ROMAN HISTORY BEFORE CAESAR.

CHAPTER I.

ROME UNDER THE KINGS.

 

THE KINGS FOUND THE ROMAN INSTITUTIONS.

 “In the birth of societies,” says Montesquieu, “it is the chiefs of the republics who form the institution, and in the sequel it is the institution which forms the chiefs of the republics.” And he adds, “One of the causes of the prosperity of Rome was the fact that its kings were all great men. We find nowhere else in history an uninterrupted series of such statesmen and such military commanders.”

The story, more or less fabulous, of the foundation of Rome, does not come within the limits of our design; and with no intention of clearing up whatever degree of fiction these earliest ages of history may contain, we purpose only to remind our readers that the kings laid the foundations of those institutions to which Rome owed her greatness, and so many extraordinary men who astonished the world by their virtues and exploits.

The kingly power lasted a hundred and forty-four years, and at its fall Rome had become the most powerful state in Latium. The town was of vast extent, for, even at that epoch, the seven hills were nearly all inclosed within a wall protected internally and externally by a consecrated space called the Pomoerium.

This line of inclosure remained long the same, although the increase of the population had led to the establishment of immense suburbs, which finally inclosed the Pomoerium itself.

The Roman territory, properly so called, was circumscribed; but that of the subjects and allies of Rome was already rather considerable. Some colonies had been founded. The kings, by a skilful policy, had succeeded in drawing into their dependence a great number of neighboring states, and, when Tarquinius Superbus assembled the Hernici, the Latins, and the Volsci, for a ceremony destined to seal his alliance with them, forty-seven different petty states took part in the inauguration of the temple of Jupiter Latialis.

The foundation of Ostia, by Ancus Martius, at the mouth of the Tiber, shows that already the political and commercial importance of facilitating communication with the sea was understood; while the treaty of commerce concluded with Carthage at the time of the fall of the kingly power, the details of which are preserved by Polybius, indicates more extensive foreign relations than we might have supposed.

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION.

The Roman social body, which originated probably in an­cient transformations of society, consisted, from the earliest ages, of a certain number of aggregations, called gentes, formed of the families of the conquerors, and bearing some resemblance to the clans of Scotland or to the Arabian tribes. The heads of families (patresfamilias) and their members (patricii) were united among themselves, not only by kindred, but also by political and religious ties. Hence arose an hereditary nobility, having for distinctive marks family names, special costume, and waxen images of their ancestors (jus imaginnum). When Tarqninius Priscus regulated, with the foresight of a skilful prince, the state of the citizens, he attached great importance to the dress of children of condition, and he decreed that the sons of patricians should wear the bulla with the robe hemmed with purple: but even this privilege was restricted to the children of those fathers who had exercised a curule dignity; the sons of other patricians had merely the praetexta, and it was necessary that even their fathers should have served the prescribed time in the cavalry.

The plebeians, perhaps a race who had been conquered at an earlier period, were, in regard to the dominant race, in a situation similar to that of the Anglo-Saxons in regard to the Normans in the eleventh century of our era, after the invasion of England. They were generally agriculturists, excluded originally from all military and civil office, and put only to agriculture, the breeding of cattle, and mercantile occupations. Numa encouraged the agriculturists; they were excused from service in war, and discharged from the care of municipal affairs.

The patrician families had gathered round them, under the name of clients, either foreigners, or a great portion of the plebeians. Dionysius of Halicarnassus even pretends that Romulus had required that each of these last should choose himself a patron. The clients cultivated the fields and formed part of the family. The relation of patronage had created such reciprocal obligations as amounted almost to the ties of kindred. For the patrons, they consisted in giving assistance to their clients in affairs public and private; and for the latter, in aiding constantly the patrons with their person and purse, and in preserving towards them an inviolable fidelity; they could not cite each other reciprocally in law, or bear witness one against the other, and it would have been a scandal to see them take different sides in a political question. It was a state of things which had some analogy to feudalism; the great protected the little, and the little paid for protection by rents and services; yet there was this essential difference, that the clients were not serfs, but free men.

Slavery had long formed one of the constituent parts of society. The slaves, taken among foreigners and captives, and associated in all the domestic labors of the family, often received their liberty as a recompense for their conduct. They were then named freedmen, and were received among the clients of the patron, without sharing in all the rights of a citizen.

The gens thus consisted of the reunion of patrician families having a common ancestor; around it was grouped a great number of clients, freedmen, and slaves. To give an idea of the importance of the gentes in the first ages of Rome, it is only necessary to remind the reader that, towards the year 251, a certain Attus Clausus, afterwards called Appius Claudius, a Sabine of the town of Regillum, distinguished, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, no less for the splendor of his birth than for his great wealth, took refuge among the Romans with his kinsmen, his friends, and his clients, with all their families, to the number of five thousand men capable of carrying arms. When in 275 the three hundred Fabii, forming the gens Fabia, offered alone to fight the Veians, they were followed by four thousand clients. The high class often reckoned, by means of its numerous adherents, on carrying measures by itself. In 286, the plebeians having refused to take part in the consular comitia, the patricians, followed by their clients, elected the consuls; and in 296, a Claudius declared with pride that the nobility had no need of the plebeians to carry on war against the Volsci. The families of ancient origin long formed the state by themselves. To them exclusively the name of populus applied, as that of plebs was given to the plebeians. Indeed, although in the sequel the word populus took a more extensive significa­tion, Cicero says that it is to be understood as applying, not to the universality of the inhabitants, but to a reunion of men associated by a community of rights and interests.

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION.

In a country where war was the principal occupation, the political organization must naturally depend on the military organization. A single chief had the superior direction, an assembly of men pre-eminent in importance and age formed the council, while the political rights belonged only to those who supported the fatigues of war.

The king, elected generally by the assembly of the gentes, commanded the army. Sovereign pontiff, legislator, and judge in all sacred matters, he dispensed justice in all criminal affairs which concerned the Republic. He had for insignia a crown of gold and a purple robe, and for escort twenty-four lictors, some carrying axes surrounded with rods, others merely rods.  At the death of the king, a magistrate, called interrex, was appointed by the Senate to exercise the royal authority during the five days which intervened before the nomination of his successor. This office continued, with the same title, under the Consular Republic, when the absence of the consuls prevented the holding of the comitia.

The Senate, composed of the richest and most illustrious of the patricians, to the number at first of a hundred, of two hundred after the union with the Sabines, and of three hundred after the admission of the gentes minores under Tarquin, was the council of the ancients, taking under its jurisdiction the interests of the town, in which were then concentrated all the interests of the State.

The patricians occupied all offices, supported alone the burden of war, and consequently had alone the right of voting in the assemblies.

The gentes were themselves divided into three tribes. Each, commanded by a tribune, was obliged, under Romulus, to furnish a thousand soldiers (indeed, miles comes from mille) and a hundred horsemen (celeres).

The soldiers of Romulus, to the number of three thousand, were divided into three bodies, called tribes. The name of tribune of the soldiers, is derived from the circumstance that the three tribes of the Ramnes, the Luceres, and the Tatiens, each sent three to the army.

The tribe was divided into ten curiae; at the head of each curia was a curion. The three tribes, furnishing three thousand foot soldiers and three hundred horse men, formed at first the legion. Their number was soon doubled by the adjunction of new cities.

The curia, into which a certain number of gentes entered, was then the basis of the political and military organization, and hence originated the name of Quirites, to signify the Roman people.

The members of the curia were constituted into religious associations, having each its assemblies and solemn festivals which established bonds of affiliation between them. When their assemblies had a political aim, the votes were taken by head; they decided the question of peace or war; they nominated the magistrates of the town; and they confirmed or abrogated the laws.

The appeal to the people, which might annul the judgments of the magistrates, was nothing more than the appeal to the curia; and it was by having recourse to it, after having been condemned by the decemvirs, that the survivor of the three Horatii was saved.

The policy of the kings consisted in blending together the different races and breaking down the barriers which separated the different classes. To effect the first of these objects, they divided the lower class of the people into corporations, and augmented the number of the tribes and changed their constitution; but to effect the second, they introduced, to the great discontent of the higher class, plebeians among the patricians, and raised the freedmen to the rank of citizens. In this manner, each curia became considerably increased in numbers; but, as the votes were taken by head, the poor patricians were numerically stronger than the rich.

Servius Tullius, though he preserved the curiae, deprived them of their military organization, that is, he no longer made it the basis of his system of recruiting. He instituted the centuries, with the double aim of giving, as a principle, the right of suffrage to all the citizens, and of creating an army which was more national, inasmuch as he introduced the plebeians into it; his design was indeed to throw on the richest citizens the burden of war, which was just, each equipping and maintaining himself at his own cost. The citizens were no longer classified by castes, but according to their fortunes. Patricians and plebeians were placed in the same rank, if their income was equal. The influence of the rich predominated, without doubt, but only in proportion to the sacrifices required of them.

Servius Tullius ordered a general report of the population to be made, in which every one was obliged to declare his age, his fortune, the name of his tribe, and that of his father, and the number of his children and of his slaves. This operation was called census. The report was inscribed on tables, and, once terminated, all the citizens were called together in arms in the Campus Martius.

When Servius Tullius had completed the taking of the census, he ordered all the citizens to assemble in arms in the greatest of the fields situated near the town, and, having arranged the horsemen in squadrons, the footmen in phalanx, and the light-armed men in respective orders, he submitted them to a lustration, by the immolation of a bull, a ram, and a he-goat. He ordered that the victims should be led thrice round about the army, after which he sacrificed to Mars, to whom this field was dedicated. From that epoch to the present time the Romans have continued to have the same ceremony performed, by the most holy of magistracies, at the completion of each census; it is what they call a lustrum. The total number of all the Romans enumerated, according to the writing of the tables of the census, gave 300 men less than 85,000.

This review was called the closing of the lustrum, because it was accompanied with sacrifices and purifications named lustrations. The term lustrum was applied to the interval of five years between two censuses.

The citizens were divided into six classes, and into a hundred and ninety-three centuries, according to the fortune of each, beginning with the richest and ending with the poorest. The first class comprised ninety-eight centuries, eighteen of which were knights; the second and fourth, twenty two; the third, twenty; the fifth, thirty; and the sixth, although the most numerous, forming only one. The first class contained a smaller number of citizens, yet, having a greater number of centuries, it was obliged to pay more than half the tax, and furnish more legionaries than any other class.

The votes continued to be taken by head, as in the curiae, but the majority of votes in each century counted only for one suffrage. Now, as the first class had ninety-eight centuries, while the others, taken together, had only ninety-five, it is clear that the votes of the first class were enough to carry the majority. The eighteen centuries of knights first gave their votes, and then the eighty centuries of the first class: if they were not agreed, appeal was made to the vote of the second class, and so on in succession; but, says Livy, it hardly ever happened that they were obliged to descend to the last. Though, according to its original signification, the century should represent a hundred men, it already contained a considerably greater number. Each century was divided into the active part, including all the men from eighteen to forty-six years of age, and the sedentary part, charged with the guard of the town, composed of men from forty-six to sixty years old.

With regard to those of the sixth class, omitted altogether by many authors, they were exempt from all military service, or at any rate they were enrolled only in case of extreme danger. The centuries of knights, who formed the cavalry, recruited among the richest citizens, tended to introduce a separate order among the nobility; which shows the importance of the chief called to their command. In fact, the chief of the celeres was, after the king, the first magistrate of the city, as, at a later period, under the Republic, the magister equitum became the lieutenant of the dictator.

The first census of Servius Tullius gave a force of eighty thousand men in a condition to bear arms, which is equivalent to two hundred and ninety thousand persons of the two sexes, to whom may be added, from conjectures, which, however, are rather vague, fifteen thousand artisans, merchants, or indigent people, deprived of all rights of citizenship, and fifteen thousand slaves

The comitia by centuries were charged with the election of the magistrates; but the comitia by curiae, being the primitive form of the patrician assembly, continued to decree on the most important religious and military affairs, and remained in possession of all which had not been formally given to the centuries. Solon effected, about the same epoch, in Athens, a similar revolution, so that at the same time the two most famous towns of the an­cient world no longer took birth as the basis of the right of suf­frage, but fortune.

Servius Tullius promulgated a great number of laws favorable to the people; he established the principle that the property only of the debtor, and not his person, should be responsible for his debt. He also authorized the plebeians to become the patrons of their freedmen, which allowed the richest of the former to create for themselves a clientele resembling that of the patricians.

RELIGION.

Religion, regulated in great part by Numa, was at Rome an instrument of civilization, but, above all, of government. By bringing into the acts of public or private life the intervention of the Divinity, every thing was impressed with a character of sanctity. Thus the inclosure of the town with its services, (within the town, the buildings were not allowed to approach the ramparts, which they now ordinarily touch, and outside a space extended which it was forbidden to cultivate. To all this space, which it was not permitted to inhabit or cultivate, the Romans gave the name of Pomoerium. When, in consequence of the increase of the town, the rampart was carried farther out, this consecrated zone on each side was still preserved); the boundaries of estates, the transactions between citizens, engagements, and even the important facts of history entered in the sacred books, were placed under the safeguard of the gods. In the interior of the house, the gods Lares protected the family; on the field of battle, the emblem placed on the standard was the protecting god of the legion. The national sentiment and belief that Rome would become one day the mistress of Italy, was maintained by oracles or prodigies; but if, on one hand, religion, with its very imperfections, contributed to soften manners and to elevate minds, on the other it wonderfully facilitated the working of the institutions, and preserved the in­fluence of the high classes.

Religion also accustomed the people of Latium to the Roman supremacy; for Servius Tullius, in persuading them to contribute to the building of the Temple of Diana, made them, says Livy, acknowledge Rome for their capital, a claim they had so often resisted by force of arms.

The supposed intervention of the Deity gave the power, in a multitude of cases, of reversing any troublesome decision. Thus, by interpreting the flight of birds, the manner in which the sacred chickens ate, the entrails of victims, the direction taken by lightning, they annulled the elections, or eluded or retarded the deliberations either of the comitia or the Senate. No one could enter upon office, even the king could not mount his throne, if the gods had not manifested their approval by what were reputed certain signs of their will. There were auspicious and inauspicious days; in the latter it was not permitted either to judges to hold their audience, or to the people to assemble. Finally, it might be said, with Camillus, that the town was founded on the faith of auspices and auguries

The priests did not form an order apart, but all citizens had the power to enrol themselves in particular colleges. At the head of the sacerdotal hierarchy were the pontiffs, five in number, of whom the king was the chief. They decided all questions which concerned the liturgy and religious worship, watched over the sacrifices and ceremonies that they should be performed in accordance with the traditional rites, acted as inspectors over the other ministers of religion, fixed the calen­dar, and were responsible for their actions neither to the Senate nor to the people.

All religious acts, public and private, were submitted to the decision of the pontiff; thus the people knew to whom to address themselves, and disorders were prevented which might have brought into religion the neglect of the national rites or the introduction of foreign ones. It was the same pontiff's duty also to regulate what concerned funerals, and the means of appeasing the Manes, and to distinguish, among prodigies announced by thunder and other phenomena, those which required an expiation; exercising the functions of interpreter and diviner, or rather of hierophant, he not only presides at the public sacrifices, but he also inspects those which are made in private, and takes care that the ordinances of religions worship are not transgressed. Lastly, it is he who teaches what each individual ought to do to honor the gods and to appease them.

After the pontiffs, the first place belonged to the curions, charged in each curia with the religious functions, and who had at their head a grand-curion; then came the flamens, the augurs, the vestals charged with the maintenance of the sacred fire; the twelve Salian priests (it was their duty, on certain occasions, to execute sacred dances, and to chant hymns in honor of the god of war), keepers of the sacred bucklers, named ancilia; and lastly, the feciales, heralds-at-arms to the number of twenty, whose charge it was to draw up treaties and secure their execution, to declare war, and to watch over the obser­vance of all international relations.

The name of feciales is derived from the circumstance that they presided over the public faith between peoples; for it was by their intervention that war, when undertaken, assumed the character of a just war, and, that once terminated, peace was guaranteed by a treaty. Before war was undertaken, some of the feciales were sent to make whatever demands had to be made. If allies complained that the Romans had done them wrong, and demanded reparation for it, it was the business of the feciales to examine if there were any violation of treaty. These fecial priests had been instituted by Numa, the mildest and most just of kings, to be guardians of peace, and the judges and arbiters of the legitimate motives for undertaking war.

There were also religious fraternities (sodalitates), instituted for the purpose of rendering a special worship to certain divinities. Such was the college of the fratres Arvales, whose prayers and processions called down the favor of Heaven upon the har­vest; such also was the association having for its mission to celebrate the festival of the Lupercalia, founded in honor of the god Lupercus, the protector of the cattle and destroyer of wolves. The gods Lares, tutelar genii of towns or families, had also their festival instituted by Tullus Hostilius, and celebrated at certain epochs, during which the slaves were entirely exempt from labor.

The kings erected a great number of temples for the purpose of deifying, some, glory, others, the virtues, others, utility, and others, gratitude to the gods.

The Romans loved to represent every thing by external signs: thus Numa, to impress better the verity of a state of peace or war, raised a temple to Janus, which was kept open during war and closed in time of peace; and, strange to say, this temple was only closed three times in seven hundred years.

RESULTS OBTAINED RY ROYALTY.

The facts which precede are sufficient to convince us that the Roman republic had already acquired, under the kings, a strong organization. Its spirit of conquest overflowed beyond its narrow limits. The small states of Latium which surrounded it possessed, perhaps, men as enlightened and citizens equally courageous; but there certainly did not, exist among them, to the same degree as at Rome, the genius of war, the love of country, faith in high destinies, the conviction of an incontestable supe­riority, powerful motives of activity, instilled into them perseveringly by great men during two hundred and forty-four years.

Roman society was founded upon respect for family, for religion, and for property; the government, upon election; the policy, upon conquest. At the bead of the State is a powerful aristocracy, greedy of glory, but, like all aristocracies, impatient of kingly power, and disdainful towards the multitude. The kings strive to create a people side by side with the privileged caste, and introduce plebeians into the Senate, freedmen among the citizens, and the mass of the citizens into the ranks of the soldiery.

The family is strongly constituted; the father reigns in it absolute master, sole judge over his children, his wife, and his slaves, and that during all their lives; yet the wife’s position' is not degraded as among the barbarians; she enjoys a com­munity of goods with her husband; mistress of her house, she has the right of acquiring property, and shares equally with her brothers the paternal inheritance.

The basis of taxation is the basis of recruiting and of political rights; there are no soldiers but citizens; there are no citizens without property. The richer a man is, the more he has of power and dignities; but he has more charges to support, more duties to fulfil. In fighting as well as in voting, the Romans are divided into classes according to their fortunes, and in the comitia, as on the field of battle, the richest are in the first ranks.

Initiated in the apparent practice of liberty, the people is held in check by superstition and respect for the high classes. By appealing to the intervention of the Divinity in every action of life, the most vulgar things become idealized, and men are taught that above their material interests there is a Providence which directs their actions. The sentiment of right and justice enters into their conscience, the oath is a sacred thing, and virtue, that highest expression of duty, becomes the general rule of public and private life. Law exercises its entire empire, and, by the institution of the feciales, international questions are discussed with a view to what is just, before seeking a solution by force of arms. The policy of the State consists in drawing by all means possible the peoples around under the dependence of Rome; and, when their resistance renders it necessary to conquer them, they are, in different degrees, immediately associated with the common fortune and maintained in obedience by colonies—advanced posts of future dominion. Cicero admires the profound wisdom of the first kings in admitting the con­quered enemies to the number of the citizens. “Their example,” he says, “has become an authority, and our ancestors have never ceased granting the rights of citizens to conquered enemies.”

The arts, though as yet rude, find their way in with the Etruscan rites, and come to soften manners, and lend their aid to religion; everywhere temples arise, circuses are constructed, great works of public utility are erected, and Rome, by its institutions, paves the way for its pre-eminence.

Almost all the magistrates are appointed by election; once chosen, they possess an extensive power, and put in motion resolutely those two powerful levers of human actions, punishment and reward. To all citizens, for cowardice before the enemy or for an infraction of discipline, the rod or the axe of the lictor; the centurions, whose centuries had taken flight, and the antesignani who had lost their standard, were condemned to death; some had their heads cut off, others were beaten to death. As to the rest of the troops, the consul caused them to be decimated; in every ten soldiers, he upon whom the lot fell was conducted to the place of execution, and suffered for the others. It is the usual punishment among the Romans for those who have quitted their ranks or aban­doned their standards to all. For noble actions, crowns of honor;  to the generals, the ovation, the triumph, the best of the spoils; to the great men, apotheosis.

“Romulus kills Acron, routs the enemies, and returns to offer to Jupiter Feretrius the opima spolia taken from that prince. After Romulus, Cornelius Cossus was the first who consecrated to the same god similar spoils, having slain with his own hand, in a combat where he commanded the cavalry, the general of the Fidenates. We must not separate the example of M. Marcellus from the two preceding. He had the courage and intrepidity to attack on the banks of the Po, at the head of a handful of horsemen, the king of the Gauls, though protected by a numerous army; he struck off his head, and carried off his armor, of which he made an offering to Jupiter Feretrius. The same kind of bravery and combat signalized T. Manlius Torquatus, Valerius Corvus, and Scipio Aemilianus. These warriors, challenged by the chieftains of the enemies, made them bite the dust; but, as they had fought under the auspices of a superior chief, they did not offer their spoils to Jupiter.”

To honor the dead, and for personal relaxation after their sanguinary struggles, the citizens crowd to the games of the circus, where the hierar­chy gives his rank to each individual.

Thus Rome, having reached the third century of her existence, finds her constitution formed by the kings with all the germs of grandeur which will develop themselves in the sequel. Man has created her institutions; we shall see now how the institu­tions are going to form the men.

 

CHAPTER II.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULAR REPUBLIC

(From 244 to 416.)

 

ADVANTAGE OF THE REPUBLIC.

The kings are expelled from Rome. They disappear be­cause their mission is accomplished. There exists, one would say, in moral as well as physical order, a supreme law which assigns to institutions, as in certain beings, a fated limit, marked by the term of their utility. Until this providential term has arrived, no opposition prevails; conspiracies, revolts, every thing fails against the irresistible force which maintains what people seek to overthrow; but if, on the contrary, a state of things, immovable in appearance, ceases to be useful to the progress of humanity, then neither the empire of traditions, nor courage, nor the memory of a glorious past, can retard by a day the fall which has been decided by destiny.

Civilization appears to have been transported from Greece into Italy to create there an immense focus from which it might spread itself over the whole world. From that moment the genius of force and imagination must necessarily preside over the first times of Rome. This is what happened under the kings, and, so long as their task was not accomplished, it triumphed over all obstacles. In vain the senators attempted to obtain a share in the power by each exercising it for five days; in vain men’s passions rebelled against the authority of a single chief: all was useless, and even the murder of the kings only added strength to royalty. But the moment once arrived when kings ceased to be indispensable, the simplest accident hurls them down. A man outrages a woman, the throne gives way, and, in falling, it divides itself into two: the consuls succeed to all the prerogatives of the kings. Nothing is changed in the Republic, except that instead of one chief, elective for life, there will be henceforward two chiefs, elected for a year. This trans­formation is evidently the work of the aristocracy; the senators will possess the government, and, by these annual elections, each hopes to take in his turn his share of the sovereign power. Such is the narrow calculation of man and his mean motive of action. Let us see what superior impulse he obeyed without knowing it.

That corner of land, situated on the bank of the Tiber, and predestined to hold the empire of the world, inclosed within itself, as we see, fruitful germs which demanded a rapid expansion. This could only be effected by the absolute independence of the most enlightened class, seizing for its own profit all the prerogatives of royalty. The aristocratic government has this advantage over monarchy, that it is more immutable in its duration, more constant in its designs, more faithful to traditions, and that it can dare every thing, because where a great number share the responsibility, no one is individually responsible. Rome, with its narrow limits, had no longer need of the concentration of authority in a single hand, but it is in need of a new order of things, which should give to the great free access to the supreme power, and should second, by the allurement of honors, the development of the faculties of each. The grand object was to create a race of men of choice, who, succeeding each other with the same principles and the same virtues, should perpetuate, from generation to generation, the system most calculated to as­sure the greatness of their country. The fall of the kingly power was thus an event favorable to the development of Rome.

The patricians monopolized alone during a long time the civil, military, and religious employments, and, these employments being for the most part annual, there was in the Senate hardly a member who had not filled them; so that this assembly was composed of men formed to the combats of the Forum as well as to those of the field of battle, schooled in the difficulties of the administration, and indeed worthy, by an experience laboriously acquired, to preside over the destinies of the Republic.

They were not classed, as men are in our modern society, in envious and rival specialties: the warrior was not seen there despising the civilian, the lawyer or orator standing apart from the man of action, or the priest isolating himself from all the others. In order to raise himself to State dignities, and merit the suffrages of his fellow-citizens, the patrician was constrained, from his youngest age, to undergo the most varied trials. He was required to possess dexterity of body, eloquence, aptness for military exercises, the knowledge of civil and religious laws, the talent of commanding an army or directing a fleet, of administrating the town or commanding a province; and the obligation of these different apprenticeships not only gave a full flight to all capacities, but it united, in the eyes of the people, upon the magistrate invested with different digni­ties, the consideration attached to each of them. During a long time, he was honored with the confidence of his fellow-citizens, besides nobility of birth, enjoyed the triple prestige given by the function of judge, priest, and warrior.

An independence almost absolute in the exercise of command contributed further to the development of the faculties. At the present day, our constitutional habits have raised distrust towards power into a principle; at Rome, trust was the principle, In our modern societies, the depository of any authority whatever is always under the restraint of powerful bonds ; he obeys a precise law, a minutely detailed rule, a superior. The Roman, on the contrary, abandoned to his own sole responsibility, felt himself free from all shackles; he commanded as master within the sphere of his attributes. The counterpoise of this independence was the short duration of office, and the right given to every man of accusing each magistrate at the end of it.

The preponderance of the high class, then, rested upon a legiti­mate superiority, and this class, besides, knew how to work to its advantage the popular passions. They desired liberty only for themselves; but they know how to make the image glitter in the eyes of the multitude, and the name of the people was always associated with the decrees of the Senate. Proud of having contributed to the overthrow of the power of one individual, they took care to cherish among the masses the imaginary fear of the return of kingly power. In their hands the hate of tyrants will become a weapon to be dreaded by all who shall seek to raise themselves above their fellows, either by threatening their privileges, or by acquiring too much popularity by their acts of benevolence. Thus under the pre­text, renewed incessantly, of aspiring to kingly power, fell the Consul Spurius Cassius, in 269, because he had presented the first agrarian law ; Spurius Melius, in 315, because he excited the jealousy of the patricians, by distributing wheat to the people during a famine; Q in 369, Manlius, the saviour of Rome, because he had expended his fortune in relieving insol­vent debtors. Thus will fall victims to the same accusation the reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and lastly, at a later period, the great Caesar himself.

But if the pretended fear of the return of the ancient regime was a powerful means of government in the hands of the patricians, the real fear of seeing their privileges attacked by the plebeians restrained them within the bounds of moderation and justice.

In fact, if the numerous class, excluded from all office, had not interfered by their clamors to set limits to the privileges of the nobility, and thus compelled it to render itself worthy of power by its virtues, and reinvigorated it, in some sort, by the infusion of new blood, corruption and arbitrary spirit would, some ages earlier, have dragged it to its ruin. A caste which is not renewed by foreign elements is condemned to disappear; and absolute power, whether it belongs to one man or to a class of individuals, finishes always by being equally dangerous to him who exercises it. This concurrence of the plebeians excited in the Republic a fortunate emulation which produced great men, for, as Machiavelli says: “ The fear of losing gives birth in men’s hearts to the same passions as the desire of acquiring.” Although the aristocracy had long defended with obstinacy its privileges, it made opportunely useful concessions. Skilful in repairing incessantly its defeats^ it took again, under another form, what it had been constrained to abandon, losing often some of its attributes, but preserving its prestige always untouched.

Thus, the characteristic fact of the Roman institutions was to form men apt for all functions. As long as on a narrow theatre the ruling class had the wisdom to limit its ambition to promoting the veritable interests of their country, as the seduction of riches and unbounded power did not come to exalt it beyond measure, the aristocratic system maintained itself with all its advantages, and overruled the instability of institutions. It alone, indeed, was capable of supporting long, without succumbing, a regime in which the direction of the State and the com­mand of the armies passed annually into different hands, and depended upon elections the element of which is ever fickle. Besides the laws gave rise to antagonisms more calculated to cause anarchy than to consolidate true liberty. Let us examine, in these last relations, the constitution of the Republic.

INSTITUTIONS OF THE REPUBLIC.

The two consuls were originally generals, judges, and administrators; equal in powers, they were often in disagreement, either in the Forum, or on the field of battle. Proofs of this disagreement:—“Cassius brought secretly as many Latins and Hernici as he possibly could to have their suffrages; there arrived in Rome such a great number, that in a short time the town was full of strangers. Virginius, who was informed of it, caused a herald to proclaim in all the public places that all those who had no domicile in Rome should withdraw immediately; but Cassius gave orders contrary to those of his colleague, forbidding anyone who had the right of Roman freedom to quit the town until the law was confirmed and received.” (Year of Rome, 268.)    Quinctius, more indulgent than his colleague, willed the concession to the people of all their just and reasonable demands; Appius, on the contrary, was willing to die rather than to yield. (Year of Rome, 283.)

Their dissensions were repeated many times until the consulate of Caesar and Bibulus; and they were liable to become the more dangerous as the decision of one consul was annulled by the opposition of his colleague. On the other hand, the short duration of their magistracy constrained them either to hurry a battle in order to rob their successor of the glory, or to interrupt a campaign in order to proceed to Rome to hold the comitia. The defeats of the Trebia and Cannae, with that of Servilius Caepio by the Cimbri, were fatal examples of the wont of unity in the direction of war.

In order to lessen the evil effects of a simultaneous exercise of their prerogatives, the consuls agreed to take in campaign the command alternately day by day, and at Rome each to have the fasces during a month; but this innovation had also vexatious consequences; from that time each had in view his personal interest, and not the general interest, preferring to see the Republic experience a check than his colleague covered with glory; and evils without number afflicted the fatherland.

 It was even thought necessary, nine years after the fall of the kings, to have recourse to the dictatorship; and this absolute authority, limited to six months, that is, to the longest duration of a campaign, only remedied temporarily, and under extraordinary circumstances, the want of power con­centrated in a single individual.

The dualism and instability of the supreme authority were not, therefore, an element of strength; the unity and fixity of direction necessary among a people always at war had disap­peared ; but the evil would have been more serious if the con­formity of interests and views of individuals belonging to the same caste had not been there to lessen it. The man was worth more than the institutions which had formed him.

The creation of tribunes of the people, whose part became subsequently so important, was, in 260, a new cause of discord; the plebeians, who composed the great part of the army, claimed to have their military chiefs for magistrates; the authority of the tribunes was at first limited : we may convince ourselves of this by the following terms of the law which established the office:—

“ Nobody shall constrain a tribune of the people, like a man, of the commonalty, to do any thing against his will; it shall not be permitted either to strike him, or to cause him to be maltreated by another, or to slay him or cause him to be slain.”

We may judge by this the degree of inferiority to which the plebeians were reduced. The veto of the tribunes could nevertheless put a stop to the proposal of a law, prevent the decisions of the consuls and Senate, arrest the levies of troops, prorogue the convocation of the comitia, and hinder the election of magistrates. From the year 297, their number was raised to ten, that is, two for each of the five classes specially subject to the recruitment; but the plebeians profited little by this measure ; the more the number of tribunes was augmented, the easier it became for the aristocracy to find among them an instrument for its designs. Gradually their influence increased;  in298, they laid claim to the right of convoking the Senate, and yet it was still a long time before they formed part of that body.

As to the comitia, the people had there only a feeble influence. In the assemblies by centuries, the vote of the first classes, composed of the richest citizens, as we have seen, prevailed over all the others; in the comitia by curiae, the patricians were absolute masters; and when, towards the end of the third century, the plebeians obtained the comitia by tribes, this concession did not add sensibly to their prerogatives. It was confined to the power of assembling in the public places, where, divided according to tribes, they placed their votes in urns for the election of their tribunes and ediles, previously elected by the centuries; their decisions concerned themselves only, and entailed no obligations on the patricians; so that the same town then offered the spectacle of two cities each having its own magistrates and laws. At first the patricians would not form part of the assembly by tribes, but they soon saw the advantage of it, and towards 305 entered it with their clients.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE ARISTOCRACY.

This political organization, the reflex of a society composed of so many different elements, could hardly have constituted a durable order of things, if the ascendancy of a privileged class had not controlled the causes of dissensions. This ascendancy itself would soon have diminished if concessions, forced or voluntary, had not gradually lowered the barriers be­tween the two orders.

In fact, the arbitrary conduct of the Consuls, who were perhaps originally nominated by the Senate alone, excited sharp recriminations: “the consular authority,” cried the plebeians, “was, in reality, almost as heavy as that of the kings. Instead of one master they had two, invested with an absolute and unlimited power, without rule or bridle, who turned against the people all the threats of the laws, and all their punishments.” Although about the year 283 the patricians and plebeians were subjected to the same judges, the want of fixed laws left the goods and lives of the citizens delivered to the will either of the consuls or of the tribunes. It became, therefore, indispensable to establish the legislation on a solid basis, and in 303 ten magistrates, called decemvirs, were chosen, invested with the double power, consular and tribunitian, which gave them the right of convoking equally the assemblies by centuries and by tribes. They were charged with the compilation of a code of laws afterwards known as the Laws of the Twelve Tables, which, engraved on brass, became the foundation of the Roman public law. Yet they persisted in making illegal the union contracted between persons of the two orders, and left the debtor at the mercy of the creditor, contrary to the decision of Servius Tullius.

The decemvirs abused their power, and, on their fall, the claims of the plebeians increased; the tribuneship, abolished during three years, was re-established; it was decided that an appeal to the people from the decision of any magistrate should be permitted, and that the laws made in the assemblies by tribes, as well as in the assemblies by centuries, should be obligatory on all.

The laws voted by the people in the comitia by tribes were to be obligatory on all Romans, and have the same force as those which were made in the comitia by centuries. The pain of death and confiscation was even pronounced against any one who should be convicted of having in any thing abrogated or violated this regulation. This new ordinance cut short the old quarrels between the plebeians and patricians, who refused to obey the laws made by the people, under the pretext that what was decided in the assembles by tribes was not obligatory on all the town, but only on the plebeians; and that, on the contrary, what was decided in the comitia by centuries became law as well for themselves as for the other citizens.” (Year of Rome, 305.) “One point always contested between the two orders was to know if the patricians were subjected to the plebiscite. The first care of the consuls was to propose to the comitia assembled by centuries a law to the effect that the decrees of the people assembled by tribes should be laws of the State.” (Year of Rome, 305.) “ The patricians pretended that they alone had the power of giving laws.”

There were thus, then, three sorts of comitia: the comitia by curiae, which, conferring the imperium on the magistrates elected by the centuries, sanctioned in some sort the election of the consuls; the comitia by centuries, over which the con­suls presided; and the comitia by tribes, over which the tribunes presided: the first named the consuls, the second the plebeian magistrates, and both, composed of nearly the same citizens, had equally the power of approving or rejecting the laws; but in the former the richest men and the nobility had all the influence, because they formed the majority of the centuries and voted first; while in the latter, on the contrary, the voters were confounded with the tribe to which they belonged. “If,” says an ancient author, “the suffrages are taken by gentes (ex generibus hominum), the comitia are by curiae; if according to age and census, they are by centuries; finally, if the vote be given according to terri­torial circumscription (regionibus), they are by tribes”. In spite of these concessions, antagonism in matters of law reigned always between the powers, the assemblies, and the different classes of society.

The plebeians laid claim to all the offices of State, and especially to the consulship, refusing to enrol themselves until their demands had been satisfied; and they went so far in their claims that they insisted upon the plebeian origin of the kings. “Shall we, then,” cried the tribune Canuleius, addressing himself to the people, “ have consuls who resemble the decemvirs, the vilest of mortals, all patricians, rather than the best of our kings, all new men I” that is, men without ancestors.

The Senate resisted, because it had no intention of confirming upon plebeians the right which formed an attribute of the consuls, for the convocation of the comitia, of taking the great auspices, a privilege altogether of a religious character, the exclusive appan­age of the nobility.

The indignation of the people was extreme, on account of the refusal to take the auspices, as if it had been an object for the reprobation of the immortal gods. The tribune demanded for what reason a plebeian could not be consul, and was told in reply that the plebeians had not the auspices, and that the decemvirs had interdicted marriage between the two orders only to hinder the auspices from being troubled by men of equivocal birth. “Now in what hands are the auspices, according to the custom of our ancestors ? In the hands of the patricians, I think; for the auspices are never taken for the nomination of a plebeian magistrate. Is it not, then, the same thing as to annihilate the auspices in this city, to take them, in electing plebeian consuls, from the patricians, who alone can observe them?” (Year of Rome, 386.)

To the consul, the praetor, and the censor was reserved the right of taking the great auspices; to the less elevated magistracies that of taking the lesser ones. The great auspices appear, in fact, to have been those of which the exercise was of most importance to the rights of the aristocracy. The ancients have not left us a precise defini­tion of the two classes of auspices; but it appears to result from what Cicero says of them, that by the great auspices were understood those for which the intervention of the augurs was indispensable; the little auspices, on the contrary, were those which were taken without them.

As to the auspices taken in the comitia where the consular tribunes were elected, passages of Titus Livius prove that they were the same as for the election of the consuls, and consequently that they were the great auspices; for we know from Cicero that it was the duty of the magistrate who held the comitia to bring there an augur, of whom he demanded what the presages announced. The privileges of the nobility were maintained by causing the comitia for the election of the consular tribunes to be held by an interrex chosen by the aristocracy.

In order to obviate this difficulty, the Senate, after suppressing the legal obstacles in the way of marriages between the two orders, agreed in 309 to the creation of six military tribunes invested with the consular power; but, which was an essential point, it was the interrex who convoked the comitia, and took the auspices. During seventy-seven years the military tribunes were elected alternately with the consuls, and the consulship was only re-established permanently in 387, when it was opened to the plebeians. This was the result of one of the laws of Licinius Stolo. This tribune succeeded in obtaining the adoption of several measures, which appeared to open a new era which would put an end to disputes. Still the patricians held with such tenacity to the privilege of alone taking the auspices, that, in 398, in the absence of the patrician consul, an interrex was appointed charged with presiding over the comitia, in order not to leave this care to the dictator and the other consul, who were both plebeians

But in permitting the popular class to arrive at the consul­ship, care had been taken to withdraw from that dignity a great part of its attributes, in order to confer them upon patrician magistrates. Thus they had successively taken away from the consuls, by the creation of two questors, in 307, the administration of the military chest; by the creation of the censors, in 311, the right of drawing up the list of the census, the assessment of the revenue of the State, and of watching over public morals; by the creation of the praetors, in 387, the sovereign jurisdiction in civil affairs, under the pretext that the nobility alone possessed the knowledge of the law of the Quirites; and, lastly, by the creation of the curule ediles, the presidency of the games, the superintendence of buildings, the police and the provisioning of the town, the maintenance of the public roads, and the inspection of the markets.

The intention of the aristocracy had been to limit the compul­sory concessions; but after the adoption of the Licinian laws, it was no longer possible to prevent the principle of the admission of plebeians to all the magistracies. In 386 they had arrived at the important charge of master of the knights (magister equi­tum). The master of the knights was so called because he exercised the supreme power over the knights and the accensi, as the dictator exercised it over the whole Roman people; whence the name of master of the people, which was also given to him, who was in a manner the lieutenant of the dictator (magister populi); in 387 access to the religious functions had been laid open to them (the duumvirs charged with the sacred rites were replaced by the decemvirs, half plebeians, half patricians); in 345 they obtained the questorship; in 398, the dictatorship itself; in 403, the censorship; and lastly, in 417, the praetorship.

In 391, the people arrogated the right of appointing a part of the legionary tribunes, previously chosen by the consuls.

In 415, the law of Q. Publilius Philo took from the Senate the power of refusing the auctoritas to the laws voted by the comitia, and obliged it to declare in advance if the proposed law were in conformity with public and religious law. Further, the obli­gation imposed by this law of having always one censor taken from among the plebeians opened the doors of the Senate to the richest of them, since it was the business of the censor to fix the rank of the citizens, and pronounce on the admission or exclusion of the senators. The Publilian law thus tended to raise the aristocracy of the two orders to the same rank, and to create the nobility (nobilitas), composed of all the families rendered illus­trious by the offices they had filled.

ELEMENTS OF DISSOLUTION.

At the beginning of the fifth century of Rome, the bringing nearer together of the two orders had given a greater consistency to society; but, just as we have seen under the kingly rule, the principles begin to show themselves which were one day to make the greatness of Rome, so now we see the first appearance of dangers which will be renewed unceasingly. Electoral corruption, the law of perduellio, slavery, the increase of the poor class, the agrarian laws, and the question of debts, will come, under different circumstances, to threaten the existence of the Republic. Let us summarily state that these questions, so grave in the sequel, were raised at an early date.

Electoral Corruption.—Fraud found its way into the elec­tions as soon as the number of electors increased and rendered it necessary to collect more suffrages to obtain public charges; as early as 396, indeed, a law on solicitation, proposed by the tribune of the people, C. Poetelius, bears witness to the existence of electoral corruption.

Law of High Treason.—As early as 305 and 369, the application of the law of perduellio, or design against the Republic, furnished to arbitrary power an arm of which, at a later period, under the emperors, so deplorable a use was made under the name of the law of high treason.

Slavery.—Slavery presented serious dangers for society, for, on the one hand, it tended, by the lower price of manual labor, to substitute itself for the labor of free men; while on the other, discontented with their lot, the slaves were always ready to shake off the yoke and become the auxiliaries of all who were ambitious. In 253, 294, and 336, partial insurrections announced the condition already to be feared of a class disinherited of all the advantages, though intimately bound up with all the wants, of ordinary life. The number of slaves increased rapidly. They replaced the free men, torn by the continual wars from the cultivation of the land. At a later period, when these latter re­turned to their homes, the Senate was obliged to support them by sending as far as Sicily to seek wheat, to deliver to them either gratis or at a reduced price.

In the interim, there was at Rome a conspiracy of several slaves, who formed together the design of seizing the forts and setting fire to the different quarters of the town. (Year of Rome, 253.)—From the summit of the capitol, Herdonius called the slaves to liberty. He had taken up the cause of misfortune; he had just restored to their country those whom injustice had banished, and delivered the slaves from a heavy yoke; it is to the Roman people that he wishes to give the honor of this enterprise. (Year of Rome, 294.) “ The slaves who had entered into the conspiracy were, at different points, to set fire to the town, and, while the people were occupied in carrying assistance to the houses which were in flames, to seize by force of arms the citadel and the Capitol. Jupiter baffled these criminal designs. On the denunciation of two slaves, the guilty were arrested and punished.” (Year of Rome, 336.)

AGRARIAN LAWS —As to the agrarian laws and the question of debts, they soon became an incessant cause of agitation.

The kings, with the conquered lands, had formed a domain of the State (ager publicus), one of its principal resources, and generously distributed part of it to the poor citizens. Gen­erally they took from the conquered people two-thirds of their land. Of these two-thirds, “the cultivated part,” says Appian, “was always adjudged to the new colonists, either as a gratuitous grant, or by sale, or by lease paying rent. As to the uncultivated part, which, as a consequence of war, was almost always the most considerable, it was not the custom to distribute it, but the enjoyment of it was left to any one willing to clear and cultivate it, with a reservation to the State of the tenth part of the harvest and a fifth part of the fruits. A similar tax was levied upon those who bred cattle, large or small (in order to prevent the pasture land from increasing in extent to the detriment of the arable land). This was done in view of the increase of the Italic population, which was judged at Rome the most laborious, and to have allies of their own race. But the meas­ure produced a result contrary to that which was expected from it. The rich appropriated to themselves the greater part of the undistributed lands, and reckoning that the long duration of their occupation would permit nobody to expel them, they bought when they found a seller, or took by force from their neighboring lesser proprietors their modest heritages, and thus formed vast domains, instead of the mere fields which they had themselves cultivated before.”

The kings had always sought to put a curb on these usurpa­tions,^) and perhaps it was a similar attempt which cost Servius Tullius his life. But after the fall of the kingly power, the patricians, having become more powerful, determined to preserve the lands which they had unjustly seized.

And it must be acknowledged, as they supported the greatest share of the burden of war and taxation, they had a better claim than the others to the conquered lands; they thought, moreover, that the colonies were sufficient to support an agricul­tural population, and they acted rather as State farmers than as proprietors of the soil. According to the public law, indeed, the ager publicus was inalienable, and we read in an ancient author: “Lawyers deny that the soil which has once begun to belong to the Roman people, can ever, by usage or possession, become the property of any body else in the world.”

In spite of this principle, it would have been wisdom to give, to the poor citizens who had fought, a part of the spoils of the vanquished; for the demands were incessant, and, after 268, renewed almost yearly by the tribunes or by the consuls them­selves. In 275, a patrician, Fabius Caeso, taking the initiative in a partition of lands recently conquered, exclaimed: “Is it not just that the territories taken from the enemy should become the property of those who have paid for it with their sweat and with their blood?” The Senate was as inflexible for this proposition as for those which were brought forward by Q. Considius and T. Genucius in 278, by Cn. Genucius in 280, and by the tribunes of the people, with the support of the consuls Vale­rius and Aemilius, in 284.

Lucius Aemilius said that it was just that the common goods should he shared among all the citizens rather than leave the enjoyment of them to a small number of individuals; that in regard to those who had seized upon the public lands, they ought to be sufficiently satisfied that they had been left to enjoy them during so long a time without being disturbed in their possession, and that if afterwards they were deprived of them, it ill became them to be obstinate in retaining them. He added that, besides the public law acknowledged by general opinion, and according to which the public goods are common to all the citizens, just as the goods of individuals belong to those who have acquired them legitimately, the Senate was obliged, by a special reason, to distribute the lands to the people, since it had passed an ordinance for that purpose already seventeen years ago. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus)

Yet, after fifty years of struggles since the expulsion of the Tarquins, the tribune Icilius, in 298, obtained the partition of the lands of Mount Aventine, by indemnifying those who had usurped a certain portion of them. The application of the law Icilia to other parts of the ager publicus was vainly solicited in 298 and the following years ; the plebeians complain loudly that their conquests have been taken from them; that it is disgraceful that, having conquered so many lands from the enemy, not the least portion of it remains to them; that the ager publicus is possessed by rich and influential men who take the revenue unjustly, without other title than their power and unexampled acts of violence. They demand finally, that, sharing with the patricians all the dangers, they may also have their share in the advantages and profit derived from them. (Year of Rome, 298); but in 330 a new tax was imposed upon the possessors of the lands, for the pay of the troops. The perseverance of the tribunes was unwearied, and, during the thirty-six years following, six different propositions were unsuccessful, even that relating to the territory of the Bolani, newly taken from the enemy. In 361 only, a senatus consultus granted to each father of a family and to each free man seven acres of the territory which had just been conquered from the Veii. In 371, after a resistance of five years, the Senate, in order to secure the concurrence of the people in the war against the Volsci, agreed to the partition of the territory of Pomptinum (the Pontine Marshes), taken from that people by Camillus, and already given up to the encroachments of the aristocracy. But these partial concessions were not enough to satisfy the plebeians, or to repair past injustices; in the Licinian law, the claims of the people, which had been resisted during a hundred and thirty-six years, triumphed; it did not entirely deprive the nobles of the enjoyment of the lands unjustly usurped, but it limited the possession of them to five hundred jugera. When this repartition was made, the land which re­mained was to be distributed among the poor. The proprietors were obliged to maintain on their lands a certain number of free men, in order to augment the class from which the legions were recruited; lastly, the number of cattle on each domain was fixed, in order to restrain the culture of the meadows, in general the most lucrative, and augment that of the arable lands, which relieved Italy from the necessity of having recourse to foreign corn.

This law of Licinius Stolo secured happy results; it restrained the encroachments of the rich and great, but only proceeded with moderation in its retrospective effects; it put a stop to the alarming extension of the private domains at the expense of the public domain, to the absorption of the good of the many by the few, to the depopulation of Italy, and consequently to the dimi­nution of the strength of the armies.

The numerous condemnations for trespasses against the law Licinia prove that it was carried into execution, and for the space of two hundred years it contributed, with the establishment of new colonies, to maintain this class of agriculturists—the principal sinews of the State. We see indeed that, from this moment, the Senate itself took the initiative of new distributions of land to the people.

Debts.—The question of debts and the diminution of the rate of interest had long been the subject of strong prejudices and of passionate debates.

As the citizens made war at their own expense, the less rich, while they were under arms, could not take care of their fields or farms, but borrowed money to provide for their wants and for those of their families. The debt had, in this case, a noble origin, the service of their country. Public opinion must, therefore, be favorable to the debtors and hostile to those who, speculating on the pecuniary difficulties of the defenders of the State, extorted heavy interest for the money they lent. The patricians also took advantage of their position and their knowledge of legal forms to exact heavy sums from the plebeians whose causes they defended.

The kings, listening to the demands of the citizens who were overwhelmed with debts, often showed their readiness to help them; the days following, Servius Tullius caused a report to be drawn up of the insolvent debtors, of their creditors, and of the respective amount of their debts. When this was prepared, he caused counters to be established in the Forum, and, in public view, repaid the lenders whatever was due to them; but, after their expulsion, the rich classes, more inde­pendent, became more untractable, and men, ruined on account of their military service, were sold publicly, as slaves, by their creditors.

Servilius caused a herald to proclaim that all persons were forbidden to seize, sell, or retain in pledge the goods of Romans who served against the Volsci, or to take away their children, or any one of their family, for any contract whatever. An old man complains that his creditor has reduced him to slavery: he declares loudly that he was born free, that he had served in all the campaigns as long as his age per­mitted, that he was in twenty-eight battles, where he had several times gained the prize of valor; but that, since the times had become bad, and the Republic was reduced to the last extremity, he had been constrained to borrow money to pay the taxes. ‘After that,’ he added, ‘having no longer wherewith to pay my debts, my merciless creditor has reduced me to slavery, with my two children; and, because I ex­postulated slightly when he ordered me to do things which were too difficult, caused me to be disgracefully beaten with several blows.’ (Year of Rome, 259.) This way creditors contributed to the insurrection of the populace; they cast aside all moderation, but threw their debtors into prison, and treated them like the slaves whom they would have bought for money.

Thus, when war was imminent, the poor often refused to serve, crying out: “What use will it be to us to conquer the enemies without, if our creditors put us in bonds for the debts we have contracted? What advantage shall we have in strengthening the empire of Rome, if we cannot preserve our personal liberty?”. Yet the patricians, who contributed more than the others to the costs of the war, demanded of their debtors, not without reason, the payment of the money they had advanced; and hence arose perpetual dissensions.

In 305, the laws of the Twelve Tables decided that the rate of interest should be reduced to ten per cent, a year; but a law of Licinius Stolo alone resolved, in an equitable manner, this grave question. It enacted that the interests previously paid should be deducted from the principal, and that the principal should be repaid by equal portions during an interval of three years. This measure was advantageous to all, for, in the state of insolvency in which the debtors were involved, the creditors could not obtain the interest of their money, and even risked the loss of the principal; the new law guaranteed the debts; the debtors, in their turn, having become landed proprietors, found the means of freeing themselves by means of the lands they had received and the delay which had been given them. The agreement established in 387 was of slight duration, and, in the midst of disagreements more or less violent, things were carried so far in 412, that the entire abolition of debts and the prohibition to exact any interest were decreed mere revolution­ary and transitory measures.

RESUME.

This rapid sketch of the evils already perceptible which tormented Roman society leads us to this reflection: it is the lot of all governments, whatever be their form, to contain within themselves germs of dissolution which must some day lead to their ruin; and accordingly, as the Republic was in progress or in decline, the first or the second became developed and dominant in turn; that is, so long as the aristocracy preserved its virtues and its patriot­ism, the elements of prosperity predominated; but no sooner did it begin to degenerate, than the causes of disturbance gained the upper hand, and shook the edifice which had been erected so laboriously.

If the fall of the kingly power, in giving more vitality and in­dependence to the aristocracy, rendered the constitution of the State more solid and durable, the democracy had at first no reason for congratulation. Two hundred years passed away be­fore the plebeians could obtain, not equality of political rights, but even a share in the ager publicus and an act of lenity in favor of debtors, overwhelmed with liabilities through incessant wars. About the same length of time was required by the Republic to reconquer the supremacy over the neighboring peo­ples which she had exercised under the last kings—so many years a country requires to recover from the shocks and en­feebling influence of even the most legitimate revolutions.

It results from the testimony of Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Livy, Horus, and Eutropius, that at the moment of the fall of Tarquinius Superbns, the domination of Rome extended over all Latium, over the greater part of the country of the Sabines, and even as far as Ocriculum (Otricoli), in Umbria; that Etruria, the country of the Hernici, and the territory of Caere (Cervetri), were united with the Romans by alliances which placed them, with regard to these, in a state of subjection.

The establishment of the consular government was, for the peoples subject to Rome, the signal of revolt. In 253, all the peoples of Latium were leagued against Rome; with the victory of Lake Regillus, in 258, that is, fourteen years after the overthrow of the Tarquins, the submission of Latium began, and it was finished by the treaty concluded by Spurius Cassius with the Latins in the year of Rome 268. The Sabines were only finally reduced by the Consul Horatius in 305. Fidenas, which had acknowledged the supremacy of Tarquin, was taken in the year 319, then taken again, after an insurrection, in 328. Anxur (Terracina) was only finally subjected after the defeat of the Volsci; and Veii and Faleriam only fell under the power of the Romans in the year 358 and 359. Circei, where a Latin colony had been established in the times of the kings, only received a new one in the year 360. Caere was reunited to the Roman territory in the year 364, and it was only at the time of the Gallic invasion, that Antium and Ecetra were finally annexed to the Roman territory. In 408, the capture of Satricum, at the entrance to the country of the Volscians, prevented that people from supporting an insurrection which had already begun among the Latins. In 411, the whole plain of Latium was occupied by Roman citizens or allies, but in the mountains there remained Volsoian and Latin cities which were independent, and secretly enemies. Nevertheless, it may be said that, towards that period, the Republic had reconquered the territory which it possessed under the kings, although Rome had again, in 416, to suppress a last insurrection of the Latins.

Yet Roman society had been vigorously enough constituted to resist at the same time external attacks and internal troubles. Neither the invasions of Porsenna, nor those of the Gauls, nor the conspiracies of the neighboring peoples, were able to compromise its existence. Already eminent men, such as Valerius Publicola, A, Postumius, Coriolanus, Spurius Cassius, Cincinnatus, and Camillus, had distinguished themselves as legislators and warriors, and Rome could put on foot ten legions, or forty-five thousand men. At home, important advantages had been obtained, and notable concessions had been made to effect a reconciliation between the two orders; written laws had been adopted, and the attributes of the different magistracies had been better defined; but the constitution of society remained the same. The facility granted to the plebeians of arriving at all the State employments only increased the strength of the aristocracy, which recovered its vigor of youth without modifying itself, diminished the number of its adversaries, and increased that of its adherents. The rich and important plebeian families soon began to mingle with the ancient patrician families, to share their ideas, their interests, and even their prejudices; and a learned German historian remarks, with justice, that after the abolition of the kingly power there was, perhaps, a greater num­ber of plebeians in the Senate, but that personal merit, without birth and fortune, experienced greater difficulty than ever in reaching preferment.

It is not indeed sufficient, for the appreciation of the state of society, to study thoroughly its laws, but we must also take into consideration the influence exercised by the manners of the people. The laws proclaimed equality and liberty, but the manners left the honors and preponderance to the upper class. The admission to place was no longer forbidden to the plebeians, but the election almost always kept them from it. During fifty-nine years, two hundred and sixty-four military tribunes replaced the consuls, and of this number only eighteen were plebeians; although these latter might be candidates for the consulship, the choice fell generally upon patricians. Mar­riage between the two orders had been long placed on a footing of equality, and yet, in 456, the prejudices of caste were far from being destroyed, as we learn from the history of the patri­cian Virginia, married to the plebeian Volumnius, whom the matrons drove away from the temple of Pudicitia patricia.

The laws protected liberty, but they were rarely executed, as is shown by the continual renewal of the same regulations. Thus, it had been decided in 305 that the plebiscita should have the force of law, yet in spite of that it was found necessary to re-enact the same regulation by the laws Hortensia, in 466, and Maenia, in 468. This last sanctioned also anew the law Publilia of 415. It was the same with the law of Valerius Publicola (of the year 246), which authorized an appeal to the people from the judgments of the magistrates. It appears to have been restored to vigor by Valerius and Horatius in 305, and again by Valerius Corvus in 454. And, on this occasion, the great Roman historian exclaims: “I can only explain this frequent renewal of the same law by supposing that the power of some of the great ones always succeeded in triumphing over the liberty of the people.” The right of admission to the Senate was acknowledged in principle, yet no one could enter it without having obtained a decree of the censor, or exercised a curule magistracy—favors almost always reserved to the aristocracy. The law which required a plebeian among the censors remained almost always in abeyance, and, to become censor, it was generally necessary to have been consul.

All offices ought to be annual, and yet the tribunes, as well as the consuls, obtained their re-election several times at short intervals—as in the instance of Licinius Stolo, re-elected tribune during nine consecutive years; of Sulpicius Peticus, five times consul (from 390 to 403); of Popilius Leenas and Marcius Rutilus, both four times, the first from 395 to 406, the second from 397 to 412. The law of 412 came in vain to require an interval of ten years before becoming again a candidate for the same magistracy. Several personages were none the less re-elected before the time required, such as Valerius Corvus, six times consul (from 406 to 455), and consecutively during the last three years ; and Papirius Cursor, five times (from 421 to 441).

The lives of the citizens were protected by the laws, but public opinion remained powerless at the assassination of those who had incurred the hatred of the Senate; and, in spite of the law of the consul Valerius Publicola, the violent death of the tribune Genucius, or of the rich plebeian Spurius Melius, was a subject of applause.

The comitia were free, but the senate had at its disposal either the veto of the tribunes or the religious scruples of the people. A consul could prevent the meeting of these assemblies, or cut short all their deliberations, either by declaring that he was observing the sky, or that a clap of thunder or some other celestial manifestation had occurred; and it depended upon the declaration of the augurs to annul the elections. Moreover, the people in reality were satisfied with naming the per­sons on whom they wished to confer the magisterial offices, for, to enter upon their functions, the consuls and the praetors had to submit their powers to the sanction of the curiae (lex curiata de imperio). It was thus in the power of the nobility to reverse the elections which displeased them, a fact which Cicero explains in the following terms, while presenting this measure in a light favorable to the people: “Your ancestors required the suffrages twice for all magistracies, for, when a curiate law was .proposed in favor of the patrician magistrates, they voted in reality a second time for the same persons, so that the people, if they repented of their choice, had the power of abandoning it.”

The dictatorship was also a lever left in the hands of the nobility to overthrow oppositions and influence the comitia. The dictator was never elected, but appointed by a consul. In the space of only twenty-six years, from 390 to 416, there were eighteen dictators.

The Senate remained, therefore, all-powerful in spite of the victory of the plebeians, for, independently of the means placed at its disposal, it was in its power to elude the plebiscita, the execution of which was entrusted to it. If the influence of a predominant class sobered the use of political liberty, the laws presented a still greater curb on individual liberty. Thus, not only all the members of the family were subjected to the absolute authority of the head, but each citizen was obliged further to obey a multitude of rigorous obligations.

If a citizen refused to give his name for the recruitment, his goods were confiscated; if he did not pay his creditors, he was sold for a slave. Women were forbidden the use of wine.—The number of guests who could be admitted to feasts was limited.—The magistrates, also, on entering on office, could not accept invitations to dinner, except from certain persons who were named.—Marriage with a plebeian or a stranger was surrounded with restrictive measures; it was forbidden with a slave or with a freedman. Celibacy, at a certain age, was punished with a fine—There were regulations also for mourning and funerals.

The censor watched over the purity of marriages, the education of children, the treatment of slaves and clients, and the cultivation of the lands. “The Romans did not believe,” says Plutarch,  that each individual ought to be allowed the liberty to marry, to have children, to choose his walk in life, to give festivities, or even to follow his desires and tastes, without undergoing a previous inspection and judgment.”

The condition of Rome then bore a great resemblance to that of England before its electoral reform. For several centuries, the English constitution was vaunted as the palladium of liberty, although then, as at Rome, birth and fortune were the unique source of honors and power. In both countries the aristocracy, master of the elections by solicitation, money, or rotten boroughs, caused, as the patricians at Rome, the members of the nobility to be elected to parliament, and no one was citizen in either of the two countries, without the possession of wealth. Nevertheless, if the people, in England, had no part in the direction of affairs, they boasted, justly, before 1789, a liberty which shone brightly in the middle of the silentious atmosphere of the Continental states. The disinterested observer does not examine if the scene where grave political questions are discussed is more or less vast, or if the actors are more or less numerous; he is only struck by the grandeur of the spectacle. Thus, far be from us the intention of blaming the nobility, any more in Rome than in England, for having preserved its preponderance by all the means which laws and habits placed at its disposal. The power was destined to remain with the patricians as long as they showed themselves worthy of it; and, it cannot but be acknowledged, without their perseverance in the same policy, without that elevation of views, without that severe and inflexible virtue, the distinguishing character of the aristocracy, the work of Roman civilization, would not have been accomplished.

At the beginning of the fifth century, the Republic, consolidated, is going to gather the fruit of the many efforts it has sustained. More united henceforward in the interior, the Romans will turn all their energy towards the conquest of Italy, but it will require nearly a century to realize it. Always stimulated by their institutions, always restrained by an intelligent aristocracy, they will furnish the astonishing example of a people preserving, in the name of liberty and in the midst of agitation, the immobility of a system which will render them masters of the world.