing the holders of bills, was in- dispensable when the monied men were unable to seize the lands of their debtors. Its continuance must have been regarded by the wise part of the plebeian leaders as the smaller evil of the two, if, while it was impossible to avoid money transactions with those who, like the Lombards and Jews in the middle ages, had all the money in their hands, the right of acquiring plebeian land must have been substituted in case of its aboli- tion 47 . The practice of pledging the person was confined to the plebeians 48 . The same thing may be inferred as to imprisonment, from the jest of Appius the decemvir, who called the gaol the plebeian's lodging' 19 : whereas be- fore the time of the Twelve Tables all patricians could keep out of confinement by giving bail, and thus wen •" Far the greatest part of the landed property in France that belonged to the nobles before the revolution, is still in their hands, notwithstanding the confiscations. 47 Even while in a state of dependence and bondage, the German peasantry was upheld by the sound sense of our ancestors, who did not allow the possessor of an estate to usurp land of socage tenure {Bauernland) and convert it into copyhold (/loffehf), or into farms held for the lord's use (JTegwrAdejfefl), or to grant it to any but socage tenants. The baneful liberty Of changing all kinds ^( tenure at pleasure on the sale of land is now extirpating the yeomanry, and is bringing on a state of things far worse than the old rude bondage. 48 Vol. I. p. 562. 49 Quod domicilivm plebu Romanae vocaire sit toUtut: Livy, m. 57. Of the seeming instance to the contrary in the prooeBS ofOaeso Quinctius I shall speak further on : see noto G62. 284 HISTORY OF ROME. secured from personal punishment, whatever offenses they might commit. The fines imposed by the consuls were limited in the case of the patricians to a small sum, and were subject to an appeal to their great council; while for the plebeians they were still wholly indefinite and discretionary 650 . That there was a diversity of rights is to be presumed in all that infinite variety of transactions, in which the plebeian classes are represented as giving their consent. In the case of wills it plainly appears from the different courts they were confirmed by. But as in Italy, before the compilation of the statutes, there were other Germans beside the Lombards, living according to the Salic or Alemannic law, so among the patricians there was as much difference in their rights as in the origin of their tribes. The law of each race was a heritage transmitted from generation to generation, like its dialect, manners, and worship. When the elders could not agree about two contending assertions, the emperor Otho did not select that which he deemed the best, but referred the decision to the judgement of God. The Sabines did not part with their religious usages when they became Tities: and as little is it to be imagined that they renounced their common law; unless it con- tained any articles irreconcilable with that of the first tribe. These rights of the two tribes of the major houses are what are represented as the laws of Romulus and Numa : and when it is said that Tullus and Ancus framed some additions to them 51 , these, according to the same system of personification which prevailed with respect to the assignments of land 52 , must mean the rights of the Luceres and of the original plebs. Tarquinius Priscus is not named among the lawgivers, any more than among the distributers of land, because no distinct part of the nation traced its origin to him. But the most prominent 650 Above, p. 231. " Tacitus, Ann. in. 26. 12 Above, pp. 158, 150. FTTSTOKY OF ROME. 285 place" in the summary of Tacitus, which, under a thin veil, enumerates the several rights of the tribes, is occu- pied by Servius Tullius. Every transaction in which the five classes bore part, must be conceived to have been referred to him. In addition however to these original plebeian rights, we are also to suppose that he enacted laws, in the proper sense of the word, for the whole na- tion, the same which were abolisht by the Tyrant, and are even said to have been obliterated. Beside the patricians and the commonaltv, the state contained colonics and other dependent townships, where peculiar rights must have existed. There were the clients too, who would have their patrons for their judges, and the customs of the patrician tribes for their law; and in- dependent individual erarians, who .could have no deter- minate law. The general analogy of anticpiity leads us to conjecture, that a litigation between members of dif- ferent classes would be tried by the law of the de- fendant. As a chaos of tins sort almost always has a venerable look in the eyes of those who have grown old in com- merce with it, prejudices were shockt by the project of replacing it by a uniform law of the land: which how- ever was not designed to be the invention of any fancied theoretical wisdom, but a selection from the institutions already in force for one part or other of the nation'"' 53 . Passions however were much more violently irritated by the plan of imparting the privileges of the first estate to the rest of the citizens, and above all by that of putting all classes on an equal footing, and uniting them into one nation, of dividing the government and the supreme 653 Dionysius, who praises the wisdom and wholesomeness of the Twelve Tables, and supposes the bills for appointing the commis- sioners to have had no other object than the framing of such a code in the room of arbitrary power, shews a remarkable flexibility, when he also praises the resistance of the ruling body, who stirred heaven and earth to prevent the point from being carried. 286 HISTORY OF ROME. authority between them, and of replacing the unlimited power of the consul by an office so constituted as to prevent abuse and arbitrary dealing in the magistrate invested with it. To accomplish this purpose, the bill proposed the appointment of ten commissioners, of whom five were to be chosen by the commonalty, undoubtedly in the assembly of the tribes 654 . The other five, who represented the patricians, were to be named by them. Thus, supposing that for this turn the curies had been allowed to nominate both consuls, there would have been no need of new elections: the consuls, the questors of blood, and the warden of the city, with the tribunes, would have formed a decemvirate. If the intention was not that this body of the magistrates of both orders should be invested with the legislative power, it was un- derstood that the commissioners when elected were to take place of all the officers of the state. C. Terentilius promulged his bill in the year 292, while the legions were in the field 55 . After the return of the consul Lucretius it was past by the commonalty, but rejected by the senate and the curies 56 . It is not stated indeed anywhere, but it is evident in itself, that a 654 Livy (in. 9) speaks only of the five lawgivers that the plebs was to elect : Dionysius (x. 3) of decemvirs, without mentioning the order they were to come from : his only mistake is believing that the plan at the very first was to have them elected by the centuries. The thing explains itself: so does the errour that runs through Livy's account, of supposing that the plebeians wisht to usurp the legisla- tion entirely to themselves. It is true the first decemvirate was not divided : it consisted purely of patricians : but the patricians had the possession of authority, once legitimate and always maintained, and of power. 55 This was to gain time : for where violent interruption might so surely be anticipated, the question coiild not possibly be put to the vote before the return of the army. 56 Livy, in. 10. Jactata per aliquot dies cum in senatu turn ad populum res est : from which it is clear, if express evidence on the point were wanted, that debates took place in the comitium as well as in the forum. HISTORY OF HOME. 287 bill which met this (ate could not be revived within the same year: such regulations must exist in all free con- stitutions. Thus the patricians, while they observed all the forms of law, might again have parried the measure the next year, when A. Virginius either revived the bill of Tercntilius, who, as he is not mentioned again, seems lo have been taken out of the way by death or accident, or brought forward a still more extensive one: and so they might have gone on from year to year, but that the veto of the aristocratical branch of a legislative body can never in the long run withstand a measure the need of which is strongly and generally felt. Many a well- meaning man, who has voted according to his prejudices, and in subservience to the maxims predominant in his order begins to distrust them, when they are rejected by some of his brethren whom he respects. Many grow weary of the contest, when the gradual growth of the minority shews that the question is not likely to be aban- doned: and a younger generation springs up, inclined to doubt at the least about those prejudices, which their simple fathers believed to be indisputable truths. Hence calculating politicians may have wisht for a violent de- cision, in which the commonalty should put itself in the wrong, as a security against the ultimate compliance of their own order. Fanatics might hope for a complete counter-revolution from it, forgetting how shamefully and deplorably the attempt had ended ten years before. In ordinary times the patricians with their clients were no doubt the stronger party in the forum. It must have been difficult to induce the countrymen to stay in town after they had despatcht their market-business, for the sake of helping to bring in a law from which they had no immediate personal benefit to expect. They would feel little inclined to gratify their leading men at the expense of passing the night in the arcades about the forum, or in the porches before the temples 6 ' 7 . Still Gs: A- during the tumults in tin- times of the Gracchi. 288 HISTORY OF ROME. under a Eoman sky they might do so through a great part of the year : and if on an exigency they resolved to stay, the tribunes had an overwhelming majority at their command; which, if they desired it, would have followed them in an insurrection. On the regular assembly-days the patricians inter- rupted the harangues of the tribunes and the business of voting, by using the same tactics as in contending against the bills of Publilius. They even drove the com- monalty and the tribunes off the field. Many suffered ill usage from them, even to bloodshed; and had not the dismal occurrences of this period been so studiously veiled, we should certainly read that not a few lives were lost. The ringleader in these outrages, and that not once but often 658 , was Caeso Quinctius, the son of Lucius Cincinnatus, a young man proud of his extraordinary bodily strength and his eminent military exploits, as well as of his birth, and full of contempt and rancour toward the plebeians, whom he maltreated by gesture, word, and deed, even worse than any of his party. Such indignities could not fail to rouse the multitude from their indifference. Hence a tribune might reckon on the assistance of the plebeians, with arms in their hands in case of need, if he cited the offender before the court of the tribes on a capital charge under the Icilian law, for having disturbed the tribunes in the ex- ercise of their functions 59 . When matters came to this pass, the fanatics awoke from their intoxication, and saw the gulf gaping at their feet : these same men however, as soon as the danger was over, forgot it, and called it forth again. The most eminent among the ^patricians now emplored forgiveness for their favourite: and perhaps the entreaties they stoopt to would not have been vain, 658 Hoc duce saepe pulsi foro tribuni, fusa ac fugata plebs est : Livy, in. 11 : where scenes of this kind are described. 59 See p. 232. HISTOBT OF ItoMK. 289 had not a still more atrocious outrage been brought to light. M. Volscius Fictor, who had formerly been a tri- bune, declared that soon after the plague he and his aged brother had fallen in with a party of patrician youth - who were rushing in a drunken riot through the Subura; when Caeso, their leader, without any provocation knock t down the old man, still feeble from the sickness he had just got over, and injured him so that he died soon af- ter. He had brought a complaint before the consuls without effect: they had dismist it. Refusing to assign a judge to a plaintiff was probably a very usual practice, and was one of the worst among those arbitrary pro- ceedings of the consuls, which the tribunes aimed at sup- pressing. Outrages, such as that here complained of, were frequent in the Greek oligarchies, and were often the cause of their fell 660 . Even under the Athenian de- mocracy, it was high birth that spirited Aleibiades in the wantonness of his strength to somewhat similar ex- cesses. That at Rome no doubt is also an instance of the depravation of manners produced by the pesti- lence 61 . This tale spread fury through the assembly: it was with extreme difficulty that the tribunes saved the 000 As in the case of the Pentalids at Mitylene : Aristotle, Polit. V. 10. I!1 There may have been a previous quarrel, which led to the blow: if SO, it maybe said that the anfori unato man might have avoided the last outrage by slavishly brooking the insult. But the story that a person was slain not two years before in what was then the most fashionable and populous street of the city, cannot have been a fabrication. Though the accuser was forced to go into exile, this proves nothing : the curies treated him as an enemy. In order that Cincinnatus might ad like a just man, not as a father sacrificing justice to his feelings, Volsciu was said t< have drnived the people by false evidence : and the point det in d appeared to be establish^ because the court which condemned him was taken for the plebs, who hail thus done homage to the truth. A way of bring- ing the falsehood to lighl was easily invented : Livy, in, 24. VOL. II. I 290 HISTORY OF ROME. accused from being torn to pieces by the enraged multi- tude. When it is said however, that they came to a compromise with the senate, to leave him at liberty, and to accept ten sureties in three thousand ases apiece for his appearance in court, the nature of the Icilian law is misunderstood, according to which the accused was only bound to find sureties: and this point must have been settled before Volscius was heard, who only appeared as a witness, and, though by his disclosure he destroyed all possibility that any indulgence should be shewn, still produced no change in the nature of the charge brought by the tribunes, his evidence being no charge in itself 662 . The very next night Caeso withdrew from Home, and went into Etruria. Probably he did not deem himself safe in any of the remaining Latin towns. The trial however was stopt, as if he had legally taken up a dif- ferent franchise 63 . The sum in which his sureties were bound was forfeited to the temple of Ceres 04 . The 662 This disposes of the seeming difficulty, that in so flagrant a case even a patrician might have been thrown into prison. Caeso was the first person who gave sureties according to the Icilian law, for having disturbed the tribunes in their office : hie primus vades publico dedit. The threat of the tribune in Livy, in. 13, refers to that clause of the law by which summary justice was provided against such as refused to give bail. Since the people, when assembled as a court of justice, followed up their verdict on the charge by confirming or remitting the penalty, the evidence offered served to determine the feelings of the soverain, as well as the conviction of the judge, and therefore very frequently bore upon matters entirely forein to the articles of the charge. 63 If he had gone to a place with which the jus exulandi sub- sisted, this would have followed of course : it is on account of the exception, that both the circumstances are noticed by Livy. The author of the Declamation pro domo imagines that Caeso was tried by the centuries, and that judgement was pronounced : 32 (86). 64 Like the fine to which the three turbulent houses are con- demned, in Dionysius, x. 42, and that of T. Romilius, in x. 52. The emendation of Gronovius, in Livy, in. 13, hie primus vades publico dedit, is certainly right. The expression however is incorrect ; for the HISTORY OF ROME. 291 tribunes had a9 little authority as inclination to remit it: but Cineinnatus was not the person from whom they ex- acted it. They could only come upon the sureties: so, if the 30000 ases were unmercifully wrung from the in- digent father 065 , it must have been by the sureties to indemnify themselves. Without doubt however this state- ment is a mere fiction, ignorantly fabricated, for the sake of explaining how a man, lookt up to by his order as the head and safeguard of the commonwealth, came only to have a plough-land of four jugers. What became of the duty of the clients and gentiles to contribute to pecuni- ary penalties, if this was not a case it applied to? T. Quinctius and nine other members of the house, if it contained that number of men of property, would be the sureties: the whole sum was no more than the line which the consuls were shortly after empowered to lay on an individual plebeian: and if the patricians were unwilling to let the loss fall all on one house, a paltry draft on the public coffer would indemnify it, as it did others in like cases 60 . It is stated that Caeso's condemnation made very dif- ferent impressions on different classes of the patricians; that the courage of the elder droopt; while the younger became more furious than ever 67 . Livy adds, that Caeso's comrades were the most violent of all; by whom, there can be no doubt, he meant the young men: but it is quite certain that here again the distinction was be- tween the greater and lesser houses 6 ". The Quinctii penalty cannot have been paid to the populus, which would imme- diately fiaw canceled it. 665 Pecunia a patre crudeliter exacta est : Livy, in. 13. 6fi In the case of the rioters in 290 : Dionysius, x. 42. f,r Livy Hi. 14: Cum — seuiorcs Pat rum — cc^sis.scut posscssione rei publicaejuniorcs, id maximc miod t 'acsonis sodalium fuit, auxere iras in pleheni. 6S It is to be expected that the notion that the majores and minores formed two distinct parties among til'' patricians, which the T '2 292 HISTORY OF ROME. belonged to the latter 669 : and thus the connexion of the occurrences related becomes perfectly clear. The first two tribes were ready to give way : the patricians of the lesser houses, who were far more numerous, shewed greater obstinacy, but also greater policy, than ever. They re- newed their efforts to prevent the taking of the votes, but were careful that nobody should make himself more conspicuous than the rest. As soon as the commonalty proceeded to vote, it was like a sudden storm bursting upon the whole forum. On all other days they refrained from every act of violence, and strove rather to win the favour of the plebeians; of some by marks of friendli- ness and respect; of others by liberality and relieving their wants, as was suited to each case. This artifice in time perhaps might actually have misled the multitude to believe that, but for the tribu- nate, general kindness and concord would prevail. It was probable indeed that some unseasonable sally wovdd frustrate the stratagem: but on the other hand conduct so evidently the result of a calculating policy occasioned a suspicion that some very dangerous plot was in prepa- ration. A rumour found credit, and perhaps deserved it, writers of the Augustan age did uot recognize in the old books, will for some time to come be regarded by many as a mere dream ; though the existence of these parties is no less real and certain than that of the patres and the plebs. Among the passages which have com- pletely convinced me of this (see Vol. i. notes 832 and 1143, and above, p. 114, and note 471), the one last quoted is of great import- ance : and so is that in Dionysius, x. 48, where the npeo-fivTepai ko\ veoi. promise the accused consulars not to abandon them. If this distinction had only occurred in one or two places, the common construction of it might be maintained : but it appears very fre- quently down till about the year 3 1 0, and never after : though the contest between the patricians and plebeians lasted more than a century longer, the young men were no doubt just like those of earlier times, and the chronicles became more and more copious. 669 They are among the Alban houses of king Tullus : see Vol. I. note 916. HISTORY OF ROME. 293 that Cacso had been in the city, and that a conspiracy was on loot for murdering all the leading and most ob- noxious plebeians, especially the tribunes. Prodigies were announced, which made men's minds still more uneasy. It seemed certain that the times were big with some dreadful issue. » Many persons had gone to rest one evening under this distressing anxiety, when the city was alarmed out of its midnight slumber by a warshout and a blast of trumpets from the Capitol. Some fugitives who had escaped from thence reported, that a band of Romans had seized the citadel, and were putting all to the sword who would not take the oath they tendered. This, the plebeians thought, must be the outbreak of the expected massacre: it must be Caeso with a troop of bandits and conspirators. Till morning came, no one ventured to stir from the quarter where he lived. Guards were posted on the fortified bights of the Aventine and the Esquiline, and in the streets and lanes leading up to them. The assailants were Roman outlaws and runaway slaves, with the retainers of a powerful Sabine, Appius Herdonius, who had put himself at the head of the enter- prise 670 . They had dropt down the river in boats, had landed on the nearest lone spot, and having entered the city by the Carmental gate, which from a certain reli- gious notion was never shut, had mounted through the ricus jugarius to the Capitol. But though superstition 0:0 Dionysius, x. 14: SiV^joife tovs n^dras. The number of his followers is stated by Livy at 4500 men: this is nothing but a Roman legion of five cohorts, according to the full complement, of thirty men to a century. -May not this also have been the origin of the statement that there were 10(h) or ">ooo FaOii I only that the genuine number 4500 does not happen to have been preserved I Dio- nysius, toavoid the harshne>s of a preei uient softens it down in his usual way to a bxivajxis dvftpiov itTpaKiv etTraTpiSaiv : Zonaras, VII. 18. 296 HISTORY OF ROME. reinforced by the Tusculans, whom their dictator L. Ma- milius had brought unsuramoned, the Romans attempted next morning to storm the citadel. They had to begin with taking the clivus. The ground was contested with equal desperation on both sides. At length the assail- ants, with a heavy loss of lives, overpowered the outlaws. The most resolute of the survivers still defended them- selves in the Capitoline temple, the portico of which they had barricaded. Here P. Valerius fell, heading the attack. The Romans made very few prisoners: these, according to their condition, suffered the death of freemen or of slaves. It can scarcely be doubted that Caeso was present, and that he perisht in this enterprise. This must have been distinctly believed by the authors whom Livy was following, when he wrote, that two years afterward, Caeso being irrecoverably lost to the commonwealth and to his friends, his family sought a just and pious vengeance on the person who had borne witness against him 673 . An emigrant might be restored to his order as long as he lived: nor would it have been more difficult for his father to effect this, than to drive the witness into exile. In the mention of the rumours spread just before the attempt was made, Caeso's share in it is pointed out. But the writers who represented him as the victim of false testimony, could not expressly own that he had fallen in the Capitol amid a band of robbers and ene- mies of his country. P. Valerius was interred with great solemnity, to de- fray the expense of which the commonalty raised a 673 Livy, in. 25. Quoniam neque Quinctiae familiae Caeso, neque republicae maximus juvenuin restitui posset. The mention of him in the Declamation pro domo, 32 (86), along with Camillus and Ahala, as having been recalled from exile, is of no weight whatever. It is a mere conceit of an impudent and ignorant rhetorician, of just the same stamp with the assertion in the same place, that all three were condemned by the centuries, and with other absurdities point- ed out in these notes, which are so many fresh proofs of the spu- riousness of that speech. HISTORY OF ROME. 2!)7 voluntary assessment 674 . The temple of Jupiter was puri- fied from its desecration. And now the tribunes called upon C. Claudius to redeem his collegue's pledge, lie refused to act by himself in a business of such moment. But instead of eonvoking the centuries, which alone had a right to fill up the vacant consulship, even supposing they had given up the other for ever, he got the curies to confirm L. Cincinnatus, who was appointed consul by an ordinance of the senate 7 ' 5 . A whole web of artifices was spun to entangle the commonalty. All their service- able men, relying on the word of Valerius, had sworn to follow the standards, and had not yet been disbanded. They were bound therefore to march whithersoever the consuls should order those standards to be carried, and no less so to unqualified obedience. Consequently, the Leaders of the senate argued, they must accept any law that might be proposed to them. That such a propo- sition might be made on any inaugurated spot whatever, as well as on the Field of Mars, nobody disputed, any more than that an army with irs full complement was equivalent to the exercitus of the centuries. Now sup- posing that the comitia were held at a distance from Koine, the relations of the soldiers in the city and its outskirts would be left defenseless in the power of the patrieians, as hostages for the obsequiousness of their husbands and fathers. The few who refused to be bound either by this tie, or by the obligation of their oath, were in >t worth considering: and should it be deemed fit to chastise them, this might easily be done with the arms of the allies, who were now in a state of dependence. The augurs therefore proceeded to the lake of Regillus, to inaugurate a field there for the comitia, in which the perpetual concordate and all other compacts between the orders were to be declared void and canceled. After this the constitution was to be restored, not merely as it m Livy, in. 18. ' Se< note 425. 298 HISTORY OF ROME. existed before the Secession, but with all such changes as might be necessary to establish the absolute power of the curies: and this was to be done by a proceeding which according to the letter was perfectly legal; so much so, that whoever opposed it would be no better than a rebel. For upholding this new order of things in the first instance a dictator was to be created. Such were the dreams of senseless men, who did not re- flect that the profligate hypocritical abuse of the forms of law will drive the gentlest to fury, and will totally break the spell on which the power of those forms de- pends. If we further take into account that the election of Cincinnatus was itself illegal, it is plain that an in- surrection would inevitably have broken out, before a single cohort past through the gates. Accordingly, when the moment for executing this mad scheme drew near, the courage of the very hardiest failed them. They agreed to abandon all their projects, on condition that the law should lie dormant for that year. So com- pletely however were the patricians foiled, that this time again they coidd not prevent the reelection of the tri- bunes, who all continued in office from 293 to 297; whereas they were forced to give up that of Cincinna- tus 676 . Or did he himself, indignant at the faction which recklessly conjured up the spirits of destruction, and then trembled at their appearance, refuse a second time to encounter the whole odium of a criminal enterprise, and the disgrace of shrinking from its execution? Two years after however we see him at the head of the government as dictator. The questors in 295 had 076 The old Annals can have related nothing more than that the senate wanted to make Cincinnatus consul, and that this design was abandoned so completely, that an edict was issued forbidding votes to be taken for him : the account of what led to this was put in to fill up the picture. Its author wisht to glorify his hero, but has not succeeded : if he was the pillar of a good cause, he shrank from it through a weak fear of being undeservedly taxt with ambition. HISTORY OF ROME. 299 accused M. Volscius before the curies'" 77 of having borne false witness to the ruin of one of their order. The tribunes retaliated for the interruption of their assemblies by preventing the patricians from meeting on this trial 78 . Their opposition, which neither the questors of that year nor their successors could get over, gave way in 296 before the power of the dictator; and the accused was forced to go into exile. This appears to have been the sole object of that dictatorship which Cincinnatus laid down on the sixteenth day of his office. A father may be pardoned for avenging the blood of his child, though the sentence which declared Cacso a public enemy was amply deserved : the faction he belonged to loaded itself with crimes of a far deeper die. Dion tells us, that they caused many of the boldest among their adversaries to be assassinated 79 . We find it difficult to comprehend and believe in the existence of the spirit with which the oligarchies of an- tiquity maintained the power they at all times abused. That spirit however is sufficiently manifest in the oath which they exacted in some of the Greek states from their members, to bear malice toward the commonalty, and to devise all possible harm against it 80 . This must seem incredible to persons acquainted only with the mild and amicable footing on which the several orders stand 677 They had the same jurisdiction over a plebeian who had in- jured one of their body, that the plebeians had over a patrician in a like case. 78 Dion had previously mentioned the right of the tribunes to prohibit an assembly of the populus: Zonulas, vn. l.">, quoted in note 367. :s ' Dion, E\e. de sent. -2-2. p. 151 ed. R (and Zonaras). Ol fi- Trarpiftai (pavepcos ptv ov Ttavv — avrtirparrov, XiWpa 8e /x«VeV minis (oXiyap^lais) Ofwvoua*, Km to 8i]p(o kokovovs (cropai, Ka\ jSovXfvtrco o rt ai> e^co kcikov. A scoffing anapestic cadence! 300 HISTORY OF ROME. under a monarchy. But in republics even down to our own days traces of the same horrible spirit appear. Through its influence, not fifty years ago, several worthy mem- bers of the government at Friburg were punisht as trai- tors, for advising that the rights, which had been wrested from the citizens and the canton, should be given back. The same spirit in Schwytz has robbed the new subjects of their franchise, and in the North-American slave-states makes it a crime to give any instruction to persons of colour. It was by the very same infernal spirit that Sparta was led to her tyrannical measures against her helots and subjects, and Florence to those which desolated Pisa. The assassinations, Dion continues, did not effect their end. On the contrary, the more furiously the tyrants raged, the more stouthearted their adversaries became. The freedom of the Roman people was consolidated, like religious liberty in persecutions, by the blood of martyrs. From the passing of the Publilian law it kept constantly gaining in strength and compass. It is recorded as a step in its progress, that in the year after the dictator- ship of Cincinnatus, 297, the number of the tribunes was doubled, and became ten, two from each of the classes 681 . As they were bound to give aid in person to every plebeian, not only against oppression on the part of the magistrates, but against all illtreatment by individuals 82 , their previous number may have proved inadequate at a time when out- rages were so frequent: and a numerous board has a more dignified appearance, and acts with greater vigour. So did that of the tribunes; which, till it gained its point with regard to a new code of laws, bound itself to un- qualified unanimity 83 . The increase of their power is visible the very next year, 298, when Icilius and his col- legues were able to compell the consuls not to set aside 681 Livy, in. 30. 82 Livy, in. 19: Si quis vobis — de vestra plebe — donium suani pbsessam a familia armata nuntiaret, ferenclum auxilium putaretis. 83 Dionysius, x. 31. HISTORY OF HOME. 801 a plebeian by-law, as they wisht to do, and as their predecessors must often have done, but to lay it before the senate, and allow the tribunes to defend it 684 . This renders the Icilian law for assigning the Aventine to the plebs M5 memorable in the history of the constitution ; as it was acceptable to the commonalty for the immediate benefit they derived from it. By this law the plebeians, who from the time of king Ancus had had a settlement on the Aventine, so that there cannot be a doubt that some of it had been as- signed to them, acquired the rest of that hill, which was still part of the domain, enjoyed by individual patricians, and in great measure covered with houses, rented no doubt by the plebeians. Those who had an equitable title were indemnified for the value of their buildings 86 . The as- signment was made by dwellings, each being given to a father of a family. The houses were not occupied by several persons as joint property: but each occupier had a story in absolute ownership, and could alienate and transmit it 87 . There must have been a clause to provide 684 Dionysius, x. 31. 85 Livy merely says, de Aventino publicando lata lex .- ill. 30. Here publicare, which properly signifies the confiscation of private property for t lie state, is applied to a possession which the state resumes and disposes of at its pleasure, as in iv. 48: cum — magnae partis nobiliv/m eo plebiscito publicareatur fortunae. 86 The erroneous notion formed by Dionysius as to the object of this law has already been noticed in note 315. Every possession was assuredly given up, only with this distinction, that a fraudulent pos- sessor was not indemnified for his buildings, an honest one was. The compensation was unquestionably paid by those who got the house. Thus the part, of the hill which was already built on, and that which was -till open, might be divided into allotments without any absurd inequalitj . 8; This partition of property in houses by stories i- customary in Rome at this day, and surprises foreinersjust as it did Dionysius. May not a house so divided, or capable of such a division, and of be- ing let out by stories, have been termed an insula! and may not the procurator insula* in Petronius, !><">, be the proprietor's agent? 302 HISTORY OF ROME. that, even if a general commercium should be introduced, no patrician should ever acquire property in land on this hill. Else no reason can be imagined for excepting this law, along with those on which the liberties of the com- monalty rested, from the unlimited power of the decem- virs 688 . It was of the utmost importance for the inde- pendence of the plebeians, that the patricians should not be their landlords, and thus able to controll their votes. It was of great consequence too, while bloody feuds were so likely to break out, that the commonalty should be in exclusive possession of their suburb on the Aventine. That hill was very strong. From the city, before the Clivus Publicius was opened, there was no access to it but by footpaths. The only carriage-road led through the Porta Trigemina to a row of houses on the river- side, by the salt- magazines and the quay, out of the city. At its top was its citadel. Probably the peculiar dis- tinction it possest, of lying without the pomerium 89 , which furnisht the antiquaries under the emperors with matter for so much conjecture, was also guaranteed by the Icilian law: it exempted the ground from the civic auspices. In the year 300 a very great step was gained by the law of the consuls Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aternius, which set a limit to the imposition of arbitrary mulcts on the plebeians 90 , fixing two sheep and thirty beeves as the 688 Livy, in. 32. 89 Till the reign of Claudius : Gellius, xni. 14. Hence even Varro does not include this borgo in his topographical survey of the city. 90 The fixing a certain number of head of cattle for the highest mulct is stated by Dionysius, x.50,as the purport of the law of these consuls ; and Cicero, de re p. n. 35, is undoubtedly speaking of the same law : he ascribes the valuation at a certain sum of money to the consuls of 325; which coincides with the aestimatio multarum attributed to them by Livy, iv. 30. The very nature of the case implies that this valuation must have been of a later date; and the statement which makes it a part of the Aternian law (Gellius, XI. 1. BISTORT OF ROME. 3<)."> extreme 691 . Even this was not to be laid on at once: the consul began with a single sheep 98 , which served as a punishment for a proletarian, and as a warning for a man of property. From the same principle it follows that the fine could only be raised by degrees 03 , till it reacht the highest amount, by a single head each time; probably too only from day to day, exclusive of the dies 7iefasti 9i . Thus no one could be ruined by excessive lines, unless he was guilty of contumacy. For, if the con- sul's command was unreasonable, the tribunes were ready to afford protection : their extraordinary intervention was not derogatory to the character of a supreme magistrate, as regulations prescribing the amount of a fine in every particular case would have been. Whether they should grant protection or not, it rested with their conscience to decide; and if any one inclines to doubt that it was commonly refused to the disobedient, he must forget that the Annals merely give us a picture of times of great Festus, Peculatus) is most certainly erroneous. Verrius had evi- dently heard something about the consuls of 302, connected with this subject ; but Festus has rendered it quite unintelligible. The discretionary determination of the sum according to circumstances was the characteristic of a mvlta : a poena was unalterably fixt. 691 It is not owing to an oversight, but through one of his shrewd inferences, that Dionysius inverts the number into thirty sheep and two beeves : the number of the former cannot possibly have been such as to be equivalent to an ox : nobody, when speaking of pounds, will mention a greater number of shillings than is contained in one. The conceit of Gellius, that sheep were scarcer and dearer than oxen, may serve as a standard of a pedant's common sense. « Gellius, xi. 1. 93 To pour in one measure after another was called multare : Varro, de 1. L. v. 36 (iv. p. 48). 04 In Gellius, xi. 1, all the manuscripts in both places have in tingulos die*. The last word has been omitted, because it was held to be monstrous that a fine of this magnitude should be repeated several times over. But the editors have corrected the writer him- self: what he read in his authors must have agreed with what I have here stated. 304 HISTORY OF ROME. excitement. Still disputes could not fail to arise on this head between the tribunes and the consuls: and it may be presumed that, at least in the sequel, the commonalty on such occasions interposed with a judicial authority, such as the patricians had already acquired in behalf of their own body 695 . Another provision of the Aternian law gave all ma- gistrates the right of imposing fines 96 . Perhaps the war- den of the city may not have had this power before. As to the questors of blood, it would have been strange if, possessing the higher power, they had wanted the lower. The tribunes and edilee can never have been without it in relation to their own order: nor can they have acquired it with regard to the patricians till later. In the same year, the ninth after Terentilius first brought his bill before the commonalty, the senate and the curies at length consented that the laws should be revised. The manifold distresses of the times may have awakened a feeling in them, that no blessing rested on the cause they were maintaining : persons of gentler dis- position may have longed for concord: and hopes may have been exprest that it might even appease the wrath of the heavenly powers. Those who were thoroughly headstrong, were awed by the condemnation of several of their leading men, who had anew been violently dis- turbing the plebeian assembly in 299, and afterward, in 300, by that of the consuls who had screened them. The ordinance seems at this period to have been drawn up in the most general terms, and the question as to the representation of the two orders in the legis- lative body to have been postponed. Three senators were commissioned to go to Athens, to bring back the laws 695 See p. 231. This explains the sacramentum multae of which Cicero speaks, de re p. II. 35 : for the sacramentum was a stake which could only be forfeited by a judicial decision. 96 Dionysius, x. 50. HISTORY OF BOME. 305 under which that city, having risen to a new life from its destruction in the Persian war, was then flourishing as the most glorious and poweiful not only of the Greek, but of all republics. Their names are recorded ,iJ7 : no doubt they were preserved in the books of the pontiffs. But though the fact of their being sent across the sea must be held to be perfectly certain, still the name of Athens might have been thrust in by later writers, just as arbitrarily as Pyihagoras was inserted in the legend of Numa, and Dionysius in that of Coriolanus; just as the expedition of Laches was converted into a Carthaginian one. If this question were to be decided by the relation between the Attic civil law and that of the Twelve Tallies, it would be necessary to suppose that a mistake of this kind had been made. For in whatever is essential and characteristic, with regard to personal rights, and to all the forms of legal acts and judicial proceedings, the two codes have not the slightest resemblance. Wherever any can be traced, it either relates to objects the nature of which produces a sort of general uniformity, or it is grounded on some principle far more widely spread, such as the institution of the houses. But in fact these argu- ments are equally conclusive against referring the origin of this part of the dccemviral code to that of any Greek city, except those of Italy: and so far as the institutions in these coincided with the Tables, it was needless to seek among them for what they must themselves have adopted from the Italian nations. Besides why may not the embassadors have gone abroad to imbibe wisdom from a state renowned far and wide for it, but afterward have found it inapplicable to the condition of Bonn? As- suredly however nobody thought of altering the civil law 697 Sp. Postliminy .\. Manlius (Lydus, L 31, calls him Marcius, which is a mistake), ami P. (or Serv.) Sulpicius. Dionysius says, that triremes wore equip! fur them: in later times at least it was usual for every embassador to have one to himself. VOL. II. U 306 HISTORY OF ROME. after any forein model: whereas the model of a state in which the commonalty and the houses had been united into one nation by a complete equality of privileges, was very instructive to the Romans, as they were then cir- cumstanced. Examples of every modification of the rela- tions between political classes, from the effete continuance of the most antiquated forms, down to their absolute dis- appearance, were furnish t by Greek cities far and near. Several held forth a warning, shewing how the tenacity of oligarchies had unavoidably led to the elevation of a usurper, and thereby to the overthrow of all the privi- leges of the ancient citizens, even where they might other- wise have been reconcilable with the public welfare. But Athens afforded the example which Rome needed, to- gether with a spectacle of all the blessings that had at- tended it. It is a mistake, but a pardonable one, in our historians to talk of the laws of Solon: these did not contain what the Romans wanted : they took their lesson from the later legislation. I have alreadv observed that at Athens, as at Rome, the demus was in fact a com- monalty. It consisted of the old inhabitants of Attica: and as the division into the four Ionian tribes could only affect the ruling nation, who composed the 360 houses contained in those tribes, so assuredly the local division into domes originally related only to the commonalty. Such denies combined into districts according to their situation: we read of the men of the highlands, the low- lands*, and the coast, that is, a division into three parts, such as occurs in the local distribution of Rhodes and elsewhere 698 . It is the predominating one in the consti- tution of the Greek states: in Attica it was probably a relic of the time prior to the Ionian conquest. Such distinct portions of a country will frequently be at en- mity, and commonly without any rational ground; those * These names were used for local parties in the Grisons. B9S Vol. I. p. 299. III8TOUY OF ROME. 307 of Attica attacht themselves to powerful cupatrids, who put themselves at their head. This demus, to which Solon had conceded only so much authority in the state as could not be withheld from it 700 , while he secured its personal freedom and relieved its distress, was of course excluded from the council, which in all ages was com- posed of representatives of the tribes, as long as there were no other than the four Ionian ones. So was it unquestionably from all high offices. By his constitution of the classes he removed all the indigent eupatrids from the government, without letting in the rich members of the demus 1 . That Clisthenes instituted the ten tribes seems to admit of no doubt. But a question may very ■well be raised, whether the abolition of the four Ionian tribes, and the elevation of the others into an order em- bracing the whole nation, can be attributed to him with equal justice? or whether, like Servius Tullius, he merely transformed the demus, which before was only an aggre- gate of parts put together at random, after it had been enlarged by the accession of new cantons like Salamis, and by the admission of a number of metics and erarians 2 , into a uniformly organized community, and set it up by the side of the old tribes? and whether it was not sub- sequently, in that interval, of which no information re- mains, but during wdiich Athens developt itself with such prodigious rapidity, that the two orders united into one body, and the ten tribes became a division embracing the whole nation, while the Ionian tribes were abolisht, and the phratries thrown open to every citizen? The latter is my own opinion. For in the first place it is at the least 700 Arnxa) fitv yap efraxa roaov Kpdros oaraov iirapnt'iv. 1 Vol.i. note 1017. 2 Aristotle says that Clisthenes enrolled a number of metics in the tribes (Polit. in. 2 : noWovt €(pv\fT€i>iTf gevovs [ktoikovs kgi 8ov- Xony : this is the true reading, not £. k. fi. p.)\ it looks as if subjects belonging to the class of sympolrtena were here spoken of as though the; had been laoTfXus- u 2 308 II J STORY OF ROME exceedingly improbable that an order, which had been kept so much in the background, should have gained the highest franchise at one stride without a struggle; just as the Irish Catholics could not possibly be emancipated fifty years ago: next, even so late as the time of Aris- tides, none but members of the houses were eligible to the archonship*: and finally, there is no reason to doubt the statement that by the regulation of Clisthenes each tribe contained ten demes, any more than that in aftcrtimes there were 174 denies in the Attic nation 703 . Some of the additional seventy-four must have been cantons, which had previously been left in a state of dependence: but by far the chief part were houses, the names of which occur in great numbers among the demes of the ten tribes, mixt up with the rest like bodies of the same kind 4 . Be this however as it may, the union of the Athenians and Atticans into one nation took place a considerable time before the decemvirate, the first year of which fell about thirteen years before the Pelo- ponnesian war. If any one questions that the power and splendour of Athens, which were then at their ze- nith in the age of Pericles, can have been known and objects of admiration on the Tiber, he must be blind even to the external evidence of the commerce between the western coast of Italy and Attica, which has been brought to light within these few years; but which was not needed to convince a person taking an unprejudiced view of the subject. The remains of ancient theatres and works of art prove that Latium and the Tuscans were acquainted with Greek poetry. Why then should not men verst in story have related there, as well as at * Plutarch, Aristid. c. 1. See Vol. i. note 1017. 703 Herodotus, v. 69. Strabo, ix. p. 396. c. 4 See Vol. i. note 968. The aorv cannot possibly have been a deme, any more than there was a Capitoline tribe : in both instances none but members of the houses resided in the citadel, by the side of the temples. HISTORY OF HOME. 309 1'hurii, that Athens, alter being distracted by factions and having fallen in strength, had been restored to power and dignity by the sway of Pisistratus, but that a new life had sprung up with the freedom created by Clisthenes 705 ? a life to which the city owed its wonderful revival in all the freshness of youth after its destruction by the Persians. W the current of democracy was now flowing too impetuously at Athens, and had already swept away some wholesome barriers, even this was a warning, not to persist obstinately in damming it up, but to direct its course while there was yet time. Perhaps it may have been the Ephesian llermodorus who directed the Romans where to look for a model of salutary laws; that friend of the sage Heraclitus, to whom the general voice gave the epithet of the excellent; which led his fellow-citizens to say: let none of us be excellent: if there be any, let him be so for others and elsewhere 6 . The tradition that he assisted the decemvirs in framing their laws seems well-founded 7 : and it can have been 705 Herodotus, v. 78. The Athenians had Tyrrhenian auxiliaries in .Sicily: Thucydides, vir. 57: and even before this expedition the Carthaginians had eyed them with anxiety and suspicion: vi. 34. B 'Hfieav umbels ovrfiaros etrrm. A well-known story, told by Diogenes Laertius, ix. 2, and by Cicero, Tusc. Quaest. v. 36 (105). Statements of a philosopher's aKfu) in Diogenes and writers of the same stamp are of so little weight, that the one which places the Ephesian philosopher about 01. 69, need not prevent us from sup- posing that the llermodorus of the decemvirs, though sixty years after, was the same person. 7 Pomponius, 1. 2. D. § 4. de orig. juris (I. 2) : Leges XII. tabu- larum quarum ferendarum auctorem fuisse Deeemviris llermodorum quondam Ephesium, exulantem in Italia, quidam retulerunt. Pom- ponius compiled his works from Cains, who had Gracchanus before his eyes. Pliny, xxxiv. 11: Fuit et (statua) Hermodori Ephesu in comitio, legum quas Decemviri scribebant interpretis. It looks as if Pliny in his hurry had fancied at t he moment that Hermodorus, to do honour to Pome, had translated her laws into Creek: his author however must have meant that lie translated < ireek laws for the use of the decemvirs. Cicero, if he knew the story, cannot have believed 310 HISTORY OF ROME. no common service that procured a stranger the honour of a statue in the comitium 708 . If however he had any share in the Twelve Tables, it can only have related to the constitution. it ; or lie certainly would not have omitted it in the passage quoted above : nowhere does he give the least hint that there was any Greek element in the Twelve Tables. 708 It Pliny's days it was no longer to be seen : it was probably taken away in the time of Sylla, along with those of Pythagoras and Alcibiades. .ill THE FIRST DECEMVIRS, AND THEIR LAWS. When the envoys had executed their commission 709 , a delay nevertheless took place in the appointment of the lawgivers: nor would the point have been settled peacefully, had not the plebeians given up their original demand that the board should be composed of both or- ders. The arrangement agreed to by the ruling order was, that the consulship should be suspended, and that in the mean while ten senators, like a college of inter- rexes, should be invested with consular, and at the same time with legislative power 10 . Among the ten appointed by virtue of this agreement we find both the consuls of the year 302 : and as these were indemnified for the dig- nity they were forced to resign 11 , so it is probable that the questors of blood and the warden of the city, whose offices were likewise transferred to the decern virate 18 , obtained seats in it. Thus the patricians w T ould have 709 If the extract which Lydus (i. 34) gives from Gaius be faith- fully rendered, the latter must have related that the Bending out the envoys was the act of the decemvirs. 10 What Dionysius gives as the substance of the bill of Virgmiua (x. 3), was probably drawn from the ordinance which preceded this appointment. " Consuls elect (see Livy. iu.33. Dionysius, x. 65) are out of the question here, and indeed for a very long time after: thej entered upon their office at this period immediately, or at most a very few days after their election. The Past] have the correct term, abdi- carunt. a Dionysius must be speaking of the questors, when he says, na\ 312 HISTORY OF ROME. four deputies appointed exclusively by themselves, and one whose election they had confirmed; while five places were left open for the free choice of the centuries. Livy must evidently have heard a faint report of an election, by which a certain number were added to others pre- viously appointed 713 . The patricians were the more determined to allow the plebeians no share in this decemvirate, because it was understood as of course, that it Avas not only to draw up a scheme of laws, but to enact them, and to be the sole magistracy of the state. For in the ancient common- wealths, when legislators were appointed, they were al- ways entrusted with the whole government; as was the case with Solon, and with that body which from its ac- tions received the name of the Thirty Tyrants. Plato held that the most perfect manner of introducing new laws is when they are enacted by the power of a single individual. But, as at Rome there were to be more than one, it w r as clear that the utmost unanimity the case would admit of would be much more easily attained among men belonging to the same order, who had acted for years side by side in the senate, than if the board were com- posed of those who had hitherto been contending about the rights of their respective orders. Indeed how were such to have come to a decision, their votes being equal, when the determination of these rights was the very mat- ter in debate? It would have been necessary to have an umpire, who must have been chosen out of one of the two orders: for this office could not possibly be assigned to Hermodorus. The plebeians might still hope for a fair scheme, as six of the decemvirs were men of their choice 14 . Besides it is not improbable that among the patricians at this time there may have been symptoms of a temper such as dictated the instructions which most of 713 in. 33: Graves aetate novissinris suftragiis elcctos feruut. 11 [ncluding one of the consuls. HISTORY OF ROME. 313 the deputies of the nobless carried with them to the States General in 1789; in which selfishness and obstinate arro- gance were silenced by the prevailing readiness to accede to whatever was fair, as matter of grace at least, if not of justice. The principle that the two orders were to be placed on the same footing was admitted: and should the decemvirs unhappily betray their charge, the centuries had the power of rejecting any objectionable law. All danger might be avoided, and much time saved, if it was agreed that those points, and those alone, on which the present decemvirs did not think themselves able to in- troduce a general equality of rights, should be reserved for the future deliberation of a mixt board. In order however that the people should be able to judge of the import and consequences of the propositions they were to decide on, it was indispensable that the tribunes should have the right of haramnunir them. In- deed it would have been inconceivably rash in the ple- beians to have renounced the tribunate, and trusted to the protection of any decemvir they might appeal to. What was the good of reserving the sacred charters, if their security and their best fruits were to be given up, before the new constitution was settled? With the pa- trician offices the case was very different, as their holders might be admitted into the decemviratc. I have no doubt that our historians, as they were throughout unable to perceive what a complete distinction there was between the first and second decemviratc, have transferred a pro- vision to the former, which they merely read of in con- nexion with the latter, or perhaps with the Terentilian bill. As, the first decemviratc represented a decury of in- terrexes, the supreme power was always lodged with one of their body, who was called the castas urbis, lie was attended by the lictors, and presided over the senate and the whole republic as warden of the city 71 "'. 716 Lydus,!. 34. Livy calls him the praefecttu juris, unless wc 314 HISTORY OF ROME. The rest, each of whom had merely a beadle at his or- ders, are said to have acted as judges 716 . There is no imaginable reason why the rotation should have followed any other law than it would have done in a decury of interrexes, where the kingly power remained five days with each : and this conjecture is favoured by Dionysius, who speaks in vague terms of a certain number of days 17 . From its nature as an interreign, their office had no other limit to its duration, than the accomplishment of the commission they had received. Their successors took their seats on the ides of May: a very few years before this, we know that the consular year began with Sextilis: hence it is clear that they must have been in office either for more or less than a year; probably the latter. In a subject which had occupied men's minds so long and so deeply, many preliminary points must already have been settled: and the aim of the decemvirs was not to devise a new code, but merely to make a selection among the clashing provisions of the statutes already existing, and to reconcile them. The whole period of their magistracy was dedicated to their great task, undisturbed by any interruption from without ; while among themselves harmony prevailed ; ought to read; eo die penes praefectum urbis. The very same thought of appointing a lieutenant to supply the place of a king who no longer existed, occasioned the institution of the Statholder in Holland. 716 The passage on this subject in Dionysius, x. 57, — Sirjrav ra ISicoTiKa avufioXaia Kai ra drjuoaia, orroaa re npos vtttjkoovs ko.1 crvfi- fid^nvs Kai tovs ev8oia(TTa>s aKpooop.evovs rfjy 77o\ea>s f'y/cAi^ara rvy- Xavoi yevopeva, — is derived from an account drawn up with a very clear view on the point. For the subjects of Rome they were judges in all causes ; for the inhabitants of allied towns and the municipals (between whom a distinction is here drawn), when by the terms of the alliance the cause was to be decided at Rome. 17 Eli (TvyKe'ijj.ev6v riva f)p.epa>v apiBpov. Compare Vol. I. p. 340. Livy and Dion (Zonaras, vn. 18) suppose the rotation to have been from day to day : this is certainly erroneous. HISTORY OF ROME. 315 although they did not shut their ears to complaints against particular members of their body. They completed the national code, so far as their powers reacht, and publisht it in the form of ten laws, on ten tables, for the informa- tion of the people, in order that every one who saw room for any amendment might point it out to them: where- upon, if they agreed with him, they altered the statute accordingly. In no ancient commonwealth do we find any instance where the several clauses of a law, or amend- ments proposed by another person, were put to the vote: the whole was adopted or rejected in the unity it received from its author 718 . When the decemvirs had satisfied every objection they deemed reasonable, and their work was approved by the senate, they brought it before the centuries, whose assent was ratified by the curies, under the presidency of the colleges of priests, and the sanction of happy auspices 19 . Hereupon the laws were graven on ten tables of brass, and posted in the comitium that all might read them 20 . 718 Ever since the time of the Constituent Assembly, the re- verse has been the practice on the Continent; and, particularly since the restoration of the Bourbons, not only have alterations sug- gested by a Committee often given a proposed law a totally contrary tenour, — which id only a slight evil, — but amendments off-hand fre- quently introduce absurdities and contradictions, after an enormous time has been spent in debating. England, by the political good sense that still prevails there, has been kept free from this strange notion of attaining to a high degree of perfection by means of an aggregate of wisdom. I remember only one instance, where a bill, which originated in the upper House, was amended by sundry offi- cious hands: but it turned out a complete abortion, which the next session committed to the grave. In tho very valuable draft of a criminal code discust by the Cortes in 1822, the articles on which amendments were carried, were mostly spoilt. 19 Tho presidency of the priests is mentioned by Dionysius, x. 57 : only here again he erroneously applies it to the centuries. See above, p. 2 23. :o The (nicfravio-TaTos r?)t ayopas tottos in Dionysius, like the Kpariarrov Trjs dyopas in other passages, is nothing but the Comitium. 316 HISTORY OF ROME. The laws of the^ decemvirs continued down to the time of the emperors to be the basis of all civil and penal jurisprudence, though almost concealed from view under the enormous edifice that was, in some instances capriciously, piled upon it. Unfortunately the pages con- taining the account, which Dionysius in his eleventh book gave of their peculiar character, are lost; and little in- formation is conveyed by the scanty fragments that have ' : accidentally been preserved. I shall refrain therefore from all notice or investigation of their contents, except so far as their provisions immediately concerned political rights and the constitution, or had an important influence on the classification and mutual relations of the citizens. For the purpose of uniting the houses and the com- monalty into one civic community, it was requisite that there should be a division of the nation which should comprehend them both. Now the tribes of the houses could not take in the plebeians: but the local tribes might very well receive the patricians. As early as in 321 we find that the censors, whom Mam. Aemilius had offended, struck his name off the roll of his tribe : which cannot have been his old patrician one, even supposing this had still been subsisting, since no human power could dissolve the bond by which his birth connected him with the tribe containing his house. Moreover he was removed from his tribe into the class of the erarians, as was the case with every plebeian who lost his rank 721 . In 362, it is related, the patricians went about, each conjuring his fellow-tribesmen to vote against settling at Veii 22 : and this statement seems to deserve full credit: The notion of ivory tables (eboreae, not roboreae by any means) in Pomponius, § 4 (n. I. 2), is in the spirit of an age which could form no conception of anything important, without show and costliness in the materials : it was probably suggested immediately by the ivory diptychs. 721 Livy, iv. 24. 22 Dissipati per tribus, suos quisque tribules prensantes. Livy, v. 30. HISTORY OF KOMI 317 though the story that Camillus vainly attempted to pre- vail on his to acquit him, has nothing to rest on but a doubtful reading in the common text of Livy"- ;! . We are not to regard it therefore as an effect of the great changes brought about in the fifth century, -when we (ind that Julius Caesar belonged to the Fabian tribe, Ser. Sulpicius to the Lemonian; and that in 544 the censor C. Claudius, as the member of a tribe, was affected by the condemnation pronounced by M. Livius in general terms on all but one 24 . The ground of this change must not be assigned to a later period than the decemvirate. This is clear, were it only from the claim of the patri- cians to be eligible to the tribuneship after its reestablish - ment: which could never have entered into any one's thoughts, until that office was held to represent the whole nation. In this measure the decemvirs followed the pre- cedent of Athens. A similar one was adopted half a century after in Elis, when the three tribes of the close oligarchy under which even the district beneath the city- walls was in a state of dependence, were done away, and the whole country was divided into twelve local tribes . Indeed a like change must always have taken place when- ever a Greek state got rid of its oligarchy. It was in spirit the same thing, though with the colour and the features of a different epoch, when the houses in the mid- dle ages were received into the guilds, and these deter- mined the form of the constitution. Such was the case at Florence, where all the old citizens, though no way connected with the trades, were enrolled in the guilds 7:3 v. 32. The Florentine manuscript, instead of tribulibus cli- entibusque,magnes ov navu fm(f>ave'is : x. 58. A Rabuleius appears as tribune of the people 35 yi rlier.: Dionysius, vin. 72. Should it be urged with regard to Antonius Merenda, thai a person of the same name was consular tribune in the year 333, and thai neverthe- less l.iv\ ■ ' P. Licinius in 355 was tin- first plebeian rkvtetl \ 2 324 HISTORY OF ROME. historians the names of these five stand together after the patricians. It is true, they botli of them consider this college, like the first, as merely an extraordinary committee appointed to finish the legislation, and do not see that this task was entrusted to them only along with the duties of an ordinary magistracy, and that the in- stitution of their office carried the Terentilian bill for the better ordering of the consular authority into full effect. Still we are not without testimony recognizing the true state of the case. Livy, whose contradictions proceed from his following different annalists in different passages, begins his account of the decemvirate by com- paring the change then introduced to the transition from the monarchy to the consulship, adding that it was less celebrated only because it did not last, as its flourishing commencement soon grew rank and wild 736 . His over- sight, in speaking of the office substituted for the con- sulship a year too soon, is of no consequence. In another passage a consul reproves the fickleness of the plebeians, and extolls the pliancy of the patricians. You wanted decemvirs ; we let them be elected : you grew tired of them ; we made them abdicate* 1 . Should these testimo- nies be unreasonably rejected, as the bare opinion of the historian, nothing at all events can be more authentic than the law by which L. Valerius and M. Horatius se- cured the inviolability of the plebeian magistrates. In this the decemvirs were placed under the same protection with the tribunes, ediles, and judges. Nor can these to that office, it is sufficient criterion of his authority in this case, that he represents Licinius as the only plebeian among the six col- legues, whereas on the contrary there was but a single patrician in the whole college. The year 333 falls in a period of violent commo- tions, when the patricians were either too weak to hinder the exer- cise of the eligibility that had been allowed to the plebeians, or deemed such interference too hazardous : they had to make still greater concessions. :M III. 33. « in. 67. HISTOBT OF HOME. 325 decemvirs have been the judicial tribunal of that name; for that was not instituted till the fifth century 738 . Be- yond all doubt they were the supreme magistrates, who were again to take the place of the consuls, as soon as it should be settled what share the commonalty oufht to have in the curule dignities, now that the tri- buncship was restored. This was well known to those who held that the inviolability of the consuls and pre- tors was secured by that law. They justly applied the guarantee, given to these offices under a different form of the constitution, to those who filled them in the form finally establisht: and they who reasoned thus were no way refuted by the argument that the consuls were not termed judges 39 . Moreover it is evident from the same law, that the participation of the plebeians in the su- preme magistracy was recognized as a matter of neces- sity: for none but the decemvirs of their order are pro- tected by it; since they are named after the plebeian offices already existing, and the penalty is to go to the temple of Ceres. Not that the patrician decemvirs were left open to outrage : but their inviolability was already ensured by the ancient privileges enjoyed by all inau- gurated patrician magistrates. Now from the year 311 forward, supposing that the military tribunes had been chosen, in the manner which Dionysius says was ordained, three from each order 40 , the highest ollices in the republic would exactly have been divided among a body of ten. For there were the two censors; and after 307 the two questors of blood were appointed by the centuries. This statement indeed about the division of the tribuneship between the two 738 Livy, ui.')">: Qui tribunis plebis, aedilibus, judicibus, deceru- viris nocuiaset, ejus caput Jovi sacrum esset, familia ad aederu Cere- ris Liberi Liberaeque venum in i. " Livy, in. 55. It has been shewn, in Vol. i. p. 428, that the judices here are the centumvirs. « xi. 60. 326 HISTORY OF ROME. orders seems at first sight quite preposterous. Accord- ing to our historians, the regulation would never have been observed, except once in 376: and in the very elec- tion, on occasion of which it was enacted, on the motion of C. Claudius, not six, but three were chosen ; and these were all of the same order. For this very reason however no writer could ever have been led to fabri- cate it: but an over-hasty one might easily omit a part of what was stated in the Annals, namely, that it was only under this modification of the law that the patri- cians consented to let consular tribunes be elected along with the censors. The arrangement mentioned by Dio- nysius naturally suggested itself. Three patricians took the place of the three tribuni celerum, who ceast to exist when the tribes were abolisht; and the same number of plebeians were associated with them. A dim notion, that in one of the magistracies which made up the decem- virate there were three plebeians, may perhaps have oc- casioned the errour of Dionysius, that there were no more in the whole body. If we next inquire what were the offices of the other two pairs, we find that Ap. Clau- dius and Sp. Oppius are expressly said to have staid at home to take care of the city. Hence it is plain, without any explanation, that they acted as civic pretors, and presided over the senate and the assemblies of the people, as well as the tribunals. But their duties were not confined to this. They must also have comprised those of the censorship, an office which arose at the same time with the military tribuneship out of the dissolution of the decemvirate, and then, as will be observed when we come to it, combined the duties of the pretorship with its own. Hence Appius Claudius is recorded to have been the first censor 741 . Our historians found no occasion to mention the questors, as they did the former pair. But the Annals tacitly pointed them out, in giving 741 Lydus, I. 43 : Ylpwros "Anmos K\av8ws Krjixrap TrpoeftXriBr]. HISTORY OF ROME. 327 the names of the military tribunes who commanded against the Sabines and the Aequians. Ln the war against the former we find three, one patrician and two plebeians: which leads us to suppose that the other army would be headed by two patricians and one plebeian. Livy however, after enumerating these in this order, adds the names of another plebeian and patrician 742 . That is to say, two being related to have staid behind as civic pre- tors, it was inferred that all the rest must have taken the field. With much better reason may we conclude that M. Sergius and K. Duilius were the two questors of blood, the precursors of the curule ediles; in like manner as Appius and Sp. Oppius were those of the censors and pretors, into which offices theirs was subse- quently split 43 . '*■ Livy, in. 41 : Huic (Fabio) bellum in Sabinis, M 1 Rabuleio et Q. Poetelio additis collegis, mandatum. M. Cornelius in Algidum missus cum L. Minucio et T. Antonio, et Caesone Duilio et M. Sergio : Sp. Oppium A] i. Claudio adjutorem ad urbem tuendam decernunt. Dionysius. (xi. 23), in giving the names of these five, mentions the patricians first, then the two plebeians. To account for this larger number, they are said to have had five legions, and the army against the Sabines three ; that is, the Romans had 24000 men in the field, besides the light troops, and an equal number of confederates : an ex- aggeration which betrays the groundlessness of the whole statement. Moreover, that each decemvir may have his legion, two are made to stay behind in the city, and these of the juni ores: a piece of igno- rance which shews how late this fable was hatcht. In the old tradi- tion here again the reserve consisted of one legion of veterans (see notes 775, 776) : consequently only two legions went into the field, each under three military tribunes. " Flaminio Vacca relates, that one side of the Lateran Hospital, which was built in the twelfth century, the midnight of barbarism at Rome, was walled with fragments of statues, many of which were evidently of the finest Greek workmanship. In several nothing can have been perceptible but that they were of Parian marble, and had once issued from the hand of the statuary : here we get a complete image of the accounts that Lydus extracts from Gaius. He tells us (i.34) that the decemvirs were entitled roi erovs. se y er y possibly there may have been no law on this head in the Papirian digesf ; for it was necessary that the connubivm should be expressly granted, before it could subsist : but it is not likely that anybody searcht there for it. The mistake easily arose, when it was overlookt that the Twelve Tallies were nothing more than the ancient statutes consolidated. To get rid of it entirely, let me observe that before the decenivirate we find both patrician and ple- beian Sicinii and Genueii ; even if it should be contended that the plebeian rank of the Marcelli, and of SO many other families in later times, which however cannot all have sprung up in the space of four years, may be better explained by a transition to the plebs. The con, allium of the Fabii with the Maluentans (see note 437), before it existed between them and the plebeians, is probably to be ac- counted for from the Said wi-in of their house : it is even natural that all the Tities should have had it with all the Sabellians ; but nothing can be inferred from this as to the other two tribes, VOL. II. V 338 HISTORY OF ROME. a smile too, how in the same proportion his adversaries were weakening, and, if their folly lasted, would destroy themselves. These mixt marriages were quite as repu- table as those celebrated with the right of confarreation. They were not concubinages: the only difference was, that, though the father was a patrician, the children be- longed to the same order with their mother. But the child was as little capable of inheriting from its father, as a son who had been emancipated ; for it was not under its father's power. By law, the inhe- ritance devolved upon the brothers and sisters born in legitimate wedlock, and in default of these on nephews and nieces; if these too failed, on the house. A trace of the same regulation, as having prevailed among the Ger- man tribes, so long as they consisted of houses, like the early Romans, has been preserved in the customary law on the extreme border of Germany. In the island of Fehmern 757 he who belongs to a sept, if he makes a will, must pay the sept a certain sum of money. This is clearly a compensation for the right of inheritance : and the like custom would have been introduced at Rome, had not the gens been included in other more compre- hensive bodies. But as the property of an extinct house escheated to the cury, that of an extinct cury to the pub- licum of the citizens at large, the consent of the whole populus was requisite: and this is the origin of the rule that testaments were to be made in the presence of the pontiff and the curies. The plebeian houses indeed were not so connected; but the whole order had a public coffer in the temple of Ceres 58 : and when the army, as- sembled in centuries, either on the field of Mars, or be- fore a battle, past the last will of a soldier into law, it thereby resigned the claims of the whole body to his pro- perty. These general assemblies had far less temptation 757 The population is supposed to be a colony from Ditmarsh. Vol. I. p. 621. HISTORY <>F ROME. 3.'i9 than narrower and directly interested circles to hinder parents from providing for the natural objects of their care. On the other hand their doing so was favoured by a universal sympathy. Hence that consent, which origi- nally was preceded by actual deliberation, became in course of time a mere form: and thus the lawgivers were able to allow every Roman father an unrestricted right of de- termining by will concerning his property and the guar- dianship of his children; in consequence of which both the comitia were merely represented symbolically. The motive for such an enactment was the reflexion, which would force itself on men's minds, that at some future time, after the number of the patrician families had been con- tinually lessened by cases of disparagement, they might perhaps conspire to enforce the right of giving or with- holding their assent, to the injury of their kinsmen of half-blood. Thus the institution of the houses was under- mined, and could not fail to be so, because their silly arrogance would not accede to a free cunnubium. Four years after however they were compelled to in- troduce it. But still the unlimited discretion in mak- ing wills, being found agreeable, as every kind of liberty is, was retained. Indeed, at this juncture, how could any one wish to make alterations in the civil code, which had only just been establisht? But when the fa- mily spirit relaxt, this liberty was abused more and more grossly every day. The attempts to check it by the Furian and other laws were of no avail. On the other hand, by a literal construction of the Tables, the right of making testamentary dispositions was withheld from women 751 -', in order that in their case at least, when they were their own mistresses, the property of the house might be preserved: an exception too repugnant to the manners of later times, ami to equity, to hold out against the inventive astuteness of the jurists. ri! * Because the power was 1 rstowed only on the paterfamilias. Y '1 340 HISTORY OF ROME. The law of debt against the plebeians, which, operated with such cruelty, and which likewise assuredly was only retained by the Tables from earlier ages, will be discust in the sequel, when we come to those times of extreme distress, which rendered it more intolerable than the law- givers probably anticipated. It may be presumed how- ever that they did not allow so horrible a law to stand, without setting some limits to usury : and considering how well known the civil code of the Tables was, Tacitus can hardly have been mistaken in stating that the uncial in- terest was an enactment of theirs 760 . It must have been abolisht afterward, at a time when money was very scarce; and the law of 394 was only a revival of the earlier one. The most injurious disparagement which the plebeians experienced, was the losing the right of appealing to their order from the decision of the decemvirs, which the patricians retained. That such was the case is clear; since the law of the restorers of freedom forbidding the creation of any magistrate from whom there lay no ap- peal, under pain of death, is one of those by which the plebeians gained a better system of law immediately after the fall of the tyrants. Nor can any one imagine that the superior order, which had the right of appealing even from a dictator, would give up its most precious franchise to a magistracy half composed of plebeians. According to all appearance, the assemblies of the tribes were en- tirely supprest, while those of the curies continued to subsist. The knights and the classes had now become a complete equivalent to the former; and the only magis- tracy which had hitherto transacted business with them, was abolisht. The plebeian decemvirs had the right of interposing, in the room of the tribunes, to protect the members of their order against their collegues. But the protection afforded by an individual, who could only avail himself of his official authority, was powerless compared 760 Ann. vi. 16. HISTORY OF ROME. 341 with that given by the man of the people, ulong with whom thousands raised their voices, and, if needful, their arms. Even this weak protection they are said to have nul- lified, by binding themselves on oath not to oppose one another 701 . This may possibly mean that they agreed to let the voice of the majority be decisive: and us in the framing of the laws a single apostate vote may have suf- ficed to withhold certain liberties from the plebeians, so the going over of Sp. Oppius would have been enough to give the second decemvirate the character of an ex- clusively patrician domination; incredible as this sounds of a board in which the votes were divided equally be- tween the two orders. At first, says Livy, the terrour they spread threatened all without distinction: by degrees it bent entirely against the plebs: the patricians were not molested. Young men of that body gathered round the decemvirs and their tribunal: here they got unjust judgements against the members of the commonalty. Soon things came to such a pass, that all whom they chose to accuse were scourged and beheaded, and their estates granted to the prosecutor for his trouble. This, he says, was the price for which the patrician youth sold their aid to the tyrants: while the leading men of the order, maliciously exulting over the commonalty, whose endea- vours after freedom had plunged it in this calamity, heapt injury upon injury, in order that the plebeians might be led to regard the restoration of the consulship, even without the tribunate, as a benefit 6 ". Dion spoke of the patrician 761 Intercessionern consensu sustulerant: Livy, m. 36. "OpKta Tffxovrts — Tois edfi'To 7Ttf}\ fjLi)8(vos ii\\i)\ois tvavTiovadat. Dionysius, x. •"<'.>. 6 - 1 beg my read a-s tn eoiivinei' themselves that Livy Bays all this distinctly (ill. 36, 37). 1 do noi like to transcribe long passages from a book that everj one has at band : detach! sentences, <>r a few words, many will negled to look for in a chapter they merely Bee referred to. 342 HISTORY OP ROME. youths who collected round the decemvirs, as of a band of armed ruffians that had conspired to support them 763 . All this may possibly have some foundation: but Livy's account is probably very much exaggerated, though in spite of his prejudices, he relates it without expressing the slightest doubt; so that it must unquestionably have been generally current. The military tribunes, who were the larger part of the college, cannot have taken share in any unjust decisions: these lay exclusively within the sphere of the prctorian and questorian offices. Moreover the only ones specified are the two of which the pretors were guilty; and these are widely different from the scenes here described. Cicero says nothing worse of the first year of these decemvirs, than that their justice and in- tegrity was not so praiseworthy as that of their prede- cessors. He looks upon their excesses as the conse- quence of their unlimited authority. It is only in the last part of their rule, that he charges them with having abandoned themselves to cruelty, avarice, and lust 64 . As to the share taken by the whole patrician order in the transactions of this melancholy period, he says in another place, in cautious and well weighed language, that the decemvirate made the plebs feel hatred and indignation against the patricians 65 . That such was the case is evi- dent: and it is perfectly intelligible, if we merely suppose 763 'NtavicrKOVS (K tcov eiVarpiScof dpacrvrarovs eKke^dpevoi 7roXXa 81 avTcov i'npa^cw kci\ fiiaia. Zonaras, vn. 18. Dionysius (xi. 2) says a great deal in general terms about the outrages committed : but it is all rhetorical commonplace, without a single particular instance. 64 Cicero, de re p. rr. 36: Quorum non similiter fides nee justitia laudata. 37 : Tertius annus — x viralis consecutus — libidinose et acerbe et avare praefuerunt. Of this I have not the least doubt ; only I do not believe that they were worse than some of the consuls before them. But men felt unhappier ; and the yoke was burst, because the indignation it roused could not find vent in popular assemblies. 63 Cicero, Brutus, 14 (54): Plebem in Patres incitatam post x yiralem invidiam. 11JST011Y OF ROMS. 343 them to have supported an obnoxious government. For even admitting that the decemvirs were utterly profligate, it would by no means follow that the members of their order partook extensively in their crime?. This in itself is incredible. There is nothing to warrant a notion that the peculiar virtues of the Roman religion and morals were alien to the patricians. On the contrary, we are rather to look fur their origin among the most ancient citizens, the people of Numa. It must not be overlookt, that the majority of the Romans would have been dissatisfied, even if these de- cemvirs had ruled as laudably as those of the first col- lege, more especially if the government of the latter lasted only a few months. Their installation was a victory: their measures disposed men's minds to concord: it was delightful to be at harmony after so long a period of strife and rancour. But ere long men could not fail to miss the passionate stirrings, which for twenty years had occupied their existence, and had become requisite as a stimulant; and which in fact had attracted them to the measures they had contended for, far more than their specific objects. After long-contini;ed wars full of great events, and after revolutions, when a nation enters on a state of permanent tranquillity, which cannot satisfy the wishes previously excited, such a feeling of restlessness is very common. The forum was silent and lifeless: faction was to be at an end : men were condemned to the round of everyday life, the interruption of which by such pas- sionate excitements had perhaps often been deplored, but which was now found intolerably dull. In the place of indefinite expectations and visions which were utterly dis- appointed, a fixt consummated state of things stood be- fore them, without hopes, without the possibility of pro- gress, without freedom. Every one who remembered the interest he had once felt and loudly exprest in the dis- cussions and resolutions on the steps to be taken, now found himself sunk into a state of mere dependence. 344 HISTORY OF ROME. Every guarantee was given up: the plebeians saw they had been overreacht, and assuredly must have heard the taunts of malicious exultation. In addition to all this, the decemvirs, by appearing each with twelve lictors, and replacing the axe in the fasces, proclaimed that, like ty- rants, they needed and sought protection and force from a guard 766 . The languour of the commonwealth extended even to the senate, which only met for form's sake on the usual days, without having any business to transact : hence most of the senators left the city for their farms. The first year after the ides of May, 304, the day on which the decemvirs entered into office, past away without any out- ward event. There must have been an armistice still on foot with the neighbouring states. The business of put- ting the new laws in action, particularly by enrolling all the citizens in the general tribes, probably filled up the time. One might have excused the government, even if it had sought a pretext for war, to employ and enliven the mistuned minds of the people: it is said however that the Aequians and Sabines began the hostilities. The former again eneampt on mount Algidus and threatened Tusculum : while the latter carried off a great booty from the Koman territory beyond the Anio, and took up a position near Eretum. It was high time that the senate, according to the legal forms, should give orders for legions to be levied, and should direct the questors to open the treasury and take out the standard, as well as the money, which even before the reestablishment of pay for the troops, was necessary to a certain amount for a cam- paign. Still the conduct of the decemvirs in convening it, though there was no veto to obstruct their levies, proves that at least they had no intention of shewing a want of respect for its authority. The proceedings of this session, the way in which 766 Anpvcf)6poi fieu ov, neXeKvcpopoi 8e : compare Herodotus, i. 59. HISTORY OF BOMB. 345 L. Valerius and M. Iloratius, the grandsons of the found- ers of the commonwealth, spoke out boldly and threaten- ingly, though without effect, against the tyrants, are related by both our historians after the same annalist, perhaps with the distinct purpose of gratifying Messalla; and by Livy in so masterly a manner, that it is a great sacrifice to deprive the inconsiderable occurrences of this period of the graces they acquire in his narrative. I cannot however esteem its substance authentic; since the whole rests on the notion that the decemvirs prolonged their office by an arbitrary act of their own. There seems to me no doubt that, if not wholly invented, it was at all events spun out of a few mere hints found in the fune- ral orations of the Valerian house, at a late age, by cli- ents. So long as ancient literature meets with minds capable of admiring it, the account will be read in Livy; and with greater admiration than ever, when a distinct notion of the real state of affairs has become generally current. The. conscripts we forced to enter the legions with- out delay: but they were out of heart; and the disastrous issue is again, and apparently not without ground, im- puted to the discontent of the soldiers. Both the armies were defeated: that which lost the day against the Sa- bines near Eretum, fortified a camp between Fidenae and Crustumeria. On mount Algidus the rout was com- plete: the camp and baggage fell a prey to the con- querors: the fugitives took shelter within the walls of Tusculuin. The decemvirs sent them a reinforcement and arms, with orders to take the field again; where- upon they occupied a position on mount Faiola, on one side of Monti' Cavo 7W . Q. Fabius too and his collegues received instructions to advance into the enemy's country. 787 The mons Vecilius (livy, m. 50) from its site can scarcely be any other than this bill, for which else we have do ancient name. 346 HISTORY OF ROME. In this army there was a veteran, to whom tradition ascribes prodigious exploits and honours, L. Sicinius 768 Dentatus. Varro found it related of him, that he had fought in a hundred and twenty fields, had slain eight foemen in single combat, that he had five and forty scars on his body, no one of them on his back, had earned honorary badges and rewards, horse-trappings, pikes, col- lars and bracelets, and the various crowns that were be- stowed on valour, to an almost incalculable number, with a separate statement of each ; an enumeration indeed which assumes a very apocryphal aspect, when it is added that he accompanied the triumph of nine generals, whose vic- tories were principally owing to his valour. For our his- torians, who assuredly never omitted a victory, though they have inserted several fictitious ones, scarcely tell of so many in which any one person could have shared, during the preceding half century 69 . However this may be, he has been kept in remembrance as a hero whom afterages could not match, and has been called the Roman Achilles. We may more aptly term him the Roman Roland; more especially since, like the paladin of French romance, he fell by treachery. No warrior of a chronicled age should be compared with the heroes of Greek poetry, no Roman centurion with the son of Peleus. 768 In both of our historians, as well as in Harduin's manuscripts of Pliny (vil. 27) his name is Siccius: but Varro, as quoted by Ful- gentius under nefrendes, called him Sicinius: and so do Valerius Maximus (n. 3. 24), Festus under obsidionalis, and the manuscripts of Gellius (n. 11). In Dionysius the consul of the year 267 is also called Siccius. 69 For where a triumph is ascribed to two consuls in the same year, he at all events can only have served under one. I am afraid however that the author of the statement did not take this into account, but reckoned up all the triumphs he found mentioned from the year 261 downward. The veteran is imagined to have been in the first year of his exemption from service, after 45 campaigns from the year in which he laid aside the praetexta : for every campaign he has a scar. The first would coincide with the year of Ihe mise of the Sacred Mount. 120 is one of the commonest typical numbers. BISTORT OF HOME. 347 The district of Crustumcria awakened the recollec- tion of the secession by which the commonalty forty-five years before obtained their charter there on the Sacred Mount: and Sicinius, who in his tribuneship had got the consul T. Romilius condemned to a fine by the tribes, chid the soldiers for their cowardice in shrinking from the step, to which their fathers had followed his kinsman. The generals determined on his death : of the manner in which they effected it, there must have been two accounts. I am convinced that the most ancient and the grander one related that the defeated army were reinforced by a legion of veterans, that is, by forty cohorts of the first class, containing eight hundred men 770 : who were all placed under the command of the obnoxious soldier, were betrayed to the enemy, and pcrisht. Some writer of the same stamp with L. Piso, thinking this story too extra- vagant, transformed it into the one we now read in our histories, which runs thus. Q. Fabius sent Sicinius along with a band of assassins, to view the country, and choose a place for a camp. In a lone spot his companions fell upon him, when he suspected no danger: he died, but not unavenged, amid a heap of traitors whom he slew. In this state he was found by his comrades, who, on the report that he had fallen in an ambush of the enemy, hastened to search for his body; and who found him sur- rounded by none but Romans, slain, not with him, but by his hand. The treachery was detected: but the sol- diers were pacified by a splendid funeral, which the de- cemvirs ordered for him. Here again later authors were unwilling to give up either of the two stories, but made the betrayal of the cohort fail, and placed it in the con- sulship of Romilius. Thus they got a cause for the charge brought against him by Sicinius: and not only was the history enricht with these additions; but they also found out that Romilius must have changed sides and been "« Sec Vol. i. note L093. 348 HISTORY OF ROME. reconciled to the tribunes, this being necessary to render it conceivable that he should have been chosen one of the lawgivers by the people. For that he could take his seat among them as a magistrate appointed by the curies, never entered the head of an annalist of this cast and date. In the meanwhile Appius Claudius cast his lustful eyes on a lovely and modest virgin, the daughter of a worthy centurion, L. Virginius, one of the noble members of his order 771 . The tribune Aulus, who had contended so many years for the introduction of equal laws, was of the same house: and the maiden was betrothed to L. Icilius, who had rendered his tribuneship memorable. The decemvir tried offers and allurements without success. But violence and cruelty gave his pleasures a fresh zest: and the absence of her father, who was serving in the army on mount Algidus, afforded him an opportunity of effecting his purpose. A client of his house was suborned to assert that Virginia was the child of a female slave of his, and had been imposed on her reputed father by his childless wife. The art of writing in those days was not learnt, at least not always, in childhood: being a some- what rare accomplishment, it might be reserved for riper years. On her way to her school, which, as is the custom at this day in the eastern bazars, was one of the shops round the Forum, the mock plaintiff laid hold on the unprotected virgin. The cry of her maid for help drew the people to the spot; and the interest awakened by her beauty grew still stronger, when the names of her father and her betrothed lover ran round. Any attempt at violence would have been repelled. But the ruffian said he needed none; he meant to claim his right from the pretor, who was sitting at judgement in the comitium. ' 7I Diodorus, XII. 24 : 'Epacrdels evyevovs irapBivov Trtvixpns. The Virginii undoubtedly belonged to the patrician house of that name. HISTORY OF ROME. 349 This was Appius Claudius. In his presence he repeated the tide lie had learnt, and demanded that his bondmaid should be adjudged to him. If the child of a female slave had been falsely past off as free, her master had an imprescriptible right to claim it: and it was no uncommon thing for a reputed citizen to lose his freedom in this way. Until judgement was given, the person claimed continued in possession of his personal rights; but he was obliged to give security for his appearance in court. This rule was reenacted in the Twelve Tables. It certainly did not originate with them. It must have obtained wherever slavery existed, and is one of the principles common to the laws of all nations (the jus gentium). But above all must this right have been held sacred, when the dispute was about the freedom of a woman: for the lot of a female slave ex- posed her to the most brutal treatment. For this very reason Appius decided against the rule of his own law, when those who appeared in behalf of the virgin entreated that judgement might be postponed, until her father could be sent for from the camp to defend his dearest interests in person. This, the decemvir said, was reasonable: till then the plaintiff was to keep the maid safe in his house, and to give security for producing her in court, in case her reputed father appeared on the summons. Had the girl been her own mistress, or had her father been present, M. Claudius must have been content with hav- ing security given to him. But no one could legally stand surety for a child who was still under her father's power, except he; and if the plaintiff should be simple enough to accept an invalid security, the pretor who per- mitted it would transgress his duty. At this horrible sentence a loud civ of lamentation burst forth. The rumour of what was going on had by this time brought Icilius to the spot, along with P. Nu- mitorius, the damsel's ancle. He forced his way through the lictora to the tribunal of the audacious nidge. The 350 HISTORY OF ROME. circle round the maid grew thicker every moment. It was now impossible to drag her away. Appius however reflected that the crowd, which compassion had drawn together, if it were let disperse without violence, would cool during the night, that apprehensions would awake, and the multitude would then be trembling spectators of the execution of what in the first heat of their feelings they would have resisted even to death. By the morrow too he might raise a large force, and with the help of his partisans, and the hosts of their clients, might even venture upon open violence, most of the ablebodied men of the commonalty being away in the field. He altered his sentence therefore, as if he wisht to allay the furious ferment of the deluded populace by gentleness. He said he would let Virginia be bailed provisionally by those who thrust themselves forward as her friends, and would put off deciding the question, who was to give the legal security until a judge could determine the cause, to the following day 772 ; that then, whether the father made his appearance or not, he should know how to maintain the dignity of the laws and of his office, and to give judge- ment fearlessly according to right. The maiden's friends saw that, while the utmost ex- ertions would be necessary to bring L. Virginius to the city before the hour of trial, the slightest delay would enable the tyrant to have him arrested in the camp. Icilius detained the court with arranging who were to be the sureties. Everybody present raised his hand and offered himself. Appius staid yet a while, to keep up the show of having come to transact judicial business. In the mean time two friends of Virginius retired secretly, and rode full speed to the camp. Virginius obtained leave to go to the city on some trivial pretext, and had 772 The distinction between the preliminary and the definitive bail is perfectly clear in Livy : it is not till the second day that Ap- pius gives the vindicias secundum servitutem : on the first he pro- nounces nothing. HISTORY OF UO .ME. 351 already performed a great part of his journey, when the messenger from Appius arrived with instructions to de- tain him. At daybreak the Forum filled with men and wo- men, looking anxiously for the decision. Virginius and his daughter came with their clothes rent. He fell at the feet of the spectators, and implored their aid, warn- ing them that all were threatened with a like calamity. Icilius spoke more vehemently. The women in their com- pany sobbed. All joined in their wailing. But, when Ap. Claudius came to the tribunal with a great train, as if to encounter a conspiracy, all were silent. The mock plaintiff renewed his demand. He had been instructed to tax the pretor with weakness for sacrificing his rights to such officious interference. What colour Appius, now that her father was present, gave to his judgement that Virginia should be consigned to the party who claimed her as his slave, until a judge should decide the matter, Livy could not find anywhere credibly related : he con- fines himself therefore to merely reporting the sentence" ! . Forthwith M. Claudius stept forward to take possession of the maid : he was unable to force his way to her through her friends: the men threatened and curst. Appius en- joined silence, and said that the rebellion which was " 3 Livy takes a very clear view of the whole case, and expresses his astonishment at it, from his inability to imagine any pretext for the profligate decree, Virginia's father being present. Perhaps this is what misled Dionysius to suppose that Virginia was adjudged to the plaintiff as his property: a supposition refuted by the positive statement that the impeachment of Appius by the tribunes was grounded on his having given vindicias secundum tcrritntum : see Livy, in. 56, and Cicero, quoted by Asconius on the speech for Cor- nelius Me ex Decemriris qui contra libertatem vindicicu dederU. It mattered not to Appius whether Virginia was to remain in the power of M. Claudius as his slave ; when be had sated his lust, he would not have eared if its victim had been cast out either alive or a corpse into the streets. Let the reader think of the 1 )uc de Fronsac and others of the same cast in the reign of Lewis the Fifteenth. 352 HISTORY OF ROME. breaking out had not taken him by surprise: he had been well aware the day before that the ringleaders were merely seeking for a pretext: he knew that seditious meetings had been held the whole night long. He however, and his collegues in the government, were stedfastly resolved to maintain their sacred rights. His brother patricians were armed, and attended by armed bands of trusty ad- herents. Every one must look to himself. No harm should be done to the obedient citizens: but wo to the rebels! Lictors, disperse the mob; make room for the man to take away the girl ! Overpowered by blind terrour, the people drew back from the unhappy family. Hereupon Virginius earnestly entreated for the single favour of being allowed to take leave of his daughter, and to question the nurse about the truth in her presence. He stept aside with the two women under an arcade, snatcht up a knife from a butcher's stall, and plunged it into his daughter's breast. The lictors did not dare to stop him, when, holding the bloody steel on high, he hastened to the gate. He was soon protected by the concourse of a great crowd. A still more numerous one collected in the Forum around Icilius and Xuinitorius, L. Valerius and M. Horatius, who raised the call to freedom over the virgin corpse. The lictors were overpowered, their fasces broken. Appius from the Vulcanal addrest the patricians in the comi- tium 77 *, exhorting them to hold by him, and to seize or cut down the leaders of the insurrection. But the ter- rour had shifted its ground. He found himself deserted. Everybody crowded about L. Valerius, who was haranguing "* 'Avafias eVi tov 'U(palo-Tov to tepov : Dionysius, XI. 39 : from which it necessarily follows that Valerius, crepov tottov tt}<: dyopas Ka.Takafi6p.evos, occupied the spot afterward called the Rostra. As this was adapted for speaking to the concio in the Forum, so was the Vulcanal (see Vol. I. note 1344 : above, note 524) for addressing the patricians as they stood in the comitium. According to Livy. Appius and the patriots spoke to the same assembly. HISTORY OF ROME. 353 the people, after the manner of the tribunes, from tho fnn- plum. Appius muffled his face and fled into a house. In the midst of this tumult, his collegue Sp. Oppiua convened the senate. This news quieted the people : an ordinance of the senate might deprive the decemvirs of the imperium. But a great number of the patricians thought that in such a case they should no longer be safe. Even many who knew themselves innocent, might dread a vin- dictive counter-revolution. The champions of the free- dom of the plebeians were already demanding the restora- tion of the tribuneship at the doors of the senatehouse. Was it to be expected that they in return would give up the share they had gained in the decern vira to? Plow bitterly would the patricians soon have to rue this first compliance, if they yielded through shame lest they should seem to screen the guilty! Thus the senate broke up without coming to any resolution, with nothing but an indefinite purpose to protract matters and gain time. Some zealous members of the oligarchy were sent to the camps, to use all means for keeping them in obedience: an idle attempt! From the legion of veterans which lay before the city, ready to march to any quarter where the enemy should advance, half the centuries of the first class had accompanied Virginius to mount Algidus 775 : and no sooner had the soldiers there heard what had happened, than they pluckt up their standards, and set out for Rome. The Aventine was open to them. They occupied it; and numbers lloekt to them. The other army likewise, at the call of Icilius and Numitorius 76 , renounced the tyrants. 775 Both the historians state that he was accompanied l>y 400 armed men: Dionysius, xi. :*7 ; Livy, in. 50. The Latter here again tries to take away the appearance of an exact Dumber: agmineprope quadringentorum kominwn, A legion contained forty centuries of the firs) class, each consisting at this time of twenty men. Compare note . r )<;!». T,; They too were certainly conceived to have gone out, not alone and unprotected, hut escorted by the remaining twenty oenturiea of VOL. II. Z 354 HISTORY OF ROME. The whole plebeian force acknowledged twenty tribunes as its magistrates: so that each tribe was represented by one, as the Servian were of old 777 . Out of each decury one was chosen as foreman, just as in 261 the number of the tribunes of the people at first was two 78 . The senate however did not abandon the cause of the tyrants. Three deputies came to the Aventine to brand the proceedings of the army as rebellion, and to offer pardon on condition of its returning to its duty without delay. They were dismist without an answer, but were told that, if the senate wisht to negotiate, it might send Valerius and Horatius; nobody else would be received. To these the moderate members of the ruling class now addrest themselves. They were no longer treated as traitors: but they were to make no concessions; only to use their popularity in prevailing upon the people by persuasion to submit. They required that the decemvirs should abdicate. This was refused. The patricians still presumed on their bands of clients. Perhaps too they again reckoned on the dependent towns. Nor was a franchise, such as they were willing to grant to the ple- beians, too precious to be offered in case of need to the slaves; and for them it was tempting enough. M. Duilius, an ex-tribune, a man of equal firmness the first class in the veteran legion : and as this was thus broken up, the forty centuries of the next two classes, and the lightarmed troops, were supposed to have marcht into the city to protect those who were left defenseless. The Esquiline too must have had a gar- rison, until the open parts of the city were entirely evacuated by the plebs. I do not say that this is historical : but such was the course of the narrative, and its purport. 777 See Vol. I. p. 420. Of these twenty tribunes Pomponius had read in Gaius, without understanding his meaning: 1. 2. § 25. de O. J. (i. n). Interdum viginti fuerunt, interdum plures, nonnunquam pauciores: more than twenty, because the number of tribes was raised to thirty-five ; fewer, because he confounds these phylarchs with the consular military tribunes. 78 Livy, in. 51. Dionysius, xi. 44. Zonaras, vn. 18. HISTORY OF ROME. 355 and moderation, told the plebs that the quarrel would never come to an end in this way; that the senate still fancied they had not made up their minds to go to ex- tremities: only when they had quitted the city, when they were seen ready, if reduced to the necessity, to found or adopt a new home, and to renounce their mother- city for ever, when no pledge was left within its walls to bind them to it, then, and not till then, would they ob- tain a hearing: they must once more go forth, and en- camp on the Sacred Mount. This was done. As the commonalty had occupied the Aventine, so the patricians had garrisoned the Capitol, and the fortresses in their parts of the city. A tacit truce however prevailed. No attempt was made to stop the cohorts, which descended from the Aventine, and proceeded in martial array, with- out doing any mischief, through the heart of the city, along the Velabrum, across the Forum, through the Su- bura, up the path by Santa Agata 779 , and out by the Col- line gate. From the Esquiline, and the scattered dwell- ings of their order in other quarters, they were joined by men and women, old and young, by all who were able to stir, or could be helpt along by their friends, escorted by the veteran cohorts of the lower classes 80 . The whole body encampt on the Sacred Mount, by the side of the legion which Icilius had induced to revolt 81 . To this 779 The Alta Semita. so See note 77G. Of course they continued to occupy the Aven- tine, and kept its gates closed. Its inhabitants did not march out, and may probably have given shelter to many others. 81 According to Idvy this army had previously entered by the Colline gate under arms, bearing its standards aloft, and, marching through the city, had joined the troops from mount Algidus on the Aventine, and was now returning in conjunction with them along the road it had come. I have thrown this story aside: it is nothing more than an interpolation of the second version (see note 786), according to the practice I have so often noticed. Not to dwell on other grounds, is it likely that the camp by Crustuineria would be z 2 356 HISTORY OF ROME. spot they transferred their government. On this occasion again we find the incredible praise bestowed on them, that none of these assembled thousands did any injury to the property of their enemies ' 782 . The stubbornness of their adversaries now gave way. Valerius and Horatius came to the camp to hear what the people demanded. They were cordially received. Icilius spoke in behalf of the plebs. He required the restora- tion of the tribuneship and the right of appeal ; next, that no one should be accounted criminal for having urged the people and the army to the insurrection; and lastly, that the decemvirs should be delivered up to suffer death at the stake. The commissioners answered, that the first two demands were so just, it was their duty rather to have offered them. Nor was it unreasonable to wish that the decemvirs should be punisht with the utmost rigour. But the republic needed conciliatory measures. Such a horrible revenge would hand down the party-feuds from generation to generation. Their oppressors would be suffi- ciently humiliated, if they were forced to live under the same laws with their fellow-citizens: nor would they, by being silent, forfeit their right of impeaching any indivi- dual offender. The commonalty trusted itself to the wishes and the conscience of its honest advisers. When Valerius and Horatius made their report in the senate, and said that the outlawry of the decemvirs was not insisted on, all opposition was husht. Yet even this condition must have been acceded to: for the patricians felt they were powerless, and quite incapable of holding out any longer. With regard to the future constitution nothing was decided : a delay injurious to the common- alty, but very intelligible, since negotiations on this point broken up, when it cut off all supplies that came down the Tiber, as the Aventine did those from the sea 1 782 This did very well in the legend : but how can any one relate it seriously? Even the Vendeans in their best days were not so pure and free from all baser admixture. BISTORT OF BOMB. 35? would have put off the peace. As it was, both parties expected to reap the greatest advantage in the end from this postponement. The senate issued an ordinance for the decemvirs to lay down their office, for consuls to be chosen, and for the chief pontiff to preside at the elec- tion of tribunes. Hereupon the seceders returned to Kome. The Capitol was given up to them 783 . From thence they marcht in military order to the Aventine, to elect their tribunes. Thus Livy relates the course of this revolution: and Dionysius 84 and Dion adopted the same account. But some fragments of Cicero contain a tradition, which, from the death of Virginia, is throughout at variance with it. Accord- ing to this, the insurgents proceeded with Virginius from mount Algidus straight to the Sacred Mount: there peace was concluded with them by the three deputies, whose em- bassy is represented in the other narrative to have been fruitless: and it was only after this that the army in mi- litary array march t in and occupied the Aventine 85 . So little was Cicero aware of the mission of L. Valerius and M. Horatius, of whom he tells us that to promote peace they politicly courted popularity 80 , that he expressly says, the speeches with which the former quieted the plebeians, when exasperated against the whole patrician order, were delivered after the fall of the decemvirate 87 . Now though 783 This very important circumstance lias been preserved by Ci- cero, pro Cornel. 1. 24. ed. Or. Tnde armati in Capitolium venerunt; nor has it any immediate connexion with the discordant version which he follows. 8< The pages containing his circumstantial narrative are lost : but from what precedes, and from xi. 45, there can be no doubt that the rest agreed entirely with Livy. 8i De re p. n. 37, and the fragment of the speech for Cornelius quoted above. 88 De re p. n. 31. 87 Brut. 14 (54) : Qui post deeemviraleni invidiam plebem in Patres incitatam kgibus et concionibus suis mitigaverit. 358 HISTORY OF ROME. in other respects there is no single point that can decide in favour of either of these narratives, I think it is clear that the names of the three commissioners must have been recorded officially : and for this there can only have been occasion, supposing that they concluded the peace; not so, if their message was ineffectual. We can conceive that, when the plebs revived in its corporate capacity, the three tribes would also be represented in the negotiation by three deputies. Nor would it be anything more than the ordinary way of combining two narratives together, for the one, founded on the funeral panegyrics of the Va- lerii, to have inserted the first embassy, with a statement that it failed. This Valerian account may be thought to be in some degree supported by Diodorus 788 ; at least so far as he too makes the army with Virginius occupy the Aventine immediately. Events then proceed with the utmost rapidity. The decemvirs prepare for resistance: but the better-disposed patricians mediate an adjustment, the terms of which he professes to report. In some parts however they are so glaringly absurd, as to afford strong ground for believing, that, even where the blunder ap- pears to be trifling, there may be a far more important one which escapes our view. It is a great pity that his heedlessness has so spoilt the accounts he had before him, which at all events would have been highly deserving of attention. 788 xh. 24, 25. :i59 THE FIRST YEAR AFTER THE RESTORATION OF FREEDOM. It sounds exceedingly strange, that, at a season when the vanquisht party cannot possibly have ventured on usurping any power, the chief pontiff, a patrician, chosen by the curies, and the president of their assembly 789 , should have been called to superintend the election of tribunes on the restoration of their office; more especially as this was not the course at its first institution. The circumstances of the two cases however were not the same. In the earlier one the tribes of the commonalty formed a separate body, and the two first tribunes of the people, who presided at the election of three addi- tional ones, were already the decurions among the old regularly elected tribunes of the Servian constitution. But those among whom M. Oppius and Sex. Manilius occu- pied the same place, were chosen during the insurrection. For on the abolition of the plebs as a distinct order its local tribunes ceast to exist: and if the national tribes had phylarchs of their own, there must at the least have been a good many patricians among them. Moreover the original tribunes were confirmed by the curies: and this sanction, which had long since been abolisht, was now supplied once for all by the presence and assent of the head of the pontifical college; which no doubt even at this period was competent to give validity to a merely : "» See note 502. 360 HISTORY OF ROME. formal proceeding of the patrician order. Such a pro- ceeding was requisite, to repeal the law which had been past by the curies, under the auspices of the pontiffs, abolishing the tribuneship: for the restoration of freedom brookt no delay. The plebeians in fine had no institution like that of the interrexes, by means of which the line of the patrician magistrates was secured from interruption. The new tribunes called a meeting of the plebs on a meadow at the foot of the Capitoline, on the same side with the field of Mars, where the Flaminian circus was long after built 790 , and where beyond doubt the plebeian games were celebrated from very early times : for the place allotted to these must be lookt for without the great Circus; just as the Forum was distinct from the Comi- tium. The first measure of this assembly, an act of in- demnity to all who had taken part in the insurrection, gave the full force of law to the ordinance of the senate guaranteeing the same thing: by this the commonalty secured the legality of its proceedings. The mover of this measure was L. Icilius, the betrothed lover of Virginia, who had been chosen tribune along with her father and uncle, to appease the cry of her manes for vengeance : but the soul of the whole college was M. Duilius. On his mo- tion the commonalty ordered that the interrexes should let two patrician consuls, subject to appeal, be ,freely elected by the centuries 91 , to exercise the supreme authority. 790 a reader of Livy, who is a stranger to the topography of Rome, will imagine this place to have been on the Aventine : but the words ea omnia etc. (in. 54) refer only to the business transacted by the tribunes after their election. This is one of the instances which shew how far the classical authors were from acknowledging any such rule, as that a writer ought to express himself so that he cannot possibly be misunderstood even by an uninformed and inat- tentive reader, and that otherwise such a reader is fully justified in condemning passages, which do not give the slightest offense to one conversant with the subject. 91 Dionysius, xi. 45, expressly mentions their being elected by the centuries, clearly following some annalist, who wisht to point out niSTOKY OF ROME. 361 This too can only have been an act, by which the tribes, as a branch of the legislature, confirmed a preceding or- dinance of the patricians, not one by which they took it upon themselves to settle the constitution, a usurpation which would have been no less ridiculous than repre- hensible. There cannot be a doubt that the leaders of the two orders had come to an agreement on this subject before the return of the plebs. For if the commonalty was to have its tribunes, and half the places in the de- cern virate besides, it would only want a large number of votes in the senate to have a decided preponderance. Two ways offered for introducing a real balance between the orders; either to make the tribunate common to both, as the tribes now were; or to alter the composition of the decemviral college. On this point equitable persons of both parties must have agreed. On it Valerius and llo- ratius must have insisted, even supposing them to have been quite free from the wish, which would not have been a blamable one, to favour their own order. Duilius himself manifestly entertained the very same view. But even though intentions had been honest on all sides, the moment was too pressing for them to come to an under- standing on what was best to be done: and had this been settled, there were still enormous difficulties to pre- vent its being carried into effect: so that it was neces- sary to adopt a provisional measure, and let time smooth the road for something better. It was apparently because the office thus introduced was not meant as a permanent renewal of the earlier and more powerful one, that the name of consuls was substi- tuted for the older one of pretors 1 ^ 2 . It clearly implies that this course of proceeding, after having been discontinued f<>r 36 Mars, was now completely restored. He himself must have thought it strange, that the centuries, the constitution of which he usually represents as the cause of the oligarchs! elections, were the very body that chose the most popular men consuls. *" It was merely the title of this provisional magistracy, and was 362 HISTORY OF ROME. that their power was reduced; since it merely signifies the union of two persons in the same office, not authority and rule. In conceding the consulship to the patricians the commonalty made no sacrifice on this occasion. It was reasonable that they should grant it as a joint reward to the two generous men who had shewn themselves such stanch friends to them and to the republic. The elec- tion of L. Valerius and M. Horatius was assuredly a boon conferred by the plebs 793 , which the senate and the cu- ries, however loth, could not refuse to confirm. As in earlier times we may often perceive that the elective franchise had been usurpt, because the personal charac- ter of one of the consuls is such that he could never have been elected by the classes; so in this case it is manifest that both the consuls were chosen by the classes, as indeed we find it expressly stated 94 . This freedom of election, which was restored with a view to the de- cern virate, continued henceforward, even after the consul- ship became a permanent office 95 . The men of the people's choice did not disappoint its confidence. Unanimous in the exercise of power, as they had been in their resistance to tyranny, they provided retained by accident. Zonaras, VII. 19 : Tore Xe'yerat trpmrov virarovs avrovs 7rpo(Tayof)fvdr)vai, arpaTrjyovs KaXovpevovs to Trporepov. Livy therefore ought not to have said (in. 55) that the consuls at this time were called pretors. What if the decemvirs were called con- sules in the Twelve Tables ? See Vol. I. p. 521. 79S In Livy, in. 67, the true reading is that of the manuscript of ~La,tiniu.s, potricium quoqtie magistratum plebis donum fieri vidimus, not plebi, which in Livy can never be the genitive except in phrases where the old form was fixt by usage. 9i See note 791. 95 Perhaps with a single exception, the year 316 ; of which I will speak when I come to it : and certainly by assuming the appointment of the censors the patricians shifted their usurpation of one place in the plenary consulship to the most powerful branch of the office when detacht from it. HISTORY OF ROME. 363 for security of freedom by reviving old laws, and framing new ones. The senate could not refuse the ordi- nance requisite before these measures could be submitted to the centuries: nor could the general assembly of the houses withhold its assent. For the patricians were hum- bled, and full of anxiety on account of the impeachments hanging over them, with regard to which a gloomy silence still prevailed. Every one measured his danger by the consciousness of his guilt and of his hatred. The laws of the consuls were past sullenly, but without opposition? 96 . The new tribunes had already exercised the right which was introduced by the Publilian law, and consum- mated by Icilius; and it was undoubtedly understood that their office was revived in the plenitude of its powers. Yet to obviate all pretense, that the powers acquired subsequently to its original institution were extinct, and that an ordinance of the plebs, even when it had received the assent of the patrician assembly, still was not a law 97 , the consuls got the centuries to enact that an ordinance of the plebs should be held of equal force with one past by the centuries 98 , under penalty of death and confisca- tion of property to all who contravened this principle 99 . The putting them thus on a level serves to shew, what indeed is clear enough without, that the express assent of the patrician assembly, which down to the Publilian law of 412 was indispensable to all bills past by the cen- turies, cannot have been dispenst with at this earlier pe- riod in the case of ordinances of the plebs. 796 Livy, m. 55 : Haec ut invitis ita non adversantibus patriciis transacta. 59 : Multi erant qui mollius consultum dicerent, quod le- gum ab iis latarum Patres auctores fuissent. 97 Livy, ni. 55. Cum veluti in controverso jure esset teDereu- turne Patres plebiscitis. 98 Dionysius, XI. 45. Toils xmo rov difftov rtdtpras tv rais <£i- AtTiKaty fKKXrjaiais Popovs uncuri kuoBiu 'Vu>fxaiois ((■ icrov, ti)v avTqv f^oiras 6vpafj.iv rols iv ra'is Xo\Itio-iv cKK\i]o-iais Tf6r]crofjtPois. 99 Dionysius, xi. 45. 364 HISTORY OF ROME. We must not be misled by the terms in which this law is reported by Livy, namely, that the ordinances past by the plebs in the assembly of the tribes were to be binding upon all the Quirites; though they certainly seem to convey a very different meaning. A time did indeed come, when the assembly of the people arbitrarily cur- tailed the power of the senate, and of the supreme ma- gistrates, and retrencht the property of the nobles by agrarian laws 800 . At that time the ordinances of the plebs were laws for every Eoman ; and their legal va- lidity could not be contested even by those who con- demned them as ruinous. But at that same time with the exception of a small number of families, which were far from forming the most powerful and important part of the nobless, the plebs was the whole nation: whereas undoubtedly, when the tribunate was restored, no ple- beian had yet a seat in the senate. Thus we are led by the plain aspect of the case to complete Livy's report of the Valerian enactment with this clause, — provided such ordinances are confirmed by the patricians. As yet an ordinance of the plebs was of no greater force than a bill which has past through the House of Commons, but which must receive the assent of the other two branches of ihe legislature, before it becomes law 1 . This, which is so clearly inferred by the circumstances of the case, is corroborated by the history of those bills, through which the equality of the plebeian order was gradually and slowly won. Here the obstacle always is that the patricians, — 800 Polybius, vi. 16. 1 The assemblies of the tribes after the time of the Hortensian law stand in the same relation to those of an earlier period with re- gard to their legislative power, in which a single house, made up solely of representatives, would have stood to the old House of Com- mons, supposing that a real republic, instead of oligarchy and usur- pation, had arisen out of the Long Parliament. And in fact all the North-American legislatures are such democratical developments of the British Lower House. HISTORY OF ROME. 365 sometimes the senate in the first instance, sometimes the curies alone, — refuse their assent, though on many occa- sions not expressly, but by pretending that the auspices break up their assembly, and thus stop the passing of the ordinance 802 . The sanction of the patricians, when ob- tained, raised it to a perfect law, of the same force with one proposed by a consul: and it was only after that sanction had cither been entirely dropt, or was reduced to a mere form, that a verbal controversy could arise on the question whether such an enactment, though confess- edly valid, was entitled to the name of a law 3 . As the elections and legislative acts that emanated from the cen- turies, were proceedings of a precisely similar nature, so was it also with those which began in the assembly of the tribes: and the inferior magistrates were elected by the tribes, but instated by the curies 4 . Now that the assembly of the plebs was recognized as a branch of the legislature, an ordinance originating in the senate might also be raised into law conversely, by the assent of the plebs on the motion of the tribunes 5 . Instances of this occur frequently in later times: none however is stated so distinctly as that which took place only four or five years after the Valerian laws, the in- stitution of the censorship; when, it is said, the senate proposed the measure, the patricians eagerly took it up, and the tribunes made no opposition to it 6 . Now even 802 This is what Dion means by the words fipaxea nva im6ei6- (ovres (perhaps ini6e•' 381 CIVIL COMMOTIONS DOWN TO THE CONSTITUTION OF 311. The old commonalty was no less anxious for the re- election of the tribunes than of the consuls: nor could the former be prevented by any interference from with- out. But M. Duiiius, whose lot it was to preside at this election, declared that he would take no vote either for his collegues or himself. This resolution was met by one equally firm on the part of the old plebeians, not to vote for anybody except the tribunes who were going out: and their superiority in number to the newly ad- mitted tribesmen was so decided, that the latter, and such individuals as may have joined them, could not supply more than five candidates with the requisite votes in the majority of the tribes 832 . Now it being necessary that all proceedings of the plebs should be completed in one day 33 , an election which had not furnisht the full num- ber might have been held void; and those who were de- sirous to carry the reelection of the late tribunes insisted that it ought to be so. Duiiius on the other hand main- tained that it was enough if there were any tribunes elected to begin the new year, and that these had a legal 83i p or this to have been possible, we must suppose that the ge- nuine old plebeians obstinately refused to vote, or thai their votes for the old tribunes were not counted, that an absolute majority was necessary, and that the votes for all but the five successful candi- dates were frittered away. 33 Seep. 215, note 48ft 382 HISTORY OF ROME. right to fill up the vacant places 834 . The people was forced to acquiesce in this decision: but the majority of the new tribunes, as might have been lookt for from the mode of their election, were so entirely devoted to the patricians, that, among the new members with whom they made up the complement of their college, two were taken from that order, — Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aternius; to whom however, it is true, the commonalty was indebted for their law to regulate fines. This account is deduced from Livy: and it would sound credible enough, were it conceivable that Duilius could carry his private determination into effect against the will of his collegues, at a time when questions were settled by the majority; or that the charge of presiding at the election would be given to a person directly op- posed to all the rest on the matter the decision of which was thus placed in his power. As on these grounds it can scarcely be doubted that Duilius on the contrary acted in unison with the majority of his collegues, so we may conjecture that the purpose of his measure has been misrepresented. What if the two consulars were not the only patricians in the secondary list, but merely escaped oblivion from having distinguisht themselves on other oc- casions? What if the plan was to make the tribunate represent the whole nation now united in the tribes, and to divide it, like the decemvirate, between the two estates? what if it was deemed the most expedient method of doing this, — as in the first instance at least it unquestionably would be, — to entrust five plebeians elected by the tribes with the power of filling up the other five places? This to all human appearance was a security that no violent persons 834 According to the text in Livy (in. 64) lie appealed to an existing law : satisfaetum legi aiebat, quae — sanciret, et — cooptari col- legas juberet. The last word can scarcely be an errour of the scribes ; yet the sense requires jubebat : for this is what Duilius proposes. The mistake may have been an oversight either of the writer him- self, or of some corrector of a manuscript. HISTORY OF ROME. 383 would be chosen, no wolf let in to guard the flock, as might have been apprehended from an election by the curies. Such a resolution would imply an agreement be- forehand that the decemvirate was to be introduced in the form previously ordained. Now if we reflect that the tribunes went out of office on the tenth of Decem- ber, the consuls not till the thirteenth, and that the lat- ter held the election of their successors in the very last days of their office, we may see that the five plebeians might very easily appoint their collegues, before the senate issued its ordinance directing that consuls and not de- cemvirs should be elected. This would have been a crafty stroke, and a perfectly successful one. Though this explanation cannot lay claim to anything more than probability, it is beyond all doubt that the question in dispute was, what share the plebeians were to have in the decemvirate : for, considering their rela- tive condition, the exclusive possession of the tribunate, together with a full half of the supreme magistracy, would have been too much. To secure them this exclusive possession was manifestly the purpose of the ordinance which L. Trebonius, one of the five elected tribunes, got past in 307 ; that the person who presided at an elec- tion of tribunes, was to continue it until the full number often was made up 835 . The meaning of this is, that, if an election was not concluded before sunset, it was to be valid so far as it had gone; and we may conjecture that it was not necessary to wait for the third market- day to finish it. On the other hand I should incline to suppose that the judicial questorship was left to the patricians; since this year, the sixty-third after the banishment of the 835 The law in Diodorus, xn. 25, which ordains under penalty of the stake that the full number of ten tribunes was always to be elected, is no other than this of Trebonius: there cannot have been such a law previous to the election at which Duilius presided. 384 HISTORY OF ROME. Tarquins, was the first in which the centuries appointed to that office; but that this regulation, if a permanent one, would imply that the breaking up of the decem- viral college had already been determined upon. Per- haps this office, like the consulship, may have been en- trusted provisionally to two patricians. As to its func- tions, it was the same that was to have formed a part of the decemvirate 836 : the election was free: the centu- ries elected L. Valerius Potitus, along with Mam. Aemilius, one of the most eminent and best-disposed men of the day. Even before the decemvirate, consulars had not thought this office below their dignity; though its prin- cipal functions were comprised in the melancholy duty of the triumvir capitalis 37 . The consuls of the years 307 and 308 avoided all disputes with the tribunes. But the patricians of the younger houses, which are mentioned here for the last time, provoked and maltreated many of the commonalty, and even the tribunes themselves when they interposed; while those of the old houses, though they took no part in their misdeeds, would not let them be punisht 38 . The next year many persons were prosecuted before the people for such offenses: the old state of affairs was completely revived : it was expected that the tribunes would stop the levies. But when the Aequians were tempted by this prospect to make an inroad into the Koman territory, they found themselves mistaken. The year 310 brought on a crisis. Nine tribunes gave notice of a bill for elect- ing one of the consuls from each order; one of them, C. Canuleius, of another bill to legalize marriages between the orders. Livy's account of the angry opposition with 836 Above, pp. 325, 326. On the twofold mistake made by Taci- tus and Ulpian, in confounding the quaestores parricidii with the quaestores classiei, and fancying that the former were appointed at first by the kings, and then till 307 by the consuls, see Vol. i. p. 525. 3 ' Varro de 1. L. v. 14 (iv.p. 24). 38 Livy, in. 65: a very important passage. IirSTOUY OF BOMB. 385 which the patricians met this proposal, is unquestionably a faithful picture of the sentiments of the haughty nobles of his own day; and the deep resentment he puts into the mouth of the tribune is his own feeling. It is im- possible however that all the patrician houses of the age he is describing can have lookt down with such contempt on the distinguish^ plebeian families. Cn. Cornelius and P. Licinius were brothers 839 , and were probably born be- fore the passing of the Canuleian law 40 . As the obstacle to these marriages turned in fact upon the auspices, they may more properly be termed mixt than unequal. All prudent men must have perceived that the prohibition of intermarriages was undermining the patrician order: nor can they have overlookt that its most violent enemies were the men, sprung from it by marriages which, though for- bidden, were still contracted, whom their birth excluded from it. Such was the case in the early ages of Greece with Cypselus and many other demagogues and usurpers: and the most resolute leaders of the Roman plebs, Sicinius, Genucius, and Virginius himself, must have been allied to the patrician houses of the same names. Accordingly the Canuleian ordinance received the assent of the pa- tricians. The speech made by its mover in the senate against the levy by which the government wanted to hin- der the passing of the bills 41 , shews that the tribunes were then admitted into the senate-house; which is ma- nifestly a newly acquired right 12 , and is connected with the regulation that the ordinances of the senate were to 839 Livy, v. 12. *<> If Livy'a narrative could be relied <>n, according to which (v. 18) Liciniu.s (Jalvus, the military tribune of the year :;.'.■ the son of the one mentioned in the text, ami the latter wis at that time an old man, this would be certain : hut the newly discovered fragments of the Capitoline Fasti represent him a- the mhh 1 person who filled the office in 356. 41 Pauca in senatu vociferatus: Livy, tv. l. '- Ieilius indeed had appeared before the senate; but this was VOL. II. B B 386 HISTORY OF ROME. be deposited in the archives of the ediles. The seats of the tribunes during a debate were on benches before the doors of the senate-house, which stood open 843 . Thus the plebeians had access by their representatives to the deliberations of the senate, but without a vote; as the deputies of the guilds in the thirteenth century were per- mitted in many cities to attend meetings at the town- house, long before they obtained seats in the council 44 . The first bill, that relating to the consulship, was subsequently altered, so as to leave both places open to both the orders without distinction 45 . The look this has of an advance in the demands of the commonalty is wholly deceptive. On the contrary it was to be foreseen that the arbitrary power of a patrician president, and the in- fluence of his order in the centuries, would render the right thus conceded abortive, unless it was enjoined that one of the consuls must necessarily be a plebeian. This alteration therefore was a step backward. It was just like what happened at the doubling of the questors of under different circumstances: any person might have done the same, though having no access to that assembly otherwise : Diony- sius, x. 31, 32. 843 Valerius Maximus, n. 2. 7. The position of the benches im- plies that the doors must have been left open. " And those of the Polish towns by the constitution of 1791. 15 Livy's statement (iv. 1), according to which the demand at first was only that the plebeians should be eligible to one place, and was afterward raised so as to leave the right of electing wholly un- restricted, is grounded on a misunderstanding, which the facts of the case are sufficient to correct. These bills are also spoken of by Dio- dorus, who however is entangled in a maze of errours : for he sup- poses them to have been legally enacted, and places them immediately after the abolition of the decemvirate : not to mention that at this period the centuries cannot as yet be properly called a S^juoj, arid that he does not understand the way in which the events hang to- gether : XII. 25. Tav vtti'to.iv tou pev epa e< twv TraTpuciuu' nlpfltrOat, Ken tov tva 7rdvTcos airo ray 7t\i)8ovs KciBicrTacrflai. f^ovaias nvarjs re> 8t)pcc Kin aficporepovs tovs vttutovs i< tov 7rki']Qovs a'tpelaOai- HISTORY OP BOMB. 387 the treasury, when, the tribunes having demanded that the places should be shared between the two orders, the interrex got them to agree that they should be filled indiscriminately from either 846 . This concession however did not appease the patricians. The most violent pas- sions were excited 47 : the heads of the senate held secret consultations; and C. Claudius advised them to murder the tribunes'". Others thought that this would be too horrible, or too desperate a step. At length a compact was concluded between the leaders of the senate and the tribunes, substituting a new constitution, which for bre- vity's sake I shall call that of 311, in the room of the dcccmviral one. Of this compact our historians know nothing. Nevertheless it certainly took place, and was undoubtedly drawn up, like the Greek treaties of peace, in the form of a law, as an ordinance of the senate and curies, adopted by the commonalty, like that by which the censorship is related to have been establisht* . Xor are thev aware of the connexion between the censorship and the military tribunate, or that these two offices together were equivalent to the consulship: ac- cording to their view the censorship was instituted to meet a casual necessity. The spirit and import of the compact however, when the matter is considered without prejudice, will not admit of a doubt. The decemvirate was resolved into its three component offices, which now stood completely separate from each other. Of these the censorship and the qucstorship were reserved for the pa- tricians: the former was to be bestowed by the senate ,w Livy, iv. 43. The tribunes demand, ui }><l acpatribus '. Hereupon the election of any plebeian is con stantly prevented for several years. 4 ' UnXXt'i Kcir' tiXXijXuti' kiu /ii'iim tXeyov re icai rnparrov. Zona- ras, vn. in. w Livy, iv. 10. ,0 See note 506 n B 388 HISTORY OF ROME. and the curies, the latter by the centuries. The military tribunate was reduced from a body of six to one of three: and instead of its being equally divided between the or- ders, both were made eligible indiscriminately. The mis- chief threatened by this provision cannot have eluded the notice of the plebeians: but all these concessions were wrung from them, because they retained exclusive pos- session of the tribunate. Their conviction that the pa- tricians would take advantage of any share they might get in that office to destroy it, must have been very deeply rooted, since no further attempt was made to preserve the decemviral constitution at such a price. :jh!> THE CONSULAR MILITARY TRIBUNATE. A correct notion of the constitution of 311 will lead us to acquit the patricians of the charge of setting a great value on the show of excluding the plebeians from the consulship, while they granted them the substance 850 . Dion tells us that no consular military tribune, though several of them gained brilliant victories, ever celebrated a triumph 51 . Hence it follows that they cannot have had the curule honours 52 : for a triumph, properly so called, is termed triumphus curulis 53 . This epithet assuredly re- fers to the privilege of the supreme magistrates to go to the senate in a chariot 54 ; an honour not allowed to the 850 Zonaras, VII. 19. ToO fxtv epyov Tvaptx^PW av j T °v &* ovop,aros ov fl(T(8u>KaV. 61 Zonaras, VII. 19. 52 Livy's assertion, rv. 7, impcrio et insignibus consularibus usos, is one of his pieces of inadvertency. 53 Beside the passages quoted in tho dictionaries, the monument of Ancyra has (tres egi) curules triumphos : Oberlin's Tacitus, n. p. 587. 54 Festus, Curules and Isidorus, xx. 11. If this privilege ceast with tho office, it may have been specially granted to Metellus, when he had lost his sight, as a mark of distinction : see Pliny, vn. 45. The expression of Gavius Bassus in Gellius, in. 18, qui curulem ma- gistnituni gessissent is erroneous : it ought to be gererent. I conjec- ture that a dictator was not only entitled but enjoined to use a cha- riot : and that it was for this reason, and not because he was bound 390 HISTORY OF ROME. consular tribunes, because they were not of curule rank. in like manner no master of the horse ever triumpht: nobody ever supposed that his was one of the curule offices; and the consular tribunes were not above him in rank 855 . One may easily conceive that the office, when thrown open to the plebeians, would be shorn of its dig- nity: if its power however had continued the same, the advantage the consulship had over it would merely have been matter of vanity. The most remarkable feature of this tribuneship is the variableness in the number of its members: for this in all the other offices of the ancient states was perma- nently fixt, and did not alter with the shifting of cir- cumstances, as in modern monarchies. From 311 to 323 this magistracy occurs five times in the Fasti; and each time they give three names 56 : from 329 to 349 we find eleven or twelve boards, consisting of four, and three or two of three members 57 : afterward, as often as such tri- bunes are elected from 350 down to the Licinian law, there are never fewer than six: but in three instances we meet with eight 58 . The first of these has been fully to lead the legions on foot, that a law was requisite to allow him to mount on horseback : see Livy, xxiii. 14, and his commentators. The practice is alluded to in the versus quadratus, Dictator ubi cur- rum insedit vehitur usque ad oppidum, as far as the city-walls (see Varro, v. 32, p. 37), when he is going to take the field : there he mounts his horse. The pomp of Romulus in his chariot was cele- brated in the legend : on the other hand it is recorded as an instance of Trajan's animus civilis, that he walkt in the city on foot. ess Livy, vi. 39. A consular tribune is appointed master of the horse : no consul ever was so. 5G For we must suppose that there were three tribunes in 321, as we find in Diodorus, xn. 53 : the same consuls cannot possibly have been elected two years in succession : Livy, iv. 23. " The doubtful board is that of 333. See note 869. ss In 352: Livy, v. 1 : 376.01.102.1: 377. 01. 102. 2 : Diodo rus, xv. 50,51. HISTORY OF SOME. 391 discust by Perizonius, who has shewn that the last two nanus among the eight were unquestionably those of the censors for the year, but that Livy so decidedly consi- dered these as members of the tribunician college, that he reckons this year among the tribuncships of M. Ca- millus 889 . The case is precisely the same with the other two instances, which have never been examined, owing to the contemptuous neglect of everything contained in Diodorus with regard to the early history of Rome. The year 375 was the first of a censorship; and in the list of tribunes in Diodorus, completely disligured and muti- lated as it has been by the transcribers, we at least find the name of C. Sulpicius, who appears as one of the cen- sors in Livy: while in the next year, when we have the eight names complete, C. Genucius and P. Trebonius are the censors, who were chosen in the room of those of the preceding year, but, their election being declared in- valid, were obliged to resign 60 . During this period the censorship occurred very rarely: as often however as it stood alongside of the military tribunate, it must have been similarly lookt upon as united with it, so that on such occasions there were held to be eight tribunes 61 . It is merely a slight exaggeration when it is said that this number was a common one 03 . ess Perizonius, Animadv. 2. p. 46. foil. 00 Livy, vi. 27. 1 1 is placing the resignation of the first censors, and the (.lection of the second, under the year 37(>, is a mere over- Bight. '•' The names of the censors for 378, as given by Livy, vi. 31, it is true, do not occur in Diodorus (xv.57): but, as is proved by the forenames of his tribunes compared with those in Livy, his list is imperfect, probably owing to the illegibility of the manuscript our text is derived from : the statement that there wore four tribunes in that year, probably comes from the hand which has disingenuously plastered over the traces of all the gaps in Diodorus. 83 See the passages from Livy himself, and from the speech of the emperor Claudius, in Perizonius, p. 47. 392 HISTORY OF ROME. It will be seen further on that the censorship at this period was very much inferior in dignity and power to what it was either before or after. All that we need notice here, is, that the persons invested with it were reckoned among the tribunes, though not strictly belong- ing to their body. But during this same period the duties of the tribunate were not confined to command- ing in the field. The usual practice was to send out two armies, each under two military tribunes 863 : of the two who staid at home, one, as is distinctly stated with regard to the year 369 64 , would fill the post of warden of the city ; the other, as commander of the reserve com- posed of the veterans and of persons exempted from or- dinary service, stood in the place of the ancient procon- sul 65 ; whether these offices were assigned by lot or by agreement. The pretorship of the city however was so far from being included among the places thrown open to the plebeians by the constitution of 311, that even for a whole generation after the Licinian law it remained in the exclusive possession of the patricians. Indeed how could it be otherwise, when the appointment of judges, and the maintenance of possessions in the public domains, Avere among the functions of that office? While the other five places therefore, as being merely military, might be conferred on either order, this one must have been re- served to the patricians: that it was so in 355 and 356, is manifest: nor in fact was it otherwise in 359, the only year in which the tribunes in Livy's Fasti are all plebeians 66 . 863 In the years 360, 364, 369, 372, 377, 378, Livy, v. 24. 32. vi. 6. 9. 22. 31, 32, 33. Compare v. 6. 18. 28. vi. 23. 30. 64 Te, Ser. Corneli, praesidern hujus publici consihi, custoclem religionum, comitiorurn, leguni, reruni omnium urbanarum, collegae facimus. Livy, vi. 6. 65 See above, pp. 121-123. 66 jpov instead of P. Maenius, the new fragments of the Fasti and Diodorus, xiv. 90, have Q. Manlius. HISTORY OF ROME. :5!K$ In like manner before the number of the tribunes was raised to six, this pretor must have been distinct from them: and since at that time, whenever we find four tribunes, it was and must needs have been the rule, for one of them to take charge of the city as prefect, while the others were absent in the field 8fi7 , it would be idle to doubt whether this fourth, who must have exer- cised the pretorship of the city in its full extent, was necessarily a patrician: a question indeed which never arose, because the patricians almost always succeeded in excluding the plebeians altogether. Properly speaking however, he was no more a military tribune, than the censors were afterward : he was only a collegue of the tribunes 68 , and the vicegerent of the censors. Had not Mamercus Aemilius shortened the term of the censorship, so that there were to be no censors for three years and a half in every lustre, no colleges previous to the alteration in 350 would contain more than three tri- bunes: nor did they, under the constitution of 31 1, until the Aemilian law came into operation. Whenever there were censors as well as military tribunes, there was no need of any pretorian vicegerent. Hence in 337 we only find three consular tribunes; because in that year there were censors, as is proved by the fragments of the Fasti: and this trace is a safe guide even where those tables are wanting, which it is to be hoped, will hereafter be discovered. The year 347, in which likewise there are only three names, is separated from 337 by two lustres, and from 352, which also has censors, by one 61 - 1 . In the 8G ' In the years 329, 331, 34!): see Almeloveen's Praefectural Fasti. Ap. Claudium praefectum urbi relinquunt: livy, iv. 36. Cossus praefuit urbi : iv. 31 . 6 " As the pretor was the collegue of the consuls. 69 Hence the year 333 is the second of a censorship : since that office therefore was vacant during the last six months, it seems that Livy must have omitted the collegue of the tribunes in the list of 394 HISTORY OF ROME. years when the Fasti have four tribunes, there assuredly were no censors. I have gone backward from the latest period of the military tribunate to its origin, in order to give a clear solution of the perplexing variation in its numbers: 1 shall now take the opposite course, and point out the changes in its nature in the order in which they oc- curred. 1 need not repeat that it was originally instituted as a part of the decemvirate. By the constitution of 311 the number of its members was reduced to three, who might be chosen out of either order: for the patricians trusted that the power of the presiding magistrate, and the controll of the censors over the lists of electors, would enable them to exclude the plebeian candidates; an expectation in which, after the first election, they were not deceived. Whether consuls or military tri- bunes were to be appointed, was always decided by the senate. It preferred the former; because in their case votes for a plebeian might be peremptorily rejected with- out trouble or annoyance: when however it was forced this year ; and thus the conjecture of Sigonius, that the name of L. Servilius is wanting in iv. 42, who in iv. 47 is said to have been military tribune once before, would receive a confirmation its author cannot have foreboded. The wardenship of the city, like the censor- ship after 350, was reckoned a part of the military tribunate, not however in aU the Fasti. I scarcely know anything more delightful, than to be able to furnish a proof in support of a conjecture made by former scholars, the truth of which was clear to them, though inferior men were not satisfied of it : it is paying off our debt to them after the lapse of centuries : I too may hope that some will regard me with like feelings hereafter. It is a pity that the Fasti for this year are wanting, and that Diodorus omits its tribunes, to- gether with the magistrates of three other years, for the sake of ma- king the Gallic invasion correspond with 01. 98. 1. Though the law of Mamercus Aemilius for abridging the censorship was past in 321, still it could not affect the censors then in office, and did not pre- vent C. Furius and M. Geganius, even if they were created in 320 from retaining their jurisdiction in 322 and 323. HI8T0ET OF ROME. 395 to permit the election of tribunes, after the passing of the Aemilian law, and there were no censors, their place was supplied by a warden of the city, who in like man- ner was necessarily a patrician. The year 350 is the commencement of a totally dif- ferent magistracy under the same name. The pretorship was separated from the censorship, and united with the tribunate: it was reserved to the patricians, though re- garded as one of the places in the tribunician college, which was restored to its original complement of six. The other five were open to both orders without dis- tinction, as the three of the previous tribunate had been already: on one occasion only did the equal division ori- ginally prescribed take place. Of these five one had the command of the reserve, whenever it was found neces- sary to assemble it. Now as the internal constitution of the college was so totally changed, there cannot be said to be any decided improbability in Livy's state- ment, which speaks of the prerogative tribe, and of the others as being called up in their order, at the election of the year 359 87 °. Since the voice of the tribes was continually gaining fresh importance in the state, and their ordinances, when confirmed by the curies, like those of the centuries became law, the election may certainly have been transferred to them: and as a number of con- cessions were at this time made to the people, among the rest it may have obtained a mode of election which seemed better secured against abuse than that by the centuries. Still this statement cannot be relied on as certain, being inseparably connected with the very doubt- ful story, which makes the Licinius Calvus, who was tribune in the same year, the son of the first consular tribune of that name. But whatever may have been the mode of election, it was undoubtedly applied to the cen- sors likewise, who at this time were held to be collegue6 870 Livy,v.l8. 396 HISTORY OF ROME. of the tribunes : and if it be true that a Trebonius was elected censor in 376 8n , there needs no proof that it cannot have been by the curies. 811 Diodorus, xv. 51. The Trebonii were plebeians : the parti- tion of offices effected in that year was extended to the censorship : and this was manifestly the cause why the censors were compelled to resign. 397 THE CENSORSHIP. I HAVE already intimated that by the constitution of 311 the censors were chosen by the curies: of course the centuries had to confirm the election. Hence in aftertimcs the strange anomaly, that at the appointment of censors the latter assembly voted twice over 872 . This cannot have been the case from the beginning : but when the election came to be taken away from the patricians, the previous practice of having it confirmed by the cen- turies might still be retained as an unimportant formality : to have transferred it by way of exchange to the curies would have been a hazardous measure, and directly ad- verse to the spirit of the age. Nor in like manner would the curies, before the time of Servius Tullius, have voted twice on the same king, if the assembly that elected him had from the first been, as it was after the time of Tarquinius Priscus, the same with that which confirmed the election; whereas the latter had originally been a much larger body than the former 73 . The regulation that the censors were to be appointed by the curies, was the same which ever since the com- pact of 272 * had been in force with regard to the higher 8:2 Cicero against Rullus, u. 11 (26). Majores de omnibus ma- gistratibus bis vos Bententiam ferre \ oluerunt. Nam cum centuriata lex cenaoribus ferebatur, cum curiata ceteris patriciis magistratibus, turn iterum de lis judicabatur ut asset reprehendendi pojbestas ' See Vol. i. i»i>. 341, :i l± * See r>. L8a 398 IIISTORY OF ROME. place in the consulship, applied to what was far the most important half of the consular power. After the pretor- ship was severed from this half in 350, it became a matter of much less moment to the patricians to main- tain the exclusive right of conferring the censorship, pro- vided that, so long as the censorship was connected with the military tribunate, they had that of rejecting the can- didates. On the pretorship all that is necessary has been said above*: here I have to explain the nature and the functions of the censorship properly so called. These functions were originally, administering the pro- perty and the revenues of the republic, in the capacity of an exchequer-chamber and a board of works, register- ing the citizens according to their orders, as knights, common freemen, and erarians, and keeping the landtax- rolls. Such an office, so long as it did nothing more than take care that the clerks performed their duties faithfully, though necessary, was without dignity or weight: and if Livy remembered that at this period the revenues from the public lands consisted merely of agistment at the utmost, so that neither the farming nor the expenditure of them could be matters of much importance, while he was not aware that the censors functions included those of the pretor, he was fully justified in saying that the office in itself was an in- significant one. Nor is he less correct when he adds, that it was no doubt perceived how powerful it was sure to become in the hands of men of eminence 874 ; that is, by enabling them to determine the rank of the citizens, and the valuation of taxable property, at their pleasure. This discretionary authority may perhaps have begun immediately on the creation of the office: and it grew continually, and the more rapidly so as the ancient * See p. 392. ,;4 Futuruni credo rati, nt mox opes eorum qui praeessent ipsi honori jus majestatemque adjiceieut: iv. 8. HISTORY OF ROME. 399 institutions became unsound, and gradually ceast to be replaced by others better suited to the times; until the censors, when the civil frame had fallen to pieces, ruled with a despotical power, which was regarded with hatred, though allowed to be indispensable. The censors were empowered to enroll members in the senate, the equestrian order, and the tribes, and on the other hand to exclude the unworthy 875 . In ancient days a person struck out of the roll of his tribe was forced to take his place among the erarians, or in the register of the Caerites 76 : but when in course of time a distinction was made between the tribes of higher and lower rank, he may have gone down into a less respect- able one. A scandalous offender indeed was assuredly always punisht with civil degradation by the laws of Rome, as he was with ini/jbla at Athens: the very notion of a judicium turpe implies that this was its effect. A guardian or partner convicted of fraud, a perjured witness, a thief or robber, and other criminals of the kind 77 , forfeited their civil rank, and were expelled from their order and their tribe by the sentence which pronounced them guilty. In such cases the censors merely executed the judge- ment of the court. So again, when they struck out a man who had chosen a degrading occupation, or been turned ignominiously out of the army, they assuredly could not restore such an offender to his civil rank, even 875 Zonaras, VII. 19. 'E^jji/ avrols — is ras (j)v\us kci'i is rhv iw- irdha Ka\ is t>)v yeptivcriau iyypucpftv — rovs 8 uuk eu fiiovvras iirav- Tax.f't0ev it-akei(peiv. : " The spurious Asconius quoted in note 1085, v\>l.L In one point at least he is wrong, when he confines the d of being transferred among the erarians to the plebeians. What Gellin . u. 12, calls aerarium facerc, he in another place (xvi. 13) expr< ssea bj ;,, tabula* Caeritum referri jubere (by the clerfc " Cicero pro Cluent. 42 (1 19) : Turpi judicio damnati in per- petuum onuii honore ac dignitate privantur. On this judiciun the passages collected in Brissonius under Turj 400 HISTORY OF ROME. with their united voice. But the case was different when they acted on their private conviction of a man's un- worthiness, and not in execution of a judicial sentence. A censorian brand of this kind was certainly not judicial, and in numberless instances was removed either by the collegue or the successor of the censor who had imposed it 878 . It might be inflicted for sundry acts, degrading either in themselves, or from the sentiments that gave birth to them, but such as could not be punisht by the tribunals, or scarcely ever came before them, and which it was left to the censors to correct. The client to whom an unprincipled patron had broken faith, the slave whom his master treated with cruelty, could only call on heaven for redress: but if censors like Cato or Flaccus heard of the wrong, they stript the offender of his civil rank. Excessive harshness or indulgence in a parent toward his children, the vexatious treatment of an inno- cent wife, the neglect of parents, selfishness between brothers or sisters, drinking-bouts, the seduction or aban- donment of the young, the omission of sacred rites and the honours due to the dead, in short every offense against propriety and the public good came under the cognizance of the censors 79 . One of the offenses in this last class was luxury; and the most celebrated stories of censorian rigour relate to the punishment of this in men of high rank, at the period when the love for the simple man- ners of old times came into conflict with the temptation to forsake them. Capricious celibacy, and invalid mar- riages were branded, as keeping the state poor in citizens 80 : 878 What Cicero says, pro Cluent. 42 (119), on the difference be- tween a censorian brand and the consequences of a judicium turpe, is most strictly correct, and will now be intelligible. 7D This is stated by Dionysius, — exc.Mai. 64. ed. R. (p. 97. ed. Frankf.) — with a precision which leaves no room for doubt. 80 This must no doubt be the meaning of the phrase, uxor libero- rum quaerendorum causa. HISTORY OF HOME. 401 and so undoubtedly was the exposing a child, unless it was deformed. A plebeian was bound to be a husband- man: if he renounced this calling, and betook himself to a retail-trade or handicraft, he renounced his order like- wise" 81 ; and it was the censor's duty to strike out his name. If a man let his field or his vineyard run wild, he shewed himself unworthy of his order, and of the property entrusted to him by the state, and so was re- moved from his tribe 82 . On the same ground it was but fair on the other hand that an erarian, who chose the station of a country- man, should be registered in the tribe in whose region he had bought land : and if Appius Claudius had merely incorporated such persons in the plebs, and not the po- pulace of the city, no reasonable objection could have been made even to the admission of freedmen. But he placed everybody indiscriminately in one or other of the tribes. Here the absoluteness of the censorian power shews itself in its highest excess: for the regulation by which Fabius Maximus checkt this evil*, was sometimes abandoned, sometimes revived, sometimes straitened still more: nay the register of the tribes was subjected in 569 to a general revision. But though the censors could thus arbitrarily enlarge or abridge the rights of a Roman citizen, there is no instance of their having been authorized to bestow or take away the franchise itself. When they admitted fo- reiners to be assest, it was by virtue of a privilege con- ferred by the Roman people: and they could not degrade an erarian lower. Nor is it conceivable that they acted 881 Ou8fi/i r£i}y 'Punaiw (he has forgotten the erarians) ovre *«- 7tt?Xoj> out6 X (i l> or v aaKevnvT&v ra npaypara HISTORY OF ROME. 413 collecting forces; and this time probably in the first in- stance from Ardea, a city governed by a faction akin in its nature and spirit to the Roman patricians, and in- clined to favour them, and with which a treaty was con- cluded in the same year: the cession of the waste terri- tory of Corioli must be regarded as the price of the aid afforded 908 . On the thirteenth day Quinctius had exe- cuted his commission, and laid down his office. These may possibly have been days of honour: and if there be any foundation for a story, which neither of our two historians takes notice of, and the date of which we have nothing to determine, — if nine tribunes of the people were ever actually burnt alive, as the opponents of the consul Sicinius had been previously, — this is the only point of time at which so surprising an event can possibly have occurred. Valerius Maximus, among other examples of ancient severity, extolls a tribune of the people, named P. Mucius, for having burnt his nine collegues alive, because, under the influence of Sp. Cassius, they hindered the election of magistrates to fill up vacancies 9 . Dion too, without naming the tribune, mentions the same occurrence, and expressly ascribes the execution to the populus 10 . So dvrjyoptvOr} SiKTaTup Tiros Kvvtios, 6? iv fMOvais rpial kci\ 8tKa r]pt- pats KaTtvvao-8(icrr]s rfjs o-rdcrews dntdtro rf/v dpxh v - According to Livy he was iuterrex : but this is clearly wrong, since no consuls were elected. In like manner M. Atratinus in 272 is by some called iuterrex, by others dictator : see above, p. 187. 608 Livy, iv. 7-11. vi. 3. 2. P. Mucius Tr. pL — omnes collegas sues, qui duce Sp. Cassio id egerant ut magistratibus non subrogatis communis libertas in dubium vocaretur, vivos cremavit — poenam novem col- legia inferre ausus. 10 Dion, Ezc. de Bent. -2-2. p. 152. ed. R. (and Zonaras). 'EiWn TroTe 8r)papxwrrvpL wro «w dijpov wape8d8r]o-av' d\X' ovrt rouro rois Xoinovs intixxtV ol f*CTU ravra drj^apx'^ta: — ovk fjpfiXvvovTo. — oxxrf Kai tJ)i/ evnarptBrnv rtvas — « t D *> 420 HISTORY OF ROME. by an armed band of patrician youths, broke into it. The people gave way; and he slew the defenseless Maelius. This was an act of murder: since he could kill Maelius in this manner in the Forum, he might have carried him before the dictator's tribunal, who himself had no right to do more than secure his being tried. A case of this sort, where there clearly was no overt act, and which could only be high treason by construction, was not to be decided by any single judge, but by the cen- turies. In these the poor had no votes: and that all the favour of the leading plebeians could not have saved a defendant in that court, who had but harboured schemes of violence against the government, is proved by the elec- tions of this period. Had Maelius been guilty, there could have been no want of acts which would have compelled a judge to decide the wager of law against him, so that he might be kept in prison for his trial: and for secur- ing this the dictator had legal authority to bar the inter- cession of the tribunes. Consequently there can have been no fact to bring against him, on which a court could have grounded a verdict of condemnation ; neither the collecting of arms 924 , nor the hiring of troops 25 . These are mere rhetorical fictions; just like the pretense of Minucius in Livy, that the tribunes of the people had sold themselves to raise Maelius to kingly power, and that all the parts for the insurrection were already distributed. Yet not one of his abetters was punisht 26 ? The head too of such a conspiracy appeared in the Forum, without any armed men to protect him, after a dictator had been appointed ! Would not Maelius have got himself elected tribune, the better to reach his ends under that inviolable charac- ter? Could ambition blind him so far, that he did not 921 Livy, iv. 13. Zonaras, VII. 20. 25 Qpovfjoi : Zonaras and Dionysius, as last quoted. 2ti Mr;8tva trtpov Koktltras r) (TraiTiaadnevos : Zonaras, VII. 20. HISTORY OF HOME. 42 1 perceive that the citizens of the first classes, who were the only persons possest of arms except the knights, would have made common cause with the houses against a usurper, and that the attachment of all the poor in the city would have been powerless against such a com- bination? Since Maelius did not seek the means, which the tribuneship would have afforded him, of bringing about a free election of military tribunes, and so raising himself to that office, it must remain doubtful whether he even aimed at doing so; probable as it may be in itself that his alms did not flow from pure charity. Sup- posing however that he had bestowed them with this end, or with the still higher one of extorting a share in the consulship from the patricians, now that they them- selves had canceled the constitution of 311, would this, more especially after their incessant usurpations, which did not rest even during the state of things anterior to 261, have been a crime? This is another instance, un- less appearances are strangely delusive, of the wolf com- plaining that his brook is troubled. It is melancholy to think that Cincinnatus, at the age of eighty 927 , — near the close of a life which the ut- most zeal of party-feeling could not have held up as a model of primitive rigid virtue in the opinion of all en- suing times, if it had not actually been pure and virtu- ous, so far as it was not swayed by the spirit of a ruth- less faction, — committed murder in the service of that faction. Nowhere are men's characters harder, nowhere do they more readily spurn remorse to gain party ends, than in corporations and aristocratical republics; and not in those of antiquity only; though in their better days such callousness may often be united with manly virtues. In such bodies men otherwise of spotless life have shed the purest blood with fanatical indifference. Seditious de- magogues have seldom been equally cruel; but neither Livv and Zonaras. 422 HISTORY OF ROME. have they often kept the principles of their order so steadily in view : the others are the nobler beasts of prey. The house of Maelius was pulled down: its vacant site, the Aequimaelium 928 , continued for five centuries a memorial of his fate, and seemed to establish his guilt. Later ages never doubted it, and, believing the traditions of the Quinctian and Servilian houses, reckoned Ahala among the models of heroic virtue. His contemporaries judged otherwise. It is well attested that he was ac- cused of murder before the people, and only escaped condemnation by voluntary exile 29 ; whether we suppose that this happened three years after, in 319, and that the bill brought in by a second Sp. Maelius, a tribune, for confiscating his property, was connected with the charge, and was not ineffectual, as Livy conceives it to have been 30 ; or whether it took place in the same year. For the facts, that three tribunes demanded vengeance for the blood that had been shed, and that an insurrec- tion broke out when the terrours of the dictatorship were removed, even Livy, whose accounts are now the only 928 It lay at the foot of the Capitol, not far from the prison, and is now buried deep under the rubbish over which the Via di Mar- forio passes. 29 Valerius Maxirnus, v. 3. 2. Ahala — custoditae libertatis civium exilio suo poenas pependit -. this is the offensio Ahalae mentioned in Cicero, de re p. 1. 3, along with the exile of Cainillus and other cele- brated Romans. In the declamation Pro Domo, 32 (86), Ahala is spoken of along with Camillus and Caeso as having been condemned by the infatuated people: whereas Cicero himself most positively asserts, that in ancient times no Roman court ever past a sentence of banishment : see above, note 132. I say, in ancient times : for in his days exile had already become a punishment, for instance by the lex Calpurnia de ambitu. The recall of Ahala, notwithstanding the rhetorician's display of his familiarity with the Annals, seems no better founded than that of Caeso : at all events it would merely prove that the patricians had again grown powerful enough to re- store their martyr. " Livy, iv. .21. Seditiones quaesitae nee motae tamen — quae vraniora ad populum ipso auctore mere. HISTORY OF ROME. 423 ones we have for a long period, with a very few excep- tions, has not entirely past over, as he has the punish- ment of Ahala. He found it stated in some of the Annals that the ferment was allayed by L. Minucius, who went over to the plebs, and was chosen by the tribunes as one of their body : a story totally incredible so far as it makes him elected an eleventh tribune 931 ; but which would not be so much so, supposing he was taken in to fill up a vacancy in the college 32 . In this magistracy he lowered the price of corn in three market-days, that is, by means of a bill fixing a maximum, to an as a modius 33 . This price was not unexampled 31 : and we can easily conceive how an enormous fall might be ef- fected. We cannot indeed set much value on the state- ment, that the distress was caused by the engrossers of corn 35 : they certainly however contributed to it: and if the prohibition against keeping more than sufficed for a month's consumption is to be referred to the tribunate of Minucius, or at least was only carried into effect by the authority of that office, a vast quantity would come at once into the market, while nobody ventured to buy more than he immediately wanted. Indeed there would be no wish to do so, supposing that the prospect of an abundant harvest was no longer distant 30 . This occurrence 031 Livy, iv. 6. Pliny, xvm. 4. ■ ; - This conjecture opens a door for several other.-. 33 Pliny, xvm. 4. Farris prctiuni in trinifl nundinis ad asscui i vi legit. 31 Vol. I. p. 462. 35 Tovf evnupovs ws Trepi tov alrov KaKovpyovvTas iv anla ne- noir]VTo: Zonaras, vn. 20. I have known the prico of the rubbio of wheat at Rome, after having got up to 24 scudi, drop down to 10 immediately after the harvest : in these cases tho fall as well as the rise was the work of the corn-usurers, some of whom were men of high rank. They lent corn in the spring to the poor husbandman, who after a scanty har- vest the year before had been compelled to sell the whole of his 424 HISTORY OF ROME. has been strangely distorted, so as to make Minucius sell the stores left by Maelius at this price. Such a largess of stolen goods could not possibly have been regarded as an act of beneficence: and there is a well attested statement, that the commonalty rewarded him, as its pre- server in the time of need, with an ox having its horns gilt like a victim for sacrifice, and with a statue outside the Porta Trigeminal , for which everybody subscribed an ounce 38 . An irresistible reaction would have made the mur- derers of Maelius rue their crime, like those of Genucius previously, if the plebs had still been the same body. As it was, the consequences were ambiguous. The in- dignation of the commonalty was vehement enough to extort an election of military tribunes instead of consuls: the consciousness of guilt deterred the patricians from making a firm stand against this. But their influence was so predominant in the centuries, that no plebeian was chosen in 317, and as it were in mockery, one of the three tribunes elected was a son of Cincinnatus. The produce by the increase in the price of all articles : this corn was to be repaid after the next harvest ; not however measure for measure : but the quantity advanced was valued in money at the market- price ; and this debt was paid after the harvest in corn taken again at the market-price : that is to say, 24 measures were paid for 10. In this way the stock that had been hoarded was sold at the high- est price ; and the artificial low price did not last: so that there was a twofold profit. It may perhaps have been against proceedings of this kind that Minucius directed his measure, the duration of which is not known. 937 Pliny bears evidence in two passages to the existence of the statue extra portam trigeminam: xvni. 4, and xxxiv. 11. In Livy, iv. 1 6, after the words L. Minucius hove aurato, — and before extra portam trigeminam, — et statua has manifestly dropt out. An ox thus deckt out for sacrifice was given as a mark of honour to a de- liverer ; as in the case of P. Decius : Livy, vn. 37. 38 Unciaria stipe: Pliny, xxxiv. 11. All statues were of brass ; the heavy money collected supplied the material. HISTORY OF ROME. 425 opposition however succeeded in raising Mamercus Ae- milius to the first place, whose previous appointment as questor, along with L. Valerius, shews that he enjoyed the love and confidence of the people. His character stood so high 939 , that the oligarchs, even if they hated him, could not venture to refuse him the confirmatory vote of the curies. They were even compelled in press- ing emergencies themselves to call him more than once to the dictatorship: which occurs frequently now that the consulship is shorn of its ancient power. In his first dictatorship, in 321, he employed his authority for the wholesome purpose of shortening the duration of the censorship, which had hitherto lasted for five years, to eighteen months; a regulation for which the censors then in office requited him with all the indignities they could offer. The people felt itself affronted in the person of the venerable protector of its freedom: and nothing but his intercession screened C. Furius and M. Geganius from violent usage. Throughout the remaining years of their lustre, military tribunes continued to be chosen. Then followed five consulships; during which, even when there were censors, the pretor's authority undoubtedly rested with the consuls. After this, in 329, begin the above- mentioned colleges of military tribunes, with which, if there were no censors, a pretor was joined: and these were only twice interrupted by consulships during the first thirteen years. Whenever this happened, it was by a special ordinance of the senate: the rule was to elect tribunes 40 : and as the one party was anxious by ap- pointing consuls to remove the very possibility of a ple- beian's coming in, so the other party clung to this possi- bility, notwithstanding the bitter mortification they had to endure at being trickt time after time out of their right. It was not merely by the arbitrary controll of '' Vir Slimmae dignitatis;: Livy, iv. 10. "> Livy, iv. 25. 30. 426 HISTORY OF BOME. the censors that the issue of the elections was put into the hands of the ruling body, but also by that of the magistrate who presided in the assembly, and who, if there did not seem to be any pressing danger, peremp- torily refused to take votes for plebeians 941 . This step, which was hazarded but a short time before the houses were deprived of their confirmatory vote, might be tried a century earlier with far less scruple, and must have been taken frequently. Sometimes the senate supported this arbitrary refusal by ordinances excluding the very candidates whose election the people had most at heart; as in 346, when the tribunes of the people, who went out of office four days before the military tribunes, were declared to be ineligible 42 . If even in spite of this a determined resolution might have made the election of a plebeian inevitable, the confirmation of the curies was still wanting 43 : and this, a hundred and fifty years be- fore the Maenian law, was assuredly no empty form. We find but one plebeian military tribune prior to the change in the constitution in 350; Q. Antonius Merenda, in 333: and his election may be explained from the circumstances under which it took place. C. Sempronius, one of the consuls of the preceding year, was threatened with an impeachment for a disgraceful defeat and for treachery: a charge doubly menacing, because the assembly which elected him had been held, to the extreme indignation of the people, in lieu of an election of tribunes. It was necessary to soothe the plebeians: and for this end no method was more effectual than to hold the elections 941 De plebe consulem non accipiebat: Cicero, Brut. 14 (55). Comitia quibus non haberetur ratio sui : Livy, iv. 7. 56. 42 Livy, iv. 55. The Icilii, against whom this declaration was aimed, consented to sacrifice their rights for the sake of peace : the senate gained their end, and the election of plebeians was prevented. 13 This is the reprehensio comitiorum ■ Livy, 1. 17. vi. 42. Ci- cero, Brut, li (55). HJ8T0RT OF ROME. 427 fairly. Besides it is clear that the impeachment was with- drawn in consequence of a mutual understanding. On the whole the plebs, after the death of Maelius, made visible advances notwithstanding, in securing and enlarging the rights they still retained. In 324 the con- suls so obstinately refused to proclaim the dictator no- minated by the senate, — probably under the plea that he had not been confirmed by the curies, — and the junc- ture was so pressing, that the senate laid aside all scru- ples, and called on the tribunes for aid, to give its ordinance the force of law by procuring the assent of the plebs: and their threat to arrest the consuls, if they persevered in resisting the senate, compelled them to obey 9 **. Thus both parties began to rise above the pal- try interests of their several orders, to higher views of government and general representation; and the people no longer regarded the dictatorship as necessarily directed against them. The next year, 325, a fixt and low valua- tion of the head of cattle, in which fines had hitherto been imposed, was settled by a consular law. It was received with gratitude by the people: and the anxiety of the consuls to anticipate the tribunes, on hearing that they were about to bring in such a measure, shews a cheering growth of amicable feeling 45 . The Twelve Tables had unquestionably restored the right, given to the centuries by Servius, of decreeing war and peace. Dependent as they were on the govern- ment, the senate might have adhered to the legal form, without fear of seeing its wishes frustrated: and for the moment it was no very important advantage, when the tribunes in 328 prevailed in getting the declaration of war against Veii brought before the centuries 46 . Still ,JU Livy, iv. 26. 45 Livy, iv. 20. Lex pergrata populo. Cicero de rep. n. 35. Levis aestimatio pecUdum. An ox therefore was already worth more than a hundred uses. See above, pp, 231, 303. 46 Pervicere tribuni denuntiando unpedituroB Be delectum, ut 428 HISTORY OF ROME. with a view to aftertimes, and as a recognition of the fundamental principles of the constitution, it was a great step: and so the tribunes deemed it: for henceforward, except during that period of desperate wretchedness which preceded the Licinian laws, they no longer obstruct the levies for the legions. After this the senate saw itself compelled to allow consular tribunes to be elected, along with a warden of the city: and in the course of thirteen years it only suc- ceeded twice in forcing consuls on the people. The first time, in 331, a bill, which proves that the power of the tribunes was reviving, gave immediate occasion for efforts to prevent the possibility of a plebeian's being elected. Down to this year the Annals make no mention of any commotions during this period on the subject of the old agrarian law of Cassius, such as had agitated the re- public in earlier times. Yet the public domains, now that Rome had again lifted up her head among the states around her, must have received great additions, especially in the last seven years, since the decisive victory gained by the dictator, A. Tubertus. The possessors of the old domain paid no tax on the produce of their arable lands, even so late as in 331: for the tribunes of that year demanded that such a tax should be raised and applied to paying the soldiers, and that a part of the public lands should be divided among the plebeians 947 ; that is to say, of the newly-conquered ones. The old possessions might now be allowed to remain in the hands of those whose claims were supported by so long a term of enjoy- ment. Livy's account would lead us to suppose that this bill produced no sort of effect; especially as the consules de bello ad populum ferrent, omnes centuriae jussere. Livy, iv. 30. 947 Agri publici dividendi coloniarumque deducendarum osten- tatae spes : et vectigali possessoribus agrorum impoaito in stjpen- diluii militum erogandi aeris. Livy, iv 36. HISTORY OF ROME. 429 commotions caused by the agrarian question in 338 and 339 were apparently much more violent. If however his statement, that the tribunes in those years brought in a bill for the division of the conquered lands, may be taken literally, so as to infer that this was the whole of their demand, the reimposition of the tenth must either have been given up, or it had already been carried; though no doubt the tax was not paid honestly. For the law on this point may possibly have stood just as it did with regard to the elections of consular tribunes. The silence of the Licinian law on the sub- ject is a complete proof that about the year 380 this tax was really levied: and if it had not been employed in paying the army during the latter part of the Veien- tine war, the tribunes would not have consented without opposition, as they did after the year 354, to the levy of a property-tax from the plebs. The agrarian law which they proposed in that year 948 , undoubtedly related to the raising of the tenth, and was attended with success as complete, and even more permanent, than their endeavours to secure that the consular tribunes should at length be fairly elected. Previously however the obligation may generally have been eluded, though now and then ful- filled under extraordinary circumstances. For the contri- butions by which the patricians tried to shew, when pay was introduced, that they did not mean to claim any exemption from the burthen*, were probably drawn from the tenth, not from a property-tax. That the agrarian laws of Maecilius and Metilius, if they related to the tithe on the domain-lands, as well as to the partition of newly conquered ones, had in fact only to provide for the ful- filment of regulations already existing, and that the tithe had been legally recstablisht in 331, may be inferred from another bill, which excited violent commotions in the second of the above-mentioned consulships, in 334. 944 Livy, v. 12. * Livy, iv. 60. 430 HISTORY OF ROME. The epithet, classici, by which the questors of the treasury were distinguisht from the judges of blood 949 , until the latter questorship sank into oblivion, certainly refers to their having been elected ever since the time of Publicola by the centuries; whereas the other ques- tors down to the decemvirate were appointed by the cu- ries. Of the former there were only two, when in 334 the consuls themselves proposed to double their number. For this there was no motive, unless their business had very much increast; as must have been the consequence on the reestablish ment of the tenth; especially as that measure was brought forward with a view to the intro- duction of pay, and consequently led to payments to be made in the camp. It looks as if on this occasion again the bill was laid in the first instance before the patri- cians 50 , and that the plebs was only to have had the right of assenting to it. But the tribunes refused to make the motion without which this assent could not be obtained 51 , unless the newly created places were se- cured to the plebeians. When the imposition of the tax 949 This epithet, which would have been lost but for Lydus, has been preserved in a statement which is strangely distorted : i. 27. In the year 485 KaTetrKevdadr) crroXos, Kai Trpoe^>\i]6r)a-av ol tcakovpf- poi kKchtctikoi, olovel vavdpxai, rq> dpidpa 8voKai8(Ka Kvalorwpes. Here again Gaius is his source, but is not chargeable with the ab- surdities that disfigure this passage. Lydus added the number eight, to which the board of questors was raised in that year, to the four it had previously consisted of, and coined his etymology for himself. Everybody knows how far the Romans in those days were from building a fleet. 50 Quam rem — a consulibus relatam, cum Patres gumma ope ap- probassent, consulibus tribuni plebis certamen intulerunt, ut pars quaestorum ex plobe fieret. Livy, iv. 43. 51 This was the way in which the tribunes originally interposed against an ordinance of the senate, to prevent its acquiring the force of law : the government however often carried it into execution not- withstanding : si quis intercedat senatusconsulto auctoritate se fore contentum: Livy, iv. 57. In the latest ages of the republic indeed HISTORY OF HOME. 431 was once determined upon, it wa9 of the last import- ance to the one party, that this questorship should be filled by none but members of their own order, so that the small amount of their payments might be kept secret; while the other party was no less concerned in having plebeians to levy the tax strictly, that the amount of the supplemental taxation on the property of the ple- beians might be kept as low as possible; and moreover that all fictitious entries might be taxt, for the sake of checking the disposition to make them. Hence the pa- tricians withdrew their measure : the tribunes on the other hand brought it in of themselves with the above-men- tioned amendment. Had the ancient separation between the orders been still subsisting in all its rigour, they would have threatened each other with the same animo- sity as before the decemvirate: but, as it was, the inter- rex L. Papirius was able to effect a compromise, that the election should not be restricted to either order. By this it is true, the plebs gained nothing for the mo- ment, except the recognition of their right: they well knew that they should be defrauded of the enjoyment of it, as in the case of the consular tribunate. But they relied on the sure operation of time, which was all in their favour ; and they were not disappointed. Eleven years after, in 346, the election of the plebeian candi- dates was carried: and now the fraudulent compromise was its own punishment; for at this first election three of the questors were plebeians. Thenceforward these elections no longer appear as an occasion of contest: and it may be conjectured that the houses soon became willing, by returning to the proposition of the tribunes, which they had once so vehemently rejected, to retain every ordinance of the senate which the tribunes opposed, was called 8enatua auctoritas. From the instance just cited it is clear that in 348 the tribunes contended at least that an ordinance appointing a dictator required the assent of the commonalty. 432 HISTORY OF ROME. the half of an office in which the plebs would naturally wish to limit their share as much as possible. This was the first advantage, productive of immediate consequences, gained by the plebeian cause after the de- cemvirate. After this the oligarchy was driven back step by step, notwithstanding the obstinacy with which it often maintained its ground. Henceforward the Roman people was victorious over the patricians, as the nation was over Italy ; by unwearied perseverance in seemingly trivial be- ginnings, by zealous exertions for small advantages at the outset, by alertness in seizing every favorable moment, by unbending patience and care in times of difficulty that at least they should not lose ground; and finally by re- doubled energy in using the forces they had long been collecting, when the fulness of time was come, by calm- ness in securing the decisive victory, and prudence in gathering its fruits. When Sylla increast the number of the questors, his object was to fill up the vacancies in the senate 952 , where a person, after serving the office of questor, took his seat by right, unless he was excluded as unworthy by the next censors. This must have been an extremely old regulation: and without doubt the plebeian questors were admitted into the senate from the very first. The earliest distinct mention of a plebeian senator occurs nine years after this time: a person who had had a seat in the senate even for five or six years, might perhaps be deemed an old member, as P. Licinius Calvus is termed*: if so, he may have gained his rank through the questor- ship. There were some plebeian senators however even so early as in 344; for in that year the patricians met together to appoint an interrex 53 , that is assuredly, not » 52 Tacitus, Annal. xi. 22. Viginti creati, supplendo senatui. * Livy, v. 12. Vetus senator. 53 Ees publica — ad interregnum, neque id ipsurn (nam coire pa- tricios tribuni prohibebant) sine certamine ingenti, redit : Livy, iv. HISTORY OF ROME. 433 the curies, but the patrician members of the senate: such meetings would never have taken place unless the assem- bly had ccast to be an exclusively patrician one. The nature of the interreign, it is manifest, was now changed. The first interrex is no longer the first senator: nor do others follow him according to rank and seniority: they are chosen by the rest of the body. The ancient privi- leges of the dceury of the Ten First had expired. Henceforth every army that took the field was accom- panied by a questor; though as yet he had only to su- perintend the sale of the booty, the produce of which was now usually divided among the legion, or if not so, was at least lodged in the aerarium, the common treasury of the state 954 ; and no longer in the publicum of the patricians. This again was unequivocally a consequence of the general legislation. The plebeians were no longer revolted by having to soe their prizes appropriated by the curies. The legions however were the more deter- mined on claiming them as their due, because, notwith- standing the proposition of the tribunes, no pay was yet given, though the service in the field had been length- ened. Hence in 341, when the consular tribune, M. Pos- tumius, after promising his men the plunder of Bolae, before they stormed it, broke his word, they fell into a rage which drove them to a crime till then unheard of. His withholding the spoil however was not the onlv wrong that roused their fury. They could not endure that the land they had conquered with unpaid services should belong to the patricians. At the beginning of the present period, in 312, colonists were sent to Ardea. It is manifest that this colony, founded at a time when the 43. The only previous instance >>f such a coitio, in 311 (Livv, IV. 7). is apocryphal ; for T. Quinctius most certainly was not interrex, but dictator. 954 Venditum consul sub hasta in aerarium quaestores redigere jussit : Livy, IV. 53. After the decemvirate we hear nothing more of the redact io in publicum : see above, n. 386. VOL.11. BE 434 HISTORY OF ROME. plebeians were utterly bowed down and opprest, must have been a patrician one : and the demand made by the tribune Poetelius in the same year, that the consuls should bring forward a motion in the senate for an assignment of land to the plebeians 955 , is a complete proof that they had been past over. Nothing was gained by it: and it is not till the year 337, after the reestablishment of the tithe had apparently been decreed, although it had not yet been carried into effect 56 , that we read of an assignment of land, which was unquestionably for the benefit of the plebeians. When Lavici was taken in that year, the senate forestalled the demands of the tri- bunes by an ordinance that 1500 colonists should be sent thither. The allotments were the ancient heredia of two jugers 57 : and the fundamental Roman number is still retained, but with this alteration, that the quantity of land divided now amounts to 3000 jugers, whereas in old times it was shared among 300 burgesses 58 . The 955 Livy, iv. 12. 5 « See p. 429. " Livy, iv. 47. His expression, coloni ah urbe missi, if he can be supposed to have paid the slightest attention to accuracy, ex- cludes the Latins. Nor does Lavici appear among the Latin colo- nies : it must be considered as the centre of a icXyjpovxla, like Signia : see note 193. 58 The number of trie colonists in a Latin colony planted by Rome after the destruction of the Latin state bears no marks of the ancient typical forms, but must have been determined in every instance by the circumstances of the case. But that of the 1500 colonists sent to Lavici is connected with the constitution of the Legion at that time, when, if complete, it contained 3000 men, five cohorts of 600 each : see Vol. I. n. 1093. From the earliest times assignments of land were the rewards of military service (above, p. 1C3, n. 356) : and if they could only be granted to a limited number, the veterans must have had the preference. Their number was merely sufficient to form one legion (above, p. 122), supposing 150 were taken from each tribe : hence 3000 colonists were sent to Vitellia in the year 360. But in the present instance there were but 3000 jugers to divide ; and therefore either ten tribes might be selected by lot, and each send its full contingent, or each of the twenty might send half its HISTORY OF ROME. 435 colonists now are all plebeians, as anciently they had all been taken from the houses. This however was but a poor compensation, as they had received no share either in the territory of Fidenae, or in the previous conquests that must have accrued from the decision of the struggle with the Aequians. Hence in 338 and 339 two of the tribunes brought forward a comprehensive agrarian law. This the patricians averted by gaining a majority in the college: perhaps the demand may have been unreason- able 9 ^'. Among the tribunes of the next year they had still more adherents: so much was the constitution even of the tribes under the controll of the censors. Bolae being taken in the next campaign, one of the tribunes, L. Sex- tius, insisted on having allotments in its territory assigned to the legion that had conquered it 60 , and at the same time on the general execution of the agrarian laws. Had this been granted, tranquillity might have been preserved; but the patricians were as loth to part with the newly acquired lands, as with their old possessions. The army was detained in the field. This prolongation of a ser- vice, the expense of which fell wholly on the soldiers, contingent. A statement that the former was the case has been pre- served in Livy ; only it is misinterpreted, and referred to the levies for the field, and consequently to the juniors : iv. 46. At the begin- ning of the year in which Lavici was captured, delectum haberi rum ex toto passim popvlo placuit. decern trtbus sorte ductae sunt, ex his scriptos juniores — ad bellum duxere. It must be observed that the command of the supposed half legion is nevertheless given to two military tribunes, that an army of reserve is formed at the same time, and that it is found necessary to create a dictator. 959 This would certainly be the case, if Livy's statement in iv. 48, which expresses his own distinct opinion, be correct. 80 Livy, IV. 4!). Zonaras, vn. 20, ascribes the demands to the soldiers themselves, places them after the death of Pofitumiua, and assumes that a general division of land was then effected : rrp> ^Spar, oil ti)u ai\n'.i\ioTov p.6voi>, nXX« k«1 iratrav npnae'vanav tavrois ti)v cv tu 8t]fio roTf rvyxiivovcrav — in direct contradiction to Livy. IV.5L jacere tamdiu irritas sanctiones, etc. E E 2 436 HISTORY OF ROME. and for which they were to receive no recompense, was designed to harass and insult them. Probably however it was a part of the plan to let the day of voting on the tribune's bill pass by. Postumius was sent for to the city, to plead in behalf of an act of injustice, in support of which his collegues were perhaps lukewarm or reluc- tant. The tribune threatened that the men might not always be willing to shed their blood quietly for nothing. It shall be the worse for mine, exclaimed Postumius, if they do not keep quiet. These words found their way to the camp, where the questor was holding an auction of the booty, the detention of which had incenst the soldiers. A tumult arose, which when the questor, as the general's representative, fancied he could restore obedience by se- verity, grew into a complete uprore : a stone was thrown at him, and struck him. On this offense Postumius sat in judgement, and ordered inhuman punishments with- out any moderation. The soldiers took the part of their comrades, whom they saw led to a cruel death. Postu- mius thought to overawe them by his inflexible stern- ness: but he fell in the mutiny, in which all restraints were forgotten. This outrage proved advantageous to the oligarchy. The plebeians found themselves under the necessity of allowing an election of consuls, and of acceding to an ordinance of the senate and curies, directing that the consuls should institute an inquiry into the death of Postumius 961 . It was conducted with temperance: but the territory of Bolae remained in the hands of the pa- tricians. The demand of the plebs seemed to have con- tracted a stain; and no tribune renewed it: still this could not hurt the cause long. The remainder of the five 961 Livy says, iv. 51, that it was left to the plebs to commit the special inquiry to whomsoever they chose, and that they entrusted it to the consuls. This is quite impossible : the plebs can have had nothing to do with the matter, except to give the usual confirmation to an ordinance of the patricians. HISTORY OF ROME. 4.H7 years, during which the republic was governed by con- suls, past away in commotions on the agrarian question, which were hindered from producing any result by the adherents of the ruling order within the college of tri- bunes itself. The election of plebeian questors however could no longer be prevented : and it was only by artifices that a similar result was averted, when the patricians found themselves compelled to permit an election of con- sular tribunes for 347 : after which fifteen years elapst without interruption before consuls were again forced upon the people. But though the name of the new magistracy remained the same during the whole of this period, the office, four years after its reestablishment, was remodeled in the manner mentioned above; so that the number of the col- lege was raised to six, the pretorship incorporated with it, and the censorship deprived of its previous preemi- nence and united to it. The nature of this change I have already explained: and I observed that, though the evidence which would lead us to suppose that the col- lege of tribunes was chosen by the tribes, is neither to be taken as conclusive, nor to be wholly rejected, it is manifest that the election of the censors can no longer have been left to the curies, and that their office was then for ever deprived of its pretorian jurisdiction 96 -. This sacrifice of valuable privileges, by men who had shunned neither dangers nor crimes to usurp them, was probably not made so wholly without a struggle as Livy's silence might induce us to imagine. The abandonment of them however for the sake of restoring concord and goodwill shews that the senate no longer considered itself as the representative of a particular faction, but as the common government of the republic at large. The truce with Veii, which had interrupted a war waged on account of a crime so atrocious as to justify the extremity of r>6S See pp. ;V.i_'-395. 438 HISTORY OF ROME. vengeance, had expired; and the regular renewal of hos- tilities opened unbounded prospects, if Veii were to fall. Equal to Rome in size, and only twelve miles distant, this city sealed Etruria against the Roman arms: but, though it was no longer formidable, to reduce it required exertions of greater magnitude and duration, than any the Roman people had been called upon to make since the introduction of the consulship. During the last ge- neration the republic had been recovering from the dis- ease which had long been preying upon her: and the stories of old days, how the commonalty had purposely prevented the victory of a patrician tyrant, though by its own ruin, had long sounded strange. At the same time the plebeians were resolved that, while they fought the battles of the state, they would not do so like mere bondmen, but would share their fruits as citizens. Un- der such circumstances an internal connexion between facts may be safely inferred from their occurring simul- taneously; and it cannot be doubted that the tribunes, before they obtained the consent of their order, which was now indispensable, to the declaration of war against Veii, stipulated for the redress of pressing grievances. Fifty years earlier the senate in such a case would have let the war drop, along with all its hopes. The tribunate of the people too about this time un- derwent an important change. Hitherto a plurality of votes had always been decisive in it. The agrarian bill of 339 was lost, because the patricians gained six of the tribunes, that is, a majority. The great exertions made to obtain this majority would have been needless, if a single veto had already been sufficient: and if the four tribunes who made the cause of the consul C. Sempro- nius their own, could have annulled their collegues im- peachment by a word, they would not have tried to mollify the people by putting on mourning and by en- treaties 963 . On the other hand in 360 and 361 the bill u63 Livy, iv. 42. 48. HISTORY OF SOME. 43i» regarding Vcii was stopt by two of the tribunes'"' 4 : just as the elections were in 380 by Licinius and Sextius: so that it was not in the power of the other eight to remove this impediment. Hence the limits of the time within which this innovation falls are not to be mis- taken: but it is not so clear with what purpose it was introduced. It seems however that the government alone can have desired such a change, with a view of stem- ming the proceedings of the tribunes. One or two out of the ten would still be likely to take its side; while all hope of gaining a majority was sure to grow less and less, so long as the independence and prosperity of the people were daily becoming more firmly establisht, and while everybody could see that the power of the patricians was losing ground. 1 think it not improbable that the se- nate may have stipulated for this change in return for its concessions: and the statement that Appius Claudius, a grandson of the decemvir, and one of the consular tri- bunes in 352, pointed out the way in which the power of the tribunes might be broken by the interposition of their collegues, seems to refer to this very point. So long as a majority could be obtained by tampering with the elec- tions and by artifices, there was no need of any new in- vention to avert obnoxious bills 65 . Had the concessions of the patricians been made with a sincerity proportionate to what would have been their 964 Livy. v. 29 : Dies dicta erat tribunis pi. biennii supcrioris, A. Virginio et Q. Pompoiiio— quod — rogationi intercessissent. These are the intercessores legis whom the patricians vainly strove to get re- elected. 65 Under the year mentioned above, Livy tells us that Appius was auctor — per coUegarv/m intercetsionem tribuniciae potesSatis dia- solroidae: v. 2: though he himself refers this plan to the year 339. The counsel given by his ancestor in 274 (Livy, n. 44) is unquestion- ably nothing more than a misstatement, in which the intercession of an individual tribune is confounded with that of the majority, and the measure is carried back to the Appius Claudius of that day from his grandson. 440 HISTORY OF ROME. importance, if they had been duly carried into effect, nothing was fairer than that the privileges they reserved to themselves should be secured, and preserved from be- ing destroyed by the power of the tribunes, destined as it was to expand beyond all bounds. One of those con- cessions was an ordinance that the infantry, like the ca- valry, should have regular pay. This must evidently have been one of the conditions demanded by the tri- bunes before they would consent to a war of such length, that it was impossible for the plebeians to remain in the field at their own charge, even if a fair share in the fruits of the conquest had been more solidly secured to them than it could be by promises 966 . The pay was meant to be raised mainly out of the tithe; and thus the levying the latter could not possibly be eluded much longer. %s I do not mean to claim any merit for passing over Livy's oversights and errours in silence : an intimacy of many years stand- ing acts on an ingenuous mind like a tie of piety, which makes it reluctant to unveil defects : but here is an instance which I cannot leave unnoticed. On the introduction of the pay he says, iv. 60, non a tribunis plebis unquam agitation, non suis sermonibus efflagitatum : and yet he had written in iv. 36, that the tribunes wanted to lay a charge on the ager publicus : ostentatae spes — in stipendium militum erogandi aeris. A writer whose memory is so treacherous, ought not to be cited as an authority against us, when we silently correct him. 441 ON THE PAY OF THE TKOOPS. I have already intimated in the former volume that the Veientine war cannot have been the occasion on which the practice of giving the troops pay was first introduced ; that the erarians must undoubtedly have always conti- nued to pay pensions to the infantry, as single women and minors did to the knights ; that the change con- sisted in this, that every legionary now became entitled to pay, whereas the number of pensions had previously been limited by that of the persons liable to be charged with them yf) *; and hence that the deficiency was sup- plied out of the aerarium, from the produce of the tithe, and, when this failed, by a tribute levied even from those plebeians who were themselves bound to serve. Not only however is it utterly inconceivable that the paternal legis- lation which introduced the census, should have allowed that, while the wealthiest knights were to receive pay, the infantry was to serve without any kind of wages: 1 can also bring forward unequivocal indications that both services were originally paid according to the same system. Polybius, it is well known, states the daily pay of a legionary to have been two obols r ' s : which, — since he takes 967 Vol. I. p. 474. These pensions were naturally nameil capita, inasmuch as each answered to a caput ; notice of this has been pre- served in LydllS, I. 46. Tor* 8iu>f)iad>) roit (TTparjwraiy napmr^iiv to fity/nocnoi' — tii \tyt>n(ia KaiTlTO. m vi. 30. 442 HISTORY OF ROME. a drachm as equivalent to a denary, and since the latter, in paying the soldiers, even after the introduction of a small currency, was not reckoned, as in all other transac- tions, at 16 ases, but at 10, — are equal to 3^- ases, and in 30 days amount to 100. This was the ela7± 444 HISTORY OF ROME. keep their charger and a mounted follower throughout the year, this was far from giving them any advantage over the foot-soldier, provided the latter was paid for every month during a part of which he served in the field. To have paid him for the remainder of the year, which he spent at home, would have been a piece of profusion almost incredible even during the highest lustre of the monarchy, but utterly beyond the scanty means of the republic during its first centuries. Moreover we find a calculation on the footing of monthly instalments in the scale already mentioned of the rewards for the spolia opima. The changes made in the property-tax by Camillus and Albinus during their censorship in the year 342* were occasioned by the introduction of pay for the whole army. It is probable that the pensions paid by individuals to the knights were abolisht : which pensions may in some cases have been extremely burthensome; while in others less was levied than would have been if the single wo- men and orphans had been taxt at the ordinary rate : the censors however had still the right of charging them on a higher footing than others. At first for some years the tribute prest very heavily on the plebeians; just as the tribunes had said, when they warned them that, while their duty would become more laborious, they were on the point of being encumbered with a tax, which, though it would benefit the poor man of the last class and the accensus, would prove far more burthensome than unpaid service to persons in better circumstances. Hence in 354 they forbad the levying it, brought forward an agrarian bill, and did not give way till a fair election of plebeian military tribunes had been accomplisht 976 . Now unless the multitude had obtained some alleviation of their bur- thens, they would have taken a mischievous pleasure in disappointing the ambition of their leaders; just as thirty years later they shewed themselves indifferent about the * See note 891. ; ' :6 Livy,v. 12. HISTORY OF HOME. 445 consulship, and bent all their thoughts on a reduction of debts and an assignment of land. Perhaps the agrarian law just mentioned may have had no other object than to enact provisions for securing the regular payment of the tithe y77 . That this object was effected, may be perceived from the cessation of the vetos; which are never heard of again down to the period of desperate distress just before the commotions excited by the Licinian laws. Thus, after half a century of fluctuating and conflict- ing movements, the plebeians, having the irresistible force of things on their side, recovered both their civil rights and their prosperity, and gained concessions from the oligarchy which could never be recalled. Could their ancestors have lookt up from their graves, the rights which were still a subject of dispute, would have seemed to them a mere trifle in comparison with the points already conceded and settled. The most violent struggle between the two parties would have struck them as an amicable discussion compared with what they themselves had wit- nest. They would have seen plebeians in the senate; as yet indeed merely a few; but those few were not re- garded as intruders. They would have seen plebeian women in the noblest patrician families, and held in equal esteem with the matrons of the first estate. In the calm mood now daily gaining ground, it was found easier to digest particular grievances, such as in troubled times would have roused bitter resentment: during days of re- pose or of glory, mutual goodwill and forbearance gained strength between the government and the people- The forein relations of the republic too had undergone a very prosperous change. The Roman territory, which had been the theatre of war for the last thirty years before the de- cemvirate, had not been violated for a long time by an enemy: and in Latum) the dominions of the republic had again reacht the limits of the territory of the kings. 9;7 See note 948. 446 THE WARS DOWN TO THE LAST WITH VEIL The campaigns during this period begin to be in many instances so important, both from what was achieved in them and from the consequences they led to, that a circumstantial relation of them could no longer be cen- sured as a tedious recital of petty occurrences, proceed- ing from a fond predilection for the subject: but almost all the details in our accounts are still of a very suspicious character. Thus we must content ourselves with saying that in 306 M. Horatius gained a glorious victory over the Sabines; an extremely memorable event, since the Sabine wars, which for more than twenty years had been con- tinually breaking out afresh, cease from this time forward, until, after the lapse of a century and a half, the power- less state was madly roused to take up arms, and sank in a few days into final ruin. During the whole of this period the Sabines are never named in history, though the cities on their borders, at one time Tibur, at another Falerii, are waging war against Rome. In the second and third Samnite wars the Roman troops pass through their territory without any obstruction: nor could an army have been sent into Apulia, had not their friend- ship been completely secured. If the two states were not united by a defensive alliance, which indeed could scarcely have vanisht from history so as not to leave a trace behind, still the amicable relation between them must have been grounded on solemn treaties: and we HISTORY OF ROME. 447 may warrantably assume that the victory of M. Iioratius was followed by one. It probably cemented them together by a common franchise : and if the increase of 20000 in the numbers of the census in 256 was the effect of a relation of this kind, which was subsequently abolisht y78 , it is probable that the Sabine isopolites were the chief part of the 35200 heads, forming the excess of the cen- sus of 364 above that of 295, which unfortunately is the next we can compare it with 70 . We find an express statement that the Sabines had the freedom of the city without the right of voting. This does not suit well with the state of things in the time of Romulus, to which it is referred, and with the relation between Rome and Quirium 80 : .and assuredly there is no necessity for con- fining it to the half century after the victory of Curius, during which the Sabines, before the two last tribes were formed out of them, were municipals of the second class, or sympolitan subjects. The cause that inclined them so strongly to peace, seems to have been that the nation was exhausting itself 978 Vol. I. p. 562. 79 In addition to these however, that census must have con- tained the population of the Etruscan districts which were formed into tribes after the departure of the Gauls : and other leagues may have been omitted by Livy, as well as that with the Sabines. At all events the forces on the Alia shew that during this period of vigour and prosperity the number of the genuino Roman citizens had very much increast. 80 Servius, on Aen. vh. 709. Post Sabinarum raptum, et factum inter Romulum et T. Tatium foedus, recepti in urbem (instead of civitatem) Sabini sunt : sed hac lege, ut in omnibus essent dves Romani, excepta suffragii latione. If we look upon this passage as containing a view of the earliest times, Rome and Quirium would have been united by this league in the relation of isopolity : and the meetings of the two kings and their senates might at least be com- pared with the Latin holidays : the reign of Romulus as sole king might represent a usurpation, like that of Tarquinius over Latium. At all events after the election of Numa the legend exhibits the two communities in a totally different relation. 448 HISTORY OF ROME. in emigration. Numbers of the warlike youth of the pa- rent race, which was not able to extend its borders west- ward, may probably have joined their countrymen, the Samnites, who immediately afterward appear as conquerors in Campania 981 , and ere long in Lucania; and who, mixt with Oscans, served in multitudes as mercenaries under the name of Campanians in Sicily. In the same year L. Valerius vindicated the honour of the Roman arms against the Aequians on mount Al- gidus. Their army was superior to his; and he kept within his entrenchments to avoid being forced into a battle. But when the enemy, growing tired of inaction, sent out detachments to forage at a distance, he seized the opportunity to fall upon those who were left behind: their camp was stormed and taken. Two years then past away quietly: in the third (309) the Roman territory was surprised by a marauding inroad of the Aequians, who advanced to the Esquiline gate. This was the last pre- datory incursion with which they terrified Rome. The consuls speedily took the field with three legions 82 the day after the enemy appeared before the city: but he had already retired. The next day they overtook him at Corbio: the third ended the campaign with a victory in which they retook the booty he was carrying off: that is to say, unless this story again be fictitious: for it is certainly very surprising that no mention was anywhere made of any triumph in consequence of this war 83 . In both years Livy speaks of the Volscians along with 981 Diodorus (xn. 31) dates the origin of the Campanian people, that is to say, the admission of the Samnites as joint setlers in Vul- turnum (see Vol. I. p. 96), in 01. 85, 3, or, according to his system of comparative chronology, in the year of the city 310. 82 Each consul commands one wing, a lieutenant the media acies (Livy, in. 70) ; that is, the legion of the veterans. See p. 121, note 259. 83 Livy, in. 70, makes this very remark, and does not dissemble his surprise. HISTORY OF HOME. 44 U the Acquians: but the seat of the war is on the Aequian border, in the north of Latium. The name of the Vol- scians appears to have been frequently used as a general one for all the Auruncians: if this be not the case here, at all events these Volscians were probably mere volun- teers, or cohorts from the towns on the upper Liris. They cannot have been the Antiates even in the year 312, when the troops that assist the commonalty of Ardea are called Volscians, and only their commander Cloelius an Aequian : for the soldiers who are suffered to return home, take a road leading through the territory of Tusculum. Since the dissolution of the Latin state, the Rutulians of Ardea were again become insulated : nor were they dependent on the soverainty of Rome: for in 311 the two cities entered into an alliance. Two years before, the Ardeates had agreed with the people of Aricia to refer their disputes to Roman arbitration. Corioli had been lying in ruins ever since its destruction by the Vol- scians 98 *; and by the national law of Italy the bordering towns were allowed to occupy the vacant district: how it happened that Ardea and Aricia were the only ones that laid claim to it we are not told. The Romans ad- judged that neither was entitled to it, and that the waste land had devolved to themselves; probably on the ground that the Latin state, agreeably to the rule of succession observed by the houses and curies, would have incor- porated the territory of any of its towns which had been destroyed, with its own; and now that Latium was dis- solved Rome claimed to have stept into its rights. This decision has been ascribed by ignorance and prejudice to the plcbs, though the concilium of the populus, the only body that we should expect to act in such a case, is ex- pressly mentioned 05 : and under the delusive persuasion 9s < Above, p. 259, and note 198. 85 See Vol. i. p. 425, note 988. The district in question lay in the region of the Scaptian tribe ; and Scaptius is the name given to VOL. II. 1 I 450 HISTORY OF ROME. that it was the plebs, whose groveling spirit dictated the unseemly award, the writers who relate it declaim about the stain it flung on the honour of Rome, and tell us a great deal about the efforts made by the senate to ap- pease the indignation of the Ardeates. All this is a baseless fiction. The alliance of 311 was probably just as much desired by the ruling party at Ardea as by the Roman patricians: for though it was not till the next year that matters came to a secession and to an open feud with the commonalty at Ardea, assuredly discord had long been prevailing there. Every Italian town without exception undoubtedly had a plebs 986 . That which is spoken of at Ardea as distinct both from the artisans (the freedmen) , and from the rul- ing body (the Rutulian houses), must accordingly have been, as it was at Rome, the aggregate of the free hus- bandmen 87 : and it manifestly grew up in a similar man- ner, from the acquisition of Latin townships, which the dissolution of the Latin state furnisht an opportunity of increasing. To these were added municipals from towns which had the freedom of the city. The parties were ripe: a courtship, as was often the case among the Greeks, as was the case at Florence, finally arrayed them in open hostility 88 . A beautiful plebeian maid was wooed by a the person who claims it for the Roman people : a circumstance which makes it very doubtful whether such a person ever actually existed. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the population of many villages in the territory of Sienna became extinct, where- upon their lands were annext to the adjacent one. The same thing happened in Germany after its subjugation, and after the thirty- years war. 9ss Compare Vol. I. p. 405, and foil. The Oscan table mentions tribuni plebis among the magistrates of Bantia. 87 When they had renounced the authority of the government, urbem quoque omnis etiam cxpertem ante certaniinis, multitudine opi- ficum evocata, obsidere parat (plebs). Livy, IV. 9. ^ Aristotle, Polit. v. 4. At Florence Buondelmonte's breach of faith in 1215. G. Villani, v. c. 38. HISTORY OF HOME. 451 man of her own order, and by a member of one of the houses: the former was favoured by her guardians, the latter by her mother. The guardians alone had the right of disposing of her hand with an authority like a father's: yet the magistrates, with glaring injustice, decided, in be- half of the suitor of their own order. The guardians carried the maid away by force from her home: the quar- rel led to a violent fray: and the plebeians were forced to quit the city. The artisans went out to join them : and Cloelius, an Aequian general, was induced, by pay or the promise of plunder, to bring a body of troops to their aid. On the other hand the consul M. Geganius, came to relieve the burgesses. He drew lines round the army of Cloelius, and did not allow the troops to march out, till they laid down their arms and delivered up their general*. On their way home they were at- tackt by the Tusculans, and almost all slain. After these events the obedience of the plcbs, if it submitted, may have been so insecure, that the burgesses were glad to recruit their exhausted population by fore in colonists. Ardca appears in the sixth century as a Latin colony: it had perhaps become one in 312. We know historically that patrician triumvirs were sent thither from Rome; that they did not assign any portion of the old Ardeate territory, but only that which the Romans had pronounced to be their own; and that from this they granted allotments first to the Rutulians, and then to the Roman setlcrs. These were undoubtedly heredia. The Romans did not form the populus, as in the Romulian colonies: they can only have come in as a new tribe: and is it probable that the Aricians weir really overlookt on this occasion, as they have been by our historian? If they too were conciliated with a share, the community thus composed might afterward be reckoned among the Latin colonies: and the measure of the triumvirs might 'to* * See pp. 2<;s. l'<;:>. r f2 452 HISTORY OF ROME. well be so obnoxious, not only to the plebeians, who can have received no share at all, but also to the patricians, that they acted wisely in changing their abode, and tak- ing up the freedom of Ardea to escape from general odium 989 . It is possible that the expedition of Cloelius may have been no interruption to the peace between the two states, which was secured, we must believe, by solemn treaties, and was very desirable for the Komans during their war with Veii: it lasted till 324. In that year the Aequians and Volscians, — who in this instance must u^suredly have included those of Ecetra, — raised armies of pickt troops, who were bound by awful oaths to light to the death 90 : they were sent to mount Algidus. On the prospect of so arduous a war, the senate decreed the appointment of a dictator, and without doubt at the same time named A. Postumius Tubertus. The consuls, unwilling to place themselves under a superior authority, refused to pro- claim him, probably under the plea that the assent of the curies was still wanting: but the tribunes declared that they recognized the appointment as valid, and that they would maintain the execution of it by force. The name of the dictator Tubertus is associated with a fearful story, and with a dim recollection of greatness such as few of his contemporaries left behind them. The older annalists must have been fully aware that his victory was the crisis which decided the contest with the Aequians 91 . He called out the full muster of the classes, without allowing any excuse: one of the consuls was left in Rome with the city-legions; the master of the horse, 9,9 Livy, rv. 11. Cum plebem offendissent, ne prirooribus quidein Patrum satis accepti. 90 Lege sacrata delectu habito. Livy, iv. 26. The manner in which such a levy was made appears in the account of the Samnite war. y > Hence it is adduced by Gellius, xvn. 21, in his list of memo- rable epochs, and is described in some detail by Diodorus. xn. 64. HISTORY OF HOME. 453 outside the walls with the reserve 902 : the army was joined by the Latins and Hernicans. The enemy's power was so formidable, that the dictator, before he took the field, vowed extraordinary games in case he was victorious. The Volscians and Aequians were posted on mount Al- gidus in separate camps: the Roman generals a mile from them; the consul T. Quinctius on the road to La- nuvium; Aulus Tubertus, undoubtedly with a far greater force, on that leading to Tusculum. The plain between the entrenchments was for many days the scene of un- important skirmishes. The impatience thus excited was probably mentioned in the Annals as the cause of that act of disobedience which the dictator's son expiated with his life. It was a current tradition, to which Livy has nothing to* oppose except his reluctance to credit so hor- rible a tale, that the young man left the post entrusted to him to take advantage of an opportunity for a success- ful skirmish; that he returned victorious; and that his father inexorably condemned him to death 93 . At length the allies made an attack on the consul's camp in the night. While it was defended with vigour and success, that of the Aequians, which was weakly guarded, was stormed by some cohorts sent against it by the dictator: others went to relieve the consul: while Tubertus him- self led the main body by a circuitous road to the rear of the troops who were assailing the Roman camp. On the eighteenth of June 94 , the day of Collin and of Waterloo, 992 Livy, rv. 27. Here again we have the four divisions of the army — see p. 122, note 260 — and the magisterequitum, as in the pas- sages there quoted about the first dictatorships, does not attend the dictator and at \ lead the cavalry, but is commander of the reserve. 83 The story is found in Valerius Maximus, II. 7. 6, in Gellius xvn. 21, and in Diodorus, xu. 64. Livy, iv. 29, wishes not to be- lieve it : non libet credere : but how unsubstantial his arguments are (et licet) was shewn long ago by Perizonius, 8. p. 3o8, foil. 9t The day was A. D. xin. Kal. Quinctil. Ovid, Fast. vi. 721. 454 HISTORY OP ROME. at daybreak, the Aequians and Volscians, who were already- worn out, were attackt at the same moment by the dic- tator, and by the consul who made a sally to support him. They were surrounded. Vettius Messius, with re- gard to whom Livy's narrative leaves it uncertain whether he had the command of the army, or whether he merely found it ready in the extremity of distress to obey the voice of a man qualified to lead it, prevailed on them to form into a compact mass, and force their way to the Volscian camp, which was not yet lost. But the resolu- tion excited by despair melted away, when, on reaching it after a bloody conflict, they found themselves surrounded there also. The entrenchments were stormed : many, who threw away their arms, received quarter; but all the pri- soners, except the senators" 5 , were sold for slaves. This was a decisive defeat: and its consequences, as usual, were rendered much more injurious to the allies who had sustained it, by their own dissensions. The Volscians were divided between a party which desired peace on any terms, and one which was for carrying on the war: the Aequians resolved to beg for peace. The senate required that they should become subject to Rome : and if the expression used by Diodorus is taken from Fabius, his statement, that they submitted to the Ro- mans 96 , undoubtedly acquires a weight very different from that of similar assertions, flattering to Roman vanity, in Livy and Dionysius. A truce for eight years was con- cluded: and it is very possible that the conquered peo- ple bound itself for this period to respect the majesty of the republic 97 . The pacific party must also have That is, according to the Julian calendar, the 19th, but according to the old style, as June had only twenty-nine days, the 18th. 995 Livy, iv. 29. Were they the senators of the particular towns or of the whole nation ? 96 'YneTayrja-av. XII. 64. 97 Cum foedus petissent, et pro foedere deditio ostentaretur, in- ducias— impetraverunt : Livy, iv. 30. Majestatem pop. R colunto. HISTORY OF HOME. 455 attained its end among the Volscians; for the whole of the eastern frontier remained tranquil during this period. This was the more desirable for Rome, because during the lirst half of it she was afflicted by epidemic sick- nesses and other scourges, the pressure of which rendered the after-throes of the late bloody war doubly painful: and the latter half was employed in the war with Veii, after the brilliant termination of which the republic was secure of being able to pour all its forces into Latium, whenever the struggle should be renewed. This war with Veii, was the second which the Romans waged with that state during this period. Both of them were occasioned by the revolt of Fidenae; and were de- cided by its fate. Fidenae, a town five miles above Rome on the right bank of the Tiber. Avhich had originally belonged to the Tyrrhenians'- 19 ", then became a colony of Alba, and finally an Albian canton", seems never to have had a place among the thirty independent Latin towns. It fell into the hands of the Romans very early; and colonists were sent to keep it in subjection. We often read of attempts made by the Fidenates to get rid of these setlers, and that they were always punisht and forced to stoop be- neath the yoke again : whether the fact be that this event actually recurred more than once, or that the annalists repeated the same story over and over again, to fill up the blank in the chronicles of the kings. When Fidenae however shook off the Roman yoke in 317, the colony, like every other in a town which asserted its indepen- dence, must have been expelled. But as it had sub- sisted for sixty years without interruption 1000 , many of its members must inevitably have been connected by close 993 When they are said to have been Etruscans (Livy, I. 15), it is through the ordinary confusion between the Tuscans and the Tyrrhenians. 99 Seep. 21. ' > Evei since 256; Dionysius, v. 60. 456 HISTORY OF ROME. ties with the old citizens, and been spared, or even have espoused the same cause. The Fidenates, on recovering their liberty, sought to strengthen themselves by an al- liance with the Veientines and Faliscans. More than once their united forces crost the Anio, and advanced to the Colline gate: whenever this happened, Rome ap- pointed a dictator. A. Servilius Priscus, being clothed with this dignity, reconquered Fidenae in 320, four years after its revolt. It was unnecessary to state that the authors of the rebellion lost their heads: but it is clear that the vengeance of the conquerors was confined to this; since nothing is said of any punishment inflicted on the town; and even the augmentation of the colony does not take place till seven years later. Hence this insurrection cannot possibly have been attended with any inexpiable outrage. The Faliscans, whose territory lay at a distance, and was separated from Rome by that of other forein nations, were able to give up the war when they were tired of it, without suffering the retaliation they had provoked. The Veientines, whose truce of forty cyclic years had expired at the time when Fidenae placed itself under their protection 1001 , concluded a new one, probably for eighty months: in 327 hostilities had already recom- menced. In the same year some citizens of Fidenae were relegated to Ostia for having engaged in a conspiracy: the number of the colonists was increast; and the lands of the insurgents who had perisht in war or by the exe- cutioner were granted to the new-comers 2 . They went iooi y i. i p_ 283. The truce may have been concluded toward the end of 280 ; the revolt of Fidenae may have taken place at the beginning of 317 ; and the years of the Fasti from 303 to 305 proba- bly do not together amount to more than twenty-eight months : so that they did not remain long at peace without an express treaty, — tacitis induciis, — after the 400 months had expired. 2 Livy's expressions, iv. 30 — colonorum additus numerus, agerque Us hello interemptorum assignatus — may also be interpreted to mean HISTORY OF ROME. 457 to meet their ruin. After the defeat brought on by the variance of the consular tribunes before Veii in 329, the Fidenates revolted; and these new setlers at the least, and perhaps also the old ones who had returned, and who could no longer be trusted, were massacred. This is the same year in which Diodorus, apparently follow- ing no less an authority than Fabius, places the murder of the envoys 1003 sent to them ; the recollection of which was preserved among the people down to the days of Cicero by their statues in the rostra 4 . Had this murder been committed in 317 5 , extirpation would have been the inevitable lot of Fidenae, when it was first taken in 320. The envoys had been sent to warn them against the revolt that Avas threatening to break out. They were detained in custody, like those in later times and re- moter regions who went on a similar errand to some of the Italian states before the arrival of Pyrrhus. Proba- bly they were also seized as hostages for the Fidenates who had been sent to Ostia. The fate of the latter how- ever was a matter of indifference to Lar Tolumnius, the king of Yeii : while it was of great importance to him to preclude all possibility of a reconciliation between his new subjects and their old masters. The envoys there- fore were put to death by his order: and the story that he gave this order, on being askt what was to be done with the prisoners, while he was playing at dice, without interrupting his game, is manifestly either a tradition, or, that the original number of the colonists was merely completed, and that the allotments left vacant in each century were assigned to the new-comers. But would such a measure have been attended with such long delays } Ucsides it is clear that what was done was the occasion of the second revolt. 1003 Diodorus, xn. 80. 4 Cicero, Philipp. ix. 2. Pliny, xxxiv. 11, took copies of them for the originals, which seem to have been destroyed in Cicero's youth. • As Livy supposes : I v. 17. 458 HISTORY OF ROME. if a fiction, an ancient one. For this foul outrage he was doomed to fall by the hand of A. Cornelius Cossus, the master of the horse ; and his spoils were hung up in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius 1006 . Whether the in- surgent town was taken in the same year, or not till the next, is a point on which the accounts may perhaps have differed. There can be no doubt however that it perisht in this war: the inhabitants who survived the massacre were sold as slaves; and the name of Fidenae, like that of Gabii, became proverbial for a deserted village 7 . Such in substance, only enlarged by circumstantial details of no interest to any but Romans, is the narra- tive we should read of the wars with Fidenae, if all the annalists had represented the contents of the earliest chro- nicles without adulteration, like Fabius. But this could not be the case, inasmuch as the statues of the murdered envoys, the spoils won by Cossus, and the desolate site of Fidenae, kept the events in the mouth and the re- membrance of posterity. Some member of the Aemilian house found matter in legendary traditions for an apo- cryphal panegyric on Mamereus Aemilius: in this more dictatorships were probably ascribed to him than he ever really filled, and the exploits achieved under his auspices, as well as his own, were referred to definite years which they did not belong to. Some such impure source must have given rise to the silly story, that the Fidenates rusht out on the Romans with burning torches, and filled 1006 Diodorus indeed is silent about the death of Tolumnius (xn. 80) : but the tradition that he ordered the murder of the embassa- dors is so firmly establish t, that whoever places that act in 329 must also place the death of its author in the same year, or in one soon after. Fabius perhaps adopted the latter course : for under 329 Diodorus speaks only of an indecisive engagement near Fidenae : it is just after his manner to have forgotten to insert the Roman occurrences of the next year. 7 Gabiis desertior atque Fidenis vicus, — Fidenarum Gabio- rumque potestas. HISTORY OF ROME. 4.59 them with terrour, as a supernatural spectacle: where- upon Cossus ordered his troops to give the reins to their horses, which caried their riders into the midst of the flames, and broke up the mummery 100 ". In this account the sinirle combat of Cossus seems to have been trans- lerrcd to the first dictatorship of Mamercus in 318, which may perhaps have been purely fictitious. The falsehood of this date is not indeed proved, as Livy is inclined to allow, by the argument that none but a general who had slain the enemy's general with his own hand, could de- dicate the spolia opima: for Perizonius has shewn deci- sively that this notion is erroneous 9 . Moreover he might dedicate them to Jupiter Feretrius, and not to Mars or Quirinus, provided he was more than a common knight, a commander of any rank whatever 1 ". But the inscrip- tion discovered by Augustus on the linen breastplate of Tolumnius, stating that the Consul Cossus had won these spoils 11 , is decisive evidence that he cannot have done loos This strange anecdote is grounded on the fact, that in a fire horses, if shut up, lose their senses, and rush into the brightest part of the flames. Here however the scene is manifestly supposed to be an open plain, where the smoke and strange spectacle would make the horses unruly, but could not terrify the riders. 9 Animadv. vn. p. 262 foil. 10 Compare the passages from Plutarch and Festus referred to in note 972. 11 Consnlem Cossum cepisse: Livy, iv. 20. The latter part of this chapter, from omncs ante me to the end, is a note completely separate from the text, and perhaps the only one of the kind to be found in any ancient author : it was evidently added after the book had been publisht, and had been read by Augustus. Hence the man- ner in which Cossus is spoken of in c. 32 does not deserve the blame that has been thrown upon it. Even supposing that Livy bad altered that passsage after hearing of the emperor's observation, his previous errour might still have been retained in the original text of the ma- nuscripts that have come down to us ; just as Phliuntii, which Cicero corrected, has in the remains of the books de re p. : and yet the long addition might be inserted. To sacrifice his story, though it was en- tirely upset by t lie discovery of Augustus, could not appear necessary 460 HISTORY OF ROME. so earlier than 327. This accords perfectly with the statement of Diodorus, and with what may be inferred from the fact that Fidenae was spared at its first capture. This yeai , it is true, — as was stated in the Annals, which may be always the most safely relied on wherever their narrative is the scantiest, —was a year of sickness and famine, without any military operations: but every Roman who inscribed a monument with his name, always added the titles of his offices, even of those which he had filled long before; and if Cossus dedicated the spoils at any time after his consulship, he assuredly did the same 1012 . Accordingly he would have done so, supposing that he won them in 329, the year of his consular tribunate, as master of the horse, which is expressly stated to have been the case 13 . In this instance indeed we may find a still more immediate explanation of his title. Even as consular tribune he might very fairly call himself consul, but still more so since he was pretor of the city 14 , and being summoned into the field by the dictator, united the military command with that office; so that he possest the whole of the consular power. Livy's assertion that to Livy, according to the ironical view which he takes of Rome's early history. 1012 Perizonius, Aniniadv. p. 313, foil. His supposition however that the inscription was affixt at a much later period, when Marcellus dedicated the third spolia opima, is not happy. An offering necessa- rily contained the name of the donor : and had these characters hap- pened to be destroyed along with a piece of the armour, the restoring them would have been a violation of the fundamental rule, never to repair damaged trophies. See Perizonius, Animadv. p. 250. 13 Valerius Maximus, in. 2. 4. Servius on Aen. vi. 742. Vic- tor, de viris illust. 25. Since, as Borghesi has shewn, the inscriptions in the Forum of Augustus may be regarded as the groundwork of the latter book, we here find an interesting proof that Augustus in that forum followed his discovery, which Livy only noticed so far as he was compelled to do so by respect for the emperor. In other passages Cossus is always styled a military tribune. 14 Livy, iv. 31. HISTORY OF ROME. 461 all his predecessors had placed the single combat in the year 318, is disproved by the statement of Diodorus: he overlookt no less an author than Fabius. Nay the state- ment which he found in certain annalists, and which he understands of a naval battle near Fidenae, rejecting it accordingly as ridiculous 1015 , is nothing but a fragment from a story of the single combat of Cossus, in which it was stated that the spoils were won in a battle between armies in full array. The writers who related this com- bat eleven years before, did not indeed repeat it: they were determined however to keep a part of it; and this was the mention of the classis. Propertius, either adopting some free tradition, or perhaps following Ennius, transfers the death of Tolum- nius to another scene and to totally different circum- stances. Cossus and the Romans were besieging Veii: the battering ram shook the walls: the Etruscan king appeared atop of the gate and proposed a pacific con- ference: Cossus challenged him to single combat: he came down into the open field, and fell: the conqueror struck off his head, and bore it away in triumph, with the blood trickling down on his horse 16 . The victory over Veii could not yet be followed up to a decisive issue; and the .Romans were glad to make a truce for twenty cyclic years 17 . They also renewed that with the Aequians for three years, the term for which they themselves wisht for repose: the proposal of a longer respite they rejected. We do not know what induced the Volscians, whose treaties must have been separate from those Avith the Aequians, to try the chance of .war 1015 Classi quoque ad Fidenas pugnatum cum Veientibus quidam annalea retulerunt: iv. 34. That is to say, the old books had not neglected to state that the spoils of Toluumius were won cktssc pro- dncta : for none but these were opima : Festus, Opiina. 19 Propertius, iv. 10. 23, full. 17 It had expired in 348, and does not seem to have been con- cluded before 331. 462 HISTORY OF ROME. alone. That the war in 332 was against them solely, and that they were not joined by the Aequians till the year after, is positively stated by Livy 1018 : indeed the truce for thirty months cannot have expired before 333. It was not as formerly for plunder and conquest, but for their freedom, that the Volscians took the field with a nume- rous and well-disciplined army. The war had unquestion- ably been provoked by the Romans; yet the consul C. Sempronius Atratinus conducted it languidly and care- lessly. The troops had no confidence either in him or in themselves. The first rank was beginning to give way; the standards were wavering: yet the consul gave no orders; and the cavalry could only stand by as in- active spectators of the approaching defeat of the infan- try, when one of their officers, Sex. Tempanius, called on them to dismount and follow him. Their appearance gave the cohorts a stay. They themselves broke through the Volscian ranks: but when the latter closed again be- hind them, their little band was cut off, and taking its stand on a hill remained exposed to the attacks of a large force. In vain did the infantry exert its utmost efforts to relieve them: the battle lasted till nightfall without being decided. Both armies considered it as lost; both are said to have abandoned their camps. The division of the Volscians which surrounded the cavalry on the hill, also drew off at midnight. Hereupon Sex. Tempanius and his band proceeded to the Soman camp, but only found some wounded there, who had been left '? 18 I do not lay any stress on Livy's only mentioning the Vol- scians in iv. 37, foil. ; but I do on the express distinction he makes between the two at the close of iv. 42, where he says that the Aequi- ans did not take up arms till the next year : we must remember too that their truce did nut end before. It might seem indeed as if C. Sempronius must have been defeated by the Aequians ; since he returned by the Via Lavicana (Livy, iv. 41) : but Tempanius, who took the strait road, had seen nothing of him ; so that the consul had made a cross march. HISTORY OF HOME. 463 behind; nor could any one tell what road the consul and his army had followed. When they came in sight of Rome they were taken for Volscian cavalry. The whole army was believed to be lost; and no one doubted the destruction of the knights. The general joy at their safety, the gratitude for the preservation of the wounded whom they brought with them, were not greater than the indignation felt against the consul, who was deject- edly bringing back the remains of the infantry by another road. The decuries of knights whom, as it seemed, he had given up to destruction, and whom only a miracle had saved, were plebeians 1019 : this must be treachery, was the cry. Sex. Tempanius pleaded in his behalf. He and three other officers of his body of knights were elected tribunes of the people the next year 20 . In this office, with the piety of Roman soldiers, they protected their old general by their entreaties when he was impeacht by one of their collegues before the people. But two years afterward the offensive violence of his temper revived the remembrance of the fault that had been pardoned; and he was condemned to a fine. Lavici, which is named among the conquests of Co- riolanus' 1 , though perhaps erroneously, may probably have been one of the places which threw themselves into the hands of the Acquians on the dissolution of the Latin state: at all events it is clear that in 336, when the flourishing days of the Acquians had gone by, it was in- dependent. The Lavicans however joined them in laying siege to Tusculum, which applied to Rome for succour, and not in vain. War was declared against them the 1019 It is a matter of course that the plebeian knights were drawn up apart from the patricians ; and knights, whose leaders were all plebeians, must needs have been of the same order. -" Among these there is an Ecilius: bo that the Ccilii, whose name Livy regards as almost equivalent to rioters and incendiaries, were one of the plebeian equestrian houses. ' See note ids, and p. 237. 464 HISTORY OF ROME. next year. A battle was fought on mount Algidus, which was now for the last time the theatre of war with the Aequians: and this people and their allies gained a vic- tory, which is attributed to discord between the consular tribunes at the head of the Romans, perhaps only on the uniform assumption that no Roman army could be beaten except through the fault of its generals. The Roman army fell back on Tusculum: but Q. Servilius, the con- queror of Fidenae, was created dictator: and, when the vanquisht troops had been joined by the reserve, the con- querors sustained a far severer defeat. Lavici, into which the Aequians had thrown themselves along with its citi- zens, was taken by storm, and, being parceled out among Roman citizens, is no more heard of in history 1022 . Three years after, in 340, Bolae was taken. On the dissolution of the Latin state it had received an Aequian colony, and had completely become an Aequian town 23 : hence the possession of it was the more obstinately con- tested. After it had been alternately taken and lost, it remained in the hands of the Romans. Its last capture led to a crime, which stands alone in Roman history down to the time of Sylla, the murder of the military tribune M. Postumius 2 *. From this time forward the power of the Aequians and Volscians is visibly on the decline. As yet the Ro- man wars had seldom toucht their land, and even now reacht only to its border: but at this very period the Sam- nites were extending their conquests beyond all limits, and were everywhere subduing or dislodging the remaining Ausonian tribes. They had been settled for forty years at 1022 "With the exception of a single casual allusion. Cicero pro Plane. 9 (23), mentions the district as no less desolate than that of Gabii. 23 According to the account of the war of Coriolanus it was utterly laid waste : Dionysius, vm. 18 : at this time they were an Aequian state : Bolani suae gentis populus : Livy, iv. 49. -' See p. 436. HISTORY or komi;. Ki."> Capua, and were also pressing forward on the upper Vul- turnus and toward the Liris; where, though at a later period indeed, we find Casinum, Sora, and Fregellae, among their conquests. Hence the Volscians and Aequians could only employ a portion of their forces in defending the territory they had formerly won. In 3-42 Ferentinum was again wrested from the former, and restored to the Her. nicans: the citadel of Carventum, which had once been one of the thirty towns, and had been reduced by the Aequians, as well as the fortress of Vcrrugo upon mount Algidus, on the confines of the Volscians and Aequi- ans, were alternately taken and lost. Livj^'s statement that the Romans even in these days pusht forward as far as the Fuciue lake sounds scarcely credible 1025 . The spreading of their conquests induced the Antiates to join their enemies; among whom they appear in 347; but never again after the campaign of 349, which was a glo- rious one for Rome. It is the first campaign in Roman history in which we see separate armies moving in con- cert, instead of the tedious uniformity of marauding in- roads, ending with a battle. Three Roman legions en- tered the Volscian territory; one of the tribunes threat- ened Antium, a second Ecetra: the main body marcht against Anxur, which was abandoned to itself: this was the name borne by the Tyrrhenian town of Tarracina, since it had been taken by the Volscians 26 . It had the strength of a mountain fortress, and lay at the edge of the marshes. But in the towns to the south of the Tiber, built on the summit of steep rocks which could neither be battered nor undermined, a besieging army io2s Hyj, IV . 57. 24 The notion of the ancients, that Tarracina was originally called rpaxa-va, is extremely plausible, if taken to mean that Tarra- cina in the Siculian language was .'univalent to the Greek adjective. It can hardly haw been from its Volscian name that Jupiter AnxurtU was so called : that of the god was transferred to the town which contained his sanctuary. VOL. II. G ". 466 HISTORY OF ROME. generally discovered places within reach of scaling ladders; and when the top was once gained, the place lay open without walls or battlements. In this way Anxur was taken, while the Romans divided their attack, to distract the attention of the besieged. This conquest restored the old boundary of the dominion of the kings over La- tium on the coast : but in the interior many places, which in their time had undoubtedly been subject to Home, still maintained their independence; such as Antium and Ecetra, which after the campaign of 349 certainly resumed their municipal relation to Rome. On the other hand Velitrae, to which Rome sent a colony in 35 1 1027 , must have submitted : and as this fact was past over by Livy, he may also have omitted to mention other places, which at this time acknowledged the soverainty of Rome; and among the rest Satricum 28 . 1027 Diodorus, XIV. 34. 28 It revolted along with Velitrae in 361 : Diodorus, xiv. 102. 467 THE LAST WAR WITH VEIL No truce, even though it was for a long series of years, could remove the causes of war, like a treaty of peace and alliance. When that concluded with Veii after the taking of Fidenae had expired 1029 , the Romans de- manded satisfaction for the crime of Tolumnius 30 . The \ eientines were afraid of war. Even seventy years before, it was only after they had collected succours from the whole of Etruria, and so long as these remained with them, that they carried it on with success, at a time when the confederates of Rome had to exert all their strength in their own defense. At present, though many of these confederate towns had been destroyed or alienated from Rome, the cohorts of the rest were bound to accompany the legions, whenever the senate commanded them to do so: while in more than one congress at the temple of Voltumna the Etruscans refused to send any aid. They cannot have failed to perceive that the town they were thus abandoning to its fate was the bulwark of their whole nation: and though unfortunately in the history of ill-cemented confederacies there never was, nor ever will be, a lack of examples where one of them, on the preservation of which the prosperity of all the rest depends, is abandoned to destruction by their envy ami loss Tcmpus indueiaruiu exieral : Livy, IV. 58 : see Vol. I. p. 283. 50 Honce the answer, whether real >>r fictitious : daturoa quod Tolu »i n ius deditaet. g G 2 468 HISTORY OF ROME. jealousy, at all events the election of a king at Veii cannot possibly have excited any senseless ill-humour among the other Etruscans 1031 . For Tolumnius also had been king : indeed we have no ground whatever to sup- pose that any city of the whole nation ever had a chief magistrate of any other kind. It is evident that there was some unavoidable necessity which constrained the Etruscans to rely on the hope that Veii could not be overpowered. Immediately before its fall, it is said that the cause why the cities south of the Apennines did not send any succours, was the vicinity of their new and formidable neighbours, the Gauls 32 . Melpum, the chief city of the Etruscans to the north of the Po, was taken by the barbarians at this very time: and though this event, which irrevocably decided the destruction of the Etruscan nation in those parts, may with good reason be regarded as the epoch of the descent of the Gauls into Italy 33 , still the advance of the Celts upon the Alpine tribes, their approach to the passes of the mountains, the arrival of the fugitives whom they drove from their homes, may before this have engaged the attention of all the Etruscans, even those south of the Apennines, and have led them to deceive themselves in public concerning the issue of the Roman expedition; while in secret they said to themselves that even in the worst case the existence of the states more remote from Kome was not at stake, as it was in the conflict with those terrible barbarians. The Veientines, whose number was probably very limited, ruled over a population of subjects and serfs, and hence were, and felt themselves, unable to face the Romans in the field. The statement that, after the Gal- lic invasion, four tribes were formed of the persons who had come over from the Veientines, Capenates, and 1031 Livy, v. 1. 32 Livy, v. 17: Gentem invisitatam, novos accolas Gallos esse 33 See the text to note 1247. HISTORY OF ROME. 469 Falisoans, (luring the wars with those states, must refer to the inhabitants of whole districts who had placed them- selves under the soverainty of Rome 103 '. The individual deserters cannot have been sufficiently --numerous: nor would they have been raised to the honour of having an equal share in the soverainty with what was then a fifth part of the Roman nation. It was the old Siculian po- pulation, which had been subjugated by the Etruscans and the Aequians, and which revolted from those three towns, looking upon the Romans as a nation of kinsmen and deliverers. The traces of the walls of Veii are said to confirm the statement of Dionysius, which indeed is credible enough in itself, that they were above four miles in circuit: and we can easily understand how the Etrus- cans might be led to found so large and strong a city in the neighbourhood of Rome, with a view to make war upon Latium, or to rule over it. But the population may perhaps have fallen as far short of its size, as that of Megalopolis did: the Veientines may have been as thinly scattered over it, as the Spartans were over their capital, though as soldiers very unlike them. If this was so, there is no difficulty in comprehending why a city in such a condition did not now make any attempt to resist the Romans in the field. On the other hand there would be an extreme improbability that it should have sent an arrogant and insulting answer to their demands, even if we did not find a statement that it had prayed for for- bearance the year before. Still, though the whole territory of Veii lay open to the Romans as far as the walls, these defied the rude assaults of a levy that only came into the field for a few days, with as much provision as each soldier could carry from home with him 35 : and when that army was disbanded, 1031 Qui Vciontum I'apenatunique ac Faliscorum per ea bulla transfugerant : Livy, IV. 4 : compare c. 5. M OtKua-iTot : Zonaras, vn. 20. 470 HISTORY OF ROME. even these Etruscans, by a sudden inroad, such as they had made in the preceding wars, might inflict severe re- taliation on the Roman territory in their neighbourhood. Without a force held in readiness to prevent such in- roads, a Veientine war was attended with great risk to the welfare of the Roman husbandman, and the objec- tions urged by the tribunes were well grounded 1036 : on the other hand if such a force could be kept under arms, until famine and distress should force Veii to surrender, this conquest would be the beginning of a second youth to the republic. The only way of doing this was to re- vive the practice of giving the troops pay, as the tribunes had demanded eighteen years before: and for this end, unless the plebeians were to have a serpent held out to them instead of a fish, it was necessary that the tithe on the domain-lands should be honestly paid. I think I have more than made amends for a number of heavy charges against the shortsighted and unprincipled selfishness of the senate, by shewing that as early as this it already knew so well how to govern, that, to render the conquest of Veii practicable, it acceded to a reform of the consti- tution, and to the establishment of pay, a measure lead- ing inevitably to the abolition of that exemption from taxes which the patricians had usurpt 3T . It is possible that many, whose votes went to make up the majority, were induced to give them up by the hope that their own order would in the end reap the whole benefit of the conquest, and that means would again be found to quash all the rights conceded to the plebeians. But the per- sons who brought in the resolution must have been moved by better sentiments. Accordingly pay was decreed in the year 349. The patrician contributions amounted to considerable sums, so that a property-tax was merely wanted to make up the deficiency; and the declaration Livy, iv. 58. 3: Above, p. 438. HISTORY OF HOME. 471 of war, which had previously been rejected, was past in the following year 103 ". These ordinances, though, eo far as shameless selfish- ness could exert any influence, the execution of them was checkt, effected their purpose. A Roman force was kept on foot, strong enough to make the Veientines suffer all the miseries of war, and to disable them from retaliating. The story indeed that the city was invested for ten whole years, winter and summer without intermission 39 , belongs to the poetical tale. Had the blockade been complete* even supposing that there were large cornfields in the wide space within the walls, before a year's end a famine would have been raging, no less intolerable than that which compelled Athens to surrender to Lysander. But not a word is said of any scarcity : and if we reflect that two legions were totally inadequate to the blockade of so large a city, and nevertheless that their pay for the whole year, without reckoning any of the other expenses of the war, would have required ten millions of ases 40 , which at that period may safely be estimated as equal to a million of Attic drachms, we shall sec reason to conclude that the supplies can never have been cut off completely for any length of time. During the main part of the term that the war lasted, the Romans, we must suppose, merely built forts, like that on the Cremera, io33 Livy, iv. 60, where the connexion between the ordinances is perfectly clear. 39 Livy, v. 22 : Decern aestates hiomesquo rircumsessa. "Et«« Se/airo) rfjs TTo\iof}Kias. Plutarch, Camill. c. 7. "Etij 0. Dion, Exc. 13. p. 13. "' More exactly 10080000. The reader will remember that the cohorts at this time were reckoned at GOO men each ; so that a legion contained 3000 : every soldier received 1200 asee a J BM : the private footsoldicrs therefore in two legions would have 7200000. To tins must he added the double paj for 300 centurions, 720000 ; and the triple for 600 knights, 2160000. 472 HISTORY OF ROME. in the territory of Veii, which were sufficiently strong to resist any sudden assault, and, in case of a more serious attack, might be relieved by a general levy. Such cas- tles, as they were called in the military language of the Romans, made the cultivation of the fields almost im- possible, and the passage of supplies very difficult. Like Decelea, they were constructed under the pro- tection of the army, and perhaps in the very first cam- paign, that of 350. In other respects this and the next seem to have past away like the earlier ones of the Pe- loponnesians in Attica: the Roman army, which was so superior to the Yeientines as to drive them out of the field, ravaged their country, but retired at the end of a few weeks. None of the neighbouring states took their part in their distress: hence in the third campaign, in 352, the siege of their city was begun. A mound was raised against the wall, cased with boards to keep the earth from slipping: even in Greece at this period the usual mode of attacking a town was still to erect a ter- race over against the walls, of the same highth, or higher, and of great breadth, in order to assail the besieged from the same or a superior level 1041 . The gallery under the shelter of which the battering-rams were to play upon the walls, had been almost carried up to them : these en- gines, though of vast antiquity, and employed by the Egyptian conquerors, were rare and weak, as we see by the two which the Peloponnesians had at the siege of Plataea 42 . When the works were advanced thus far, the senate resolved to prolong the campaign through the win- ter, till the place should be reduced: but this project was baffled by a sally, in which the besiegers were routed, the gallery and engines burnt to ashes, and the mound ""' Thucydides, II. 75-77. 12 Projectile engines were not yet in use : it was only about this time that catapults were invented at Syracuse, the cradle of the mechanical arts. IIISTOKY OF ROME. 473 leveled. Henceforward no attempt to renew the siege was made till the last campaign. This unexpected change of fortune encouraged the Capemites, who were a Veicntine colony, and the Falis- cans, to acknowledge to themselves that their own exist- ence depended on the preservation of Veii, and to hope that they might be able to save it. On the other hand the Romans, who had before felt weary of their extra- ordinary sacrifices, now became eager to do their utmost. Knights, to whom no horses could be assigned, offered to serve with their own : equal zeal was displayed by the classes: and the next campaign, that of 353, was opened with forces, which, under able generals, might have foiled the hopes of the allies. But the Roman commanders forgot everything except their jealousy of each other. Two camps were pitcht before Veii, a larger one under the tribune L. Virginius 1043 , a smaller under his collegue, M. Sergius. The latter was attackt by the troops of the allies and by a sally from the town at the same moment: and he chose to let them overpower him by numbers, rather than give his enemy an opportunity of gaining a victory, in which he himself would only have been spoken of as having been rescued from danger. "With still more culpable perverseness, Virginius remained motionless, be- cause he received no application for aid. Thus the other camp was carried: and the larger one must also have been evacuated: for it is not till the next year, 354, that we hear that the position before the city was reoc- cupied, and the works restored. Including the legion of veterans, which perhaps was the only one employed in repairing the entrenchments, so large a force was now brought into the Held, that Camillus, in this campaign, the first in which his great name appears, and another 1M3 The legions of the juniors were always distributed equally : so that, when one army was stronger than I he other, it must have had a legion of veterans or a body of auxiliaries attacht to it. 474 HISTORY OF ROME. tribune, requited the Capenates and Faliscans, by ravag- ing their territories up to the very walls of their cities. Two years after, in 356, when the Romans were again occupying a double camp before Veii, the two allied states repeated the attempt which had before been successful, in a similar manner, but with a directly opposite result : for while they were attacking the smaller camp, the larger army surrounded them. The Veientines, who made a sally from the town, were still more unfortunate. A great number of them were killed before the gates, which were closed against them prematurely, through fear of the Ro- mans at their heels. This was the first victory gained by plebeian military tribunes. The next year past away without any action before Yeii. On the other hand Ca- pena and the Faliscans were visited with fresh ravages. After this, in 358, the Tarquinians attempted to relieve the distress of the Veientines by an incursion into the Roman territory : but they did not come off with im- punity. The campaign of the year 359, in which Veii fell, began unpropitiously. Two of the military tribunes had made a fresh inroad into the territory of the Capenates and the Faliscans. They incautiously ventured into a difficult country. Genucius expiated his fault by dying bravely at the head of his troops ; Titinius broke through the army that surrounded him. Such an alarm was spread, that, if the conquerors had advanced immediately to attack the lines before Veii, they might have destroyed them. At Rome it was expected that the Etruscans would again be seen on the Janiculus. In the hope of putting an end to the war, it was resolved to exert the utmost efforts; and the command was entrusted to Ca- millus, who was made dictator. He assembled the whole military force of Rome, along with Latin and Hernican auxiliaries, and led them first against the allies of the Veientines. At Nepete he fell in with the Capenates HISTORY OF ROME. 475 and Faliscans 104 ' 1 , and gave them a decisive defeat. After this he increast the number of the forts before Veii, and invested the city more closely than ever. Thus far we have the simple narrative of the war, as it was given by the Annals. Their account of the cap- ture of the city has been entirely supplanted by a poeti- cal story, belonging to the lay or legend, whichever one may choose to call it, of Camillus; an epic narrative, the features of which are irreconcilable with history, and which extends from this period down to the last victory over the Gauls by the Alban mount, forming a whole still pre- served, at least in substance, under a biographical form in Plutarch. In this legend Veii is the lloman Ilion: from it came the story that the siege lasted ten years: it is by the same legend that the destiny of the city is con- nected with the prodigy of the Alban lake ; that the gods themselves are represented as interfering to decide it ; and that the fate of the victorious general and the con- quering people are made to result, as an expiation for their excessive prosperity, from the fall of Veii. Hence- forth we are no longer standing on historical ground : I shall relate this poem like the rest, restoring its original substance. A number of portents, among others an unexam- pled swelling of the Alban lake, had terrified the Bo- mans. In the midst of the dogdays 15 , without any fall of rain, or anything unseasonable in the weather, the water rose to such a highth as to overflow the mountain which inclosed it, and deluge the neighbouring country 4 ' 1 . 1044 This renders it improbable that Capena should have stood in the situation generally '1 bo it, which is nearer to Rome. '• Dionysius, Exc, Mai t s. p. 8. To depos eXi^yev" Plutarch, Ca- ruill. c. 3. 46 Dionysius, Exc. Mai 8. l>. !'• Plutarch, Caruill. c. 3. Zona- ras, vii. 20. Cicero's words, d/um laves rvdundc&at, De Diviu. i. 44 (loo), say the same thing. I notice this, because Livy has merer) . in altitudvnem insoHtam crernt : v. L6. 476 HISTORY OF ROME. At any other time the senate would have consulted the Etruscan aruspexes on the import of this prodigy: but as it was, there was ground to expect a deceitful answer. A solemn embassy was therefore sent to inquire of the Pythian oracle. It was a time of truce round the walls of Veii; and many, who from living so near had known each other before the war, would often fall into discourse. In this manner the inhabitants heard of the prodigy of the lake : and a soothsayer was impelled by destiny to scoff at the efforts of the Romans, the futility of which was foretold in the prophetic books. Some days after, a Roman cen- turion invited the soothsayer to come into the plain be- tween the walls and the Roman trenches, to hear an account of a portent that had fallen out in his house, and to teach him in what way to appease the gods: the aruspex was seduced by the reward promist him, and incautiously let himself be led near the Roman lines. On a sudden the stout centurion seized the old man, and dragged him, an easy prey, into the camp. From hence he was carried to Rome before the senate; where he was forced by threats to speak the truth, and, loudly bewailing the destiny that had infatuated him to betray the secret of his nation, confest that the Veientine books of fate announced, that, so long as the lake kept on over- flowing, Veii could not be taken, and that, if the waters were to reach the sea, Rome would perish 1047 . Not long afterward the embassadors returned from Delphi, and brought an answer to a like effect 48 , whereupon the 1047 Such is the statement of these fata given by Cicero, De Divin. I. 44 (100) : that in Livy, Plutarch, and Dionysius, is much less forcible. 48 The oracle ought to correspond more exactly with the predic- tion of the libri fatales, as given by Cicero, than it does in Dionysius, Exc. Mai 12. p. 11, and in Plutarch, Camill. c. 4. : for Veii it mat- tered not whether the water reacht the sea, provided it kept on overflowing ; not so for Rome. The words, cave lacu contineri, in HISTORY OF HOME. 477 tunnel was begun, in order that the lake might cease to overflow, and that the water drawn from it might be spread through the fields in ditches. This work was carried on unremittingly: and the Veientines learnt that the fatal consummation on which their ruin hung, was at hand. They sent an embassy to implore forbearance; but they found no compassion. The chief of the envoys, be- fore they quitted the senate-house with the unrelenting answer, warned the Komans once more of the penalty that would inevitably await them : for, as certainly as Veii was now doomed to fall, so surely did the same oracles foretell, that, soon after the fall of Veii, Rome would be taken by the Gauls 1049 . Nobody listened to him. Camillus was already commanding as dictator before the city, and was unsuspcctcdly executing the work which opened the way for its destruction. The Romans seemed to be standing quietly at their posts, as if they were awaiting the slow issue of a blockade which could not be forced. But the army was divided into six bands; and these, relieving one another every six hours, were labouring incessantly in digging a mine, which was to lead into the citadel of Veii, and there was to open into the temple of Juno. Before the assault was made, the dictator inquired of the senate, what was to be done with the spoil. Appius Claudius, the grandson of the decemvir advised selling Livy v. 16, are at variance) with the unquestionable import of the prediction ; for it was the overflow that protected Veii. The ora- cle seems to have been altered in this placo : in other parts seve- ral of the verses, in which it was exprest by the legend, may be recognized: Emissam 'per agros rigabis — dissipatamque rivifl extin- gue.^ — Turn insiste audax hostium maris, — memor quam per tot annos obsides urbem, — ex ea til>i his quae ttuno panduntur i'atis vic- toriam datam — Bello perfecto donum amplum victor ad mea templa port a to. w" Dionysius, Exo. 12. p. 12, and Cicero, do Divin. I. 44: who, where he says that the secrets of the books of fate were betrayed by a deserter, is so far following a more prosaic narrative. 478 HISTORY OF ROME. it for the benefit of the treasury, that it might supply- pay for the army without need of a property-tax. This was opposed by P. Licinius, the most eminent among the plebeian military tribunes : he even declared it would be unfair if none but the soldiers then on the spot were to have a share in the booty, for which every citizen had made some sacrifice or other. Notice, he said, ought to be given, for all who wisht to partake in it to pro- ceed to the camp 1050 . This was decreed; and old and young flockt toward the devoted city. Hereupon, as soon as the water was disperst over the field, and the passage into the citadel finisht, Camillus made a vow to celebrate great festive games, and to dedicate a temple to Matuta, a goddess highly revered on the adjacent Tyr- rhenian coast 51 , and addrest prayers to Juno whose tem- ple covered the way destined to lead the Romans into the city, with promises that she should receive higher honours than ever. Nor were his adjurations fruitless. To the Pythian Apollo, whose oracle, when it encou- raged the Romans to put faith in the words of the arus- pex, demanded an offering for Delphi, he vowed a tenth of the spoil. Then, at the appointed hour, the passage was filled with cohorts : Camillus himself led the way 52 . Meanwhile the horns blew the signal for the assault 53 ; loso i^he remark in Livy, v. 20, that on such occasions the nimble plunderer and not the good soldier fares the best, is groundless, un- less we suppose that at this sackage the ancient regulation described by Polybius (x. 16) for the giving up and equal division of the spoil was not observed. Even the erarian who had paid the tax was to have a share, though he had not served ; and so was every plebeian, without regard to the question, whether he was a locuples and had paid much or little, or whether he was a proletarian and had paid nothing. 51 On the temple of Matuta at Pyrgi, see Wesseling on Diodo- rus, xv. 14. 52 Such must have been the account in the legend, since Camillus offers the flesh of the victim on the altar : he must have been one of the first who rose from underground. 53 See Scaliger on Festus, Aeneatores. 1 1 is i < n: v 01 BOMB. 179 and the countless host brought scaling-ladders, as if they meant to mount the walls from every side. Here the citizens stood expecting the enemy, while their king was sacrificing in the temple of Juno. The aruspex, when he saw the victim, declared that whoever brought the goddess her share of the slaughtered animal would con- quer. This was heard by the Romans underground. They burst forth, and seized the flesh; and Camillus offered it up. From the citadel they rusht irresistibly through the city, and opened the nearest gates to the assailants. The incredible amount of the spoil even surpast the expectations of the conquerors. The whole was given to the army, except the captives who had been spared in the massacre, before the unarmed had their lives granted to them, and who were sold on the account of the state. All objects of human property had already been removed from the empty walls: the ornaments and statues of the gods alone were yet untoucht. Juno had accepted the vow of a temple on the Aventine. But every one trem- bled to touch her image: for according to the Etruscan religion, none but a priest of a certain house might do so without fear of death. A body of chosen knights who took courage to venture upon removing it from its place, proceeded to the temple in white robes, and askt the goddess whether she consented to go to Rome. They heard her voice pronounce her assent; and the statue of its own accord followed those who were leading it forth 1054 . While Camillus was looking down from this temple on the magnificence of the captured city, the immense wealth of which the spoilers were amassing, he called to "•■' Plutaroh, CamilL c. b", expressly charges Li vy with weaken- ing the old tale, by making one of tho Romans ask the question in jest, ami ot here believe they saw a nod of assent. Dionysius, Exc. 17. p. 18, says that the goddess repeated her words twice over,— as in the legend of Fortuna mitfiebris: vtti. a<>. 480 HISTORY OF ROME. mind the threats of the Veientines, and that the gods were wont to regard excessive prosperity with displea- sure; and he prayed to the mighty queen of heaven to let the calamity that was to expiate it be such as the republic and he himself could support 1055 . When after ending his prayer he turned round to the right, with his head veiled according to custom 56 , his foot stumbled, and he fell. It seemed as if the goddess had graciously ap- peased destiny with this mishap: and Camillus, forget- ting the foreboding which had warned him, provoked the angry powers by the unexampled pomp and pride of his triumph. Jupiter and Sol saw him drive up with their own team of white horses to the Capitol. For this arro- gance he atoned by a sentence of condemnation, Borne by her destruction. Thus far the poetical tradition is a whole; and, though it relates an event which undoubtedly occurred, free scope has been given to the imagination in it. On the rising of the Alban lake, and the discharge of its waters, I shall speak lower down from a historical point of view, and shall point out that, since the epoch assigned to that event is unquestionably correct, it is quite impossible that the tunnel should have been com- pleted before the capture of Veii ; even if we disdain to insist on Livy's statement, which represents the work as not having been begun till after the return of the en- voys from Delphi, and places this in the year before the 1055 Making Camillus utter the prayer iu the temple of Juno is an addition of my own, but unquestionably in the spirit of the legend. 56 The cell was open toward the east ; and the face of the statue turned toward the same quarter : in front of the cell stood the altar in the open air. A person in sacrificing stood between the altar and the sanctuary, and when offering up his prayer lookt likewise toward the east : but he also turned round toward the image to do it reve- rence, though with his head veiled, that he might not behold it, now that the deity had been called down into the sanctuary. HISTORY OF ROME. 481 city was taken 10 '' 7 . It seems to be quite certain that then, as during the conflict with the Samnites, the Pythian god was askt how the war might be brought to a close: and without being chargeable with a shallow attempt to explain away difficulties, we may suppose, indeed we can hardly doubt, that the answer, which is totally unlike those of the Pythian priestess, and which distinctly en- joins the undertaking an extremely difficult and expensive work, such as the impoverisht nation must have been strongly averse to, was either procured or fabricated and publisht by the senate. Should any one reject this sup- position, from a wish to maintain the credit of every Delphic oracle, however it may have been handed down, yet surely we shall scarcely find anybody with such a stock of heathen faith, as seriously to imagine it con- ceivable that the answer of the oracle should have coin- cided with the words of an Etruscan soothsayer. That Veii was taken by means of a mine, seems to have been never questioned hitherto; Livy having got rid of the incident in which, as by a miracle in a tragedy, the sacrifice begun by the Etruscan prince is completed by the dictator. The rising of the Roman soldiers, like that of a ghost on the stage, out of the ground, has not excited any scruples: and its taking place in the temple of Juno has undoubtedly been re- garded as an accidental circumstance. But in the legend this is the keystone of the whole story. As Veii was to be besieged for ten years, like Ilion; as the passage filled with armed men answers to the horse of Epeus, which was led up to Pergama; so does Juno bring de- struction on both cities. The vow of Camillus did not first gain her over. The way by which the armed men were to issue forth in her temple, and to consummate the sacrifice on which the fate of Veii finally depended, had already been committed to her protection. Juno »•»' Livy, v. 16 and 19. VOL. II. H H 482 HISTORY OP ROME. was the peculiar Argive deity of the Italian as well as of the Greek Pelasgians. Her temple on Lacinium was a bond of union to the Oenotrian states 1058 : that in the land of the Picentines was ascribed to the Argo- nauts 59 : at Falerii was one which had subsisted with its sacred rites ever since the time of the Siculians 60 . As the Aequian conquerors had retained her worship at Falerii, the Etruscans had done the same at Veii. The goddess however was not reconciled to the foreiners: she desired to dwell on the Aventine with the Latin ple- beians, the offspring of her ancient Tyrrhenians. This was the poet's meaning: and thus Juno, the angry god- dess of the Iliad, causes the prodigy of the Alban lake: for until this was drawn off, destiny, according to the Etruscan religion, did not permit Veii to fall. She too infatuated the aruspex to betray the secret. To suppose that the main point here, the opening of the passage into her temple, was a piece of chance, is decidedly il- logical. It is another question, whether, after giving up this circumstance, we may not still have historical ground for believing that Veii was taken by means of a passage out of which armed men mounted within the walls. Diodo- rus speaks of such a mine, without any further details 61 ; and no mention is to be found of any other mode of tak- ing the town. Now I will admit that the tufa of this district may easily be workt, and yet is so firm as not to need carpentry; which would only be required where the passage was to be carried under the walls: and these might be supported upon posts and beams, as they would have been if undermined for the purpose of letting them fall in : such a mine might still leave room for a passage. '«• Vol. i. p. 85. » Vol. i. p. 45. 80 Dionysius, I. 21 : compare Eckhel, doctr. num. I. p. 92. Diodorus, XIV. 93. Boiovs e^eTroXiopKrjcrav, Stcopv^a KaracrKfvd- aravres. HISTORY OF ROME. 483 If there were any large open places within the city, it was possible that the passage might hit upon them, and that the troops might rush out during the night without being seen. This however depended on fortune; and no human dexterity could ascertain the right direction, even supposing that the distance was not great 1062 . One may also conceive a mode of accounting for the statement, that a sixth part of the army was employed in this service; though it is clear that very few could work together in lengthening the passage at the same time. Many might be engaged in widening it; and a great number placed in file, might convey the stones from hand to hand as they were hewn out. But their pro- per destination would be to protect the work, in case it was discovered by the besieged, and to try to seize the opportunity of bursting into the city. It is manifestly however most improbable that the besiegers should need- lessly have burthened themselves with a hard and tedious labour, when by merely firing the timbers, by which the walls must at all events have been propt up, they might have made a breach: the Romans assuredly were not afraid of mounting one. Such mines were very usual in sieges: whereas in the whole history of ancient military operations we shall scarcely find an authentic instance of a town taken in the manner related of Veii 63 . I should be inclined therefore to conjecture that the legend arose 1062 Zonaras, VII. 21 : TloppoOev ap£dp.ei>os. 63 The capture of Fidenae by A. Servilius (Livy, iv. 22) is not a whit better attested than that of Veii : the only other instance, so far as I know, is that of Chalcedon by Darius, in Polyaenus, vn. 11. 5. Now this seems to have been derived from no source but Ctesias, who had related the burning of that city by Darius, after his return from his Scythian expedition : see Photius, p. 38. b. ed. Bek. Any story relating to this period, even if told by a far more scrupulous witness; must be extremely doubtful : how few of the particulars with regard to the expedition of Xerxes can be regarded as historical ! Herodo- tus knows nothing about that siege of ( lhalcedon: he tells us indeed that. Otanes took Chah-edon. together with other towns in those ii ii 2 484 HISTORY OF ROME. out of a tradition that Veii was taken by means of a mine, by which a part of the wall was overthrown. Per- haps this was the first time such a thing was ever tried in the Roman wars: for in Latium, where the strength of the towns arose from the steep rocks they were built on, there was no opportunity for mining. The story that Camillus celebrated his triumph with a proud magnificence never witnest before or after, may perhaps also belong wholly to the poem, and may origi- nally have been framed to enhance his glory. The dis- crepancies and difficulties in the account of the offering to the Delphic temple probably had no other source than the Annals. The dictator had vowed a tenth of the spoil to the Pythian Apollo. The pontiffs declared that the republic was only answerable for such money as had been received by the questors, and for the value of the buildings and of the ground of which the people of Veii had been masters before the capture; and that every one who had taken any part of the spoil, must pay for it according to its value; if he did not do so conscientiously, the sin would lie with him, not with the city 1064 . This obliga- tion was not divulged till the gains of the bloody day had been spent by most, while the provident husbands had laid out theirs. The terrours of conscience however extorted a compensation, which was felt as no less a burthen than a tax: and every one was full of resent- ment against the general, whose undissembled illwill to- ward the people made his silence look like intentional malice; since he might have given them notice before- hand to lay by the consecrated share. parts : v. 26 : but this was at a later period, and under circumstances very different from those related by Ctesias. 1064 I have inverted the common story, in which it sounds no less strange that the dictator should have forgotten his vow, than that the senate should not have thought in the first instance of the obligation of the state. HISTORY OF HOME. 485 It was resolved to make a golden bowl equal in value to this tenth. Now, supposing that the sum which the treasury had to pay was not in hand, and that it would have been requisite to levy a property-tax for the pur- pose, it was an extremely meritorious act in the women to give up their ornaments and jewels: of course they were to be repaid when the gods should again bless the arms of the republic. They were rewarded by the senate with the privilege of going in chariots through the city 1065 , which men enjoyed only during the term of their curule offices. A trireme with three envoys on board was sent to deliver the consecrated offering; but it was taken by some Liparaean ships of war, and carried to their island. The Romans call them pirates; but there is much more likelihood in the account that the Roman galley was captured because it was supposed to be a corsair 06 . For the Liparaeans kept cruisers out against the Tyrrhenian pirates, and dedicated many offerings at Delphi out of the booty they took from them 67 : and though the Ro- mans are far removed from all imputation of having ever been guilty of piracy, still it might very naturally 1063 If the money had been in the treasury, as Livy expressly affirms, (pecunia ex aerario prompta — ut (tr. mil.) aurum ex ea coe- merent: v. 25), all that would have been necessary at the utmost would have been to wait a little, aud to pay rather dear for the gold : that gold was to be had is proved by the discoveries at Canino. The matrons would needlessly have sacrificed the price of the labour expended on their jewels : or else the reward would have been be- stowed ivpon them for nothing but going without their ornaments for a time. It must be assumed therefore that the state was obliged to remain their debtor for the amount of its share. Lending to the republic was much more meritorious during the distress caused by the Gallic invasion, than at this period of prosperity : hence Livy is certainly right in referring the greater honour of the funeral eulogies to the former (vi. 4), the inferior one mentioned in the .text to the latter : and Plutarch, Camill. c. 8, and Diodorus, xiv. 116, who state the reverse, must be mistaken. The latter on this point is following different authors from Fabius : \tyovai 8* rtvts. « s Plutarch, Camill. c. 8. « 7 Strabo, vi. p. 275. c. 486 HISTORY OF ROME. be suspected that a ship running out from their coasts was bent on ill, and used the sacred voyage as a mere plea to get off, or at least would not be withheld from depredations should an opportunity present itself. Only two years later the piracies of the Tyrrhenians gave Dio- nysius a pretext for an expedition against the Caerites 1068 , though they were as blameless on this head as the Ro- mans themselves. A Tyrrhenian corsair, Postumius, whose name betrays him to have been a Latin, was seized and put to death by Timoleon 69 . Even in the middle of the fifth century the towns on this coast, though subject to the dominion of Rome, were still committing similar outrages against the Greeks 70 . But the Liparaean chief magistrate, Timasitheus, abhorred the thought of retaliat- ing on the innocent and on a temple: he releast the tri- reme, and had it escorted to its destination. The senate testified its gratitude by presents, and by granting him the privileges of a irpo^evo^-, and when Lipara fell under the power of the Romans in the first Punic war, his de- scendants were exempted from dependence and from tax- ation 71 . The bowl was deposited at Delphi in the trea- sury of the Massilians, but was not preserved there long: it was melted down by Onomarchus: the bronze stand however remained with the inscription, a memorial of the offering 72 . This memorial indeed does not prove so conclusively that the gold vessel weighed eight talents 73 ; which must undoubtedly mean Italian talents, of a hundred pounds each : an enormous gift to a forein temple, toward which the Greek cities themselves, at least after the Peloponnesian war, never acted with anything like the same munificence. 1068 Diodorus, xv. 14. 69 Diodorus, xvi. 82. 70 Strabo, v. p. 232. b. The pirates seem to have been Antiates. 71 Diodorus, xiv. 93. 72 Diodorus, xiv. 93. Appian, Italic, fr. 8. 1. 73 Plutarch, Camill. c. 8. HISTORY OF ROME. 487 The number however is not a historical one, but is the typical sum at which the tenth of an extraordinarily rich spoil, like that of Pometia and of the battle of Regillus, was valued. From the tenth of 120 talents, or 12000 pounds of silver, or 12000000 pounds of copper, the an- nalist subtracted the third due to the Hernicans : this the Romans could not dispose of: but they might of the third which would have belonged to the Latins, as these were now dependent on Rome 1074 . It would be a mere waste of time to inquire whether the value of the pro- perty contained within the walls of Veii can have amounted to the above-mentioned . sum ; not so however to question whether the whole tenth was dedicated to the Greek god; since the same spoils defrayed the charge of building the temple of Juno on the Aventine. "** Vol. I. p. 513, note 1137. 488 THE OTHER WARS DOWN TO THAT WITH THE GAULS. During the second campaign against Veii a town called Artena was taken by the Romans. According to some of the annalists, it belonged to the Volscians; ac- cording to others, to the Veientines. Livy adopted the former notion 1075 : yet were it not that we find mention of an engagement in the same year near Ferentinum, we could not hesitate on internal grounds to prefer the lat- ter. It is natural that the whole force of the republic should have been pointed against Etruria: and so we might readily suppose that a town in that extensive coun- try had been conquered by a division of the Roman army. Throughout the remainder of the Veientine war nothing is said about any hostilities against the Volscians and Aequians ; excepting at Anxur, where the inhabitants, with the help of some of their countrymen who had got into the town, overpowered the Roman garrison in 353. The circumstances under which this was brought about, shew that Rome was at peace with the rest of the Vol- scian nation. A great part of the soldiers were absent on furlough, and Volscian merchants had been admitted without any precaution into the place" 6 . Two years after- ward it was retaken: and it seems that the peace with the rest of the nation was still subsisting undisturbed. 1074 IV. 61. T * Livy, v. 8. I11ST0KY OF HOME. 489 The Romans were most deeply concerned to maintain it; and the disheartened Ausonian tribes were enjoying their repose with faint hopes of favorable events that might avert the impending danger. Veii however, whose destruction they might perhaps have prevented, fell: and in the very next year, 360, the senate ordained an assignment of land to three thousand colonists in the territories wrested from those tribes in the last wars. According to all appearances, Vitellia, which is spoken of almost immediately after as a Roman colony in the land of the Aequians, without any mention of its establishment, and which was one of the Albian towns enumerated among the conquests of Coriolanus 1077 , formed the centre of this settlement 78 . No less mani- fest is it that this made the Aequians take up arms the next year, 361 ; just as the same effect was pro- duced a century after by the colony at Carseoli*; just as the Gauls were driven to the most desperate reso- lutions by the agrarian law of Flaminiusf. So long as a country was in the hands of a few possessors, and cultivated by their slaves, there might be hopes of recovering it: but when a large number of free citizens settled upon it, ready to defend their property, then was it first felt to be lost for ever, unless the settle- ment were destroyed without delay. Nor could it be doubted that the purpose of such a colony was to pave the way for fresh conquests. Diodorus says that the fourth war against the Aequians began at this time 79 . ,077 See p. 260. :8 Like Signia : see note 193. * Livy, x. 1. t Polybius, n. 21. 79 xiv. 98. That he is speaking of the Aequians has been per- ceived by everybody : the corrupt name Alrwkovs is to be changed into AXiiXovs, the form used by this writer, not into Aikovs or AIkucXovs. By the first war, he seems to have meant the whole period prior to 310 ; by the second, that which broke out in 324, and for which pre- parations were making the year before (Livy, iv. 25, 26) ; by the third, that which began in 334 after the expiration of the truce : Livy, iv. 42. 490 HISTORY OF ROME. They betrayed no want of energy in carrying it on, though they had been so slack to engage in it. In the first campaign the Komans lost Verrugo, a fortress, probably on Mount Algidus, which was a frequent object of con- tention, and is usually spoken of as belonging to the Volscians. The story that it was not taken by force, but was evacuated without any necessity 1080 , does not de- serve any more credit than the hacknied tale that the other Roman legion the next day made amends for its defeat by a victory, which, it is admitted, produced no results, owing to the abandonment of Verrugo in conse- quence of an unlucky mistake. On the contrary in the year after, 362, the advantage is still decidedly on the side of the Aequians. The colony which gave rise to the war is destroyed by the taking of Vitellia 81 ; nay a statement, the validity of which cannot be questioned, states among the events of this year, that Velitrae and Satricum revolted. Such being the state of affairs, Cir- ceii, which must no doubt have been reconquered before the year 349, was secured by a colony 82 , in winch the Latin towns assuredly also took a share, since we find it subsequently reckoned among them. The neighbouring states however did not keep the upper hand long. Un- der this and the next year two Aequian towns, the names of which have a very odd look 83 , and are most probably 1080 Dioclorus, XIV. 98 : 'Ek 8i Ovepptjylvos TrdAew? xmo rav iro\(- fiiav i^\t]6r](Tav. Compare Livy, v. 28 : who sees nothing disgrace- ful in the blind panic of the troops, and what he regards as their needless flight, but cannot bear to think that the Romans should ever have been overpowered by fortune or by numbers. 81 Livy, v. 29. The invasion of the Gauls seems to have pre- vented its reestablishment : even without this, however, Vitellia could not occur in the Est of the Latin colonies, since in reality it was only a conciliabulum in a settlement consisting exclusively of Romans. The fiction of Eulogius, who converted it into a Cremera of the Vitellii (Suetonius, Vitell. 1), is not deserving of the slightest con- sideration. 82 Diodorus, xiv. 102. See p. 465. 88 AtyXov and AupoUova : Diodorus, xiv. 102. 106. IIISTOKY OF HOME. 491 misspelt, are said to have been taken by the Romans: and with these events the war seems to cease, a year before the arrival of the Gauls. In the year after the fall of Veii the conquerors wreakt their vengeance on the towns which had helpt to prolong the war. The people of Capena, in whose territory no crop and no building was spared, sued for peace in 360. Since that town is never again mentioned as an inde- pendent place, it might be deemed certain that they were reduced to a state of subjection, and that after the resto- ration of Rome they were incorporated in the four new tribes; unless we were compelled to admit the possibility of their having been swept away without leaving a trace behind them during the Gallic invasion, before the pe- riod when the later Roman wars shed some degree of light on Etruria. In the next year, 361, the territory of the Faliscans, which had already been laid waste, be- came the scene of more important undertakings. They had taken up a very strong position, a mile from Falerii, to cover the neighbouring country. Camillus without a battle forced them to retreat into the town. Had this war been protracted like that before Veii, while it was so much further from Rome, it would have exasperated the indignation of the commonalty at the scheme of the patricians to appropriate the territory won from the Vei- entines to themselves. The peace, even if it yielded no other advantages, was rendered agreeable to the people by the exaction of a year's pay from the enemy; whereby the taxpayers were relieved from the tribute, and the soldiers, without serving, received their full wages 1084 . Some incident in this war must no doubt have sup- plied a groundwork for the wellknown story, that a school- master of Falerii treacherously conducted the boys of the log* Livy, v. 27. According to the regular practice, whatever territory and captives had been taken in the war would also be retained. 492 HISTORY OF ROME. noblest families into the Roman camp, and that Camillus sent them back, and ordered the scoundrel to be flogged. In the form however in which we are familiar with it, the annals beyond a question merely borrowed it from the legend of that hero, the character of which, wherever it comes into view, will always be found to be no less un- historical than it is with regard to the Veientine war. If we do but bring ourselves to allow the possibility that this may be a poetical tale, we shall immediately see how inconceivable the facts are. Nor is the subsequent narrative, that the Faliscans, overcome by such genero- sity, surrendered to the Eomans unconditionally, and gave up their arms and hostages, less fabulous 1085 . No people can ever have been guilty of such treason against itself: for that inconsiderate affection, which has sometimes thrown a nation into the hands of a tyrant, is quite an- other matter. The exaction of a year's pay for the troops was without doubt a fact related in the Annals: and there are many instances of such a condition imposed in treaties with a people which retains its independence: but I question whether it was ever demanded from one that resigned itself to a state of subjection. Of this pre- tended submission of Falerii not a trace is to be found afterward. On this point however an advocate of the story might reply, that the Faliscans would naturally come to their senses after their act of magnanimous pre- cipitation, and that the approach of the Gauls gave them an opportunity to recover their freedom. Immediately after the restoration of Eome, we find her in possession of the soverainty over Sutrium and Nepete, towns which lay between Veii and Vulsinii, and which long after formed the border-fortresses of her territory IMS Livy represents it as having surrendered according to the strictest forms : Mittite qui arma, qui obsides, qui urbem patentibus portis accipiant : so that they even ask for a garrison, which in anti- quity, as during the thirty-years war, was of all scourges the most dreaded. HISTORY OF ROME. 493 on the side of Etruria. On which of the chief cities they were previously dependent, it is impossible to make out. The conquest of Sutrium seems to have taken place in the year 361, under which Diodorus mentions an ex- pedition against it loa6 , after the conclusion of the peace with the Faliscans. The acquisition or the possession of that town may probably have been the cause of the war against Vulsinii, which was decided in the second campaign, in 364, by a great victory, when eight thou- sand Etruscans laid down their arms 87 . A peace was concluded for twenty years; and the vanquisht were charged with a year's pay for the Koman army. In this war the Salpinates were in alliance with Vulsinii: so that this people, whose territory cannot have been far off, must either have been one of the soverain Etrurian states, of which no other notice has been preserved, or a tribe of some different race that retained its indepen- dence in this neighbourhood 88 . This was on every side a calamitous time for the Etruscans. The year before, 01. 99. 1, Dionysius of Sy- racuse, under the plea of punishing their piracies, had sailed with sixty gallies to the Tyrrhenian coast, and had taken the harbour of Caere, the Pelasgian Pyrgi, after very little resistance; as the Caerites, who were perfectly innocent 89 , could not expect an attack. The tyrant's object was to plunder a temple of Matuta, which lose XIVi 98. 'ett! has dropt out before Sovrptov, but this is the only change required. The name of that town cannot have got in by accident ; and the person by whom our text of Diodorus was patcht up from some torn manuscript, was utterly ignorant of every thing connected with Rome, as is sufficiently proved by the mis- shapen names in his Fasti: he assuredly had never heard of Sutrium. 87 Livy, v. 32. According to Diodorus, xiv. 109, the battle was fought near Gurasium. 88 Salpinum therefore may put in its claim to be the nameless ttrbs vetus, Orvieto. 89 Strabo, v. p. 220. c. 494 HISTORY OF ROME. was exceedingly rich in votive offerings. He found five hundred talents of silver and gold there; and with these and a number of captives he reembarkt with impunity. The Caerites had marcht out with the utmost haste to defend the temple against him, but were defeated, and their territory ravaged 1090 . In the same year the Roman consuls, L. Valerius and M. Manlius, were compelled to abdicate by an ordinance of the senate, three months be- fore the close of their office : and the only cause assigned is the pestilence which prevailed, and by which they are said to have been attackt 91 . Such a motive would have been quite unexampled, and was assuredly fabricated with no other ground than the fact that one of the censors did actually die. There can be no doubt that they were de- posed, and that the reason was their having failed to give due succour to a town, which protected the valley of the Tiber on the side of the sea, and which must have been united to Rome by the most amicable ties, since the objects of her national worship were deposited two years after within its walls: not to mention that, through the whole of the Veientine war, Caere had at all events refrained from every act of hostility against Rome. Besides the expedition of Dionysius could not but be viewed with alarm, since the Greek cities in Italy were already dependent on him, and his settlements on the Adriatic, and on the coasts of the Umbrians and Venetians, betrayed that he entertained schemes against the whole of the Italian peninsula. Nor were those schemes to be despised at a time when he would have found no difficulty in alluring the Gauls, with whom he had made friends in the early part of his reign, to march whithersoever he pleaaed, at the mere price of the booty they might carry off. 1090 Diodorus, xv. 14: compare Wesseling's note. 91 Livy, v.31. 495 INTERNAL HISTORY DOWN TO THE WAR WITH THE GAULS. There seems to be a similar incorrectness in the statement of the reasons why the military tribunes of the year 353 abdicated two months and a half before the regular time; in consequence of which their successors came into office on the first of October, as continued to be the practice down to the change just spoken of. Af- ter the defeat before Yeii, caused by the fault of two members of the college, it was right to deprive these of their imperium. But it would have been no less absurd than unjust to depose the whole body at a moment when such a disaster was to be repaired. The alteration how- ever rendered the election of plebeian military tribunes more difficult : and this was no doubt the end the patri- cians had in view, not a merely incidental advantage. The election of military tribunes as well as that of tribunes of the people was held at the close of the year of office. The latter went out three days before the former: and nothing could be so powerful a recommendation of a candidate against the means which the patricians had of controlling the elections, as his having acted honorably in the tribuneship, from which he had just retired. Now however that the appointment of military tribunes was transferred to the first of October, an ex-tribune was no longer eligible, till he had been above nine months and a half out of office; in the course of which time the people 496 HISTORY OF ROME. must already have become estranged from him, more especially as he had not the power of addressing them during it. Against the tribunes then in office indeed there was no need of any such measures. They had never opposed the will of the faction whose sentiments had again be- come predominant in the senate: on the contrary they voluntarily offered their aid to compell the military tri- bunes to abdicate, on their refusing to do so 1092 . How completely they were under the influence of the adverse party, appeared at the elections for the next year 93 . In such a state of things it was inevitable that the public voice would call for men of the most resolute character. Such persons must have been excluded by the tribunes who presided: at the same time the candidates of the patrician faction could not succeed in getting a sufficient number of votes. Hence the election was closed, in di- rect violation of the Trebonian law, when only eight tribunes had been appointed. The oligarchy now dreamt that the counter-revolution was already close at hand, and promist themselves to fill up the two vacant places with patricians. But their illgrounded hopes were to be dis- appointed. The eight tribunes who had been elected did indeed choose themselves two collegues, but out of their own order: nay it is far more probable that the artifice was totally baffled, than that these two were selected from »92 The coming forward of the tribunes of the people against the military tribunes, as related in Livy, v. 9, — who had forgotten the story he told in IV. 26, — is assuredly a historical fact : but what took place at the election proves how far removed they were from trying to encroach on the authority of the senate. Perhaps there may also be historical ground for the threat of Servilius to proclaim a dictator. 93 If the minority in the tribunician college had already ob- tained the right of asserting their veto (see p. 448), it must have been entirely unanimous before it could conduct the elections in so treacherous a manner. DISTORT OF ROME 197 among the tools of the oligarchy 1091 . At all events the college of tribunes of the year 354 acted as if it con- sisted entirely of friends of the people. Their vigour and their success corresponded to the vehemence of that dis- gust, which even temperate men feel at faithlessness and wiles. The faction probably repented bitterly of their rashness. The two delinquents of the preceding year were condemned to a fine by the people: and an agra- rian law put an end to the frauds by which the paymenf of the tithe had till then boon eluded 95 . The houses were fain to confirm it: for the troops in the camp called menacingly for pay; and the tribunes would not allow it to be wrung from the plebeians who had staid at home, the kindred of those who were bearing arms in the field. After gaining such an advantage, the people was ready to exert itself in raising its leaders to posts of honour: and as amends for the violence done to the law during so many years, the patricians agreed that at the next elec- tion of military tribunes all, save the prefect of the city, should be plebeians 96 . Such were the fruits which the oligarchs reapt from their craft. "' !l4 It was necessary that the vacant places should be filled : hence it might naturally be inferred, however erroneously, that, the object at first having been to appoint patricians, the persons appointed must have belonged to their party; hand dubie patriciorum opibus: I,iv\. v. 10. C. Trebonius however, and the three tribunes who impeacht the defaulters of the preceding year, must at all events have been free from patrician influence; and their votes were equal to those of the other four who had been elected 95 See p. 429, note 948. 96 Livy says that all except P. Calvus were patricians: yet' on the contrary all the names which we find in v. 12, except L. Furius are plebeians, as has been remarkt long ago: See Perizoirius, S. p. 353, foil. P. Bfaenius however has only got into the text through a conjecture l.\ Sigonius, in the room of 1'. Manlius (Vulso), as the name stood in the earlier editions and in some of the manuscripts, none of which has Jfaenius, but which vary between Manliua and Miimiliits; and besides in the newly discovered fragments of the VOL. IT. I I 498 HISTORY OF ROME. There were some among the patricians who did not deserve that name. In this same year the military tri- bune, Cn. Cornelius, ordered that a third stipendium of a hundred ascs a month should be paid to those horse- men who furnisht their own horses, a custom which had begun two campaigns before, to put them on the same footing with those who were supplied with a horse by the state. There is no need of any argument to shew that the persons whose reasonable demands were thus satisfied, must have been mainly, if not wholly, plebeians. Cn. Cornelius, and his half brother, P. Licinius Calvus, an ancestor of the poet, seem to have been the media- tors of the peace: Calvus in the college of 355 was the leading person among the four tribunes of his order 1097 . The government of these tribunes was irreprehensible, nay glorious: that of their successors, among whom there is but a single patrician, the pretor 98 , was no less so. But a terribly hard winter, followed by a pestilential summer, afforded the priests a handle for declaring that the gods were visibly displaying their anger at the pro- fanation of their auspices by unworthy persons. To the influence of these speeches, and to the earnest exertions Capitoline Fasti, and in Diodorns, xiv. 47. That the person who held the election was directed to take votes for plebeians by a for- mal compact, may be seen from the example of 358 : donee convenis- set ut major pars tribunorum militum ex plebe crearetur: Livy, v. 17. The electors did not need any such stipulation. 1007 As the authority of Duker in his notes on Livy deservedly stands very high, I cannot omit to remark, that his notion, that Cal- vus was also termed primus e plebe in the Capitoline Fasti, can only have been occasioned by an interpolated edition of them. 98 P. Veturius : according to Livy, v. 13, and Diodorns, xiv. 54. On the contrary the newly discovered Capitoline Fasti have two patricians, Minucius Augurinus and Servilius Priscus, instead of L. Atilius and Cn. Genucius : that is, the places are equally divided. This looks like an instance in which the curies refused to confirm the election, whereupon the persons named in the Fasti were chosen to make up the number. HISTORY OV ROME: III!) of the whole order, Livy attributes the result of the elections for .'$07; at which, arid at those ibr 358, the plebeians, as they had been previously, were entirely ex- cluded, lint for 359, when again all the places except one are lilled by them, this majority had been guaranteed to them before the day of election 10 ^'; and thus it seems as if there had been a compact during those four years, stipulating that for two years in succession the warden- ship of the city alone, and then for the next two the whole college should be filled by patricians. As soon as Veii had been subdued, the rulers no lono-er thought themselves bound by this compact: and henceforth down to the Gallic war we hear nothing of plebeian military tribunes: nay for two years the centuries are compelled to appoint consuls. After that conquest disputes arose with regard to the possession of the domain, and their vehemence was pro- portionate to the richness of the prize. The tribunes of the people however did not merely demand an assign- ment of land for their order, but also that the dwelling- houses in the conquered town, the buildings of which were much handsomer than those at Rome, should be distributed by lot, not however among plebeians alone. Livy says, they designed that Veii should be inhabited both by the senate and the plebs. But the distinction drawn in early ages was not, as in his time, between the commonalty and the senate, but between the common- alty and the houses: and the object of the proposition must have been that the assignment of property in lands and houses should in this instance embrace the whole nation. If Veii had continued to subsist as a city inhabited by Romans, even supposing it had been governed by a 11 ■'■■' Livy, v. 17, quoted in note 1098. Here again we find P. Maenius where he has no business ; this time instead of Q. Manlius: see note 8(3(5. I I -2 500 TTTSTOTCY OF ROME. prefect, without a senate and elective magistrates of its own, still the unity of the republic would have been en- dangered : and it would have been enth'ely dissolved if, in case of a new secession, the plebeian magistrates had fixt their seat there. Thus far, therefore the resistance of the senate, and the interposition of two of the tribunes, who protracted the discussion during 360 and 361, was not only justifiable but praiseworthy: only the assignment of lands, which at length piit an end to the quarrel, ought to have been granted from the first. It was not however till the year 362, — after failing to get the two tribunes who op- posed the measure reelected, and when these had been condemned to a fine of ten thousand pounds of ancient money 1100 , for having betrayed the interests of the com- monalty, — that the patricians submitted to the necessity of setting bounds to their cupidity. There was nothing now to prevent the passing of the disastrous proposition : and though the curies might have rejected it, which by the letter of the constitution was sufficient to nullify it, their right was at least quite as incapable of being en- forced, as the royal veto would be against a bill carried by a great majority of the other two branches of the le- gislature in a determined struggle with the crown. The salutary consequences of the union of the two orders in the national tribes now became manifest. The senators addrest themselves with remonstrances and entreaties to their plebeian tribesmen : their assurance that a reason- able assignment of land should be granted found credit; and the bill was rejected by eleven tribes out of twenty- one. The next day a vote of the senate, with the show of a free act of grace, ordained an assignment of ple- beian hides of seven jugers not only to every father of a noo Before the time of the clecemvirate Livy in speaking of fines uses aes by itself; for instance in II. 52 : now he says, so many raiUia aeris gravis: see v. 12. 29. 32. Hence, it seems, we may infer that since the Twelve Tables mulcts were fixt in ancient money, without regard to the diminution in its weight. HISTORY OF SOME. 501 family, but to every free person in it 1 "": which however is hardly to be understood of all the members, without distinction of sex, though this must have been the sense put upon the words by the writers who said that every citizen received eight and twenty jugers 2 . There had been another assignment prior to this. The patricians had hoped to satisfy the plebs with lands taken from the Aequians, while they appropriated the territory of Veii to themselves. 10750 jugers were dis- tributed among 3000 veterans in the year 360 3 : but the end was as far from being attained, as the settlement of the colonists was from prospering. Circeii seems to have been wholly given up to the allies. During the discussions about the territory of Veii, Camillus had incurred universal odium. His vow of con- secrating the tithe of the 6poil, which he had been so tardy in declaring, was regarded as a spiteful invention. Hence his impeachment by the tribune L. Apuleius in 364 brought him before judges very unfavorably disposed toward him. It charged him with having secreted some precious articles from the spoils of Veii 4 . Nor is this pronounced to be a calumny either by Livy or by Plu- tarch; although they speak of his prayer in such a man- ner, that its fulfilment is to lead the reader to imagine 1101 Ut omnium in domo liberorum capitum ratio haberetur: Livy, v. 30. - Diodorus, xiv. 102. The usual calculation was four persons to a family : see note 147. 3 % jugers: Livy, v. 24: so that each plebeian century con- tained fourteen lots, instead of seven as at a regular assignment : see pp. 162, 163. 3000 was a legion of veterans: see note 958. * Livy merely says, propter praedam Veientanam: v. 32: Plu- tarch, fyKXrffxa KXcwrr/r Camill. c. 12: Zonaras, Kar^yopridi) in rcov TvpprjviKtov a>(f>f\rjo-as xprjuiirw, nvros 8 ik tov- t(ov a(p€T(pio-dpfvos- vii. 22. In Victor, de vir. ill. 23, the charge is less disgraceful : quod equia cdbi.* trtumphosset, et praedam inique divisisset: while some writers referred to by Diodorus. xiv. 117. said his ouly fault was his arrogance. 502 HISTORY OF ROME; what they do not venture to assert. He cannot possibly have been deemed innocent by the writers who related that brazen doors taken from Veii were found in his house 1105 : and it is as well attested as anything handed down from this period, that the clients who were enrolled in the tribes, on being solicited to get him off, declared, that they could not acquit him, but would join to pay the fine to which he might be sentenced 6 . This is the can- did answer of honest men, unable to deny the manifest guilt of a person to whom they are bound by strong ties, though tbey do not conceive that it absolves them from their obligations to him. His own clients were the last persons who could acquit him ; because by so doing they would have exonerated themselves from a burthen. Every- body else might have done so; for in the sentence of the people judgement and mercy were undistinguishably mixt up together : and the nation for its own sake ought to have pardoned so great a man 7 . 1105 Plutarch, Cainill. c. 12. Not to decorate his house with them ; but brass in whatever foi'm was just as good as money. 6 Se collaturos quanti damnatus esset, absolvere eum non posse : Livy, v. 32. In Plutarch the important feature is left out: irpbs tt\v Kp'iaiv avTov /xrjSeV c'Ua-dai (3orj$j)aeiv' c. 12. In the extracts from Dionysius the consultation with his kinsmen and clients before the day of trial is entirely omitted ; they pay the money after he has been condemned ; but the disgrace drives him from Rome, p. 19, 20. 7 The penalty according to Livy was 15000 ases. Plutarch, Camill. c. 13, probably merely took his statement from Livy; just as Zonaras, vu. 22, in his turn transcribed from Plutarch. The lat- ter in this passage was not copying'froin Dionysius, who, as we see by the Excerpta, had met somewhere or other with the sum of 100000 ases, and caught it up; and who tells us besides that this was many times as much as Camillus was worth. Ajspian, Italic. 8. 2. p. 39, carries it up even to 500000: that is to say, he con- founds the mulct with which Camillus was threatened during the discussions on the Licinian law, with the fine to which he was con- demned. The difference between the two first-mentioned sums may perhaps be accounted for by supposing, that the first was the value at which the property he embezzled was estimated, the se- cond the fine imposed on him in consequence. HISTOBY OF ROME. o03 Was it from malicious jealousy that his fellow patri- cians, thinking themselves as such fully equal to the man whom all the world besides called the first among them, refrained from attempting to effect a reasonable compromise for him, though they had formerly strained every nerve to screen the murderer Caeso from punish- ment? Or was the transgression of Camillus absolutely undeniable? and did the baseness of the act withhold those who would not have scrupled to come forward in behalf of a deed of open violence? Was he declared guilty at a previous trial before a senatorian arbitrator, and had the tribes only to determine the sum he was to repay? Was not the sentence of the plebeian tribes con- firmed by the patricians themselves? The ordinance of the curies which restored his civil rights, seems to in- fer that there had been a previous one to deprive him of them: whether we suppose that it was to confirm the sentence of outlawry pronounced by the centuries, after he had withdrawn himself from the law by emigrating, or rather that state-trials at this period came before both the plebeian tribes and the curies, in the same manner in which they both united to enact laws and to hold elections. I shall remark at the proper season, that the trial of Manlius becomes intelligible if we suppose this to have been the procedure : and it is difficult to believe that a person who went into exile on being merely con- demned to a fine or a repayment, would have been out- lawed, since the sum was secured either by his property or his sureties. Or did the sentence, however it may have been delivered, entail the consequences of a judicium turpe nos , because the act was in reality a disgraceful one? and did this destroy all the civil rights of the offender in such a manner that nothing but the supreme power of the populus could restore them? The solution of the question assuredly lies within the range of these cases: but to pronounce upon it with confidence ia impossible. "« See p. 399. 504 HISTORY OF ROME. There can be no doubt that M. Manlius at this time was already the sworn enemy of Camillus: and he was probably at the head of his adversaries in the senate. It cannot have been by a mere stroke of chance, that just before, when the consuls, of whom Manlius was one, were compelled to resign their office, Camillus was chosen in- ter rex. Greatly as the actions of Camillus have been magni- fied by fiction, the belief of posterity that he was the first man of his age, and one whom Rome herself saw few to equal, cannot possibly have been grounded on a delusion. In such a man the nation ought to have shewn indulgence even to deplorable faults: although it is scarcely possible that any mortal could have averted the defeat on the Alia. As it was, Rome even forgave him his ruthless prayer, by which, as he went forth from her walls, he consummated his guilt, that the republic might soon have bitter cause to regret him. This was not the prayer of Demosthenes when he was driven into exile, though innocent, and only punisht for his fidelity. Even spirits of less purity among the Greeks, though they wanted many of the virtues of the best age of Rome, never went thus astray. 505 PHYSICAL HISTORY FROM 305 to 365. The ferment of the elements, which prevailed toward the close of the third century of the city, continued through the first half of the next century, and aggra- vated the miseries of the Peloponnesian war, which dur- ing that period 11 " 9 was ruining Greece. At that time, says Thucydides, we experienced, what former ages knew only from tradition, earthquakes, spreading widely and of tremendous violence, terrible drouths, and famine in con- sequence, and the plague. Etna too during the same period threw out a stream of lava. On these spasms of the earth Greek history gives us far more information: yet the Roman annals also speak of visitations which unquestionably belong to the same series. In the year 319 there were earthquakes, that re- curred frequently, and threw down a number of buildings in the Roman territory 10 . These must evidently have been connected with the eruption of Etna, and with the terrible shocks which ravaged the coast of Greece in 01. 88. 3; even though we find from a comparison of dates that this year at the earliest only corresponds with 1109 01. 87. 1, ialls, as near as can be determined, in the year of Rome 315. 10 Crebris motibus terrae mere in agris mmtiabantur tecta : Livy, iv. 21 : an expression which is evidently accurate : for the city itself is seldom affected by earthquakes, though an inscription in the Colosseum proves that this building was very much damaged by one in the fifth century. 506 HISTORY OP ROME. the year of Rome 320 uu . In the year 327 the wells and streams were dried up : the cattle and the fruits of the earth pined away for want of water 12 ; an equally terrible drouth prevailed six and thirty years after, and spread similar misery around 13 . Both times a destruc- tive epidemic disease ensued. In southern climates every famine without exception may be said to arise from drouth 14 : we may therefore conclude that there must have been a dry season in 322, when the country was visited with pestilence and dearth 15 ; and the same in 343, since an unhealthy summer was succeeded by a scarcity the next spring 16 . Between this year and 363 came the terrible winter of 355, the severity of which was perhaps unequaled except by that of 476. The Tiber was choked up with ice; the snow lay seven feet deep 17 ; the roofs of many buildings fell in under its weight; or the walls gave way at the thaw; fruit-trees and vines were frozen down to the root: an incalculable quantity of cattle perisht from want of food, which in winter they seek in the pastures on the coast 18 . Such a calamity, which a large state, when only some of its pro- vinces suffer, will soon recover from as a whole, must have struck Rome, where no one altogether escaped, just in the same manner as the ravages of an enemy. This deviation of nature from the character of the climate, like that other terrible winter the memory of 1111 According to the date of the taking of the city it would coin- cide with 321 : but our mode of determining that date* may not be precisely applicable half a century before. 12 Livy, iv. 30. Dionysius, Esc. M. 3. p. 4. 13 Dionysius, Exc. 18. p. 18. 14 This is directly mentioned by Thucydides among the calami- ties of the age as the cause of the famine : I. 23. 15 Livy, iv. 25. 16 Livy, iv. 52. 15 Dionysius even says, where it was least deep. 18 Livy, v. 13. Dionysius, Ex. 6. p. 7. HISTORY OB ROME. 507 which was preserved in the Human Annals, was undoubt- edly a cunsequence of internal cunvulsions, such as ma- nifest themselves in earthquakes and vulcanic eruptions. Fur the rise ef the Alban lake, which uccurred imme- diately alter, must manifestly have been uccasiuned by the stoppage uf some subterraneuus uutlets, as was the case with the Bueetian and Arcadian lakes. In the lat- ter instance the chasms, near Pheneus, thrcugh which the waters uf that muuntain-basin had hithertu run, were bluckt up by earthquakes 1 ' 19 . The plan uf breaking a tunnel through the wall uf lava, instead ef directing the cuurse ef the stream, which was running ever en the lewest side uf the lake 20 , intu a regular channel, was- adupted fur twu reasuns. It was a preventive against the vielent floods that would have taken place whenever the waters received any extraordi- nary increase : and the space between the level at which the lake overfluwed, and that uf the tunnel,- at which the banks are six miles round, was an object of great value; even supposing that the ground in those days as now was mainly employed to grow wood. ' The object was not to gain new land, but tu reccver what the pro- prietors and pussessurs had been deprived ef: indeed that which was regained may perhaps nut even have embraced the whole of what had been lost in the interior of the crater by the rise in the surface of the lake 21 . In ex- tent this tunnel is much inferior to the works for carry- ing off the water of the lake of Copae : but the nature of the stone . made the execution a task of enormous diffi- culty. It is lava, hard as iron, through which a passage 1119 Strabo, vni. p.389,b. 20 All the modern writers who describe the tunnel, in treating of the phenomenon which rendered it necessary, draw their views of it exclusively from Livy, and therefore assume that matters had not yet come to this. ' ;1 A circumstance, which leads us to conclude that the surface of the lake had previously been lower, is mentioned m Vol. i. p. 200. 508 HISTORY OF ROME. was broken, high enough for a man to walk in it, three feet and a half broad, and six thousand feet long 1122 . On the line of its course some fifty shafts were let down as far as the bottom of the projected tunnel; whereby its level and direction between the two extremes was accurately determined and preserved, and the execution, at least of the part toward the Campagna, was very much expedited: for as soon as .the pits were carried down to the bottom, workmen might begin hewing away the stone in each of them on both sides, till they met. Without knowing their depth on the side toward the lake, one cannot say how far the same advantage was gained there: at all events they afforded the means of raising up the broken stones with little trouble, and af- ter the work was completed, of keeping the channel clean, and of irrigating the fields on the hillside by means of water-wheels. From an inspection of the spot it has been ascertained that, at the time when there was only a thin wall between the tunnel and the lake, a hole was bored through it, and the water was let off down to the level of the mouth of this bore: after which the side toward the lake was walled with flagstones, and a mag- nificent portico was built in front of it. The water serves to feed the dry fields of the Campagna ; and the surplus is carried by brooks into the Tiber. This terrible winter was followed by an exceedingly unhealthy summer; and the Sibylline books were applied to for counsel against these manifold calamities. By their command the first lectisternium ever held was celebrated in 356, in honour of six Greek deities, and for seven days the whole town offered up joint sacrifices, while every citizen according to his means gave hospitable entertain- ment at sacrificial banquets. It was a time of anxiety, which turned men's minds to kindness and goodwill. The 1122 Westphals Roemische Campagna, p. 25, compared with Nibby, Campagna, II. p. 81. 1ITSTOWY OF ROME. 509 unknown stranger was invited as a guest into the house: no door was closed: the debtor was releast from his bonds: slaves, who at other times wore chains, walkt about in freedom : and as in periods of a general enthu- siastic excitement no room is left for ordinary tempta- tions, so, the Annals related, during all these days of pious confidence no theft or act of disorder was com- mitted. Their beneficent effect was felt by the miser- able even after they were over: it was deemed a sin to lay chains again upon those whom the gods had freed from them 1123 . As to the nature of the epidemic disease which pre- vailed at that time, nothing is said: those in the years 327 and 363, we learn from a statement which to all appearance is worthy of full credit, were cutaneous. Of the last we have a more detailed account: it began with an eruption of small pimples, accompanied with an in- tolerable itching: after a time they turned to festering ulcers, which ate through to the very bone 24 . Of a like kind must the disease of 327 have been, which is less minutely described, and which, though without doubt very inappropriately, is termed the itch. 25 . A cutaneous eruption was also a feature of the pestilence which in 01. 96. 1, U. C. 351, carried off the chief part of the army of Himilco before Syracuse. The statement given of its progress sounds like a description of the measles 26 , as ivi3 Livy, v. 13. Dionysius, who cites Pi so Frugi, Exe. 7. p. 7, 8. ■-'' Dionysius, Exe. 18. p. 19. Ei? vo&ovs Btivas KartTreaov, cip\o- pevas pev dno piKpCov i^ai'6i)paTu>v, a irepi tovs J£a)fl(v ^pJirris iivia- tcito, KaTacrKTiTTTovcras he eij eX/o; peyaXa 8v- vias tois Kt'ifii'ovirtv on pfj Kvtfcrpot kiu ancipaypu'i (rvve^fls, Xuiftoopevoi rots xp(otri pixt n yvp-vaxreas acrrtuiv. '-'•'• Dionysius, Exe. 3. p. •"> : 17 KaXovpivrj y\riopv>br)s, Stivas odvvas irap(\ovua — Kara TOVS t>oa£r]o"fis tri paWov aypuuvopivrj. According to Livy, iv. 30, the mange had previously been prevalent among the cattle. '•'«'• The symptoms in their order were, rheum, swellings in the 510 HISTORY OF ROME. what is said of the diseases at Koine reminds us of the small- pox: with regard to Loth it is an equally perplex- ing question how they could become extinct again. Per- haps it may have been a disease of the same sort, or a yellow fever, and not strictly a plague, that some eight years before the one in Himilco's camp, in 01. 94. 1, U. C. 343, after sweeping away half the Carthaginian army in Sicily, fell on the Punic part of Africa and depopulated it 1127 . The pestilence in the years 320, 322, and 323, it is extremely probable, were connected with the one in At- tica, the first breaking out of which, in 01. 87. 3, took place, as nearly as we can make out by our comparative chronology, in U. C. 317, the second in 01. 88. 3, or U. C. 321. Rome also probably experienced a similar sickness in this year; and the mention of its continuance, which accounts for the absence of any military expedition under this as under the preceding and following year, was merely overlookt by Livy. The year 320 seems to have been peculiarly destructive, since a day of general prayer was appointed, at which the people repeated a form of words recited by the duumvirs; and so does 322, in which a temple was vowed to Apollo 28 . If this was a dry year, throat, fever with aches in the back, and torpour in the legs, diarrhea, and an eruption over the whole body : delirium was frequent : death ensued mostly on the sixth, but sometimes so early as the fifth day : whoever went near a patient was infected. Diodorus, xiv. 71. The eruption he calls (pXvuTaiva, a word the meaning of which is as exten- sive as that of our eruption, and is not merely confined to pustules or watery blisters : see Foesius upon it. 1127 Diodorus, xill. 114. xiv. 41. 45, (where he says r6v\oifi6v tovs TrXeiaTovs rav Kara Aiftvrjv biecpdapKtvai), 47 : 6 \oifxos TrainiKrj- 6e~is Tai> Kapxrjftovlcov dneKTi'iKei. In the chasm between chapt. 113 and 114, which the framer of the copy whence all the manuscripts now preserved are taken has disguised by cutting away the mangled shreds, stood the account of the pestilence that broke out in the Punic camp. 28 As the sender and the averter of pestilence according to the HISTORY OF BOME. 511 the drouth may have fanned the disease; just as the earth- quakes, it' we suppose that since the year 297 the poison hud lost its force in the centre of Italy, may have re- kindled the glimmering embers, or may have produced a susceptibility to contagion from forein parts. These diseases however were not so deadly as the previous pes- tilences. The distress brought on by them did not prevent the power of Koine from making rapid strides. Towns which held out for thirty years against the republic after it reacht its maturity, bowed before its arms even in these early days: though it is true they were afterward forced to fight to avoid subjugation, whereas they had now only to buy off the enemy's ravages with money, in which the Ktruscan towns were much richer than in citizens. The frontier formed at this time toward the north was not extended for the next seventy years. Indeed afterages lookt upon it as insurmountable; and it was totally for- gotten that the legions had once waged war on the other side of the Ciminian forest. So low did Eome fall through the invasion of the Gauls; though she had previously been indebted for her preponderance to their immigration, from which Italy had hitherto been sheltered by its seemingly impassable mountain-barrier. religion of the Greeks : consequently the Sibylline books were con- sulted ; and the same must have been the case in 320 : for the duum- virs mentioned in the text were assuredly the keepers of those books. 512 ON THE GAULS, AND THEIR IMMIGRATION INTO ITALY. The persons who carried intelligence to Athens of the destruction of Rome by the Gauls, related, as Hera- clides soon after wrote, that Rome had been taken by a great host of Hyperboreans, that is so say, a people who came over the icy mountains from the unknown regions of the north 1129 . Herodotus, writing about the year 330, only knew of the Celts as dwelling in the extreme west of Europe, at so vast a distance that he conceives them to have been seated beyond the pillars of Hercules 30 . He does not place the Celts, but the Umbrians, at the foot of the mountains in which the Drave and the Inn take their rise 31 ; nor does he name them among the nations out of which the army led by Hamilcar against Gelo and Thero was raised, — Phoenicians, Libyans, Ibe- rians, Ligurians, Volscians, Sardinians, Corsicans 32 . In after times on the other hand the Gauls always made up a large part of the Carthaginian armies, having already served in those of Dionysius the Elder: so that in the time of Gelo they were still at a distance from those parts where the Carthaginian recruiters might have en- ^a^ed them and taken them on board ship. Wherever we have the means of comparing Appian with Dionysius, he has built upon him, so far as Dionysius 1129 Plutarch, Camill. c. 22. M n. 33 IV. 49. 31 The Carpis and Alpis : iv. 49. 32 vn. 165. rilSTOKT OP ROME. 513 goes: and as he is not a writer likely to have taken the trouble of seeking for information in more hooks than one at the same time, we may look upon his expr< statement, that the Gallic invasion took place in the ninetyseventh Olympiad 1183 , as borrowed from Dionysius. That Dionysius was one of the writers who adopted the tradition that an injured citizen of Clusium went across the Alps to seek the Gauls, and lured them into Italy with the pleasures of the South, till then unknown amongst them, is proved by the recently published Excerpta 34 . Hence it was from him that Plutarch took the storv; and so without doubt did he the statement which he sub- joins, that they immediately made themselves masters of the whole country inhabited by the Tyrrhenians between the Alps and the two seas 35 . This agrees with what Dionysius says in that part of his history which remains entire, namely, that about the 64th Olympiad, that is, nineteen Olympiads after the founding of Massilia, the Tyrrhenians were dwelling on the coasts of the Upper Sea, and were not driven from thence till long after by the Celts 36 . Diodorus places the migration across tin- Alps immediately before the taking of Rome 37 . In so Celt. -. p. 77. 'OXvfinu'ibcov mis "KWij-tw firra koi evvtvr]Knvrn yeytvqpivoiv — avlaraTat pa'ipa K(\tu>i ikhmj — ot to tj "AA7rpas orrt]v to ivakaiov ot Tvpprjvr>\ KaT(i\ov and tCov "AXrrf av eV apeportpas kci8t}kov is used to signify a considerable time in m. 19 XIV, 113. Ka& ov Kaipbv iiahiara Prjyiov enoXiopKei &tovi(Tios, oi KarotKOtWcs to ire'pav ra>v AXntav KsXtoL, to areva fiitXfidvTt? peydXais Swaptai, KOTeXri/Soi'Tn rfjv ptrn^v xdtpnv m\ T( ' Airtvvivov teat tuiv Wnfuiv op&v. VOL. II. K E 514 HISTORY OP ROME. doing he probably followed Fabius: but the tradition that Clusium was the goal the Gauls were seeking is the only reason why the two events are brought into this close proximity. That some time elapst between them, is implied by Polybius; but it was only some time 1 ' 38 : and it is perfectly clear, that Trogus Pompeius had the very same notion about the order of these occurrences and their duration. His voice is of the greater weight on this point, because he was sprung either from one of the Gallic tribes, or at least from a people in their neigh- bourhood 39 . According to his account 40 , they set out to the number of three hundred thousand : of these a por- tion staid in Italy, and took Rome; another part turned their steps toward the Illyrian coast of the Adriatic, forced their way through the nations that opposed them, — the Venetians, whose towns held out against them, like those of the Celtiberians and Belgians against the Cimbrians, — and took possession of Pannonia. This ac- counts for the expression of Scylax, who, writing about the 105 th Olympiad, some twenty four years after the taking of Rome, says: the Celts on the Adriatic, to the west of the Venetians, were left behind in the expedi- tion 41 : that is to say, that expedition in which such as had advanced further had founded a settlement in a si- tuation so threatening as to have already excited the H38 They made themselves masters of the plains of Lombardy by a sudden inroad, — 7rapa86£a>s ineXdovres etjeftaXov Tvpprjvovs koi kcl- Tf. Strabo, iv. p.194. d. 524 HISTORY OF ROME. Gaels Celts 1160 . The former was the name used by the Greeks to designate the tribes that penetrated into the east of Europe: beyond doubt the Belgians formed at least a preponderating part of them : the expeditions against Rome and Delphi are attributed to the Cim- brians 61 ; and the supposed name of the leader in each is the Cymric word for a king 62 . Nevertheless some of the Gaels may have joined them from the very first, or at least some of the Gaesates, who came afterward in great numbers. To the north of the Danube they settled beyond the Carpathian and Dacian Alps 63 . On the Borysthenes they subdued the Scythians, and were mixt up with them into one people, which received the name of Cel to- Scythians: and they advanced as far as the Maeotis, from whence, being overpowered by a movement of nations from the East, they returned westward, augmented by the acces- sion of many forein hordes, but under the general name of the ruling people, the Cimbrians, by the same road which their ancestors had traveled three hundred years before 64 . I have shewn cause for supposing that the u6o The distinction drawn in Diodorus, v. 32, is undoubtedly between the Celts near the Mediterranean, and the Galatians, who dwelt further off. It must be owing merely to a mistake, either of the author himself, or of a transcriber, that we find to. npos votov vevovra pep>], instead of npos lipKTov. 61 Diodorus, v. 32. 62 Brenin : see Adelung's Mithridates, Vol.il. p. 49. 83 'YirepfiaKovTcs ra 'ihnaia oprj. Plutarch, Camill. C. 15. I have shewn that the name Rhipaean in early times had no indefiniteness about it, any more than that of Scythian : see the Inquiry concern- ing the Scythians, Getes, and Sarmatians, Kleine Schriften, p. 359, English Translation, p. 42. 61 See the same Inquiry, Kl. Schr. p. 384, Transl. p. 71 : where I ought also to have referred to Diodorus, xv.32, and to have quoted the following passage from Plutarch's Marius, c. 11 : noWas Kara pepos eTriKXrjcreti i^6vTU>v, koivjj KeXroanvda? rbv arparov coj/o- pafrv. HISTORY OF KOMI 525 < ialatians on the middle Danube had come across Lom- bardy: this however must not prevent our acknowledging that some of the Gallic tribes went over the Rhine, for instance the nations that Julius Caesar encountered in those parts 11 '", and all such as were to be found in the neigh- bourhood of the ITercynian forest, to which Livy makes Sierovesus conduct his followers 66 . And here I cannot refrain from inquiring who were the people these met with to the cast of the Jura and the Vosges; though well aware that on this point mere probabilities are the very utmost we can arrive at. There is thus much however at all events in favour of the conjecture that the Etrus- can race, which maintained its ground among the Alps, with Gauls all round it*, must at one time have spread along the northern skirts of those mountains and into the plains of Germany: and the walls on Mont Sainte- Odilic in Alsace, so far as descriptions and drawings can enable one to form a conception of them, seem strikingly similar in their structure, and their manner of following the outlines of the summit, to those of the Etruscans, for instance those of Voltcrra, while they are just as un- like a Gallic work as a Roman one. However there must also have been German tribes dwelling even among the Swiss Alps; else the Valais could not have been in- habited in Livy's time by a semi-germanic people" 7 . When the Celts were advancing in these parts, the Hel- vetians, a tribe of immigrants, had made themselves mas- ters of Swisserland, ami probably, along with other branches of the same race, of the whole of Swabia. That the country lying between Pannonia and the terri- tories of the Venetians and Istrians was partly in the hands of the Liburnians, partly of the Illyrians, may be »«> De Bell. Gall, vi.24. v.34. Sigovcso sort Uui* l. i. p.113,114. " : XXI. 38. Itinera quae ad Peninum ferunt. olisepta gentilnis semigerma&is. 526 HISTORY OF ROME. regarded as certain: since the Vindelicans, a Liburnian race, kept their footing on the north side of the Bren- ner 1168 . The manners and civil institutions of the two Celtic nations must have resembled each other, at least at the time when the Greeks and Eomans described them : only a greater degree of rudeness is attributed to the Belgians, who were more remote from all intercourse with Italy and the Mediterranean. Their internal condition indi- cates that some conquered tribes were held in servitude under them, as among the Sarmatians in later times. Caesar found, took advantage of, and 4gagj£f5ed a state of disorganization, which is the last £0g£ of misery un- der a barbarian aristocracy: the knigfes formed the whole nation; the people lived in the most degrading bond- age. Four centuries earlier however there must have been an incomparably greater number of common free- men, from among whom the empoverisht or opprest en- listed perpetually among the serfs of the powerful nobles. Even among the Gauls in Italy there seems to have been a numerous national assembly. At that time too the form of government was everywhere a hereditary monarchy: which, when Caesar went into Gaul, had been swallowed up, as had the authority of the senate, in the anarchy of the nobles. Their freedom was lawlessness: an inherent incapacity of living under the dominion of laws distin- guishes them as barbarians from the Greeks and Italians. As individuals had to procure the protection of some mag- nate in order to live in safety, so the weaker tribes took shelter under the patronage of a more powerful one. For they were a disjointed multitude; and when any people had in this manner acquired an extensive soverainty, they exercised it arbitrarily, until its abuses became intolera- ble, or their subjects were urged by blind hatred of their power to fall off from them, and gather round some new 1188 See Vol.1, note 503. HISTORY OF ROMK. 527 centre. The sole bond of union was the druidical hie- rarchy, which, at least in Caesar's time, was common to both nations. Both of them paid obedience to its tri- bunal, which administered justice once a year: an insti- tution which probably was not introduced till long after the age of migrations, when the expulsion of the van- quisht had ceast to be regarded as the end of war, and which must have been fostered by the constant growth of lawlessness in the particular states; being upheld by the ban which excluded the contumacious from all inter- course in divine worship and in daily life with the faith- ful. The druids were not a caste: we have no ground for imagining that youths of low birth were shut out from their schools, where a number of years were spent in learning the verses, which contained their maxims, and their doctrines concerning nature, the world, and the stars, and the essence of the gods and of the soul. These were only to he handed down orally, and never to be committed to writing; although the use of Greek characters, and, as is proved by coins, that of Latin also, was spread among them before the time of Caesar. The strength of their armies consisted in cavalry. Among their peculiarities were war chariots, driven by a vassal, who in battle protected his lord: in the Italian wars these chariots are expressly mentioned on occasion of the expedition to Scntinum*: but Britain is the only country where Caesar found them still in use! The huge bodies, wild features, and long shaggy hair 1109 of the men gave a ghastliness to their aspect. This, along with * Livy, X.28. nco The ancients always call the hair of the Celts yellow or red : (I'irea caesaries : Virgil, Aen. vm. 659. Tats Kofiais t< (frvatus i-av- 6oi Diodorus, v.28. Candidi paene omnes et rut Hi : Animianus xv. 12. Tacitus on the other hand, who urges the comas rulilas of the Caledonians in proof of their German origin, as lie does the curly hair of the Silurians iu favour of their being Iberians, seems by so doing to deny that the hair of the Celts was of that colour ; which 528 HISTORY OF ROME. their fierce courage, their countless numbers, and the noise made by an enormous multitude of horns and trum- pets, struck the armies arrayed against them with fear and amazement: if these however did not allow their terrour to overpower them, the want of order, discipline, and perseverance, would often enable an inferior number to vanquish a vast host of the barbarians. Besides they were but ill equipt. Few of them wore any armour; their narrow shields, which were of the same highth with their bodies, were weak and clumsy: they rusht upon their enemies with broad, thin battleswords 1170 , of bad agrees with the story told by Suetonius (Calig. c.47), that Caligula had the hair of some Gauls dyed, in order to pass them off for Ger- mans. On this subject I have been honoured with a letter full of information by an anonymous British scholar : but it was unfortu- nately destroyed along with other papers when my house caught fire. May this note convey him my thanks for his kindness in sending me his observations ! They were summed up in the conclusion, that, as all the Celts now have black hair, there ruust be some confusion be- tween them and the Germans in all such passages as those quoted in the first edition of this history, attributing yellow hair to them. I should concur entirely in this view, the principle of which coincides altogether with my own conviction concerning the permanency of our physical constitution, but that Ammianus is such an excellent wit- ness on the subject, and had lived several years in Gaul. Until some one has solved the difficulty, how he could possibly be mistaken on this matter, let me alledge the. circumstance, that among the Ger- mans and Scandinavians yellow hair of yore prevailed exclusively, but now in most parts has even become uncommon, as a reason for assuming that in the case of hair the rule of permanency is liable to an exception. This subject is connected with a remark relating to one of the many Bavfida-ia in which perfectly correct observations lie concealed. The children of the northern Celts, said to be born with grey hair (ttoXio £k yeveTrjs), which afterward changes into the usiial colour (Diodorus, v. 25), are the white-headed children of the north-German race, whose hair when they grow up becomes yellow. 1170 The claymores of the Highlanders, which at Killicranky and Prestonpans decided the day against artillery and regular troops, are of the same kind, but much stouter. HISTORY OF ROME. 529 steel, which the first blow upon iron often notcht and rendered useless. Like true savages, they destroyed the inhabitants, the towns, and the agriculture of the coun- tries they conquered. They cut off the heads of the slain, and tied them by the hair to the manes of their horses. If a skull belonged to a person of rank, they nailed it up in their houses, and preserved it as an heirloom for their posterity, as the nobles in rude ages do stags-horns. Towns were rare amongst them: the houses in the vil- lages, which were very numerous, were mean; the furni- ture wretched : a heap of straw covered with skins served both for a bed and a seat. They did not cultivate corn save for a very limited consumption; for the main part of their food was the milk and the flesh of their cattle: these formed their wealth. Gold too they had in abun- dance, derived partly from the sandy beds of their rivers, partly from some mines which these had led them to dis- cover. It was worn in ornaments by every Gaul of rank. In battle he bore gold chains on his arms, and heavy gold collars round his neck, even when the upper part of his body was in other respects quite naked: for they often threw off their particoloured, checkered cloaks, which shone with all the hues of the rainbow, like the picturesque dress of their kinspeople, the Highlanders, who have laid aside the trowsers of the ancient Gauls. Their duels and £ross revels arc an image of the rudest part of the middle ages. Their debauches were mostly committed with beer and mead: for vines, and all the plants of southern regions were as yet total strangers to the north of the Alps, where the climate in those ages was extremely severe; so that wine was rare, though of all the commodities imported it was the most greedily bought up. Before the foundation of Massilia, and at least ever since the Phocaeans began to traffic with the Ligurian coast, it had undoubtedly been conveyed into the very heart of Gaul : and even as to the tribes who lived far VOL. II. L L 530 HISTORY OF ROME. away from the sea among the Alps, it is absurd to sup- pose that the blessings of the south were first made known to them by the person who invited the barbarians against Clusium. Whithersoever he drove his mules, the de- sire of gain might have carried merchants before him. Commerce opens out a way for itself over still more impassable mountains, and among still more savage bar- barians. Though history however rejects the incident as demonstrably false, it is well suited to the legend: and every legend which was current among the people long before the rise of literature among them, is itself a living memorial of ancient times, — even though its contents may not be so, — and deserves a place in a history of Rome written with a due love for the subject. 531 THE WAR WITH THE GAULS, AND THE TAKING OF ROME. That legend related that Aruns, a citizen of Clu- sium, had been the faithful guardian of a Lucumo 1171 , who, when he grew up, abused his intimacy with the family of Aruns to seduce his wife. The tribunals and magistrates refused to give the wronged husband legal redress; whereupon despair drove him, like count Julian, to call in an irresistible foe. He loaded a number of mules with skins of wine and oil, and with rush-mats full of dried figs: with these he went over the Alps to the Gauls, and told them that, if they would follow him, the land which produced all these good things should be theirs; for it was inhabited by an unwarlike race. Forth- with the whole people arose with its women and children, and marcht across the Alps straight to Clusium. The Clusincs called upon the Romans for aid. The senate imagined that the very name of Rome would make the barbarians withdraw. Three of the Fabii, sons of the chief Pontiff, M. Ambustus, were sent to tell them in the 1,71 It can scarcely be by moo chance that in this legend, as in that of Tullia, Aruns is the honest man, Lucumo (Lucius) the pro- fligate. Besides we may surely presume that, at the time when the legend arose, the Romans were not so unacquainted with Etruria, that Lucumo could even in those days be regarded as a proper name: and if so, Aruns may originally have been meant for a man of the commonalty. L L 2 532 HISTORY OF ROME. name of the senate that they must not touch the allies of Rome. The Gauls made answer, that their own country was too small for them, that they did not want however to destroy the Clusines, provided the latter would share their territory with them. The Fabii, indignant at finding themselves thus treated with derision, forgot that no Ro- man could bear arms against a people, against which the republic had not declared war; and that, even when war was formally declared, none could do so without bringing down a curse upon Rome and upon himself, unless he had taken the military oath: they forgot in fine that they were embassadors, and as such had been respected even by the barbarians 1172 . In a sally made by the Clusines they fought in the front ranks. Q. Fabius cut down a Gallic chieftain, and was recognized while stripping off his armour. Forthwith king Brennus ordered a retreat to be sounded, that his people might not incur the guilt of shedding the blood of the embassadors. He resolved to demand them of the Romans, and either to get satis- faction, or to wage war with the gods on his side. He pickt out the hugest of his gigantic warriors 73 , and sent them to give the Romans their choice between delivering up the offenders and war. The fecials urged the di;ty of freeing the republic from the guilt it had contracted, without respect of persons. The majority of the senate acknowledged it: but they shrank from pass- ing a resolution to give up men of the noblest birth to a savage foe and a death of torture. They determined to leave the decision of the matter and its responsibility to the people. Among the latter, compassion overcame all other feelings. Nay they immediately appointed the culprits military tribunes, and then told the strangers, that, so long as a person held this magistracy, he was not 11/2 I have added what was requisite to shew in how many re- spects the conduct of the Fabii was criminal. 73 Appian, Celt. 3. p. 78. in STORY OF ROME. 533 amenable to any tribunal, but that when the year was expired, should their anger still continue, they might re- new their complaint. The Gauls no sooner received this answer, than they struck their tents, and hastened without resting from Clusium toward Home. Their horse and foot overspread the open country in innumerable multitudes. Everybody fled before them into the towns. They pursued their course however without injuring the property of the husbandman 1171 . Our way lies for Rome, they cried to the guards on the walls under which they past. They would have found the city totally unprepared to resist them, but that a man of the commonalty, M. Caedicius by name 75 , heard a voice during the night on the Via Nova at the foot of the Palatine, announcing that the Gauls were approaching 70 . On these tidings all the men lit for service were called out with the ut- most haste, and led along the Salarian road against the enemy, whom they met eleven miles from the city where the Alia 77 Hows from the Crustumine hills toward the Tiber 78 , 1171 Plutarch, Camill. c.18. In a fabulous story this may pass. 75 This M. Caedicius was assuredly meant by the legend as the same person whom the fugitives at Veii appointed their commander, and who, according to the story of Camillus, was deputed to invite him to return. 70 Dion (Zonaras, vn.23) is the only writer who places the pro- digy at this period : and lie is manifestly right. For thus it is a merciful warning from the gods to throw an army into the city ; and yet proves the means of Koine's destruction, which destiny had decreed : for the military tribunes rush inconsiderately into a battle. In all the other accounts it is placed much earlier. " This name, which was held accurst by the Romans, is uni- formly written with a single I in all the manuscripts, even those of the Greek writers. The double /, which came into general uso through Virgil's means, ai the time when every 'scholar knew him h\ heart, was adopted by him, as Servius remarks, for the sake of bringing the word into his verse; quoa — infavttum interluit AUia nomen : Aen. vn. 717. 7S The words of Diodorus might lead one, though erroneously. 534 HISTORY OF ROME. In order that the historical credibility of this story may be duly appreciated, it is enough to remark that the consular magistrates at that period came into office on the first of Quinctilis, whereas the day rendered ac- curst by the battle was the fifteenth before the calends of Sextilis, that is, in those times, the day after the ides, or, according to our calendar, the sixteenth of July 1179 . Even assuming that the military tribunals were not elected till the last day of June, fifteen whole days would have expired before the Gauls, who are said to have been roused by this insult to start directly for Rome, and to have made such haste that they took the city by sur- prise, heard of it and performed a journey of only three days march 80 . But we need not waste any criticism on this baseless legend: for in this instance the historical account has not been supprest, as in that of Veii, but has been preserved in a report worthy of full credit, and, we may be assured, taken from Fabius, which may be restored with the help of some introductory state- ments, and of some details drawn from other sources no less authentic. Here again we shall best uphold the to infer that it fell into the Tiber on its right bank : see note 1190. The description in Virgil, who assuredly could not be mistaken on such a point, leaves us no room to doubt about the spot ; -which one might otherwise be easily led to do, since it would be impossible to recognize a stream, such as Livy speaks of, and at the distance stated, among the numerous brooks in that neighbourhood. 1179 After the reformation of the calendar, tbe postr. Idas Quinct. became xvn. a. Kal. Sext. July having acquired two more days. Hence, as the xv. a. Kal. was noted in the Fasti as the dies Aliensis, it was supposed that these dates, though one and the same, referred to tw T o different days ; and from this it was concluded that Q. Sul- picius incuiired the pleasure of the gods by sacrifices on the day after the ides, and that he gave battle on the next day but one. We find this confusion even in Livy (vi.l), not above forty years after that reformation. Verrius Flaccus however was perfectly well aware that the dies Aliensis was the day of the battle, and that the disaster of the next day but one was the capture of the city : see Gellius, v. 17. 80 Polybius, II. 25. HISTORY OF ROME. 535 honour of the poetical story, if we do not give it out to be what it is quite impossible that it should be. It may be regarded as clearly certain that the Gauls came down into Italy through the valley of Aosta. The Salassians, who dwelt In those parts down to the time of Augustus, were a branch of the Tauriscans 11 * 1 , and accordingly must have staid behind, while their com- rades continued their journey in pursuit of a richer lot. The Taurinians on the other hand were Ligurians: so that, if we suppose the Gauls to have come over the Mont Genevre, we must assume that they left a forein people between themselves and their home. It would be idle to inquire whether like Hannibal they crost the little, or like Bonaparte the great St. Bernard, and whether their march followed the Isere, or the northern shore of the lake of Geneva. Thus much may probably be well founded, that they gained a victory on the Ticino, which laid the plains of the Etruscans open to them, although the latter still vainly endeavoured to main- tain their ground in many a field of battle 82 . Wherever they chose to settle, they exterminated the whole popu- lation: for agricultural labourers were of no use to them, and would only have .nfl-nwved the pastures for their herds. Beyond their owjttfrontier however, they admitted many nations to becom? /dependent upon them and to pay them tribute 8 ' 5 : this.vVithout doubt was the way in which the Umbrians and .Picentines came to be spared. Such cities too as were in positions difficult of access, like Ravenna, would no doubt purchase the privilege of living at peace. One people after another poured down from the mountains, and marcht on through the midst of their comrades, who had already taken up their abodes, to regions not yet occupied. In this manner the Senoncs llsl Cato, in Pliny, ill. ^4. » 2 Livy, v. 34, .35. « Polybius, n.18. 536 HISTORY OF ROME. settled in Romagna. Here the subjugation of the Um- brians rendered them masters of the passes of the Apen- nines into southern Etruria, the northern frontier of which may perhaps have been too strong for them to force it. Thus they made their appearance before Clusium, thirty- thousand in number 1184 , as an army, not as a wandering people. Their women and children had been left behind with their property on the coast of the Adriatic. The senate sent envoys, not to the Gauls, nor as presumptuous mediators, but to ascertain who this host of foreiners were 85 . These envoys entering into the ranks of the Clusines, took part in an engagement ; and one of them slew a chieftain of high rank 86 . The Gauls re- cognized the stranger, and sent a demand to Rome that he should be delivered up to them, as was fitting ac- cording to the law of the fecials. All attempts to ap- pease them with gold were vain : they wanted blood. Even this sacrifice the senate resolved to make, in order that the guilt of an individual might not fall on the head of the whole nation. But he was the son of one of the military tribunes. His father appealed to the po- pulus, to decide whether a member of a house should be condemned to death, and to such a death ! and the curies, though they had never hitherto rescinded an ordinance of the senate, refused to give up the youth 87 . When the Gauls heard this, they sent word of it to their kinspeople, and being reinforced by great multi- tudes took the road to Rome, seventy-thousand in number. In the mean while the cohorts of the allies had been ii84 This number and that given lower down rest, like the whole of the narrative henceforward, on the authority of Diodorus, xiv. 113, foil. 85 KaTarrKf-yj/ofievovs. 80 We ought no doubt to read 'imrupx^v for «rapxin Diodorus, .\ IV. 113. 87 That the 8rjfj,os here spoken of by Diodorus was the curies, is proved in note 367. BISTORT OF ROME. 537 assembled 11 * 8 ; and every one who could bear arms was supplied with them 89 . It is clear that the whole of this force had taken up a position near Veii, to watch the enemy's motions, as was the case in 421, when an irruption of the same people was apprehended. For our narrative, the correctness of which even in its minute details will not admit of a doubt, relates that the Roman army crost the Tiber, and marcht along its bank to the Alia 90 : that is to say, the generals had received sudden intelligence that the enemy was advancing by forced marches upon the city, now utterly bereft of defenders, and that he Avas already close at hand 9l ; and they hoped to prevent him from ravaging the country be- fore it. If they had but refrained from indulging in such a hope ! a battle lost under the walls of the city would not have been followed by its destruction. It is evident that the Romans had not formed any camp on the Alia, but met the enemy on their march. Without having taken any precautions, without having provisioned the city and garrisoned it to stand a siege, they rusht into a battle, the loss of which would needs entail that of everything. Their conduct however did not proceed from any delusive assurance of victory 92 . lias Polybius, II. 18 : Magg ptKi], els tj/k oIkciclv cnavh\6ov. 2 - See p. 364. 23 Diodorus is the only writer who represents Cominius as sent to report the plan of the Romans assembled at Veii. Among the others, who all connect his bold feat with Camillus, Frontinus (in. 13, 15) differs from the rest in reversing his mission, and making the senate send him from the Capitol to Camillus/who is already at Veii, whence Cominius returns with his consolatory answer. HISTORY OF ROME. 551 twenty thousand Romans; and a number of volunteers from Latium gathered round his standard. With these troops he advanced toward the city. Q. Sulpicius had just begun to weigh out the gold to the Gallic king, when the dictator with his army marcht through the gate, and hastened to the Forum. The gods would not allow that Rome should buy her existence. Camillas arrived before the gold was delivered, and canceled the compact concluded without his consent. Brennus ex- claimed indignantly at this breach of faith. Meanwhile the legions had followed their general; and a combat ensued in which the Gauls were driven out of the city. A second battle fought on the road to Gabii, where they had mustered their forces, avenged Rome completely: not a man escaped to carry away the tidings of the de- feat. Brennus was taken prisoner. He complained of the violations of the treaty : but the dictator retorted the words, Wo to the vanquishf 1 ""*! and ordered him to be put to death. After this victory Camillus entered Rome in triumph. Among the fictions attacht to Roman history, this is the first that was rejected, with the exception of those the fabulousness of which became manifest along with that of the ancient religion. In the sixteenth century, when France was the country in which philology, then in its youthful vigour, was in the most flourishing con- dition, the national feelings of the French took offense at this talc: and the same feelings first led Beaufort to his critical examination of Roman history, which has finally settled the point. It would be superfluous to re- peat his arguments. Should any one, amid future vicis- situdes of fashion, ever attempt to revive the old delu- sion, they will be still extant to refute him. I will merely add, what Beaufort, who did not suspect, any more than others, how important the narrative of Diodorus v::» Festus, Van victis. Hero Ap. Claudius is mentioned instead of Q. Sulpicius, as the person who had to hear the insolent speech . 552 HISTORY OF ROME. is, has not noticed, that this historian does not say a word even about the appointment of Caraillus to the dictatorship, much less about his having liberated Rome by arms: so that this, like the other touches in the legend, which I have already pointed out and shall point out presently, is without doubt no less destitute of his- torical truth than the journey of the Burgundian king in the Niebelungen to the court of Attila. The twofold battle seems to be at variance with the character of poetical tradition. I conjecture that the old- est legend confined itself to making Camillus prevent the payment of the gold and drive the Gauls out of the city; and that the battle on the Gabine road originally belonged to a different form of the story, and was merely inserted from the usual practice of accumulating several narratives of the same event. The nobler feeling, in which Livy partook, could not brook the thought that a ransom for Rome's existence should ever have been paid: a less delicate one was willing to admit that the Gauls had set off with the gold, but invented a way in which it was subsequently recovered. The fiction being a bold one, arbitrary variations were made in the de- tails. The lastmentioned story placed the battle, I con- ceive, on that part of the Gabine road, which may have been the scene of the victory gained by C. Sulpicius, or by M. Popillius, about the end of the century : another placed it before Vulsinii, and some time after the evacua- tion of the city. Camillus, it related, marcht to relieve that town, and found the gold that had been carried off from Rome, along with almost all the rest of the booty, in the camp of the Gauls 1 " 5 . 1325 Diodorus, Xiv.117. I read OvoXo-lviov instead of Oledo-Kiov. But does the mention of the ransom come from Diodorus himself ? or is it an interpolation ? The words on which the point turns are : ttjs mrorrKevris 7rav Tr\(iaT(ou 7ro\tTu)v dnoXcoiXiWoav : Diodorus, XIV. 116. The statement that, while the Gauls were masters of the city, there were twenty thousand Pomans under arms at Veii (see Plutarch, Camill. c.26, and Zonulas, vn.23, who was prohably copying Plu- tarch, as ho often did with regard to circumstances not mentioned by Dion), seems originally to have been only another way of saying that no more than half the army which fought on the Alia survived the battle. 572 HISTORY OF ROME. How is it possible to believe that the Tiber can have covered the territory of Veii, at least as long as the Gallic army kept together? and many of the fugitives must have been overtaken by destruction in the very heart of Latium. If only a portion of the objects of religious worship could be carried off, and it was ne- cessary to bury the chief part of them, the quantity of private property saved was assuredly far less in propor- tion: and the ransacking plunderers must have hunted out the articles buried, which were of greater value than the consecrated earthen vessels. The peasants on the left bank of the Tiber, even if they could save their lives, had no time to drive their cattle away, unless they took to flight before the battle: for immediately after the victory the enemy spread over the whole coun- try round the city. There is a statement, which though it has been excluded from history, gives us a conception of the helpless condition of Rome, after its evacuation by the Gauls: and it agrees in spirit with some legends which have been preserved, and which, though they are poeti- cal, manifestly arose in a very early age; so that they represent the image which the Romans retained in their recollection, of the fate of their ancestors, not very long after the event. While the Gauls were lying undisturbed in their en- campments in Rome, they even began to pull down the city-walls: and the people in the first year after their return were wholly employed in repairing this damage, and in providing shelter 1255 . Nothing more was done than necessity required: it was not till 377 that a new wall of hewn stone was commenced 56 . Thus the Romans on their first return, while they were clearing away the rubbish, were lying no less un- protected, and exposed to no less rancorous enemies, 1255 To relxn dveKaivia-av. Zonaras, VII. 23. 56 Livj, VI. 32. HISTORY OF ROME. 573 than tlic colony which Ezra led back to the ruins of the city of their fathers. In this state of things we can understand that dependent places, like Ficulea, and even such as could raise no greater force than the insignifi- cant population that may have settled at Fidenae after its destruction, might throw off the yoke 12 ' 7 . Nor is it incredible that the sudden approach of their troops, and of those of the neighbouring townships, should have spread a panic, subsequently commemorated, in spite of the his- torians, by the solemnity called populifuyia, which was celebrated on the nones of Quinctilis even down to a late age of the empire. This tradition is regarded by Varro, — who here again rejects the pretended victory of Camillus, inasmuch as he says that this event took place after the departure of the Gauls 58 , — as perfectly histo- rical. But he makes a distinction between the populi- fugia and the feast of the Nonae Caprotinae, which was celebrated on the same day; deriving the latter from an ancient Latin religious ceremony; and thereby tacitly discarding a kindred story of greater celebrity about that insurrection, which is related by Plutarch and Ma- crobius 59 . According to this the troops of the neighbouring 1257 Yet it is unaccountable how such towns, for instance, Ficulea, which was only three miles from Rome, should have been left stand- ing. Can the Gauls have allowed them to ransom themselves, and have kept their faith ? 58 Dies populifugia videtur nominatus, quod eo die turuultu repente fugerit populus : non multo enim post hie dies quam decessus Gallorum ex urbe ; et qui turn sub urbe populi, ut Ficuleates ac Fidenates et finitimi alii, contra nos conjurarunt : De L. L. vi.3 (v. p. 56). 59 Plutarch, Roniul.c. 29. Camill. c.33. Macrobius, Saturn. 1. 11. If the latter in this passage was not copying from Plutarch, from whose philosophical writings his are often compiled, — if he had native books before his e}-cs, — the strength of his expressions about the weakness of Rome is remarkable : cum sedatus esset Gallicus motus, res publica vero ad tenue deducta. 574 HISTORY or ROME. towns encampt before Rome under the command of Postumius Livius, the dictator of Fidenae, and demanded a number of women and maidens of good families as the price of peace, or as hostages. The Romans were unable to make up their minds between the infamy of such submission and the impossibility of resisting, until a maidservant named Philotis or Tutula devised a plan which she carried into effect. She was clothed with a praeteccta, and given up to the Latins, along with other girls of the same station, likewise disguised as noble ladies, amid the farewell tears of their pretended friends. The Latins, in their exultation at the insolent terms they had imposed, held a revel, and being excited to drink by their cunning captives lost all care and fore- thought, and fell into a deep sleep, during which the leader of the maids mounted a tree and held up the concerted signal, a burning torch, toward the city: where- upon the Romans surprised the unguarded camp, and massacred their audacious foes. Tutula and her com- panions were rewarded with their freedom and marriage- portions. This is just as much a fable as the story of Judith, which is not unlike it: and there is another of a simi- lar class, relating to the same period, taken from some nameless authors by Verrius Flaccus 1260 . In order that the scanty stock of bread might be reserved for those on whose preservation the existence of the republic de- pended, a resolution was taken and carried into effect, to throw all the old men above sixty into the Tiber; an act of cruelty so far from being unheard of among the ancients, that it is said to have been ordained by law in Ceos, and was extolled even beyond its shores. The sequel of the story however betrays its character. One old man was concealed by his duteous son; and in gratitude for the wise counsel which the republic often 1200 Festus, Sexagenaries. HISTORY OF HOME. 575 received from him through the mouth of that son, the law was repealed. The Roman legends, while history was in its infancy, were rich in domestic stories of this kind; such as that of Papirius Praetextatus, and that of the father who was condemned to be starved, and was fed with his daughter's milk. The abovementioned one shews to what a woful state tradition represented the Romans as having been reduced on their return. But while we may certainly presume that in this time of distress the infirm must have been a heavy bur- then on their countrymen, it must on the other hand have been felt necessary, as after similar calamities in other republics of antiquity, to adopt all possible means of increasing the number of the ablebodied men, which had been so greatly diminisht. The exiles, as in other places, were no doubt recalled: and very possibly it was to a general law of this kind that Camillus owed his return. The sojourners and freedmen too would natu- rally be enrolled in the tribes. Still more however was done. The Capenates, Veientines, and Faliscans, who had come over to the Romans during the late wars, re- ceived the civic franchise, and were incorporated two years after, in 368, into four new tribes 1261 : so that the number of these was now raised to five and twenty. Livy supposes that these persons were individual de- serters: but it has already been remarkt that without doubt they were the inhabitants of dependent townships, which had revolted from the cities in question 62 . The persons who composed the four new tribes, must at least have been equal in number to a fifth of the old citi- zens then remaining. According to the system which Rome followed ever after in admitting foreiners, and by which alone she was enabled to receive whole communi- ties into the commonwealth without altering its charac- ter, they ought to have been much more numerous, »" Livy, vi. 4. 5. « 2 See pp.468, 4G9. 576 HISTORY OF ROME. perhaps even than those who made up the same num- ber of tribes previous to the devastations of the war. There is good reason to suspect that the whole of Capena at this time became a part of the Roman state; for it never appears again as independent. It was wise policy in Rome, now that Latium had separated itself and become hostile, to repair her loss of citizens from another nation. The people lookt forward with dismay to the rebuild- ing of the city, and vehemently desired to be spared this burthensome task: nor ought they to be taxt on this account with disgraceful faintheartedness. Small and mean as were the houses with which the Romans of the good old times contented themselves even in the days of their glory, still a man who had saved nothing could not build such a house without borrowing. Veii con- tained dwellinghouses and public edifices handsomer than those of the Romans before their destruction: the pos- session of that city, the gift of fate, had preserved the Roman name: it was at least spacious enough to hold the numbers now remaining: was this a thing to be vo- luntarily cast away? Its territory moreover contained the extensive districts which had been assigned to the commonalty a short time before, and which were at a distance from persons living at Rome. Now though the patricians had an opposite interest on this point, — since the ancient domain, and consequently far the largest part of their possessions, lay on the left bank, and, if Rome were deserted, would at least be deprived of im- mediate protection in time of war, — yet we have no right to question that there were also nobler motives which determined the perseverance of the senate; that the severe distress of the present moment was wisely foreseen to be the price of the future greatness of Rome. The humiliating resolution to forsake the city would be- yond doubt have shaped the subsequent destinies of the nation. He who has taken the first step, from which niSTORY OF ROME. 577 his heart withholds him, in abandoning his former glory, and his former efforts after greatness, will ever after let himself be driven along by considerations of the moment. If the Romans had settled on the other side of the Tiber, the bond between them and the Latins would have been entirely dissolved : these, uniting with the Volscians, would easily have establisht a colony within the deserted walls; and the river would have been a no less insurmountable barrier to the Roman Veientines, than it had been to the Etruscan. Even if these dangers had been averted, yet the same people, in another city, in another country, cut off from all its religious, mythical, and historical re- collections, could not possibly have continued to be what it was in its home. It would have degenerated into a colony, with a history of yesterday's growth. The lucky omen of a word, which no doubt had been prudently preconcerted 1263 , decided the irresolute minds, that were wavering between distress and shame. Rome was rebuilt within a year, without question in a very wretched manner. The streets in the lower parts of the city had previously been broad and straight; for the sewers ran beneath them. Even on the hills, in its gradual enlargement under the kings, the same rule, which was followed in laying out new colonial towns, appears to have been observed, so far as the ground would allow: that is to say, there were straight broad streets reserved to the state 64 , while the building-ground bounded by them was regularly parceled out and allotted I - 63 According to Dionysius (Plutarch, Caniill. c. 32), Carnillus had just called upon the first senator, L. Lucretius, to deliver his opinion, when the centurion was heard to say: Let us stay here. The details of the story are not worth a thought : but we must not omit to remark that L. Lucretius is here assumed to have been the first senator, because ho had been consul in 361, and probably no other consul, except Manlius, was living. So far did the military tribunes stand below the consuls in rank. 64 Hence the phrase in publicum prodire. VOL. II. O O 578 HISTORY OF ROME. as property to individuals. This right the government seems to have regarded as extinct since the enemy's con- quest. Hence everybody was allowed to build where he chose, in order that there might be a stronger induce- ment to make a beginning, and that after some progress so many additional voices might be gained in favour of patience and perseverance. The Komans in afterages, forgetting that but for this disadvantage they probably would not have been living at Rome, complained of the precipitation with which the city was rebuilt: for, even in its greatest splendour, it was impossible, before the fire under Nero, to change the crookedness and narrow- ness of the streets. When these defects however had been remedied, it was thought to be perceived that the broad straight streets were injurious to health 1215 : and assuredly this notion was not erroneous: for it is well known that in Some at the present day those quarters, which have wide regular streets running through them, are much more unhealthy than those between the Tiber and the Via Flaminia, where the houses were erected in the middle ages with the same disregard of regu- larity and symmetry as at the hasty rebuilding after the departure of the Gauls. One is much more sensible in the former to the dangerous change of temperature which follows sunset; as one is in winter, after grow- ing warm in sunny sheltered spots, to the cutting north winds which sweep through them when the sky is clear. I know not whether experience in Greece con- firms the opposite opinion, maintained by Aristotle, namely, that broad streets, open to the east and north wind, are conducive to health. I should be almost in- clined to look upon this as a mere theoretical assump- tion: for where can there have been any such at the time when he wrote, except in the Piraeus, which Hip- podamus laid out in a regular manner 66 ? With this 1265 Tacitus, Ann. xv. 43. 88 On this opinion see Aristotle, Polit.vil.il. The capitals HISTORY OF ROME. ~>70 exception the streets in all the Greek towns, even in Athens, were as narrow and winding as they are to this day in the East. The principle of the Roman limitatio, which regards every right as issuing from the state, was forein to the genuine Greeks, whose institutions rested on the idea of the citizens as individuals, and on that of original private property. To lighten the task the senate granted bricks: every- body was allowed to hew stones or wood wherever he pleased, provided he gave security to finish his building within a year. By the grant of bricks must be meant, that the state allowed them to be taken from buildings already existing : for how could it have found the means of paying for new ones? Such buildings it had at Veii: and with a view of putting an end for ever to the hated scheme of mkjratincr thither, it was wise to favour the demolition of that city, which was in fact reduced to an insignificant place, and barely continued to exist, till it in some measure revived under Augustus as a military colony. For the substructions of the Capitol too, which were built no long time after, — and no doubt on the side beneath the citadel, where Cominius and the Gauls clomb up the grass-covered rock — and for the repair of the walls, blocks of stone ready-hewn would be supplied by Veii. In this manner its temples and city-walls dis- appeared. The Komans who had staid there to avoid the charge of building, were commanded by an ordinance of the senate to return before a stated day, under pain of the severest punishment ia ' 7 . A vast number of objects had been lost that could never be replaced: it is a marvel that any single one, created by the will of the Macedonian kings were built, it is true, \ery regularly, and with broad streets, like Antiock, more especially tlxc new town of Epiphanes : here however their injurious effects were at least diminisht by the area . . Livy, vi. 4. Here again poena capitalis does not necessarily mean the forfeiture of life. O O 2 580 HISTORY OF ROME. the material of which was of any value to the barbarians, such as the brazen tables containing the treaties with the Latins in the temple of Diana and at the Rostra, or the statues of the envoys murdered at Fidenae, was not stolen; or that others, which were combustible, like the wooden image of Fortuna, were not destroyed. Or is the genuineness of all such movable articles as must have been left behind without being deposited in the Capitol no less suspicious than that of the crook of Romulus, which the augurs asserted they had found un- injured amid the dust and ashes of the straw-thatcht hut of Mavors 1268 ? For the sake of this miracle they were ready to allow that the hut had been burnt down, though at other times that which was shewn standing was main- tained to be the genuine one. All who had afforded succour during this season of calamity were rewarded with honours: the matrons re- ceived the privilege of having orations spoken in their praise at their funerals: the Caerites and Massilians had the rights of municipals decreed to them ; the latter per- haps with unusual marks of distinction 69 . Camillus, whom afterages called a second Romulus, was at this period the soul of the republic. As the leader of its armies in the wars which broke out on every side, no people re- maining quiet except the unswervingly faithful Sabines, he confirmed and hightened the confidence of the nation in her great citizen now restored to her. 1268 Dionysius, Exc. 27. p. 31, and Mai's note: Plutarch, Camill. c.32. 69 See note 149, and page 554. 681 THE WARS DOWN TO THE REFORM OF 384. When the remnant of the Romans were collected in the city, and able to look about them again, they found that the state was bereft of its subjects, and had shrunk within its own limits; like Florence after the expulsion of the Duke of Athens. The towns which after the fall of Latium had placed themselves under the soverainty of Rome, for the sake of enjoying her protection, now disdained to submit to her. Even under the year 366 we already find mention of the revolt of the Latins and Hernicans mo : which however only means that the league then subsisting was dissolved. Still even if the Latins were not animated by any hostile feelings at the time of their separation, some such must ere long have inevitably taken root in their minds. As soon as the remains of that people had resumed its independence, its national assembly was of course recstablisht. To this assembly the Roman senate complained in 369, that no aid had been afforded them for the last three years ; and the sense of their own weakness compelled them to take up with an empty evasion 71 . Still the union among the Latins at this time must have been very lax. Several towns were induced by their situation or by other cir- cumstances to stand by the Romans: and this affords an 1270 Defectio Latinorimi Hernicorumque : Livy, vi. 2. » Livy, VI. 10. 582 HISTORY OF ROME. explanation how Latin colonies subject to Rome came to be founded during tliis period, such as Sutrium and Nepete, as well as Setia, which probably was one of the towns taken from the Volscians before the year 365. Under 372 Livy says, that Latium was an object of mistrust : yet at that very time Tusculum, Gabiij and Lavici sided with the Romans, while Lanuvium on the other hand was forming an alliance with the Volscians 1272 . Volunteers from Latin towns frequently served among the latter 73 : this, injurious as it was to the Romans, was not an act of national hostility; since the old league of Sp. Cassius, by which even individuals of each nation were prohibited from bearing arms against its confederates, had lost its validity. The erroneous notion, that the Latins, from being the faithful allies of Rome, had iioav become her enemies, has been mainly fostered by the fact, that Praeneste, which in ancient times was one of the thirty towns, and sub- sequently was the principal one in Latium, appears after the year 373 at open war with Rome. Since that town however, at the time when the frontier lay between it and Tusculum, cannot have belonged to the Latins, but must have become a member of the Aequian state, — whether from having been subdued by it, or from having joined it in the days of its conquests*, — it is manifest that this Praenestine war takes the place of that which before was incessantly recurring with the Aequians. For after the year 367 no further mention is made of this people: nor do we meet with their name again till after the second Samnitc war. It seems as if their union had been broken up, like that of the Latins. The Aequians, whom Rome subdued about the middle of the fifth '- :2 Livy, VI. 21. Lavici, it is true, had been given up to a Eoman colony (see p. 464) : her applying to Rome for protection is a proof that the colony had not been driven out. » Livy, vt.7. 10, 12. 17. * See p. 261. HISTORY 01* SOME. century, were the original nation, dwelling - among the mountains between the Liris and the Fucinus, and around the source of the Anio; whose name had previously been extended to their dependents and subjects. On this dis- solution new commonwealths grew up ; or, where a city had previously exercised dominion over a district, it hence- forward formed a separate state. Thus Praeneste was sovcrain over at least eight towns 1 "' 1 : the Tiburtines too, whom Livy calls a nation 7 "', had several, the number of which is not mentioned, under them. This breaking up of the Aequian state was probably the consequence of its having sustained a heavy blow from the Gauls. If Apulia was the object which allured them, they had a much easier road into it through the territory of the Acquians, which was full of un walled hamlets, and through the four northern Sabellian can- tons, than through Latium, which abounded in fortified towns, especially as after crossing its frontier they would have had to overcome the Samnites. Thus even the irruption of the Gauls turned out beneficial to liome, and promoted her greatness. Perhaps this was the time Avhen the Aequians, properly so called, entered into that isopolitan union with the Romans, which was evidently subsisting before the war broke out in 443. It was with different feelings from the Latins, and as open enemies that the Volscians of Antium and Ecetra 76 dissolved a similar union, by which they had been con- nected with Rome for seventy years with very few inter- ruptions. A l<»ng supplest feeling of animosity burst forth when Rome was fallen : nor can Antium, being a town of great strength and maritime power, have suffered in anything like the same degree as the interior of Latium from* the terrible scourges of the age. m See note L296. " Livy, vn.l'.l. " Thou"h 1-ivv mostly BpesStM of the Volscinn nation generally, WE are to ttppty his wtodfl to these f"\vn AOhS ! vi.-'H. 584 HISTORY OF ROME. The very first campaign however, in 366, was far from fulfilling the visionary views with which this ungene- rous attempt to crush fallen greatness had been entered on. At first indeed the one legion, which was all the republic could send into this quarter, was threatened with total destruction. It was forced to take refuge in an entrencht camp on mount Maecius, near Lanuvium, five and twenty miles from Rome: and the safety of the commonwealth rested with the body of troops, consisting of men superannuated or exempted from service, which Camillus being appointed dictator, led to its relief 1277 . At sunrise he fell upon the Volscians and their allies. The besieged legion sallied forth from its camp ; and the enemy were defeated and routed with great slaughter. Such is the credible account of these events 78 : but here again the poetical tradition, anxious to glorify its hero in all his actions, has been busy. The legendary story, which Livy adopts according to his constant practice 79 , says nothing about the previous distress, and makes Camillus take the field from the first. At the report of his ap- proach the Volscians are struck with terrour, and raise an abatis round their camp, which was already fortified with a rampart and palisade. The dictator sets fire to the abatis. His good genius fans the flame, and makes it spread to the camp, from which the enemy are forced to retreat; and, being already cowed by the element, they rush in their flight upon the swords of the Romans, who destroy them. K77 "'YivaynadBrj teat rovs ovk iv $>pq tu>v ttoXitcov, aXX' rj8r) 7rpo/3e- fir]KOTas (perhaps napr]^r]K6Tas) KaOonXio-ai : Plutarch, Camill. c.34. These words designate the reserve consisting of the veterans (see pp. 121, 122), still more precisely than the expression of Diodorus, xiv. 117. ndvras roiis iv rjkiKia KadoTrXiaavres, — although the latter is very appropriate for the arming of the causarii. 78 In Diodorus, xiv.117, and Plutarch, Camill. c.34. 79 Plutarch combines the credible account with it : this is just the usual practice of Dionysius to mix up different stories together. HISTORY OF ROME. 585 After this defeat, the Volscians made no fresh attempt until the third year was over. Camillus however, like Frederic after the battle of Collin, had to drive back the foes that encompast him, one after another. He com- pelled the Aequians to raise the siege of Bolae 12li0 . Hav- ing done this he march t into Etruria, where the cohorts assembled at Veil had not been strong enough to relieve Sutrium. The faithful citizens had been forced to capi- tulate, on leave to retire unmolested. The dictator how- ever wrested the town from the conquerors. Here again there are unequivocal traces of poetry, in the story that the sad train of fugitives, who had brought away nothing but their lives, met the Roman army on the selfsame day on which they quitted their homes; and that Camil- lus took the Etruscans so completely by surprise, that the property which had fallen into their hands was en- tirely untouchtj and not a man among them escaped; the town having been suddenly surrounded, and all the gates occupied. Unless indeed the whole war before Sutrium is a mere fiction copied from an event which happened shortly after: for we again find under 369, in an account evidently taken from some Annals, that the Romans were compelled to leave their frontier on the side of Etruria unprotected, until the Volscian campaign was terminated by a victory. During this delay Nepete surrendered to the enemy; and they forced their way into Sutrium, where the citizens were reduced to defend themselves behind barricades in the streets. Camillus shut up the Etruscans in the quarter of the town which they had taken : here they were overpowered and cut to pieces. He then led his troops against Nepete, where 1M0 Such is the account given by Diodorus : so that the colony- demanded in 341 (see pp. 435, 436) may after all have been sent to Bolae subsequently, perhaps at the same time with that to Yitellia (p. 489); and Bolae may have become the fortified place in a Roman settlement, and have held out, like many others in Latium. Accord- ing to Livy, vi. 2, at this time it was in the hands of the Aequians. 586 HISTORY OF HOME. the persons through, whose influence it had been surren- dered, trembled at his vengeance. They refused to obey his summons to drive out or give up the Etruscan gar- rison. The latter however was unable to defend the un- fortunate town. It was taken by storm; and the magis- trates charged with betraying it were put to death 1281 . Henceforward this frontier continues tranquil down to the year 391, when the Romans went to war with the Tarquinians: and perhaps these were the only people with whom Rome had now been contending in these parts. Such at least was the case in the war of 368, in which year two towns belonging to the Tarquinians were taken and destroyed*: and the statement that in the abovementioned expedition of Camillus, which is every way liable to so much doubt, Sutrium was besieged by the whole Etruscan nation, clearly comes from the poem 82 . This town and Nepete received colonies, — the former in 372, the latter in 382 83 , — and now formed the outworks of the Roman territory, which for sixty years continued inviolate. The only military occurrence in Latium mentioned 1281 In both years the relief comes too late, and the Etruscans after taking the town are shut up and destroyed in it; just as we find a like repetition in the fate of Cloelius on mount Algidus and be- fore Ardea (pp. 269. 450). Plutarch transfers the second story from 389 to 374, and confounds Satricum with Sutrium, c. 37 : this how- ever no way warrants our preferring the first, on which the stamp of poetry is so evident. Diodorus here gives us no help toward settling the question : for he accumulates all these events, and more besides, under the pretended year of the taking of Rome, 01. 98. 2 ; being unable to arrange them under the next five, which come twice over. * Livy, vi. 4. s - Livy's expression, vi. 3, Etrufia prope nmnir. i;' again merely a falsification, for the sake of softening the precision of the ancient story. 83 Velleius, I. 14. Livy, who places the establishment of the colony at Nepete in 372 (vi. 21), confounds the two places, and hence passes over Sutrium. BISTORT OF BOM] 58V down to the year 369 is a predatory expedition into the territory of the Acquians in 367. It must have been thought that peace had been permanently secured in those parts since the tribunes demanded the assignment of the Pomptinc district. This confidence however was delu- sive: for in 369 the Antiates, being reinforced by a num- ber of volunteers from various Latin towns, fought an obstinate battle near Satricum against Camillus himself. A storm with a torrent of rain separated the combatants. The victory however was not doubtful : the Latin free- booters returned to their several homes; the Volscians retreated upon Antium. Satricum, which had once been one of the thirty Latin towns, appears, after sundry changes of fortune, a little before the Gallic invasion in insurrec- tion against the sovcrainty of Rome 1 " 84 . Whether it had not been subdued again before that disaster took place, or had revolted afresh, it was now a Volscian town, and was reduced by force of arms. Camillus purpost to be- siege Antium itself: but every attempt to follow up his victory was prevented by the necessity of marching, as was before mentioned, against Sutrium and Nepetc. Hence we find the vanquisht in the next year (370) again acting on the offensive, and in such force that it was necessary to appoint a dictator, A. Cornelius Cossus, against them. The Tyrrhenian town of Circcii, which had been occupied by Volscian colonists about eighty years before, and since 362 had been in the hands of Latin ones*, followed the feeling then prevalent in both these nations: and even if the colony sent to Velitrae c< in- sisted solely of Romans, the Volscian stock was still so predominant among the inhabitants, and was so firmly rooted there 85 , that we cannot be surprised to find '--' See note 1028. • See p. 501. 85 Seep. 4G6. Velitrae way always regarded as a thoroughly Volscian place : hence even Dionysius quite forgoi that it had ori- ginally been a Latin town. It is well known too that the Volscian inscription, as it is called, was found there, 588 HISTORY OF ROME. volunteers from both these towns serving under the ban- ners of the Antiates and Ecetrans, along with Latin and Hernican mercenaries. Numerous however as this army- may have been, the dictator gained a complete victory over it in the Pomptine district, and took a number of prisoners, among the rest many who were regarded as rebels. As such they probably suffered punishment: and this may have decided the resolution of the Veliternians and Circeians to throw off the Roman yoke. It was carried into effect in 372, in which year we find both these towns, and not merely individual citizens from them, among the enemies of Rome 1286 . After the victory gained by Cossus, the Romans re- solved to send a colony of two thousand citizens to Satri- cum, which had been taken the year before 87 . This settlement, by which they establisht themselves in the country between Antium and Lanuvium 88 , induced the latter to unite with the Volscians in 372. The growth of this alliance excited anxiety. Even against the insur- gents at Velitrae war was not declared without hesitation: the slightest advances would have found the senate ready to welcome them : the people was more violent. Although the Praenestines had been ravaging the territory of some Latin towns, which had continued faithful, the govern- ment still would not look upon them as enemies. It was only in the next year, after the Roman army in an en- gagement with the Veliternians near their town had to fight against a numerous body of auxiliaries from Praeneste, me Circeiensium quidani, et coloni etiam a Velitris Romani: Livy, VI. 12. Afterward, under 372: hostes novi, praeter Volscos — Circeiosque et Velitras colonias jamdiu molientes defectioneni : vi. 21. 87 Livy, vi. 16. 88 The assignment of lands in the Pomptine district, mentioned under the next year (Livy, vi. 21), can hardly be anything but this very colony, the territory belonging to which may reasonably be regarded as the ager Pomptinus. This expression never means the marshes. HISTORY OP ROME. 589 that war was declared against it. By means of Velitrae the Praenestines had a safe and open communication as the Acquians had formerly had, with the Antiates. Join- ing their forces with these, they took Satricum, and treated the Roman colonists with great cruelty. After this dis- aster Camillus was chosen military tribune for the seventh time in 374; although he begged to be excused on ac- count of his old age and ill health. The confidence of the people that his wisdom would uphold the common- wealth, even though his arm was grown weak, was not deceived. It is not clear whether the Roman troops marcht against Praeneste or Satricum 1289 . The allies had a great superiority in numbers: but both the armies were equally eager to bring the campaign to a crisis: and L. Furius Medullinus, a younger member of the same house with Camillus, who was his collegue, and commanded alternately with him, was deaf to his admo- nitions against being overhasty. They were justified by the result. The legions fled toward the camp, where Camillus was lying sick. He roused himself; and his appearance checkt the fugitives: he collected them and led them on : the enemy drew back 90 . Thus much we may receive into our history, without however warrant- ing its truth: but as to the victory, which according to Livy closed that melancholy day, according to Plutarch brightened the next, and which led to the capture of the enemy's camp, we must decidedly reject it 91 . i28t Livy, vi. 22, says, the latter : but immediately before he re- lates that the army was summoned to meet before the Esquiline gate, that is, on the road to Lavici and Praeneste. Would this have been taken, when it must have struck off by crossroads in order to reach the Pomptino district ? 90 I follow Plutarch's account : Camill. c. 37. 91 Here again in Livj^s whole narrative the historical account has been supplanted by the legend. Had Camillus been able to bring about such a turn in the fortune of a battle already lost, his un- willingness to engage would have been totally unjustifiable. The 590 HISTORY OP HOME. Nor is much credit due to the story that the Tuscu- lans, some of whom were found among the captives, dis- armed the anger of the senate by leaving their gates open to the legions sent against them, and by pursuing their peaceful occupations in the fields and in the town, as if they felt that they could not possibly have anything to dread from Koine: for here again we have no ground to rest on except the legend of Camillus. Yet it is one of those stories to which one would gladly give a place in history, where instances of a trust in the effi- cacy of magnanimous confidence are so very rare: and Avhen we lower it to an ordinary key, it sounds very credible that the heavy judgement hanging over the Tus- culans, in consequence of the breach of peace committed by some of their citizens, should have been averted by their politic conduct. Along with this indulgence, they are said to have received the Koman franchise 1292 , which the Greek writers took to be that of the isopolites 93 , but which seems rather to have been that of sympolity. For the breaking up of the Cassian league assuredly did not abolish the higher municipal rights bestowed on the Latins: and though Tusculum was an independent town of Latium at the time of the Latin war, this only proves that it must have been restored to the Latins at the peace of 392. That they should have received the high- est Koman franchise, is out of the question 04 : and that of the Caerites was a punishment. number of the four legions under him is assuredly fictitious ; in stating however that each was 4000 strong, the annalists seem to have borne in mind that there were now twenty-five tribes : so that 150 centuries contained 3750 common soldiers ; which, with 150 cen- turions and 75 standardbearers, make up 3975. 1292 Civitatem etiam impetraverant : Livy, vi.26. 93 MtToXaPelv IcronoXiTelas : Plutarch, Camill. c. 38. 94 On this point Dionysius is most completely mistaken : 7roXi- Ttiav eyvaxrav xapi'cracr&n, TrcivTUV fi(ra86vr(s &>v to'is Pco/xat'oi? fieTTJV- Eel. de Virt. et Vit. ed. Val. p. 529. (p. 33. Frf.) IIISTOKY OF BOMB, 591 There is some difficulty in believing that Camillus even saved the army from a defeat; since the Pracnes- tinei in the next campaign of 375 ravaged the Roman territory up to the Collinc gate, the internal dissensions having prevented the sending of any troops out of the city. T. Quinctius was now appointed dictator with the utmost haste, and without delay raised an army, before which the enemy retreated along the Salarian road ; whe- ther in the hope of inducing the Faliscans and Etruscans to take up arms, as the Samnites at a later period marcht along the upper Tiber with the same view, or for the sake of drawing the Eomans to a distance from the Pomptine district, and thereby seconding the enterprises of the Volscians. Either of these plans would have been very judicious, could the framers have relied on being victorious in the field. On the Alia they offered battle, but the Eomans, notwithstanding the spot, were no less confident of success : and on the enemy's part it was an act of folly to betake themselves to a country from which they could not secure their retreat to Praeneste. Hence they sought safety in a precipitate flight the moment the battle began to turn against them. The Eomans pur- sued them ; and such terrour preceded their march, that T. Quinctius in nine days took the same number of towns. According to Livy eight of these were subject to the Praenestines : and he looks upon Velitrae as the ninth 1295 ; which without doubt is erroneous. For a town which had driven out a colony, would have had no mercy shewn to it; and yet Velitrae continues to subsist un- injured. Nor is it credible that a fortress, on which the Roman arms in later times were for years unable to make any impression, should have been carried by a first as- sault. The number of the nine conquered towns is well '•- >!>J VT.29. Octo oppida orant sub ditione Praenestinorum — deincepsque, haud magno certamine capf is, Velitn situs ductus ; eae quoque expugnatae. Dionysius Beems to have spoken merely of niue towns, without mentioning Velitrae : Exc. 28. p.32. 592 HISTORY OF ROME. ascertained. It was recorded in the inscription on the golden wreath, weighing two pounds and a third 1296 , de- dicated in the Capitol from the spoils by T. Quinctius, who triumpht on the twentieth day after his appointment. This inscription was the oldest among all those preserved at Rome, the age of which was accurately known 97 . On the tenth day after the battle Praeneste itself is said to have been taken. That a town which was im- pregnable should actually have surrendered, is inconceiv- able 98 . But the inhabitants, seeing place after place fall daily into the hands of the conqueror, may have been so dispirited as to bend their necks, and submit to a hu- miliating peace: which however was soon repented of 1296 This was the way Cincius (in Festus, Trientem) explained the expression trientem tertium pondo : and the analogy of the similar phrases adduced, quadrans quartus, sestertius, bes alter, is decisive : although from the character of the favorite Roman numbers one would rather expect three pounds and a third : thus the vow in Livy, xxn. 10, is to expend 333333^ ases. And what if this was in reality the weight 1 only the annalists used an erroneous expression, instead of triens quartus : for there is no reason to suppose that the inscrip- tion, although it probably contained more than what Livy states, should have specified the weight. 97 The mode in which Pighius fills it up, is, as is usual with him, unscrupulously rash, and altogether inadmissible. Still there can be no doubt that in Livy, as the great Gronovius perceived, the words diebus novem have dropt out, owing to the recurrence of the latter. Thus we get three old Roman lines : Juppiter, dtque Divi omnes hoc dederunt Ut Titus Quinctius dictator (Bomdnus) Oppida novem dieb&s novem cdperet. Such inscriptions were always in Saturnian verses ; like that of the pretor L. Aemihus Regillus in honour of the naval victory off Erythrae (Livy, XL. 52, and Atilius Fortunatianus, p. 2680), and that of D. Brutus Callaicus (Schol. on Cicero, pro Arch. 11. 27). 98 The statement that the statue of Jupiter Imperator was re- moved to the Capitol proves nothing. Lipsius has shewn that T. Quinctius Cincinnatus has been confounded with T. Quinctius Flamininus, and that it was brought from Macedonia, not from Praeneste : Drakenborch on Livy, vi.29. HISTORY OF ROME. 593 and broken, when a Roman army in the next year, 376, through the improvidence of its leaders, sustained great loss from the Volscians. On this occasion the Praenes- tines seduced some other Latin towns to join them. The defeat of 370 Avas avenged by the next military tribunes in 377, who ravaged the Volscian territory as far as Ecetra: and in the year after, 378, the war with the Antiates was brought to a close in its thirteenth year by a two days battle. The vanquisht army threw itself into Satricum. Here dissensions broke out between the par- ties, such as usually put an end to a confederacy when deserted by fortune. The Antiates were unwilling to prolong the war : it rested only with them to renew their ancient relation with Home. Not so the Velitcrnians, Avho were already threatened with a punishment such as Rome actually inflicted upon them in the next genera- tion. The Praencstines shared their indignation at find- ing themselves abandoned. When the Antiates had quitted Satricum, having without doubt ceded it to the Romans, it was still occupied by the allies, who burnt it to the ground. From its ashes they advanced suddenly upon Tusculum, and surprised its gates, which were but negli- gently guarded. The citizens fled, with their wives and children, into the spacious upper town. The Roman veteran legion 12 " hastened to assist them, and, being- aided by the Tusculans from the hill, cut the intruders to pieces. Soon after this the republic was disabled for forcin enterprises through the efforts of the oligarchs to resist the Licinian bills. Tusculum was left to itself, and was besieged by the Velitcrnians. Hereupon the tribunes withdrew their veto against the elections. An army was sent from Rome to relieve her faithful subjects, and 1299 Two legions, exercitus longs validiesim U8, had been sent against Satricum : beside these the reserve was in readiness ; and civic legions were raised : Livy, VI. 3l\ VOL.11. P I' 594 HISTORY OF ROME. surrounded Velitrae 1300 . This town is repeatedly stated to have been besieged from the year 380 to 383. Under the latter year the undertaking is said to have been te- dious, but one the event of which could not be doubted 1 . Nevertheless this assuredly did not lead to its capture, as Livy, though he does not venture to assert it, means to insinuate: others did not scruple to speak of this as the closing exploit of Camillas 2 . After the restoration of the consulship, the Romans are at peace with Velitrae; and this is not broken till 392. It is clear that the in- ternal dissensions of the republic afforded the Veliter- nians a lucky opportunity of making peace without un- dergoing any punishment. Nor is it less clear that Praeneste had not done anything previously to support them. To all appearance it had already taken advantage in 380 of the senate's readiness to conclude a peace leav- ing everything as it was. The municipal relation with these two towns was probably renewed, as well as that with Antium. A war with the Gauls, in which M. Camillus gained his last laurels, is also spoken of at the close of the present period, in 383. It is extremely surprising how- ever that Livy, who is so fond of describing battles, says nothing about the one in this war, except that many thousand barbarians fell in the action, many thousands in the camp, and that those who escaped owed their safety to the remoteness of Apulia, whither they turned 1300 As the Fasti had no other means of indicating that during the five years, 379-383, some twelve months had been spent in inter- reigns, except by inserting them collectively as a whole year ; this could not but occasion a gap somewhere or other in the course of events. According to them the relief of Tusculuni took place in 380, though it evidently belongs to the year before, 379. 1 Livy, vi. 42. 2 Plutarch, Camill. c. 42. Here one recognizes the hand of Dionysius : he shews the same credulity with regard to the taking of Antium : see p. 255, note 578. HISTORY OF ROME. 59*1 their flight, and to their dispersion on their way thither. Dionysius had more detailed information, namely, that Camillus waited quietly, till the Gauls, through their in- temperance, had become bloated, sluggish, enervated, and unwieldy 1:! " ;! ; and that meanwhile he had been diligent in training his own army, and had kept them in their camp on the hights till the time for battle arrived. Yet Polybius, who regards the expedition of the Gauls in 389 as the first after the taking of the city, knew nothing of this one : nor did Fabius, as is proved by the silence of Diodorus: nor did Q. Quadrigarius' 1 . Be- sides, if we compare this account with the great victory gained by L. Camillus in 401, on the very spot here mentioned, the Alban mount, after which the Gauls in like manner retreated into Apulia, we may see it markt with the peculiar vice of the later Roman annalists, that of repeating a story and throwing it back into an earlier, whether mythical or historical, period. Here again tra- dition has intruded into history, with the fables and fic- tions, nay, the deliberate falsehoods, in which the foolish vanity of aftcrages loved to dress it up. i.io3 if we compare Dionysius, Exc.29. p. 35 foil, with Appian, fr. 7. Celt. p. 81, we find that the latter here again was copying the former : Plutarch however oannot have clone so, since he places the war on the Anio. It looks as if a confused notion of the evil effects produoed on the Cimbrians by their sojourn in Italy had supplied the materials for this strange story. 4 It is true, the latter spoke of a war with the Gauls under the year 388 : but it was that on the Anio, where T. Manlius slew the Gaul in single combat: see note 1251. r p 2 596 CIVIL HISTORY DOWN TO THE YEAR 374. I HAVE traced the history of the wars which followed the restoration of the city, down to the interval of peace occasioned by the necessity of settling the new constitu- tion of the commonwealth after the passing of the Licinian laws. The bulk of this volume will not allow me to carry down the internal history beyond the epoch at which those laws were first brought forward. The ferment which produced them did not arise, like the commotions which led to the Publilian laws, and to the appointment of the decemvirs, from the pretensions of the higher class of the plebeians to more freedom, and to a due share of civil offices, but from the misery which the Gallic invasion left behind. Revolutions which are brought on by general distress, in attempting to re- medy it, usually destroy the foundations of a perma- nent free constitution, and, after horrible convulsions, have almost always ended in despotism. It is the noblest glory of the Roman people, a glory in which no other can vie with them, that twice in their history such an ex- citement ejave rise to a higher and more durable state of legal freedom. What has elsewhere been a deathblow to liberty, was at Rome a cure for the internal disorders of the republic, and raised its constitution to that state, which, considering the transitoriness of everything hu- man, is perhaps, like a similar stage in our individual happiness, the most desirable of all. It stopt only one step short of that perfection, after which every further HISTORY OF ROME. 597 change is an inroad of corruption and decay, even though it may long be unacknowledged as such, nay regarded as an advance and an improvement. Since the time of the decemvirate it is evident that the prosperity of the nation had vastly increast. The placid feeling thus diffused, along with the union of the clients with the plcbs, will account for the conciliatory spirit apparent in the quarrels between the parties from the date of the death of Maelius. The fortunes of the patricians had been very much augmented by the ag- grandizement of the public domain. The plebeians had received assignments of land, which, though all but the Veientine one were scanty, at least gave a number of families some little property. Many were enricht by the contributions exacted from conquered states, and by prize- money : and the paying the troops became a great bene- fit, as soon as the tenth was raised from the domain- lands, and the tribute but seldom levied, and lowered to moderate assessments. For half a century the Roman territory had been almost exempt from the ravages of war. The rise in the price of corn and cattle, which we find in Greece, extended, we may be sure, to Latium: and its beneficial results must have been hightencd by the reduction in the weight of the as 1305 . A moderate rate of interest was establish^ 6 : nor do we meet with any complaints of oppression exercised toward debtors. Thus during this period the practice of pledging the person, which the Twelve Tables had allowed to subsist, did not produce any revolting effects of frequent and ge- neral occurrence. He whose person was pledged was usually able to free himself on the judgement-day by 1305 According to the conjecture started in Vol. i. p. 459, that the ases with the figure of an ox refer to the valuation of the m>iJ(a by the law of 325. 6 See p. 340. The place for explaining what the focnus nn- ciarium was, will occur in the aext volume, at the time of its re- establishment. 598 HISTOKY OF ROME. paying his debt: and the provision in the Tables that his civil rights should be on a par with those of an in- dependent citizen 1307 , removed the stain of ignominy from his condition, and facilitated his carrying on transactions to redeem himself. Originally, it is evident, a nexus was no less incapable, than a person who stood in potestate or in m'anu, to do any legal act for himself. He was the property of another, not his own: and all that he had was also at the disposal of that other. Now how- ever this was remedied by a fiction, which gave legal validity to what every honest man had already recognized in his conscience as a right. And after all if when the day came, the debtor could not redeem his pledge at the moment, but made oath that he had means sufficient for it 8 , the tribunes would seldom allow him to call in vain for their aid. In this state of things certain provisions of the Tables, which sound excessively cruel, and which caused them to be branded even among the ancients with the charac- ter of detestable barbarity, were not very terrible in fact. It was only when a debt had assumed the form of a nexum, that a creditor could exact it summarily 9 . Care was taken however to protect his right in all other cases, and to afford him means of converting a common debt into a nexum. We meet with a very great variety of instances of such debts, arising out of services performed, out of commercial transactions, out of a settlement of accounts, out of inheritances: it is impossible to enume- rate them all. But to these the law likewise added ju- dicial sentences; not merely those which establisht debts contracted in any of the aforementioned ways, but also those which imposed damages or fines for any crime or trespass. On this head the decemvirs enacted, what again was probably a mere repetition of the old law, that for 1307 See p. 331, note 746. 8 Bonam copiam jurare. By riiuUcatio or manus injectio, IIIST011Y OF ROME. .'>!)!) such debts a respite of thirty days should be granted. When this term was over, the creditor was authorized to arrest his debtor, and bring him into court. If lie did not discharge his debt then, or find some one to be security for him, the creditor was to take him home and put him in letters or chains, which were not to weigh less than fifteen pounds, but might be heavier. The prisoner was allowed to provide himself with food: if he did not do so, the creditor was bound to give him a pound of corn a day, which he might increase, if he pleased. This imprisonment lasted sixty days, 'during which the debtor or his friend might take measures for procuring his release 1310 . If it was not effected, the pri- soner was to be led before the pretor in the Comitium on three consecutive market-days 11 , and the amount of his debt was to be proclaimed. Should no one take compassion on him even then, his master might put him to death, or sell him on the other side of the Tibur 1 -. If there were several creditors, they might share his body amongst them: nor, if any one chopt off a larger part than was proportionate to his debt, was he punishable for doing so 13 . This last provision obviates the dilliculty which stood in Shylock's way under a similar legal title : and it shews 1310 Here again, if we add this term to the former one, we get the number thrice thirty. 11 This is fresh evidence that these laws only affected the ple- beians. ■'- Not in Latium ; lest he should return from thence in case of his being manumitted, and assert his rights as ;i municeps. This shews that no place in Etruria stood in an isopolitan relation with Rome in the time of the decemvirs. 13 Sipluamin Icnerunt se fr '<>. This itself ought to have kept every soundheaded person from thinking of a sectio bonorwn: the Poeteliaa law first made property liable for debt. It is almost superfluous to refer for all these enactments to Qellius, xx. 1. 600 HISTORY OP ROME. how completely in earnest the legislators were that the law should be executed. Even in case that among seve- ral creditors one was inexorable, his right was secured to him: he was allowed, if not to slay the common debtor at a blow, yet to mutilate him so that death was sure to ensue. Every attempt to explain away the inhumanity of this law is a waste of labour in the cause of false- hood. It was in reality quite as revolting as its literal meaning: nor would I assert, as Gellius does, that it was never carried into effect, that no debtor was ever put to death, or actually cut to pieces. But its execu- tion must of course have been indescribably rare : for this law with all its terrours was merely designed to compell the debtor to redeem himself, or to enter into a nexum, by which he became liable to pay interest, but at the same time obtained a respite, and if he could not offer any money-payment, workt out his debt by labour. A vigorous son too would at times render his own person liable to bondage in the room of his decrepit father 1314 : and few men can have been so forlorn that no one should be found to come forward in their behalf, and make the creditor an offer from which he would gain more than from the sale of his wretched captive. If any ruffian rejected reasonable terms, for the sake of quenching his rage, on account of the money he had lost, in the blood of his debtor, or turned a deaf car to the humane repre- sentations of the partners in his loss, in such a case the tribunes would assuredly have interposed. To pass a fair judgement on the authors of this law, it must be considered that they wanted to overcome the com- bined forces of obstinacy and avarice ; passions, which had both of them struck equally deep roots in the Koman cha- racter, and which must frequently have baffled all ordinary 1314 Cum se C. Publilius ob aes alienum paternum nexum de- disset: Livy, vin. 28. lllSTOUY OF HOME. 001 eiForts to enforce payment on such as had the means for it. The nexus saw the day approaching when he was to forfeit his freedom, and to be abandoned to personal chas- tisement from an incenst master. But he whose person was not pledged laught at all threats: he might eman- cipate his son, and make over his whole property to him. Consequently, if he had to enter into a nexum, he might obtain fair conditions, and the reduction of his debt to a sum, after paying which he and his family woidd still have something over, whether he made the payment im- mediately, or pledged himself for a certain term. The creditor too was a gainer, even if he abated a consider- able sum. If the debtor had no property, beyond the strength of his limbs, it was still less possible to induce him to work out his debt, save by fear of the worst. This obstinacy, which was encouraged to extort a fair compromise by a man's conviction that he should not leave his family in utter beggary, must have possest a degree of force in the iron breasts of the old Romans, such as according to our notions it is quite impossible to estimate 1 '"' 5 . The means of payment became scarcer in proportion as the number of debtors increast. Though, even after the Gallic invasion, the right of killing a debtor was almost as unlikely to be put in practice as the torture or the wager of battle, which were subsisting in our days in the English criminal code, still the only way of defeat' ing it was by bondage. Nor did this bondage commence on a distant day of forfeiture. It was that form of the nexum in which the debtor was to discharge his debt by lMS I know, said a Janissary to a European consul who was pressing him bard for a debt, that you can get a sentence of death pronounced against inc. But when I am executed, what will the merchant gain then 1 ami I tell you that I will not pay more than 1 have ottered. Felix Beaujour. Tableau du Commerce de la Grece, n. p. 170. 602 HISTORY OF ROME. labour 1316 : and he spent the term of his bondage in con- finement like a slave. This was the lot of the debtor who was made over to his creditor as his property in consequence of having borrowed money from him. as well as of those whom the law threatened with death, or with hems: sold into servitude. The two classes were driven in crowds to the dungeons in the houses of the nobles 17 , where they pined away with hunger and dis- tress 18 . The soldier whom Manlius releast was doomed to live in prison like a confined slave: not a word is said about his being put to death, or sold to savage foreiners. The necessity of rebuilding the houses destroyed both in the city and country, sorry as the architecture might be, and at the same time that of procuring cattle for draught, implements of husbandry, and seed-corn, led inevitably to a general state of debt. The quantity of money re- quired could not possibly be forthcoming; more especi- ally as the heavy brass coin then in use could not be carried off except in carts, and there had been only six and thirty hours for escaping from the city after the news of the defeat. Hence it was necessary to draw money to Rome from forein parts. It was the practice of the Lombards, who carried on the same transactions as the old argentarii, in precisely the same manner 19 , to transfer their banks to the places where a high interest 1316 See Vol.i. p. 578, note 1273. Livy, vn.19: Etsi levata usura erat, sorte ipsa obruebantur inopes, nexmnque iuibant. 17 Gregatim quotidie de foro addictos duci, et repleri vinctis no- biles dornos : et ubicumque patricius habitet, ibi carcerem privatum esse : Livy, vi. 36. K See Vol. i. p. 598. 19 I have shewn in the notes on the Vatican fragments of the speech £>ro Fonteio, that the system of bookkeeping by double-entries, so far from being an invention of the Lombards, is as old as the time of the Romans, and was used by the questors in their accounts : the same was probably true with regard to bills of exchange. The word campsarc, which, as belonging to the language of common life, has HISTORY OF HOME. 603 was procurable, even though they lay in very remote countries. But the rate of interest establisht by the Twelve Tables could not allure any banker: it was much lower than at Athens nco : the enactment of the uncial interest in 393 cannot have been anything but a restora- tion of the old rate, which must have been abolisht after the Gallic invasion, for the very purpose of drawing ca- pital to Rome. Nor were the citizens merely compelled to borrow money for their own immediate personal wants: taxes were also imposed on them, partly for the execu- tion of public works, partly to replace the gold taken from the temples for the ransom of the city- 1 . Now as the tribute was still raised, not on a person's income, but on the property to which his name was annext in the census, so that he had to pay as if he had the free enjoyment of the produce, and yet at the same time was forced to support himself and his family, it often hap- pened that the only thing he could do was to add the interest of his debt, or at least part of it, to the capital, and thus year after year to augment the sum for which he was liable. To all appearance this state of things, in which every deviation from equity wounded men's feelings far more than at other times, was rendered still worse by the cir- cumstance that the old landrolls, which had previously supplied the means and the groundwork for making out new ones every lustre, if they were not utterly lost, had only been preserved by accident, was probably used even in those times for such transactions. ,3 -° See Boeckh's Economy of Athens, Book I. § 22. - l On the replacing of the money borrowed from the temples, sec p. 553, note 1228. The building of the city-walls, for which a tri- bute was raised (Id vy VI. 32), occurred 3omewhat later: but the expense of erecting the wall on the Capitoline Mount cannot have Keen defrayed in any other way : and what a number of public edi- fices must there have been, the necessary repairs of which could not be deferred I 604 HISTORY OF ROME. at least become totally inapplicable, owing to the general destruction of property; and no progress was made in drawing up new ones. For during fifteen years tribute was levied by conjectural rates 1322 ; which cannot but have been attended with acts of partiality and oppression. Moreover censors were elected thrice, in 371, 372, and 373, to make a settlement more conformable with justice. They were to inquire into the state of debts 23 ; with a "view no doubt to the transfer of such property as was pledged; and perhaps to prepare the way for a general liquidation of debts, such as was afterward effected, by an equivalent in lieu of money. But in the first year, the death of one of the censors furnisht a plea for mak- ing his collcgue resign: the second pair were forced to lay down their charge on the pretext that there had been an errour in taking the auspices, but in reality, as is quite palpable, because one of them, P. Trebonius, had been chosen from among the plebs, on the principle fol- lowed in the election of military tribunes, with whose office the censorship was combined 24 : the third pair did nothing 25 . Here it is impossible not to recognize the hand of the ruling order, who wanted to enjoy the produce of the estates of their debtors, without paying tribute for them, — 1322 This is the only meaning one can assign to the statement in Festus, on Tributorum, concerning the tributum temerarhim which was neither paid in capita nor ex censu, quia proximis quindecim annis post urbera a Gallis captam census alius (read actus) non erat. 23 Maxime propter incertarn famam aeris alieni : Livy, vi. 27. Noscendi aeris alieni causa : 31. 24 I have shewn above, p. 391, that the two military tribunes whom Diodorus (xv. 51) has in addition to those in Livy, were cen- sors. Of their names one, 'EpevovKios, is without doubt miswritten, and ought to be TcyovKios : the Genucii had families in both orders, and this person must have been a patrician : the Trebonii are known to us as plebeians, ever since the tribune of 307, and only as such. "* Ne rem agerent, bello impediti sunt : this is a mere colour, devised at the earliest by the annalists, or perhaps by Livy himself. HISTORY OF .HOME. 605 not perceiving in their folly that the city, which they re- garded as their property, must infallibly be utterly ruined, if the middle class was reduced to beggary. Wo still find the patricians acting the part of usurers 1 ' 126 : not that one can believe that they had been fortunate enough to save all their cash; but chiefly no doubt because the forein moneydealers could not carry on their traffic ex- cept under the name of a patron; a privilege for which of course they had to pay dear, as bondmen had for licence to carry on trade and commerce. Besides the patricians had demands of earlier times still outstanding. The Roman oligarchy might have acted overbearingly toward the plebeian knights without bringing on its own downfall, if, like the Carthaginian and those in some of the Greek states, or as was above all the policy of Berne, it had studied to provide for the wcllbcing of the mass of the people. Nay, even without shewing any peculiar mildness or benevolence in its administration, it might have kept its ground longer, had the senate been ac- quainted with the expedients which modern financiers have devised for glossing over present distress by shift- ing the burthen on afterages; or even if there had been any system of borrowing money on mortgage, and of rais- ing permanent loans at a moderate rate of interest. M. Manlius, the preserver of the Capitol, of whom the chronicles relate, that in birth and valour he was second to none, and in personal beauty, exploits, eloquence, vi- gour, and daring superior to all-' 7 , found himself bitterly disappointed in his claims to gratitude and honour. Ca- millus, his enemy, to whom he felt himself at least equal, 1336 Livy, vi. 36, at the end of tho chapter. 7 Quadrigarius, in Gellius, xvn. 2 : Forma, factis, eloquentia, dignitate, acrimonia, conjidenlia, pariter praeceUebaL Pliny, vii.29, relates that he took the spoils of two foes as a praetextattu, before he was seventeen : he was the first knight who gained a mural crown : he displayed C civic crowns, 37 honorable prizes, and 23 scars adverse corporc. 606 HISTORY OF ROME. who had not shared in the distress of the siege, who had imprecated curses on his country, was repeatedly raised hy the houses to the dictatorship, and by the comitia, which were under the influence of the aristocracy, to the military tribunate: while he, though a consular, found himself excluded from all dignities. This insulting ne- glect, in return for an action standing foremost but not alone in a heroic life the energy of which was still un- exhausted, poisoned his heart with virulent rancour. He was one of those strong-minded men, who have received a calling to be the first among their countrymen, and who feel an unconquerable longing to fulfill it, while low minds, envying and disliking them, are resolved to keep them back from the place due to them ; one of those the superhuman vehemence of whose character, when drawn forth by such a conflict, makes even honest but timid natures shrink. For indeed it is their doom to be haunted by a spirit, against the snares of which nothing can protect them but the confidence and esteem of honorable minds. God will require their souls from those who have driven them into fatal courses: their faults he will judge more mercifully, than -those which have ruined his noblest work. These mighty characters have always an intense inborn feeling in behalf of justice, truth, and whatever is glorious: they are animated by love and pity, by hatred and indignation of the right sort. These become subservient to their fierce passions, but do not die away. It is glaringly unjust, even when they have gone irretrievably astray, to regard actions, which in a man of blameless life would be extolled as noble and praiseworthy, in any other light in them; al- though vulgar souls may do the same things from selfish motives. It was undoubtedly with pure feelings in the first in- stance that Manlius took pity on the helpless debtors. He recognized an old fellow-soldier in the Forum, a cap- tain distinguisht by a number of exploits, whom a usurer HISTORY OF ROME. G07 was carrying away in fetters according to the sentence of the law. Manlius paid his debt on the spot, and gave him back to his family. When the man could find words, he told the surrounding crowd the story of his fate, in which most of his hearers recognized their own. The war, and the compulsory rebuilding of his house, had plunged him in debt: the interest had been added to the capital, till its amount was more than doubled, and at length far exceeded his whole fortune. He bared his honorable scars, the memorials of many wars, and vowed eternal gratitude and unbounded devotion to his benefactor. All the spectators were stirred by the sight: Manlius was roused to enthusiasm. In the sight of the whole people he sold an estate, the most valuable part of his inheritance, and swore that, so long as he had a single pound, he would not allow any Roman to be car- ried into bondage for debt. This oath he faithfully kept. When he was capitally impeacht, he brought forward near four hundred citizens, whom he had rescued from imprisonment by lending them money without interest. From this day forth the commonalty hailed him with the name of its patron 1328 , which no doubt may have excited uneasiness in the government. Plebeians of all classes began to assemble in his house in the citadel. In addressing them he is said to have accused his own order of embezzling the Gallic gold, and to have urged that they ought to be made to refund it, to be employed in a general liquidation of debts. The mention of a tribute as imposed in order to raise that moneys is a mark that this is not a fiction devised by the annalists to fill up the story, and that it docs not refer to the 13C3 Livy, vi. 18. Victor, de vir. ill. 24 : where however this highly honorable name is converted into patronus populi, and re- ferred to the saving of the Capitol. He seems also to have been called parens plebis : Livy, vi. 14. 3. " Livy, vi. 14. Ad redimendam civitatem a Gallis — tribute oolliitioiii'iu fact am. 608 HISTORY OF ROME. gold fabled to have been retaken by Caraillus. What the chronicles meant was a sum levied to replace the one borrowed from the temples, and that too by double the amount: for the sum walled up was twice as much as the ransom 1330 . Had this measure been deferred to a season of prosperity, it would have been unobjectionable, as a check to keep the state from accustoming itself to look to the plunder of the temples as a shift always ready in time of need. But when the tribute was to be paid with money borrowed from the usurers, what may perhaps have been mere bigotry, was regarded as a piece of revolting hypocrisy: and as it was done for the sake of making a deposit which was to be concealed from all eyes, nobody could be blamed for suspecting that the tax was extorted for the sole benefit of a few powerful peculators, who divided its produce among them, after having received a percentage from such of their clients as carried on usury under their name, and lent the same sum to the unfortunate taxpayers. As soon as such a suspicion had once spread, it past for an incontrovertible truth with men ground down by poverty: and this must have tended far more than all previous acts of oppression to bring on that fearful mood in which insurrection be- comes a welcome idea. Such charges could only serve to embitter irritation. The real way to alleviate the distress was to propose an assignment of lands, and a liquidation of debts. Dio- nysius 31 related that Manlius demanded such a liquida- tion, or that the public domain should be sold, to pay off the debts with the produce. The latter measure, if adopted merely with regard to a portion of the domain, such namely as ought in equity to have been allotted to the commonalty, was the same thing with the other under 1330 piin Yj xxxiii. 15. 31 For he is the writer whose language we read in Appiarj, fr. 9. Italic, p. 40. HISTORY OF ROME. 609 a better form. This is too early a period for any propo- sitions except such as the curies might at least give a compulsory assent to: so that a general agrarian law is out of the question. It was the year 370, the fifth after the restoration of the city. A. Cornelius Cossus had been appointed dic- tator on account of the Volscian war. His authority lasted beyond the campaign, which soon came to an end; and he ordered Manlius to be thrown into prison for slandering the government and for sedition. Hereupon, as though the prisoner had been their patron or intimate friend, many of the plebeians, beside those who owed him their free- dom and the light of heaven, went into mourning for him with their clothes rent, and their hair and beard in disorder. Their numbers increast daily; and they never left the gate of his prison from daybreak to evening. With the view of alienating the commonalty from their leader, it was resolved to send a colony of two thousand citizens to Satricum. But from the smallness of the number, and the scanty allotment of two jugers and a half to each family 1332 , this proposal was received with scorn; while the situation of the place, where the setlers did in fact perish shortly after, caused it to be deemed a perfidious stratagem. The adherents of Manlius now never quitted his prison even during the night. Threats were heard of releasing him by force. The senate, in- stead of bringing him to trial, took the resolution of giv- ing him his liberty; whether for the sake of avoiding any violent outbreak for the moment, or because they had not even plausible evidence to bear out a charge of high treason against him, while there seemed to be reason for expecting that his violent character would now in- fallibly mislead him into such steps as would render him legally criminal. 1333 5000 jugers are just a hundred questorian or plebeian centu- ries of 100 actus : see p. 1G2, uote3o2. VOL. II. Q Q 610 HISTORY OF ROME. Who can doubt that, when his party saw themselves again assembled around him, their language was now far fiercer and more menacing than before? Who will main- tain that the idea of usurping kingly power, which no Roman in his sound senses could have conceived, may not have seized upon his feverish soul amid the darkness of his dungeon, so as never again to forsake it? Yet Livy could nowhere find any action laid to his charge, which pointed immediately to such an aim 1333 . Perhaps Manlius would even now have acquiesced in the condi- tion of a private citizen, if his just claims had been satis- fied. But the ruling party could no more bring them- selves to make concessions and shew confidence, than Manlius could exercise a virtuous resignation for the sake of peace. Thus, whether guilty or innocent, he became an extremely dangerous person, through a mis- fortune for which there was no cure: and matters could not fail to grow worse and worse. This knot might have been solved by ostracism : and the tribunes who impeacht him before the centuries 34 , can hardly have had any other object than to remove him from the city, because his re- maining there was incompatible with the existence of a government, which, however culpable it might be, could not have been overthrown by violence without extreme injustice and the most calamitous consequences. It is clear that they only wanted to force him to quit Rome. 1333 Quae praeter coetus rnultitudinis, seditiosasque voces, et largi- tionem, et fallax indicium, pertinentia proprie ad regni crimen — objecta sint — apud neminem auctorem invenio : Livy, vi.20. 34 Their names in our editions of Livy, vi. 19. are written M. Maenius and Q. Publilius, both of them from conjectures, which with regard to the second may be considered as wellfounded, and would make him the father or grandfather of the dictator : for the first name however the reading of all the manuscripts, M. Menenius which Sigonius has too boldly changed, ought to be restored both here and in iv. 43 : a great many tribunes of the people bear the names of patrician houses. HISTORY OF ROME. 6 1 I As things were now, lie might have taken up the fran- chise of a municipal town without shame: unfortunately he would not give way, and awaited his trial. This seemed to hold out the fairer prospect for him, in pro- portion to the immoderate lengths to which the patricians carried their fury. The behaviour of his friends, who all deserted him, in violation of the sacred duties they owed to their house, — that of his brethren, who renounced him, and did not even wear the outward signs of grief, — were the more revolting, when it was remembered that C. Clau- dius and his whole house had put on mourning during the impeachment of the decemvir. When he called how- ever upon those as his witnesses, whose freedom and property he had restored to them, or whose life he had saved in war, — among the rest on C. Servilius, the mas- ter of the horse, who did not make his appearance to repay this debt by his evidence; — when he displayed the arms of thirty enemies whom he had slain, the forty honorary guerdons which he had received from divers generals, when he laid bare the scars upon his breast, and turning his eyes from the people assembled in the Field of Mars toward the Capitol, prayed and implored, not ungrateful men who forget every benefit, but the im- mortal gods, to remember in this his need that it was he who had saved their holy temple from desecration and destruction; — then even those who deemed his pre- servation irreconcilable with that of the state, felt that they were unworthy to condemn so great a man. That he was not condemned is allowed : nor is it to be ques- tioned that the centuries acquitted him. The statement that sentence was deferred, was merely invented on the false notion that the court which condemned him was a legitimate continuation of that in the Field of Mars. All thought of terminating the affair peaceably was now at an end. The partisans of Manlius made prepara- tions to aid him in defending the Capitol by arms. The persons of the greatest weight and prudence in the plebs QQ2 612 HISTORY OF ROME. sorrowfully relinqulsht the victory, in an affair which was now become desperate, to men less honest and generous than their erring adversary. On the other hand Camil- lus, having been appointed dictator for the fourth time 1335 , and being now in the city 36 , was busy in accomplishing his enemy's downfall. Protected by the unlimited power of his office, the public prosecutors arraigned Manlius before the curies on the same charge which had pre- viously miscarried 37 ; or they proposed an act of outlawry 1335 Di on Cassius (Zonaras, vn.24) expressly mentions that Ca- millus was dictator, and says it was for the fourth time : and Livy's narrative shews that C. Servilius at the period of the trial was master of the horse. Inter quos C. Servilium magistrum equitum absentem nominatum : vi. 20. He had held this office indeed in 366 ; but Livy cannot possibly have meant that it was then that Manlius saved his life ; nor do the words of Pliny, vn.29, prove that such was the case. Livy on this occasion, as with regard to the year 369 (vi. 6), let himself be misled by the notion that a military tribune, though he might be invested with dictatorial power, could not be appointed dictator. 36 The master of the horse at least had previously been absent. 37 In Petelinum lucum extra portam Nomentanam concilium po- puli indictum est : Livy, vn. 20. I have already remarkt in Vol. I. p. 426, that the populus here spoken of can be no other than the curies. No annalist can have termed the comitiate of the centuries a concilium populi, which the assembly of the curies was, just as that of the commonalty was a concilium plebis, and was called so. Besides, the centimes never met in any other place than the Field of Mars : whereas the patrician populus was also convened in a grove, the esculetum, when they adopted the Hortensian law. Some of the an- nals only mentioned the tribunes as the accusers of Manlius, others only the questors : Livy, vi. 19, 20. In opposition to the practice I have had to find fault with in such a number of instances, where two different accounts of the same thing have been tackt together as if they had been different events, we here find an example of the con- trary, which in early Roman history is extremely rare. It is a fine idea that the people could not summon heart to pronounce sentence with the Capitol before their eyes ; but the fate of Manlius did not turn upon this. The account given by Dionysius (to judge from the Exc. 28. p. 32, and from Plutarch, Camill. c. 36) seems to have agreed entirely with Livy's. HISTORY OF BOMB. 613 against him. The latter seems to me the more probable supposition: for although the Twelve Tables had forbid- den laws against individuals, yet the assent of the com- monalty, which cannot have been taken into account in them, may have given the matter a different aspect 1338 . The council of the patrician populus, assembled in the Petelian grove, before the Nomentan gate, condemned Manlius to death. This sentence was not unjust, if he was already in insurrection. But who can certify us that this very out- lawry did not drive the illfated hero to that step, when otherwise perhaps he would never have gone so far astray? That he did take this step, — that he did not fall a pas- sive victim, as is assumed in Livy's story, which would therefore seem to place his innocence beyond doubt, — is a fact with regard to which Dion has preserved an ac- count taken, like many other things in his history, from a most authentic source : only he has fallen into the errour, so common with other Roman historians, of combining it incongruously with the usually received one. AVhen sepa- rated from the latter, it sounds no less trustworthy than characteristic. According to it, Manlius with his party was master of the Capitol, and at open war with the republic. But the plebeians of rank had all abandoned him ; and he was too weak to despise any aid. A slave, who feigned to have crept through the sentinels stationed by the dictator, made his way up to the Capitol, and gave out that he was come as a deputy from a conspi- racy of his class. Manlius, who was walking to and fro upon the platform on the edge of the steep precipice, gave him audience without suspicion. In a lonely spot, the traitor darted upon him, and pusht him down the rock 39 . At'terages, ashamed of this dastardly piece of ims rpy s -g w j ult j k a( l i n view above, in p. 503. 89 Dion, fr. xxxi. Reim. compared with Zonaras (vn. 24), with whose help that fragment becomes intelligible. Nothing can be 614 HISTORY OF EOME. treachery, related that he was thrown down by the tri- bunes 1340 . Others said he was scourged and beheaded 41 ; perhaps on no other ground than this was the way in which a sentence of death pronounced by the curies would have been carried into effect; though it is possible that he may have been taken up alive, and been executed. As Manlius had been able to make himself master of the citadel from having a house there, an ordinance was past that in future no patrician should live on the Capitoline. Not that the curies intended this as a stigma upon their own order, or that the plebeians were deemed worthy of greater confidence. But a privilege of their own was now abolisht: and henceforward nobody what- ever was to dwell in the citadel, which the plebeians had always been prohibited from doing 42 . The house which had belonged to Manlius was razed ; and according to one account its site was planted with two groves; according worse contrived than the way in which the story is strung together. Manlius, it is said, was merely seized in order to be brought before the centuries : then follows his double trial ; and after all he is again thrown down the Tarpeian rock. This time he died, though pre- viously he had been so little hurt, that he was able to harangue the people. He had been in open insurrection ; and yet he was acquitted. In such a case there would have been no trial at all : the dictator would have ordered him to be put to death. Diodorus too speaks of Manlius as having been overpowered in an open insurrection : imfia- \6fxevos Tvpdviudi /cat Kpa.Tt]de)s avrfptQr}. XV. 35. 1340 Such is the account given by Livy, Dionysius (in the Ex- cerpta, and in Plutarch), and Dion, in unison with Varro, quoted by Gellius, xvii. 21 : according to which the tribunes themselves must have been the executioners ; since they had no right to order the execution of any sentence, especially against a patrician, inasmuch as they were not a magistratus populi ; but they had the right of slaying a person with their own hands : see note 372. 41 Cornelius Nepos, quoted by Gellius, xvn. 21 : this was the punishment for a perduellio who was to be executed more majorum on a charge brought against him by the duumvirs. 42 For this reason the Capitoline hill was not in any of the ple- beian regions, and does not occur in Varro's topography of the city. HISTORY OF ROME. 61a to another the temple of Juno Moncta, and subsequently the mint, was built there 1343 . The Manlian house too resolved that none of its patrician members should ever again bear the name of Marcus 44 . M. Manlius was put to death in the year 371. The people mourned over him; and a pestilence and dearth, which ensued soon after, and aggravated their distress, were regarded as a punishment sent by the gods to avenge the preserver of their temples 45 . 1343 The speech Pro Domo, 28 (101). Livy, vi. 20. Plutarch, Camill. c. 36. •" As the Claudian house once forbad the name of Lucius, be- cause two of its members bearing that name had been condemned, one for murder, the other for highway robbery. 45 By a singular play of fortune the fabulous splendour with which poetical tradition environed Camillus, was transferred among the Byzantines to his illfated rival. Johannes Malalas (Chronogr vii. p. 233-239) relates, on the authority of a writer called Brunich- ius, that Mallio Capitolinus, having been banisht from Rome by the malice of his enemies, retired to his estates near Aquileia. After the taking of the city however the senate repented, and named him general: whereupon he collected the legions from the fortresses, with their aid relieved the Capitol, slew Brennus with his own hand, was then made supreme head of the commonwealth, and drove out his arch-enemy, the traitorous senator Februarius, who was sprung from a Gallic race. The same story is found in Cedrenus. Brunichius assuredly is not a forged name, like that of the author of the lesser parallels, of the treatise dejiuviis, of the scholiast on the Ibis, per- haps also that of the Ravenna geographer : it is true he was not a Roman : his name is evidently a Gothic one, like "Wittich. It is very easy to conceive that the narratives, which the German setters found in Italy already restored to their ancient character of legends, would on the one hand be imperfectly apprehended by them, and on the other treated with the same freedom with which they were accustomed to deal with their own indigenous hereditary traditions. Traces of ancient history entirely disfigured in popular tales are to be found at least no long time after the fall of the western empire. Evident marks of such an origin are discoverable in the story of Camillus in the Commentary on the sixth book of the Aeneid (v. 826), known by the name of Servius, but belonging in fact to the number of those of which we have merely an extract, made without any judgement. 616 HISTORY OF ROME. As the senate after the death of Maelius had tried to conciliate the people by selling corn at a low price, so now, in 372, it resolved on making an assignment of the Pomptine district, which the tribunes had already demanded four years before 1346 . This settlement how- ever was destroyed soon after, owing to the loss of Satri- cum, and only a few of the unfortunate colonists escaped. More favorable auspices attended those who, renouncing their civic franchise, went with the view of acquiring property to the Latin colonies of Sutrium in 372, of Setia in 373, and of Nepete in 382 47 . It is a fact of some importance in the history of the constitution, that, when the senate and houses had resolved to declare war in 372, the decree was brought and with many interpolations between the sixth and tenth centuries by one of the wretched grammatical schools of those times. The way in which Pisaururn, the place where the victory was gained, is men- tioned, is a clear token of a late age : for the etymological explana- tion which derives it from the Italian pesare, proves that it was already pronounced Pesaurum. A novel incident in the tale is, that Camillus afterward goes back into exile. The great names of ancient story continued to live from their inherent immortality ; but the imagination sported with them no less capriciously than the prattling of a child, or than the romances of chivalry did with history and geography. Thus Catiline at the beginning of the middle ages was turned into the hero of the Florentine chronicles : thus Hannibal in the Roman traditions of tbe tenth century was a Roman general, from whom a family in the city traced its pedigree. It is true this was harmless enough, and more acceptable to the spirits of the de- parted than complete oblivion, so long as history lay in its grave. All that Malalas knows of Roman history before Augustus is of this kind : he tells us how Romulus instituted the factions of the Circus, and how Brutus made the slave Vindicius a count. 1346 Livy, vi. 5. 21. 4r Such are the dates given by Velleius. Livy places the colony at Setia in 376, the one at Nepete in 372 (vi.30. 21), and passes over Sutrium. Satricum was a colony of Romans : such did not come within the plan of the list in Velleius ; nor ought any change to be made either in his text or in that of Livy, vi. 16. HISTORY OF ROME. 617 before the commonalty for its acceptance 1348 ; whereas the custom had previously been to submit such matters to the approval of the centuries 49 . To the people however any alleviation of its distress would have been more ac- ceptable than such improvements in the constitution, or than the compact between the chiefs of the two orders, by which the patricians in 376 allowed plebeian military tribunes to be again elected, after an interval of seven- teen years; more especially as they had only the name of the office. Its power was arbitrarily usurpt by their patrician collegues, who were very unfortunate in the exercise of it. This however did not prevent the ruling faction from again excluding all the plebeian candidates except one the next year. The compact just mentioned was extorted by the tri- bunes, who would neither allow the debtors to be con- signed to their creditors, nor troops to be levied, till the approach of danger obliged them to give way on the lat- ter point. When they renewed their intercession in 377, it was agreed that, so long as the war lasted, no judge- ment should be given on such debts as might become due, nor should any tribute be imposed. Perhaps it was found possible, during such brief campaigns as that of the dictator T. Quinctius, to pay the troops with the produce of the tenth : or perhaps the plebeians discovered that it was a less evil to go without pay, now that the senate could not keep the legions for an indefinite term in the field. This was the third year that censors were appointed to inquire into the state of debts, and to alle- viate it: but, in compliance with the views of their fac- tion, they did nothing toward accomplishing this charge, and even aggravated the existing load of debt by impos- ing a tribute for building the walls' . The appointment IMS Livy, VI. 21 : Onines tribus bellum jusserunt. « See p. 427, note 946. 50 Livy, vi. 32. The disgust felt at the pretenses brought forward to frustrate the census (ne rem agerent hello impediti sunt t vi. 31) 618 HISTORY OF ROME. of L. Aemilius and his collegues 1351 as military tribunes for the next year, 378, Livy says was brought about forcibly by the patricians 52 . This agrees with the state- ment of Diodorus, that some time had previously been spent in tumults and interreigns, because one party wanted to have an election of consuls 53 . The sincere lovers of their country seem again on this occasion, when the enemy took the field, to have resolved with sorrow to yield to the insolent injustice of the patricians. The universal distress had now reacht its highest pitch. Debtors were every day consigned to slavery, and dragged to the private dungeons. The commonalty sank under its misery into a state of gloomy submission: while the question with regard to the corporate privileges of the two orders, which had been so vehemently contested at the very beginning of the century now verging to- ward its close, seemed to be entirely settled in favour of the patricians 54 . The number of free citizens was is exprest in v. 27 : earn ludificationem — ferendam negabant. The tribunes stop all legal proceedings and the levies, donee inspecto aere alieno, initaque ratione minuendi ejus, sciat unusquisque quid sui, quid alieni sit. i35i This mode of designating a numerous body of magistrates by the expression, the first and his collegues, is usual in the Florentine chronicles. 52 Coacta principum opibus : vi. 32. 53 XV. 61. 01. 102. 4. Uapd 'Poopaiois eyevtro errdens, tcov ptv olopevav 8elv vndrovs, tmv 8e xi\idp)(ovs alpelaBai. e'rrl piv ovv Tiva Xpdvov avap^ia ttjv ardcriv inreXafie, perd 8e Tavra e'So£e ^i\idp\ovs alpeta-dai ?£. As Diodorus assuredly never adds anything out of his own head, we cannot suppose that he was speaking by mistake of the Licinian bill. Consequently the disturbances about the Licinian law, which Livy places in the year of these military tribunes, had either begun under those of the year before, or the patricians again wanted to have consuls for the same reasons as before the coming of the Gauls. 54 Livy, vi. 34. In urbe vis patrum in dies, miseriaque plebis crescebant — cum jam ex re nihil dari posset, farna et corpore judicati atque addicti creditoribus satisfaciebant ; poenaque in vicem fidei cesserat. Adeo ergo obnoxios demiserant animos, non infimi solum sed principes etiam plebis, ut — ne ad plebeios quidem magistratus HISTORY OF ROME. G19 visibly decreasing. Those who remained were reduced to a state of dependence by their debts. Rome was on the point of degenerating into a miserable oligarchy. Her name, as one of the Latin towns recorded in Greek books, supposing that such could have come down to us without the universal empire of the Romans, would have been the utmost that we should have known of her, had not her irretrievable decline been arrested at this moment by the appearance of two men who changed the fate of their country and of the world. Our forefathers, who sought comfort in proverbs, used to say, — when the people's tale of bricks is doubled, Moses is at hand. This is a delusive confidence. The Greeks have kept on sinking from one stage of misery and servitude to a still lower: nor has the people of Moses been visited by any second deliverer, though by many a false prophet, who has plunged it into fresh and more terrible calamities. There is even danger in such a hope: for it may lead men to put faith in those lying spirits that come forward in gloomy times with promises, and urge them to desperate enterprises, bringing on a state of things still worse than the evil already deemed intolerably degrading. The two Roman tribunes how- ever were deliverers, such as heaven in its mercy does indeed send at times when the need is the sorest. Their measures were an unmixt blessing; because the nation was still sound and regarded its institutions, when re- formed, as sacred; and because they themselves were content with restoring that fitness which certain parts had lost through the changes of time; because they car- ried back the constitution to its original idea, and did not dream of creating a new one; because they did not violate any tie in the commonwealth, but persevered in- defatigably until the reform was accomplisht according to all the rules of law. capessendos ulli viro acri experientique animus esset : possession- einque honoris, usurpati modo aplebe per paucos annos, recuperasse in perpetuum patrea viderentur. 620 APPENDIX I. ON THE ROMAN MODE OF PARTITIONING LANDED PROPERTY, AND ON THE LIMITATIO} The following classification, while it is strictly adapted to the notions of the Romans, gives us the peculiar terms of their ancient national law. Ager, a district, was the whole territory belonging to any civic community, in opposition to terra, a country, which comprised many such proprietary districts, as for instance terra Italia, Graecia". All landed property {ager in its restricted sense) was either Roman or forein, aut Romanus aut peregrinus. Under the head of forein came even that of isopolitan nations. All Roman land was either the property of the state (common land, domain), or private property, aut publicus aut privatus. 1 The dissertation on the agrarian institutions in the first edition of this volume embraced the whole range of those inquiries which originally and by degrees led me beyond their own circle to a critical examination of Roman history. At that time I felt a great interest even in their minutest details ; and this partiality hindered my noticing that they were carried to an inordinate length — a fault which has now been remedied in the chapter on the Public Land and its Occupation, — and that the following investigation was not neces- sary, like the contents of that chapter, to render the history intelli- gible. In an appendix it will not cause any interruption ; and it explains certain very ancient institutions peculiar to the Romans. 2 Varro de L. L. vu. 2 (vi. p. 84). Ut ager Tusculanus sic Calydonius, ager est non terra, APPENDIX I. G21 The landed property of the state was either conse- crated to the gods (sacer), or allotted to men to reap its fruits (pro/anus, humani juris). A later view made this the primary division, and then distinguisht the land be- longing to man into public property and private property 3 : but a treatise, evidently written in the time of Domitian, and assuredly by Frontinus 4 , — the only work among those of the Agrimensorcs which can be accounted a part of classical literature, or was composed with any real legal knowledge, — says that the soil of the sacred groves was indisputably the property of the Roman people 5 . This is confirmed by the statement in Livy, that the temple and grove of Juno at Lanuvium became the joint pro- perty of the Roman people and of the Lanuvine munici- pals, when the latter were admitted to the civic fran- chise 6 . All the landed property of the state, belonging to man, was either restored to the persons who had lost the right of property in it, or was made over to citizens or to iso- polites to possess it (aut redditus aut occupatus). All private property was either set apart from the public domain (ex publico /actus privatus) ; or it had be- come Roman by a grant of the civic franchise to a forein community ("ger municipalis). The former was either acquired by sale (quaestorius), or by assignment (assigna- tus): and that acquired by assignment was either be- stowed on all the plebeians in equal lots, — that is to say, on every father of a family; for a more extensive 3 Gains, II. 2-0. 4 It must assuredly have been during the lifetime of this tyrant, whose execrated name was erazed from public monuments after his death, that he was called praestantissimus Domitianiu, as he is in the fragment de controversiis agrorum puhlisht by Rigaltius, and ascribed to Aggenns: tit. de subsecivis, p. 69. ed. Clursii. Front inns wrote his book on stratagems during his reign, and was also a writer on land- measurement. 5 Tit. de locis sacris et religiosis, p. 74. « vin.14. 222 APPENDIX I. grant was an exception 7 , — (viritanus 8 ), or merely on a definite number united into a social community (colonicus). If the colony was a Latin one, the land assigned lost the character of Roman land, and became forein, just as the Roman who went thither gave up his civic rights: but it still retained the right of commercium. The municipal land was either the common land which every town in Italy, — not to speak of other countries, — had possest in the days of its independence imager vectiga- lis in the Pandects) ; or it was private property (privatus). The same was the case with the colonies, even the mili- tary ones. The ancient system of law to which this classification belonged, has entirely perisht. But another system, which designated its chief classes by their external form, has been preserved in the works of the Agrimensores, the most unintelligible and most neglected writers of Roman literature, to which in fact they do not belong any more than treatises by uneducated persons on matters of every- day life do to ours. But nothing gains so much in value by the progress of time as such writings: a technological work by an ancient would now be more precious than one by any save a firstrate poet. Thus these works, which a Roman, if the singular art on which they treated was not his peculiar calling, must have regarded with utter indifference, since almost everybody, who was not a thoroughpaced townsman, had a notion of its funda- mental principles from observation, are to us not un- deservedly an object of laborious study. For it is well worth the trouble to become acquainted, — nor is there any other way of gaining such an acquaintance, — with the forms by which the Romans markt out the land set apart as private property from the public domain, and circumscribed its particular portions with unchangeable 7 The assignment of the Veientine district is spoken of as such in Livy, v. 30. » Festus, on this word. APPENDIX I. 623 boundaries; — forms, which were older than the city, and which, though to all appearance a fantastical and perish- able artificial contrivance, with the inherent vitality of all the Roman institutions outlived the downfall of the western empire for about five centuries. These forms, which, Yarro tells us, were invented by the Etruscans, and grounded on their observation of the heavens 9 , seem to have been adopted not only by the La- tins, but also by the Italian nations, since they are found among the Italian Greeks, in whose mother-country one may confidently assert there was no institution any way akin to them. On the Heraclean tables the situation of pieces of land is described by expressions which, Maz- zochi rightly perceived, belong to a mode of marking boundaries analogous to the Roman 10 . From this we may conclude that the district which the Sybarites at Thurii set apart for themselves from the portion to be assigned to their fellowcitizens. bore the character and the forms of the Italian agrarian institutions, just as their pretensions to the exclusive possession of all civic ho- nours corresponded to those of the patricians 11 . But according to the agrarian institutions no land was held to be markt by boundaries, save what had been divided in conformity to the practice of the state, and to that mode of observing the heavens which was adopted in taking auspices. Every other kind of boundary was regarded by the Romans as indefinite. The subject 9 Varro, Fragm. de limitibus (quoted by Frontinus), p.218 ; where we must read disciplinam etruscam instead of rusticam. Hy- giuus, de limitib. p. 150. The mention of the aruspicy refers to the division of the vaidt of the sky for the interpretation of lightning ; the same however prevailed in taking the auspices, an institution derived from the Sabellians : and perhaps this isanother instance in which a Tuscan rite has Wen ascribed to the Etruscans. 10 Tab. Herac. p. 180-182. What answers to the limes is desig- nated by an unheard-of word, apropos. 11 Diodorus, xii. 11. 624 APPENDIX I. treated of by the Agrimensores is land thus markt out: other land they only mention by way of contrast. Every field which the republic separated from the common domain, was markt out by boundaries. No se- paration could take place without such a demarcation: and wherever there were any traces of the latter, although particular estates within the region subjected to it might still be part of the domain, it was yet a certain proof that such a separation had taken place. On the other hand every municipal, as well as every forein region, was held to be without boundaries (arci- finius), or merely limited by natural or arbitrary land- marks. The most important part of this class however was the Roman public domain 12 . Here two distinct no- tions are confounded by the later writers. The public domain, as well as every piece of landed property not assigned by the state, came under the head of ager arci- finius. Even after the practice, which perhaps originated in the time of Trajan, was introduced of measuring and marking out the domain in the provinces, though in par- ticular cases this was erroneously done according to the rules of the Roman limitatio, the regular division was into strips and plots (per strigas et scamna). The ex- pression ager occupatorius however was by no means of the same extent, but was confined to the public land, strictly so called, and designated the tenure under which it was held. The principle of the Roman limitatio was to draw lines toward the four quarters of the heavens, parallel and crosswise, in order to effect a uniform division of the lots of land which were transferred from the public domain to private property, and to fix immutable boun- daries for them 13 . Hence these boundaries (the limites) 12 Latifundia arcentium vicinos : Pliny, xvin. 5. 13 Of which, in the assignments to plebeians, these very lines mostly formed two sides and an angle, or at all events one side, and APPENDIX I. 625 were markt by a slip of land left for the purpose, un- toucht by cultivation, as balks or ways; as their extre- mities were by a row of stones inscribed with numerals. As the vault of the heavens was called templum, and was the original idea of a temple, so the name of temple was given to all that space on earth which an augur markt out in his mind, according to the cardinal points, as far as his eye reacht, for the purpose of taking auspices. No auspices or auguries could be taken except in a tem- ple. But the whole city was one through its original inauguration: a camp too was a temple, because it was necessary to observe auspices in it: hence walls and gates were sancta: hence the unchangeableness of the jwmoe- rium. For whatever was determined in this way was to remain unalterably fixt, unless its removal was enjoined by more powerful auspices. This however did not hal- low it : many temples, as we learn from Varro, were not dedicated to the gods, and consequently were not holy; while on the other hand the churches of the gods, — the expression must be allowed for this once, — were not ne- cessarily temples 11 : there Avere some in which auspices could not be taken. Nevertheless, though the usage be erroneous, we must comply with it, more especially to avoid employing an offensive expression, and must call all buildings dedicated to the gods temples indiscri- minately, as if what was an accidental feature had been the main point. In like manner a whole district markt out under the auspices for partition was in fact a temple, and unalterable. There is a reference to this in the opinion pronounced by Cicero, in his capacity of augur, in an affair which according to our view would be a question of constitutional law, that where a colony had unquestionably determined the position of the other sides and an- gles. The employment of the limes to mark the boundary gave rise to its ordinary meaning. 14 Varro, de L. L. vn. 2 (vi. p. 82). VOL. II. R R 626 APPENDIX I. once been founded under regular auspices, so long as it subsisted undestroyed, no new one could be settled 10 . Thus every assignment of lands, and even every sale of domain-lands, acquired a religious security : it could never be resumed by the state. With regard to the position of an augur, when he was determining a temple, we find three different state- ments. According to Livy l6 ; at the inauguration of a king, — and, as appears from Dionysius 17 , at that of a consul also, — he lookt toward the east, and called the north left, the south right. By his side, facing the south, sat the person who was to be inaugurated. There is a connexion between this view and the direction of the limit es in later times from west to east 18 . According to Varro 19 he lookt southward, and the east was to his left: and the same is implied by the division of the heavenly vault in Festus 20 , and in a mutilate passage which he quotes from Serv. Sulpicius 21 . But according to Frontinus 22 the west was the point of view taken in the division of land: hence he calls the limites to the west of a meridian line drawn through the spot where the augur stood anticae, those to the east of it posticae: whereas Serv. Sulpicius must have applied the terms anticae and posticae to the parallel lines on the south and on the north of the one running from east to west on which the augur stood 23 . These three accounts, though so much at variance, may, I think, be reconciled by means of a piece of information preserved out of Varro. The augur conceived himself to be looking in the same manner in which the gods lookt on the earth : the dwelling of the gods was believed to be in the north 15 Philip. II. 40 (102). 16 1. 18. " II. 5. 18 Hyginus, de limitib. p. 152. 19 In the passage quoted in note 9, and in Festus, Sinistrae. 20 Under Posticum ostium. 21 Under Postica. 22 De hmitib. p. 215. Hyginus, de limitib. p. 150. 23 Festus, Sinistrae. APPENDIX I. (J27 of the earth 21 . In the same region do the Indians place their Mcru, the mountain of the gods. Even the Greeks regarded this extremity of the earth, beyond the Boreas, as a blessed country, the abode of men beloved by the gods. From the north the gods directed their eye toward the other three points of the heavens, to sur- vey the earth: but when they turned their back upon it in wrath, their left-hand stretcht toward the west: and that they did so when the auspices were unfavorable, was assuredly the doctrine of the augurs. So that in substance there is no contradiction in these three differ- ent traditions. That, so long as the ancient religion re- mained in force, there were in fact two points of view, one toward the south and one toward the west, with re- ference to the division of lands, is clear from the passages quoted above. The former had been forgotten in the time of the later landsurveyors : it seems however to have been the very oldest, inasmuch as the cardo the principal line in such divisions, ran from north to south. In the earliest ages the person who measured out land, was indisputably himself an augur, accompanied by Etruscan priests, or by such as had studied under them; these being assuredly the only possessors of the little mathematical knowledge which Rome borrowed for its domestic uses from the store, perhaps the rich store, of the Etruscans. The augur, taking his stand, fixt his mind on the boundaries determined in the ordinance of the senate or in the law, for the purpose of protecting the inauguration against any slip of the tongue by the salvo that nothing but his intention was to hold good. In the assignments under the emperors he no longer took any part; and his place was occupied by the ayri- mensor: who also began with ascertaining his direction, and that too according to the true cardinal points, not the accidental place of sunrise and sunset: though the ■* Quoted by Festus, under Siiiistrae. R K 2 628 APPENDIX I. latter method was sometimes adopted, — a proof of the ignorance of the native Roman landsurveyors 25 . Having done this he drew the main line from south to north, which, as corresponding to the axis of the world, was termed cardo. The line which cut it at right angles bore the name of decumanus, probably from making the figure of a cross, which resembles the numeral X, — like decussatus. These two principal lines were prolonged to the extremity of the district to be divided; and parallel to these, at a greater or less distance, as was required by the size of the quadrangles into which the district was to be parceled out, other lines were drawn, which were designated by the name of the principal line they ran parallel to; the latter being distinguisht from them by the adjunct maximus. All these were indicated on the ground, so far as its nature allowed, by balks, of which those representing the principal lines were the widest: the next in width, if we count after the Greek fashion, was every sixth, or, according to the Roman practice with regard both to space and time, — which reckoned none twice over, and the one next to the principal line as the first, — every fifth 26 . Now these balks, being the visible representatives of the imaginary lines, were called limites ; they continued public property; and in Italy all of them, not merely the broader ones, were reserved for highways. The sur- face of them was deducted from the ground to be divided : so that the squares bordering on the broader roads came out smaller than the remainder. The motive for this no doubt was to spare the ignorant landsurveyor every cal- culation in the slightest degree complicated 27 . 25 Hyginus, de lirnitib. p. 153. 26 In like manner quinquenncde temjpus among the Romans unquestionably meant a period of five years, whereas the Greek rrepTaeTrjph only contained four. 27 Hyginus, de limitib. p. 152. Seven lots of seven jugeis apiece, in the century of fifty, remained undiniinisht. ArPENDix i. 629 The distance between the limites was determined by the size of the squares or centuries, as they were called, bounded by them. I have remarkt, that the oldest cen- turies assigned to the populus contained two hundred jugers, those to the plebs fifty; and that those of two hundred and ten also refer to assignments of seven jugers to each plebeian 28 : the others belong to a later age, and have nothing to do with the old state of things. Even in the time of the triumvirate, assignments were expressly made according to centuries of fifty jugers, which name the agrimensors refused to apply to the old qucstorian plots of land. For they lookt on the juger merely as a unit, and thought the use of the word century for a greater number intelligible, but inconceivable for a less. The juger, however, as the very name implies, was a double measure 29 : the real unit in the Roman landmeasure was the actus, containing 14400 square feet, that is, a square of which each side was 120 feet 30 . A square area of fifty jugers was the square of ten actus 31 , and was just as much a century, that is, of a hundred actus, as the Romulean was of a hundred heredia 3 *. The proportion between the square-root of the Roman actus or fundus, twelve roods of ten feet apiece, and the Etruscan or Umbrian versus or vorsus,- — which, as we learn from a fragment of Frontinus 33 , contained ten such roods, and which Yarro 34 , tells us was in use in Cam- pania, — was just the same as that between the Roman civil and the cyclic year. Hence as the limites of the 18 P. 156, note 329 ; p. 163, note 355. 29 Columella, v. 1. 30 It can only have been in consequence of a proximate equality between this and the Gallic aripennis that the Romans in Gaul used the two words as equivalent : nor can the arpent of whatever size be exactly equal to the latter. 31 Denis actibus L. jugera inelusernnt : Siculus Flnccus, p.2. 3 - See p. 162. 33 Fragm. de limitib. p. 216. 34 De re r. 1. 10. See Vol.1, p. 284 630 APPENDIX I. plebeian centuries, both the decumani and the cardines, were drawn at intervals of twelve hundred feet, those of the Etruscans without doubt were a thousand feet apart; so that twelve of their centuries were equivalent to ten Roman ones. The division according to this system embraced the whole district the assignment of which had been ordained : but only the land fit for tillage and for fruit-trees 33 was assigned or granted as property. The agrarian ordinance determined the region to be divided, the size of the allot- ments, and the number of persons to receive them. The distribution was effected by lot, as many claimants as made up a century with the collective amount of their shares, being clast under one number; while tickets for all the centuries consisting entirely of cultivable land were in like manner thrown into an urn, each markt with the numbers on its boundary-lines : these were then drawn out one after another, and as each came forth it was assigned to the corresponding number of the names. The quality of the soil was left to chance: the sole points considered were the dimensions, and the land's hav- ing been previously in cultivation. It is as a very rare exception, in cases where the difference in the quality of the soil was inordinately great, that any compensation on that account is spoken of in the imperial colonies. A necessary consequence from the manner of making these allotments was, that all the centuries which either wholly or in part consisted of land unfit for cultivation, or which reaching to the irregular- border did not make up full measure, were not distributed at all. The per- sons to whom they might have been allotted would not have had their fair share. These pieces of land conti- nued to be the property of the Eoman people under the 35 Qua falx et arater ierit: Hyginus, de limitib. p. 192. This is evidently a very ancient provision : Hyginus indeed merely quotes it from agrarian laws under Augustus ; but he knows nothing about the earlier ones. ArrENDix i. 031 name of subsecica (remnants), as did likewise such com- plete centuries of cultivated land as might be left over at the allotment. The cultivated remnants were now and then granted to the new proprietors in common, but more frequently were occupied by the state as part of its domain. The forests, pastures, and wastes in the district were almost all bestowed upon the community as public property: for, since none but arable land was ever distributed, a common pasture was absolutely necessary. If the cultivated land proved inadequate to give each individual his full share, in the days of the common- wealth another portion of the domains would have been taken to make up the deficiency: in the military colonies this was done by the lawless confiscation of the adjacent district, a fate experienced by Mantua. The land which was regularly limited, and that which was indeterminate in form, along with all the other cha- racteristics of quiritary property, had both of them that of being free from direct taxes; but their value was re- gistered in the census, and tribute was levied accord- ingly. Iu other respects the limited fields had certain legal peculiarities, concerning which scarcely any other express statement is preserved, than that they had no right to alluvial land 3 * 5 , the detcrminatencss of their size being the condition of their existence. This kind of landed property, which under the emperors was almost the prevailing one in most parts of Italy, and was com- mon in the western provinces, seems to have been ex- tremely rare in the East: hence no notice was taken of it in the extracts made from the Pandects. Consequently, though even its most striking peculiarities are not men- tioned, this cannot be esteemed a proof against their existence. We are justified in drawing inferences from internal arguments on points which the accidental 30 L.1G. D. de adqnir. rcr. dom. (xli. 1). L. 1. §6. D. de flunii- nib. (xlui.12.) 632 APPENDIX I. destruction of testimonies bearing on them lias perhaps made it for ever impossible to establish by documentary evidence; unless this be reserved for some more learned or more fortunate inquirer. It is clear that the art of the agrimensores, who pro- fest to discover the original boundaries of estates, must have been utterly baffled, if the proprietors had the right of alienating pieces of land of whatever extent they pleased : and as we are accustomed to take such a right for granted, we shall for this very reason regard the pro- fession as useless and absurd. It might be their busi- ness to determine the boundaries at the first; but from that time forward all questions must have been decided by deeds of sale and other documents: and if these were not drawn up with complete geometrical exactness, no property could be more insecure than purchases of land markt out by limites, where the landholders in the same century might raise the controversial de modo. This leads us to conjecture that a fundus assigned by the state was considered as one entire farm, as a whole the limits of which could not be changed; a no- tion which seems to be confirmed by the original pur- poses of the limitatio. From the Pandects, and from inscriptions and ancient documents, it is known that a fundus usually bore a pe- culiar name; which did not change with the possessor for the time being, but was so permanent, that even at the present day, if any one were to institute a search for the purpose, especially in the Roman Campagna, he would undoubtedly find many hundred clearly distinguish- able instances of Roman names of estates. Of the four fundi mentioned in the donation of A. Quinctilius at Ferentinum, two have retained their name almost un- changed 37 : nor is this mentioned as in any way remarkable. St Jerome tells us that the fundus, which the poet Attius 37 Mariauna Dionigi iyiaggj in alcune cittcl del Lazio, p. 18) APPENDIX I. 63 3 received for his share at the assignment of lands to the colony at Pisaurum, bore his name 38 : and, although such permanent designations might prevail even in districts which had not been partitioned, it is probable that in land which was assigned, like that at Pisaurum, they were taken from the first grantee, under whose name the farm was registered in the landroll. Now in the oldest records of the subuibiearian re- gions the landed estates are almost always designated by some such name; and the sale or transfer of them, when the whole was not alienated, was in parts according to the duodecimal scale. This accords with the mention, which we find so frequently in the Pandects, of many proprietors of the same fundus, a thing so strange to our ears; as well as with a fact belonging to the early his- tory of Rome concerning the sixteen Aelii who held a single farm in the Veientine district as tenants in com- mon 39 . This did not preclude the division of estates 40 , nor even the sale of duodecimal parts of them: but the ori- ginal boundaries circumscribed them as one integral whole ; and all the parts were pledged for the conditions of the first assignment. It has also been remarkt above, how important the unchangeableness of these units was for the maintenance of regularity in the landrolls of the censors*. remarks that the fundi Roianus and Ceponianus, arc without doubt the same estates which are now called la Roana and la CipoUara, 38 Chron. n. 1877. 39 Valerius Maximus, iv.4. 8. <° Hence the termini comport ionales. * See p.l(»7. G34 APPENDIX II. ON THE AGRIMENSORES*. In the investigations concerning the agrarian insti- tutions, I have made frequent and considerable use of the works and fragments which treat of the art of divid- ing lands. The collection of these works, at least in the latest of the three different editions which were pub- lisht during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, each subsequent one containing fresh matter derived from manuscripts, is by no means rare even in common pri- vate libraries; yet, as has been remarkt already, it is less known than any other work of ancient profane lite- rature. One would hardly believe that in books on lite- rary history it is clast under the head of agriculture: and although a few quotations here and there seem to shew that in our days these writings are rather less * The dissertation on the Agrimensores, which stood in the ap- pendix to the first edition, has been left out by the author in the second. Nevertheless, as is not only throws great light on one of the most obscure portions of ancient literature, but is intimately con- nected with the subject of the foregoing appendix, and indeed with those disquisitions concerning the agrarian institutions out of which this history originally sprang, the translators have thought it ad- visable to retain as much of it as might be interesting to the general scholar, omitting the minuter critical remarks, in which none but a reader of the Agrimensores woidd take any concern. APPENDIX II. 63-3 neglected than they used to be, yet it is quite plain that they are still a sealed mysterious book, wherein only such scattered passages are noticed as are intelligible when taken apart from the rest, such as may be found even in the volumes of the cabbalists. For me these writings from several causes have had a peculiar charm. There is always some kind of attrac- tion in whatever is mysterious and difficult: and as I derived much instruction from them when I learnt in some degree to understand them, they called forth a feel- ing of gratitude, which excites a particularly lively inter- est even in neglected books. We lose ourselves in the contemplation of the destinies of Rome and the changes that Italy has undergone, in reading these singular works, where at one moment we fall in with a fragment of a treatise by an Etruscan aruspex written in the fifth cen- tury of the city, in another place hear the words of an engineer who served under Trajan during the conquest of Dacia, and measured the highth of the Transylvanian Alps, and lastly, in the most recent of the various col- lections, meet with extracts from a book by the wise Pope Gerbert, who was the teacher of his age at the close of the tenth century of our era. All the epochs of Roman history stand here side by side; — the ancient aruspicy and religion, and Christianity; — ordinances of the plebs, and sections of the Theodosian code and the Pandects; — the Latin of the earliest ages, and the embryo Italian of the seventh century. The place in which the collection was made, the time when it was compiled, is a mystery: and when we have solved it we find ourselves at Rome, at the period when the fallen mistress of the world is wrapt in her thickest veil. A few general remarks therefore, such as may render these writings more easily intelligible, may be allowed to find room here. For when a subject is of importance in itself, it is better to introduce it even in a place which may not be quite appropriate, than to pass it over 636 APPENDIX II. altogether. I wish to excite others to take the same interest in it. For I want a qualification which is indis- pensable to a full understanding of the later fragments: I have never been in Italy, where without doubt, espe- cially in the Campagna, a number of peculiar customs with regard to the partition of lands and the marking of boundary-stones must be subsisting down to this very day, though unnoticed by travelers and even by natives, with the help of which the most obscure parts of these books would at once become clear. Manuscripts are not likely to give us much aid: for the early editions are founded on very ancient ones; and the others which have been compared with these have afforded but scanty gleanings: the dismal confusion of the text arose prior to any that can possibly be preserved: still even this assistance, of which I am wholly destitute, should be called in by any one who undertakes to publish a criti- cal edition. The business of the Roman agrimensores was to mea- sure and divide the districts the assignment of which had been resolved upon, — and a map of which was de- posited in the imperial archives, while a copy was placed in those of the colony, — to measure and register the un- assigned lands for the state, to measure ordinary lands for the proprietors, to discover and maintain the limits of fundi held under an assignment 1 , to mark them out on the undivided lands, and by the help of ground-plans and of peculiar marks to detect every illegal alteration of boundaries: in fine it was necessary that they should 1 In opposition to the conjecture started above in p. 632, that fundi held under an assignment were units that could not be altered, somebody might perhaps cite L. 1, C.fin. regund. and L. 12. D. eod. the latter of which is inserted in Edict. Theodor. § 105. I believe however that these passages may not only be restricted without any violence to the ager arcijinius,h\it that such declarations could only be made where there was a considerable class of estates which were properly and necessarily of an opposite character. appendix ir. G37 be acquainted with the laws on boundaries, and with the disputes wont to arise concerning landed property, in which they were sometimes vested with judicial power, sometimes and very frequently appealed to from their knowledge of the subject. During the decline of the empire they formed a nu- merous and respectable class, on which Thcodosius the Younger conferred the title and rank of spectabiles : their labour was rewarded by the state with a very handsome salary. They had regularly establisht schools, like the jurisconsults; and even the students were entitled claris- simi by an edict of Theodosius and Valentinian, in Goes, p. 343. The writings on such branches of their art as were unconnected with mathematics were very numerous; and of these an extensive collection was made, perhaps about the same time with the Theodosian code, the twelfth book of which collection is cited in ours: see the title of the treatise in p. 220, compared with the note by Rigaltius in p. 276, and Arcadius, p. 259. This collection how- ever contained not merely scientific treatises, like those by Frontinus and Hygenus (for this is the way his name is invariably spelt in the manuscripts), but also the laws concerning the subjects of the craft, and a number of special documents relating to assignments and limitations, and groundplans of the districts subjected to them with the papers thereto belonging. These form the chief part of the short fragments. A writer of their class seems to have been termed auctor by them by way of distinction. The later agrimensors, in conformity to the spirit of their age, invented a number of artifices, of which those of the second century seem to have been totally igno- rant, with regard to the shape and the marks of the boundary-stones, with the view of rendering their origi- nal position ascertainable in case they were removed. In like manner they spent probably still greater pains in devising symbolical characters to serve instead of detailed 638 APPENDIX II. terriers. These there is no chance of our ever being able to understand. All these matters were comprised in their pandects, which were without doubt the subjects explained from their professorial chairs: had they been preserved entire, we should find little difficulty in inter- preting them. To that barbarism and poverty, which began even in the fifth century to spread over Italy, and which before the end of the sixth had already reacht their highest pitch, voluminous works were a useless and troublesome in- cumbrance. An age unable to produce any good works, is also incapable of reading books. Such was the case then: it seems as if during those unfortunate centuries the faculty of investigating and unfolding truth had to- tally disappeared. Amid the mysterious processes of the mind, whereby in the course of our lives it creates that world of thought which is our real wealth, we may at least very clearly distinguish between those vivid ideas which spring up and develope themselves to contem- plative meditation, whether they originate immediately with ourselves or are transfused into us from others, and those which merely subsist without any life in them under the outward form of the words used to express them. Now as the habit of looking at the external form of ideas is apt to weaken the power of imparting life to them, — and hence in this respect a verbal memory is not un- justly deemed of suspicious value, — so there are nations and ages which are incapable of combining them other- wise than externally, and to which the power of vivify- ing them seems denied. This must be acknowledged to be true of the oriental nations; nor is it less certain with regard to the centuries which elapst from the downfall of Rome till the revival of Italy. It appears in their works of art, which, however elaborate they may be, are lifeless and unnatural, with a remarkable similarity be- tween their forms and those produced even at this day by the painters of Persia and India : it appears in science, ArrENDix ii. 639 in their incapacity of advancing beyond the notion of the objects lying immediately before the eye. The age which could produce the glosswriters to explain the lawbooks, by perpetually comparing their contents together, had taken the decisive step out of barbarism, and was already possest of that intellectual freedom from which Italy was able to stride forward to poetry and to the wonders of the arts. Oral instruction on the business of the agrimensor was still imparted during this wretched state of barba- rism; and for this purpose short works on the subject were made use of; not systematic abridgements, — for the age felt no want of such, — but works containing a part of what was to be taught. What was not found in them was supplied by oral tradition. The case was just the same with jurisprudence. This was the time when that abstract from the old collection which is now remaining was made. The class of landmeasurers continued to subsist; their craft was exercised in all those parts of Italy which were still sub- ject to the Greek empire and to the Roman laws. The subjects of the Lombards indeed not only lost their laws; but an exterminating war almost everywhere transferred the property in the soil to the barbarians, who drew new boundaries to their estates. But the Exarchate, the Ro- man territory, a large part of southern Italy, and Sicily, retained the constitution which they had received in the time of Justinian. The rude ignorance of the age is visible in every part of the collection. Its compiler must have had a very confused copy before him, in which leaves of totally different treatises were mixt up together, and others were erroneously split into several ones. He executed his task after the fashion of his time, usually transcrib- ing what he found, or curtailing it by omissions, very rarely condensing the substance, or adding anything to fill up gaps: for the Latinity of the older works is not 640 APPENDIX II. corrupted by the insertion of words of a later date except in a very few instances. It is clear that he himself can- not have attacht any meaning to the passages which we find in such complete disorder. Without oral instruction even the surveyors in those times would have been incapable of making any use of it: such instruction, we can conceive, rendered it intelli- gible as far as was necessary. But the agrimensors needed two kinds of knowledge. The measurer of land required geometry enough to give a mechanical solution of such problems as occurred; others, who devoted themselves simply to the task and mystery of determining boundaries, had more need of some acquaintance with law and with the symbolical cha- racters of their craft. This accounts for the origin of those two collections, in part entirely distinct from, in part agreeing with each other, which are found in the very ancient manuscripts, and which since the time of Eigaltius have been mixt up together in print: while from the unsystematical spirit of the age we can easily understand how that which was designed for the land- measurer came nevertheless to contain some things which properly belong to the boundary-setter, and yet are want- ing in his collection; — such as the genuine fragments of Frontinus, whether bearing his name, or those under which he is disguised. We will call the collection, the chief authoritv for which is the Arcerian manuscript, the first, that which Turnebus publisht, the second. For determining the date of the former we have no such marks as those found in the latter, unequivocally demonstrating the age beyond which it cannot be carried back; since they oc- cur chiefly in treatises which were not contained in the first collection, or, if they were, had a place in the lost leaves at the beginning and end of it. Among these marks is the want of grammatical inflexions, as in the phrase de latus se {at his side) the nominatives Frvsinone, APPENDIX II. 641 Formias, Puteolis (like Fundis, Liparis, in St Gregory), and such words as funtana, branca, casale, campania, cam- biare, de sub, jluinicellus, menticellus. The extraet from the Pandects contained in three manuscripts, of which two at least are of very great antiquity, will not allow us to go back beyond the middle of the sixth century; the quotation from Isidore's Origins p. 290: see the note by Rigaltius) stops us on this side of the beginning of the seventh. To the seventh century however I think I may with good reason ascribe it, and look upon Rome as the place where it was composed. The former inference I draw from the resemblance already mentioned between its language and that of the age of St Gregory and of the documents belonging to that century: it is alto- gether rustic, but has no admixture of German. More- over the most important manuscripts are written in a very old uncial character, such as is hardly found so late as the eighth century. Finally the scribes were perfectly well acquainted with Greek, as appears in two at least of the manuscripts. My reasons for believing it to have been composed at Rome are, that one of the statements is said (p. 145) to have been taken from the archive of Albanian, and that there is no kind of allu- sion to Ravenna, to which town one would otherwise attribute it. Would that I could excite some scholar possessing the philological spirit of our age, along with the learn- ing and the industry of the French school of the six- teenth century, to devote them to these venerable ruins, so interesting from the recollections they awaken, and even from the disfigured state in which we find them ! Even without leaving his native country, he might gather a rich harvest from the editions publisht by Turnebus and Rigaltius; for Goesius altogether neglected the for- mer, and overlookt much in the latter. What Rigaltius did for the Agrimensores is of great value; the laborious VOL. II. S S 642 APPENDIX II. work of Goesius, of hardly any. It would be necessary to separate the matter added in the later editions, to arrange the fragments which are jumbled together, to try to resolve the book attributed to Simplicius into the leaves which have been preposterously mixt up and patent together, and then to combine these with the fragment de controversiis. The commentary by Aggenus might serve as a guide, and furnish much supplementary matter. This however is far from enough. An editor of the Agrimensores must also collate the manuscripts, those at least which are of great antiquity. And should fortune then allow him to visit Kome, he should do what no one has yet done, because scarcely any one, except those who are led thither by the love of the arts, knows what he ought to do there, any more than the bulk of man- kind know what they ought to do in the whole course of their lives, unless by some fortunate necessity a line is prescribed to them in which they are forced to move on regularly to the end of their time. He should go into the country : he should diligently observe and study to understand the slightest peculiarities: everything is a relic on that sacred ground: in some place or other he will find a key to those difficulties, which we, fettered as we are by the unclassical notions of our northern bar- barism, should vainly exercise our ingenuity in solving. Let him cheer himself with the thought that he is en- gaged upon a work which connects the Etruscans, though through a thousand gradations and distortions, with the latter part of the middle ages. Italy too is the only country where an answer may be found, in its archives and libraries, to the question, when the ancient institutions of the agrimensors past entirely away. I can only supply a few data for such an answer: my inquiries indeed have not been slack, but unfortunately very much narrowed by the want of means. APPENDIX II. 643 It might be expected, and may easily be satisfactorily made out, that in all the Lombard states these ancient institutions were subverted at their conquest, and that they could only maintain their ground in the Roman territory, and in the three Neapolitan republics. In the Greek provinces the writings of the agrimensors could not be made use of on account of their language. The only traces I have found of the limitatio, mentioned as a thins well known and still in use, relate to the Roman territory. In deeds of grant and sale one very often finds the expression, cum omnibus jinibus, terminis, limitibusque suis: it occurs even so late as in a diploma of the year 1049, by Pope Leo IX, given by Ughelli, Italia Sacra, Tom. I. p. 122: this is the latest instance I have met with. Such a phrase, it is true, might be retained by the notaries for a long time without any meaning in it : when a limes however is specified as determining a boundary, then at all events it cannot be disputed that the word is to be taken in its genuine ancient sense. Of this too I will only cite the most recent examples that I am ac- quainted with. In a document of the year 961 (Marini, Papiri Di- plomatici, n. en. p. 160, 161) by which a certain count Baldwin gave a casale on the Via Appia, six or seven miles from the city, to a Roman convent, one of its boundaries is thus designated; exinde per limitem alto majure, infra silva, recte in area marmorea antiqua. In a Tiburtine document of the year 990 (Marini p. 255) we read in a similar determination of a boundary: deinde venientem usque in limite majore qui diridit inter nostros Episcopio terra que de Marenyi, et deinde ipso li- mite venientem in via publico. Here all the names are Lombard: in the former document they were Roman, with the exception of the donor's. The same mode of determining boundaries occurs 644 APPENDIX II. even so late as in a document of Pope Benedict VIII, of the year 1019: Sicuti a muro, et a fluvio Tyberis, atque limitibus circumdatur. Ughelli, Tom. I. p. 116. Pope Gerbert at the end of the tenth century referred to Julius Frontinus and Aggenus Urbicus on the subject of controversies, of the qualities and names of fields, and of boundaries. (Rigaltius, in his notes, p. 240, ed. Goes.) So that all these must still have been questions of prac- tical importance. The same thing is likewise proved by the existence of manuscripts of the eleventh century, which it is probable was also the time when the new abridgement was made. The Roman statutes, even in the edition of the fif- teenth century, contain nothing at all on the point. Ter- minus was deprived of his honours, after the German emperors, by granting fiefs in the Campagna and round about the city, had extinguisht the venerable but faint remains of antiquity, and had seated barbarism within the walls of Rome. The glosswriters, living in a Lombard town, could have no practical acquaintance with the ancient institu- tions. That however they were very well aware what an affer limitatus was, and how it was laid out, is proved by their remarks on L. 16. D. adquir. rer. domin. The au- thors too of the gloss on Tit. C. fin. regund. were by no means ignorant of the business of the agrimensors. In the note on L. 7. D. cod. on the contrary they are think- ing of Lombard institutions, the partition of a common. LONDON: PRINTED BY J. WEETHEIMER AND CO., CIRCUS PLACE, FINSBURT CIRCUS. UM ;FTY of CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES J_J£ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. I T)FC o rt iqc< JU1U4 1961 , \ ** fflro LD-UR* 1 \ BW i i MAY Z 91982 R EC E l MAIN. LOAN DESK W jULZS.Ujjtttl Mtt "EC 5 I97t"2 ft jfii^ nov ia H| I ) 3 1382. M ' * P| 1 f II A.M. REC'D IB-V1 OCT 1 ^ 1*0 WL40 m JAN OCT 2 G 1964 P.M. Sl 4' g FormL9-25m-9,'47(A5618)444 m i m ®x