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HISTORY OF JULIUS CÆSAR.

Vol.

I.

The Publishers hereby announce that all rights of translation and reproduction abroad are reserved.

This volume was entered at the office of the Minister of the Interior (déposé au Ministère de l’Intérieur) in March,

The only Editions and Translations sanctioned by the Author are the following:

French.—Henri Plon, Printer and Publisher of the “History of Julius Cæsar,” 8 Rue Garancière, Paris.

English.—Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, Publishers, La Belle Sauvage Yard, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C.

American.—Harper and Brothers, Franklin Square, New York.

(Authorized by the English Publishers.)

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Italian.—Lemonnier, Printer and Publisher, Florence.

Portuguese.—V. Aillaud, Guillard, and Co., Paris, Publishers, and Agents for Portugal and Brazil.

Russian.—B.

M. Wolff, Bookseller and Publisher, St. Petersburg.

Danish, Norwegian, Swedish.—Carl B. Lorck, Consul General for Denmark, Bookseller and Publisher, Leipsic.

Hungarian.—Maurice Rath, Bookseller and Publisher, Pesth.

 




VOL.

I.

NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I. ROMAN HISTORY BEFORE CÆSAR
CHAPTER I. ROME UNDER THE KINGS.
PAGE
I.	The Kings Found the Roman Institutions	1
II.	Social Organisation	3
III.	Political Organisation	6
IV.	Religion	15
V.	Results obtained by Royalty	20
CHAPTER II. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULAR REPUBLIC ().
I.	Advantage of the Republic	25
II.	Institutions of the Republic	31
III.	Transformation of the Aristocracy	36
IV.	Elements of Dissolution	42
V.	Résumé	53
CHAPTER III. CONQUEST OF ITALY ().
I.	Description of Italy	62
II.	Dispositions of the People of Italy in regard to Rome	65
III.	Treatment of the Vanquished Peoples	68
IV.	Submission of Latium after the First Samnite War	75
V.	Second Samnite War	78
VI.	Third Samnite War—Coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Hernici ()	82
VII.	Fourth Samnite War—Second Coalition of the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls ()	85
VIII.	Third Coalition of the Etruscans, Gauls, Lucanians, and Tarentum ()	88
IX.	Pyrrhus in Italy—Submission of Tarentum ()	89
X.	Preponderance of Rome	92
XI.	Strength of the Institutions	97
CHAPTER IV. PROSPERITY OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BEFORE THE PUNIC WARS.
I.	Commerce of the Mediterranean
II.	Northern Africa
III.	Spain
IV.	Southern Gaul
V.	Liguria, Cisalpine Gaul, Venetia, and Illyria
VI.	Epirus
VII.	Greece
VIII.	Macedonia
IX.	Asia Minor
X.	Kingdom of Pontus
XI.	Bithynia
XII.	Cappadocia
XIII.	Kingdom of Pergamus
XIV.	Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia
XV.	Syria
XVI.	Egypt
XVII.	Cyrenaica
XVIII.	Cyprus
XIX.	Crete
XX.	Rhodes
XXI.	Sardinia
XXII.	Corsica
XXIII.	Sicily
CHAPTER V. PUNIC WARS AND WARS OF MACEDONIA AND ASIA ().
I.	Comparison Between Rome and Carthage
II.	First Punic War ()
III.	War of Illyria ()
IV.	Invasion of the Cisalpines ()
V.	Second Punic War ()
VI.	Results of the Second Punic War
VII.	The Macedonian War ()
VIII.	War against Antiochus ()
IX.	The War in the Cisalpine ()
X.	War against Persia ()
XI.	Modification of Roman Policy
XII.	Third Punic War ()
XIII.	Greece, Macedonia, Numantia, and Pergamus reduced to Provinces
XIV.	Summary
CHAPTER VI. THE GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SYLLA ().
I.	State of the Republic
II.	Tiberius Gracchus ()
III.	Caius Gracchus ()
IV.	War of Jugurtha ()
V.	Marius ()
VI.	Wars of the Allies
VII.	Sylla ()
VIII.	Effects of Sylla’s Dictatorship
BOOK II. HISTORY OF JULIUS CÆSAR.
CHAPTER I. ()
I.	First Years of Cæsar
II.	Cæsar Persecuted by Sylla ()
III.	Cæsar in Asia (, )
IV.	Cæsar on His Return to Rome ()
V.	Cæsar Goes to Rhodes ()
VI.	Cæsar Pontiff and Military Tribune ()
CHAPTER II. ()
I.	State of the Republic ()
II.	Consulship of Pompey and Crassus
III.	Cæsar Questor ()
IV.	The Gabinian Law ()
V.	The Manilian Law ()
VI.	Cæsar Curule Ædile ()
VII.	Cæsar Judex Quæstionis ()
VIII.	Conspiracies against the Senate ()
IX.	The Difficulty of Constituting a New Party
CHAPTER III. ()
I.	Cicero and Antonius Consuls ()
II.	Agrarian Law of Rullus
III.	Trial of Rabirius ()
IV.	Cæsar Grand Pontiff ()
V.	Catiline’s Conspiracy
VI.	Error of Cicero
VII.	Cæsar Prætor ()
VIII.	Attempt of Clodius ()
IX.	Pompey’s Triumphal Return ()
X.	Destiny Regulates Events
CHAPTER IV. ()
I.	Cæsar Proprætor in Spain ()
II.	Cæsar Demands a Triumph and the Consulship ()
III.	Alliance of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus
IV.	Cæsar’s Election
CHAPTER V. CONSULSHIP OF CÆSAR AND BIBULUS ().
I.	Attempts at Conciliation
II.	Agrarian Laws
III.	Cæsar’s Various Laws
IV.	Cæsar Receives the Government of the Gauls
V.	Opposition of the Patricians
VI.	Law of Clodius—Exile of Cicero
VII.	The Explanation of Cæsar’s Conduct

PREFACE.

HISTORIC truth ought to be no less sacred than religion.

If the precepts of faith raise our soul above the interests of this world, the lessons of history, in their turn, inspire us with the love of the beautiful and the just, and the hatred of whatever presents an obstacle to the progress of humanity. These lessons, to be profitable, require certain conditions. It is necessary that the facts be produced with a rigorous exactness, that the changes political or social be analysed philosophically, that the exciting interest of the details of the lives of public men should not divert attention from the political part they played, or cause us to forget their providential mission.

Too often the writer represents the different phases of history as spontaneous events, without seeking in preceding facts their true origin and their natural deduction; like the painter who, in re-producing the characteristics of Nature, only seizes their picturesque effect, without being able, in his picture, to give their scientific demonstration.

The historian ought to be more than a painter; he ought, like the geologist, who explains the phenomena of the globe, to unfold the secret of the transformation of societies.

But, in writing history, by what means are we to arrive at truth? By following the rules of logic. Let us first take for granted that a great effect is always due to a great cause, never to a small one; in other words, an accident, insignificant in appearance, never leads to important results without a pre-existing cause, which has permitted this slight accident to produce a great effect.

The spark only lights up a vast conflagration when it falls upon combustible matters previously collected. Montesquieu thus confirms this idea: “It is not fortune,” he says, “which rules the world There are general causes, whether moral or physical, which act in every monarchy, raising, maintaining, or overthrowing it; all accidents are subject to these causes, and if the fortune of a battle—that is to say, a particular cause—has ruined a state, there was a general cause which made it necessary that that state should perish through a single battle: in a word, the principal cause drags with it all the particular accidents.”[1]

If during nearly a thousand years the Romans always came triumphant out of the severest trials and greatest perils, it is because there existed a general cause which made them always superior to their enemies, and which did not permit partial defeats and misfortunes to entail the fall of the empire.

If the Romans, after giving an example to the world of a people constituting itself and growing great by liberty, seemed, after Cæsar, to throw themselves blindly into slavery, it is because there existed a general reason which by fatality prevented the Republic from returning to the purity of its ancient institutions; it is because the new wants and interests of a society in labour required other means to satisfy them.

Just as logic demonstrates that the reason of important events is imperious, in like manner we must recognise in the long duration of an institution the proof of its goodness, and in the incontestable influence of a man upon his age the proof of his genius.

The task, then, consists in seeking the vital element which constituted the strength of the institution, as the predominant idea which caused man to act.

In following this rule, we shall avoid the errors of those historians who gather facts transmitted by preceding ages, without properly arranging them according to their philosophical importance; thus glorifying that which merits blame, and leaving in the shade that which calls for the light.

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It is not a minute analysis of the Roman organisation which will enable us to understand the duration of so great an empire, but the profound examination of the spirit of its institutions; no more is it the detailed recital of the most trivial actions of a superior man which will reveal the secret of his ascendency, but the attentive investigation of the elevated motives of his conduct.

When extraordinary facts attest an eminent genius, what is more contrary to good sense than to ascribe to him all the passions and sentiments of mediocrity?

What more erroneous than not to recognise the pre-eminence of those privileged beings who appear in history from time to time like luminous beacons, dissipating the darkness of their epoch, and throwing light into the future? To deny this pre-eminence would, indeed, be to insult humanity, by believing it capable of submitting, long and voluntarily, to a domination which did not rest on true greatness and incontestable utility.

Let us be logical, and we shall be just.

Too many historians find it easier to lower men of genius, than, with a generous inspiration, to raise them to their due height, by penetrating their vast designs. Thus, as regards Cæsar, instead of showing us Rome, torn to pieces by civil wars and corrupted by riches, trampling under foot her ancient institutions, threatened by powerful peoples, such as Gauls, Germans, and Parthians, incapable of sustaining herself without a central power stronger, more stable, and more just; instead, I say, of tracing this faithful picture, Cæsar is represented, from an early age, as already aspiring to the supreme power.

If he opposes Sylla, if he disagrees with Cicero, if he allies himself with Pompey, it is the result of that far-sighted astuteness which divined everything with a view to bring everything under subjection. If he throws himself into Gaul, it is to acquire riches by pillage[2] or soldiers devoted to his projects; if he crosses the sea to carry the Roman eagles into an unknown country, but the conquest of which will strengthen that of Gaul,[3] it is to seek there pearls which were believed to exist in the seas of Great Britain.[4] If, after having vanquished the formidable enemies of Italy on the other side of the Alps, he meditates an expedition against the Parthians, to avenge the defeat of Crassus, it is, as certain historians say, because activity was a part of his nature, and that his health was better when he was campaigning.[5] If he accepts from the Senate with thankfulness a crown of laurel, and wears it with pride, it is to conceal his bald head.

If, lastly, he is assassinated by those whom he had loaded with benefits, it is because he sought to make himself king; as though he were to his contemporaries, as well as for posterity, the greatest of all kings. Since Suetonius and Plutarch, such are the paltry interpretations which it has pleased people to give to the noblest actions.

But by what sign are we to recognise a man’s greatness? By the empire of his ideas, when his principles and his system triumph in spite of his death or defeat. Is it not, in fact, the peculiarity of genius to survive destruction, and to extend its empire over future generations? Cæsar disappeared, and his influence predominates still more than during his life.

Cicero, his adversary, is compelled to exclaim: “All the acts of Cæsar, his writings, his words, his promises, his thoughts, have more force since his death, than if he were still alive.”[6] For ages it was enough to tell the world that such was the will of Cæsar, for the world to obey it.

The preceding remarks sufficiently explain the aim I have in view in writing this history.

This aim is to prove that, when Providence raises up such men as Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, it is to trace out to peoples the path they ought to follow; to stamp with the seal of their genius a new era; and to accomplish in a few years the labour of many centuries. Happy the peoples who comprehend and follow them! woe to those who misunderstand and combat them!

They do as the Jews did, they crucify their Messiah; they are blind and culpable: blind, for they do not see the impotence of their efforts to suspend the definitive triumph of good; culpable, for they only retard progress, by impeding its prompt and fruitful application.

In fact, neither the murder of Cæsar, nor the captivity of St.

Helena, have been able to destroy irrevocably two popular causes overthrown by a league which disguised itself under the mask of liberty. Brutus, by slaying Cæsar, plunged Rome into the horrors of civil war; he did not prevent the reign of Augustus, but he rendered possible those of Nero and Caligula. The ostracism of Napoleon by confederated Europe has been no more successful in preventing the Empire from being resuscitated; and, nevertheless, how far are we from the great questions solved, the passions calmed, and the legitimate satisfactions given to peoples by the first Empire!

Thus every day since has verified the prophecy of the captive of St.

Helena:

“How many struggles, how much blood, how many years will it not require to realise the good which I intended to do for mankind!”[7]

Palace of the Tuileries, March 20th,

Napoleon.

I

{1}

BOOK I.

ROMAN HISTORY BEFORE CÆSAR.

CHAPTER I.

ROME UNDER THE KINGS.

I.

“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.”[8]

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{2} 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 Pomœrium.[9]

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 Pomœrium itself.[10]

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 neighbouring 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{3} states took part in the inauguration of the temple of Jupiter Latialis.[11]

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.[12]

II.

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,[13] and waxen images of their ancestors (jus imaginum).{4}

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.[14]

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.[15] The clients cultivated the fields and formed part of the family.[16] 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{5} 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,[17] and associated in all the domestic labours 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.[18]

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 , 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 splendour 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 bearing arms.[19] When, in , the three hundred{6} Fabii, forming the gens Fabia, offered alone to fight the Veians, they were followed by four thousand clients.[20] The high class often reckoned, by means of its numerous adherents, on carrying measures by itself.

In , the plebeians having refused to take part in the consular comitia, the patricians, followed by their clients, elected the consuls;[21] and in , a Claudius declared with pride that the nobility had no need of the plebeians to carry on war against the Volsci.[22] The families of ancient origin long formed the state by themselves. To them exclusively the name of populus applied,[23] as that of plebs was given to the plebeians.[24] 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.[25]

III.

In a country where war was the principal occupation, the political organisation must naturally depend on the military organisation.{7} 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,[26] commanded the army.

Sovereign pontiff, legislator, and judge in all sacred matters, he dispensed justice[27] 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,[28] some carrying axes surrounded with rods, others merely rods.[29] At the death of the king, a magistrate, called interrex, was appointed by the Senate to exercise the royal authority during the five days{8} 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,[30] was obliged, under Romulus, to furnish a thousand soldiers (indeed, miles comes from mille) and a hundred horsemen (celeres). The tribe was divided into ten curiæ; at the head of each curia was a curion. The three tribes, furnishing three thousand foot soldiers and three hundred horsemen, formed at first the legion.

Their number was soon doubled by the adjunction of new cities.[31]

{9}

The curia, into which a certain number of gentes entered, was then the basis of the political and military organisation, 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;[32] they decided the question of peace or war; they nominated the magistrates of the town; and they confirmed or abrogated the laws.[33]

The appeal to the people,[34] 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{10} class of the people into corporations,[35] and augmented the number of the tribes and changed their constitution;[36] but to effect the second, they introduced, to the great discontent of the higher class, plebeians among the patricians,[37] and raised the freedmen to the rank of citizens.[38] 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 curiæ, deprived them of their military organisation, 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,[39] 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.{11}

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.[40] The report was inscribed on tables,[41] and, once terminated, all the citizens were called together in arms in the Campus Martius. 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.[42]

The citizens were divided into six classes,[43] and{12} into a hundred and ninety-three centuries, according to the fortune of each, beginning with the richest and ending with the poorest.

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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.[44] 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 curiæ, but the majority of the 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.[45] 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{13} with the guard of the town, composed of men from forty-six to sixty years old.[46]

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.[47] The centuries of knights, who formed the cavalry, recruited among the richest citizens, tended to introduce a separate order among the nobility,[48] 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{14} eighty thousand men in a condition to bear arms,[49] 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.[50]

{15}

The comitia by centuries were charged with the election of the magistrates, but the comitia by curiæ, 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 favourable 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 authorised the plebeians to become the patrons of their freedmen, which allowed the richest of the former to create for themselves a clientèle resembling that of the patricians.[51]

IV. Religion, regulated in great part by Numa, was at Rome an instrument of civilisation, but, above all, of government. By bringing into the acts of public or private life the intervention of the Divinity, everything was impressed with a character of sanctity.

Thus the inclosure of the town with its services,[52] the boundaries of estates, the transactions between citizens, engagements, and{16} even the important facts of history entered in the sacred books, were placed under the safeguard of the gods.[53] 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.[54] The national sentiment and belief that Rome would become one day the mistress of Italy was maintained by oracles or prodigies;[55] but if, on the one hand, religion, with its very imperfections, contributed to soften manners and to elevate minds,[56] on the other it wonderfully facilitated the working of the institutions, and preserved the influence of the higher 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,[57] 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{17} decision.

Thus, by interpreting the flight of birds,[58] 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 of 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.[59] Finally, it might be said with Camillus, that the town was founded on the faith of auspices and auguries.[60]

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,[61] of whom the king was the chief.[62] They decided all questions{18} which concerned the liturgy and religious worship, watched over the sacrifices and ceremonies that they should be performed in accordance with the traditional rites,[63] acted as inspectors over the other minister of religion, fixed the calendar,[64] and were responsible for their actions neither to the Senate nor to the people.[65]

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,[66] the vestals charged with the maintenance of the sacred fire; the twelve Salian priests,[67] 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.[68]

{19}

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 favour of Heaven upon the harvest; such also was the association having for its mission to celebrate the festival of the Lupercalia, founded in honour of the god Lupercus, the protector of 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 labour.[69]

The kings erected a great number of temples for the purpose of deifying, some, glory,[70] others, the virtues,[71] others, utility,[72] and others, gratitude to the gods.[73]

The Romans loved to represent everything by external{20} 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.[74]

V.

The facts which precede are sufficient to convince us that the Roman Republic[75] had already acquired under the kings a strong organisation.[76] 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 incontestible 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,{21} upon election; the policy, upon conquest.

At the head 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 citizens into the ranks of the soldiery.

Family is strongly constituted; the father reigns in it absolute master, sole judge[77] 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.[78]

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{22} 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 idealised, 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.[79] 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,[80] they are, in different degrees, immediately associated with the common fortune, and maintained in obedience by colonies—advanced posts of future dominion.[81]

{23}

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,[82] 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,[83] the rod or the axe of the lictor; to all, for noble actions, crowns of honour;[84] to the generals, the ovation, the triumph,[85] the best{24} of the spoils;[86] to the great men, apotheosis. To honour 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.[87]

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.{25}

CHAPTER II

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULAR REPUBLIC.

(From to )

I. 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 to certain beings, a fated limit, marked by the term of their utility. Until this providential term has arrived, no opposition prevails; conspiracies, revolts, everything 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.

Civilisation 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{26} attempted to obtain a share in the power by each exercising it for five days;[88] 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 cease 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.[89] 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 in 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, enclosed within itself, as we see, fruitful germs{27} 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 everything, 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 was 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 honours, 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 favourable to the development of Rome.

The patricians monopolised 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.{28}

They were not classed, as men are in our modern society, in envious and rival specialities; 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 who was honoured 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 depositary 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{29} sphere of his attributes.

The counterpoise of this independence was the short duration of his 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 knew 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 , because he had presented the first agrarian law; Spurius Melius, in , because he excited the jealousy of the patricians by distributing wheat to the people during a famine;[90] in , Manlius, the saviour of Rome, because he had expended his fortune in relieving insolvent debtors.[91] Thus will fall victims to the same accusation the reformer Tiberius{30} Sempronius Gracchus, and lastly, at a later period, the great Cæsar himself.

But if the pretended fear of the return of the ancient régime 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 clamours to set limits to the privileges of the nobility, and thus compelled it to render itself worthy of power by its virtues, and re-invigorated 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:[92] “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{31} 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 régime 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.

II. The two consuls were originally generals, judges, and administrators; equal in powers, they were often in disagreement, either in the Forum,[93] or on the field of battle.[94] Their dissensions{32} were repeated many times until the consulate of Cæsar 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,[95] or to interrupt a campaign in order to proceed to Rome to hold the comitia. The defeats of the Trebia and Cannæ, with that of Servilius Cæpio by the Cimbri,[96] were fatal examples of the want 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.[97] 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.{33}

This 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 , a new cause of discord; the plebeians, who composed the greater part of the army, claimed to have their military chiefs for magistrates;[98] 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:[99]—

“Nobody shall constrain a tribune of the people, like a man of the commonalty, to do anything 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{34} 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 , 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; in , 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;{35} in the comitia by curiæ, 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.[]{36} At first the patricians would not form part of the assembly by tribes, but they soon saw the advantage of it, and, towards , entered it with their clients.[]

III.

This political organisation, the reflex of a society composed of so many different elements, could hardly have constituted a durable order of things, if the ascendency of a privileged class had not controlled the causes of dissensions. This ascendency 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 absolute and unlimited power, without rule or bridle, who turned against the people all the threats of the laws, and all their punishments.”[] Although after the year the patricians and plebeians were subjected to the same judges,[] the want of fixed laws left the goods and{37} 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 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.[] There were thus, then, three sorts{38} of comitia; the comitia by curiæ, 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 that of the tribe to which they belonged.

“If,” says an ancient author, “the suffrages are taken by gentes (ex generibus hominum), the comitia are by curiæ; 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,{39} 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!” that is, men without ancestors.[]

The Senate resisted, because it had no intention of conferring 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 apanage of the nobility.[]

{40}

In order to obviate this difficulty, the Senate, after suppressing the legal obstacles in the way of marriages between the two orders, agreed in 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 , 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 , 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{41} had successively taken away from the consuls, by the creation of two questors, in , the administration of the military chest;[] by the creation of the censors, in , 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 prætors, in , 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 they had arrived at the important charge of master of the knights (magister equitum) who was in a manner the lieutenant of the dictator (magister populi);[] in access to the religious functions had been laid open to them;[] in they obtained the questorship; in , the{42} dictatorship itself; in , the censorship; and lastly, in , the prætorship.

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

In , 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.

IV. At the beginning of the fifth century of Rome, the bringing nearer together of the two orders had given a greater consistence 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{43} 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 , indeed, a law on solicitation, proposed by the tribune of the people, C.

Pœtelius, bears witness to the existence of electoral corruption.

Law of High-treason.—As early as and , 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 labour, to substitute itself for the labour 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 , , and , 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.{44} 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.[]

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{45} the conquered peoples 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 greatest 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{46} took by force from their neighbouring 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 burthen 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,{47} can ever, by usage or possession, become the property of anybody 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 , renewed almost yearly by the tribunes or by the consuls themselves.

In , a patrician, Fabius Cæso, 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 , by Cn. Genucius in , and by the tribunes of the people, with the support of the consuls Valerius and Æmilius, in []

Yet, after fifty years of struggles since the expulsion of the Tarquins, the tribune Icilius, in , obtained the partition of the lands of Mount Aventine, by indemnifying those who had usurped a certain{48} portion of them.[] The application of the law Icilia to other parts of the ager publicus[] was vainly solicited in and the following years; but in , 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 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 , 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 the Pomptinum (the Pontine Marshes), taken from that people by Camillus, and already given{49} 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{50} 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.{51}

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 favourable 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;[] but, after their expulsion,{52} 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.

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.[]

{53}

In , 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 was of slight duration, and in the midst of disagreements more or less violent, things were carried so far, in , that the entire abolition of debts and the prohibition to exact any interest were decreed mere revolutionary and transitory measures.

V. 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 life, which make their strength, and germs of dissolution, which must some day lead to their ruin; and accordingly, as the Republic was{54} 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 favour of debtors, overwhelmed with liabilities through incessant wars. About the same length of time was required by the Republic to re-conquer the supremacy over the neighbouring peoples which she had exercised under the last kings,[] so many{55} years a country requires to recover from the shocks and enfeebling influence of even the most legitimate revolutions.

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 neighbouring 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 vigour of youth without{56} 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 application 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 honours 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 , 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{57} 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 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 , and Mænia, in This last sanctioned also anew the law Publilia of It was the same with the law of Valerius Publicola (of the year ), which authorised an appeal to the people from the judgments of the magistrates.

It appears to have been restored to vigour by Valerius and Horatius in , and again by Valerius Corvus in 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—favours 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{58} years; of Sulpicius Peticus, five times consul (from to ); of Popilius Lænas and Marcius Rutilus, both four times, the first from to , the second from to The law of 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 to ), and consecutively during the last three years; and Papirius Cursor, five times (from to ).

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{59} upon their functions, the consuls and the prætors had to submit their powers to the sanction of the curiæ (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 favourable to the people: “Your ancestors required the suffrages twice for all magistracies, for, when a curiate law was proposed in favour 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 to , 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{60} was obliged further to obey a multitude of rigorous obligations.[] 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 honours 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{61} of affairs, they boasted justly, before , 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 civilisation 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 realise 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.{62}

CHAPTER III.

CONQUEST OF ITALY.

(From to )

I.

ANCIENT Italy did not comprise all the territory which has for its natural limits the Alps and the sea. What is called the continental part, or the great plain traversed by the Po, which extends between the Alps, the Apennines, and the Adriatic, was separated from it. This plain, and part of the mountains on the coasts of the Mediterranean, formed Liguria, Cisalpine Gaul, and Venetia.

The peninsula, or Italy proper, was bounded, on the north, by the Rubicon, and, probably, by the lower course of the Arno;[] on the west, by the Mediterranean; on the east, by the Adriatic; on the south, by the Ionian Sea. (See the Maps, No. 1 and No. 2.)

II

The Apennines traverse Italy in its whole length.

They begin where the Alps end, near Savona, and their chain proceeds, continually rising in elevation, as far as the centre of the peninsula. Mount Velino is their culminating point, and from thence the Apennines continue decreasing in height, until they reach the extremity of the kingdom of Naples. In the{63} northern region they approach the Adriatic; but, in the centre, they cut the peninsula into two parts nearly equal; then, at Mount Caruso (Vultur), near the source of the Bradano (Bradanus), they separate into two branches, one of which penetrates into Calabria, the other into the Terra di Bari as far as Otranto.

The two slopes of the Apennines give birth to various streams which flow some into the Adriatic and others into the Mediterranean.

On the eastern side the principal are—the Rubicon, the Pisaurus (Foglia), the Metaurus (Metauro), the Æsis (Esino), the Truentus (Tronto), the Aternus (Pescara), the Sangrus (Sangro), the Trinius (Trigno), the Frento (Fortore), and the Aufidus (Ofanto), which follow generally a direction perpendicular to the chain of mountains.

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On the western side, the Arnus (Arno), the Ombrus (Ombrone), the Tiber, the Amasenus (Amaseno), the Liris (Garigliano), the Vulturnus (Volturno), and the Silarus (Silaro or Sile), run parallel to the Apennines; but towards their mouths they take a direction nearly perpendicular to the coast.

The Bradanus (Bradano), the Casuentus (Basiento), and the Aciris (Agri), flow into the Gulf of Tarentum.

We may admit into ancient Italy the following great divisions and subdivisions:—

To the north, the Senones, a people of Gallic origin, occupying the shores of the Adriatic Sea, from the Rubicon to the neighbourhood of Ancona; Umbria, situated between the Senones and the course of the Tiber; Etruria, between the Tiber and the Mediterranean Sea.{64}

In the centre the territory of Picenum, between Ancona and Hadria, in the Abruzzo Ulteriore; Latium, in the part between the Apennines and the Mediterranean, from the Tiber to the Liris; to the south of Latium, the Volsci, and the Aurunci, the débris of the ancient Ausones, retired between the Liris and the Amasenus, and bordering upon another people of the same race, the Sidicines, established between the Liris and the Vulturnus; the country of the Sabines, between Picenum and Latium; to the east of Latium, in the mountains, the Æqui; the Hernici, backed by the populations of Sabellian stock, namely, the Marsi, the Peligni, the Vestini, the Marrucini, and the Frentani, distributed in the valleys through which run the rivers received by the Adriatic from the extremity of Picenum to the River Fortore.

The territory of Samnium, answering to the great part of the Abruzzi and the province of Molisa, advanced towards the west as far as the upper arm of the Vulturnus, on the north to the banks of the Fortore, and to the south to Mount Vultur.

Beyond the Vulturnus extended Campania (Terra di Lavoro and part of the principality of Salerno), from Sinuessa to the Gulf of Pæstum.

Southern Italy, or Magna Græcia, comprised on the Adriatic: first, Apulia (the Capitanata and Terra di Bari) and Messapia (Terra di Otranto); this last terminated in the Iapygian Promontory, and its central part was occupied by the Salentini and divers other Messapian populations, while there existed on the seaboard a great number of Greek colonies; secondly, Lucania, which answered nearly to the modern{65} province of Basilicata, and was washed by the waters of the Gulf of Tarentum; thirdly, Bruttium (now the Calabrias), forming the most advanced point of Italy, and terminating in the Promontory of Hercules.

II.

In , Rome had finally subdued the Latins, and possessed part of Campania. Her supremacy extended from the present territory of Viterbo to the Gulf of Naples, from Antium (Porto di Anzo) to Sora.

The frontiers of the Republic were difficult to defend, her limits ill determined, and her neighbours the most warlike people of the peninsula.

To the north only, the mountains of Viterbo, covered with a thick forest (silva Ciminia), formed a rampart against Etruria.

The southern part of this country had been long half Roman; the Latin colonies of Sutrium (Sutri) and Nepete (Nepi) served as posts of observation. But the Etruscans, animated for ages with hostile feeling towards Rome, attempted continually to recover the lost territory. The Gaulish Senones, who, in , had taken and burnt Rome, and often renewed their invasions, had come again to try their fortune.

In spite of their defeats in and , they were always ready to join the Umbrians and Etruscans in attacking the Republic.

The Sabines, though entertaining from time immemorial tolerably amicable relations with the Romans, offered but a doubtful alliance. Picenum, a fertile and populous country, was peaceful, and the greater part of the mountain tribes of Sabellic race, in spite of their bravery and energy, inspired as yet no fear.{66} Nearer Rome, the Æqui and the Hernici had been reduced to inaction; but the Senate kept in mind their hostilities and nourished projects of vengeance.

On the southern coast, among the Greek towns devoted to commerce, Tarentum passed for the most powerful; but these colonies, already in decline, were obliged to have recourse to mercenary troops, to resist the native inhabitants.

They disputed with the Samnites and the Romans the preponderance over the people of Magna Græcia. The Samnites, indeed, a manly and independent race, aimed at seizing the whole of Southern Italy; their cities formed a confederacy, redoubtable on account of its close union in time of war. The mountain tribes gave themselves up to brigandage, and it is worthy of attention that recent events show that in our days manners have not much changed in that country.

The Samnites had amassed considerable riches; their arms displayed excessive extravagance, and, if we believe Cæsar,[] they served as models for those of the Romans.

A jealous rivalry had long prevailed between the Romans and the Samnites. The moment these two peoples found themselves in presence of each other, it was evident that they would be at war; the struggle was long and terrible, and, during the fifth century, it was round Samnium that they disputed the empire of Italy.

The position of the Samnites was very advantageous. Entrenched in their mountains, they could, at their will, either descend into the valley of the Liris, thence reach the country of the Aurunci,{67} always ready to revolt, and cut off the communications of Rome with Campania; or follow the course of the upper Liris into the country of the Marsi, raise these latter, and hold out the hand to the Etruscans, turning Rome; or, lastly, penetrate into Campania by the valley of the Vulturnus, and fall upon the Sidicini, whose territory they coveted.

In the midst of so many hostile peoples, for a little state to succeed in raising itself above the others, and in subjugating them, it must have possessed peculiar elements of superiority.

The peoples who surrounded Rome, warlike and proud of their independence, had neither the same unity, nor the same incentives to action, nor the same powerful aristocratic organisation, nor the same blind confidence in their destinies. They displayed more selfishness than ambition. When they fought, it was much more to increase their riches by pillage than to augment the number of their subjects.

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Rome triumphed, because alone, in prospect of a future, she made war not to destroy, but to conserve, and, after the material conquest, always set herself to accomplish the moral conquest of the vanquished.

During four hundred years her institutions had formed a race animated with the love of country and with the sentiment of duty; but, in their turn, the men, incessantly re-tempered in intestine struggles, had successively introduced manners and traditions stronger even than the institutions themselves.

During three centuries, in fact, Rome presented, in spite of the annual renewal of powers, such a perseverance in the same policy, such a practice of the same virtues,{68} that it might have been supposed that the government had but a single head, a single thought, and one might have believed that all its generals were great warriors, all its senators experienced statesmen, and all its citizens valiant soldiers.

The geographical position of Rome contributed no less to the rapid increase of its power.

Situated in the middle of the only great fertile plain of Latium, on the banks of the only important river of Central Italy, which united it with the sea, it could be at the same time agricultural and maritime, conditions then indispensable for the capital of a new empire. The rich countries which bordered the coasts of the Mediterranean were sure to fall easily under her dominion; and as for the countries which surrounded her, it was possible to become mistress of them by occupying gradually the openings from all the valleys.

The town of the seven hills, favoured by her natural situation as well as by her political constitution, carried thus in herself the germs of her future greatness.

III. From the commencement of the fifth century Rome prepares with energy to subject and assimilate to herself the peoples who dwelt from the Rubicon to the Strait of Messina.

Nothing will prevent her from surmounting all obstacles, neither the coalition of her neighbours conspiring against her, nor the new incursions of the Gauls, nor the invasion of Pyrrhus. She will know how to raise herself from her partial defeats, and establish the unity of Italy, not by subduing at once all these peoples to the same laws and the same rule,{69} but by causing them to enter, by little and little and in different degrees, into the great Roman family.

“Of one city she makes her ally; on another she confers the honour of living under the Quiritary law, to this one with the right of suffrage, to that with the permission to retain its own government. Municipia of different degrees, maritime colonies, Latin colonies, Roman colonies, prefectures, allied towns, free towns, all isolated by the difference of their condition, all united by their equal dependence on the Senate, they will form, as it were, a vast network which will entangle the Italian peoples, until the day when, without new struggles, they will awake subjects of Rome.”[]

Let us examine the conditions of these various categories:

The right of city, in its plenitude (jus civitatis optimo jure), comprised the political privileges peculiar to the Romans, and assured for civil life certain advantages, of which the concession might be made separately and by degrees.

First came the commercium, that is, the right of possessing and transmitting according to the Roman law; next the connubium, or the right of contracting marriage with the advantages established by Roman legislation.[] The commercium and connubium united formed the Quiritary law (jus quiritium).

There were three sorts of municipia:[] first, the{70} municipia of which the inhabitants, inscribed in the tribes, exercised all the rights and were subjected to all the obligations of the Roman citizens; secondly, the municipia sine suffragio, the inhabitants of which enjoyed in totality or in part the Quiritary law, and might obtain the complete right of Roman citizens on certain conditions;[] it is what constituted the jus Latii; these first two categories preserved their autonomy and their magistrates; third, the towns which had lost all independence in exchange for the civil laws of Rome, but without enjoyment, for the inhabitants, of the most important political rights; it was the law of the Cærites, because Cære was the first town which had been thus treated.[]

Below the municipia, which had their own magistrates, came, in this social hierarchy, the prefectures,[] so called because a prefect was sent there every year to administer justice.

The dediticii were still worse treated.

Delivered by victory to the discretion of the Senate, they had been obliged to surrender their arms and give hostages, to throw down their walls or receive a garrison within them, to pay a tax, and to furnish a determinate contingent. With the exclusion of these last, the{71} towns which had not obtained for their inhabitants the complete rights of Roman citizens belonged to the class of allies (fœderati socii).

Their condition differed according to the nature of their engagements. Simple treaties of friendship,[] or of commerce,[] or of offensive alliance, or offensive and defensive,[] concluded on the footing of equality, were called fœdera æqua. On the contrary, when one of the contracting parties (and it was never the Romans) submitted to onerous obligations from which the other was exempted, these treaties were called fœdera non æqua.

They consisted almost always in the cession of a part of the territory of the vanquished, and in the obligation to undertake no war of their own. A certain independence, it is true, was left to them; they received the right of exchange and free establishment in the capital, but they were bound to the interests of Rome by an alliance offensive and defensive.

The only clause establishing the preponderance of Rome was conceived in these terms: Majestatem populi Romani comiter conservanto;[] that is, “They shall loyally acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman people.” It is a remarkable circumstance that, dating from the reign of Augustus, the freedmen were divided in categories similar to those which existed for the inhabitants of Italy.[]

{72}

As to the colonies, they were established for the purpose of preserving the possessions acquired, of securing the new frontiers, and of guarding the important passes; and even for the sake of getting rid of the turbulent class.[] They were of two sorts: the Roman colonies and the Latin colonies.

The former differed little from the municipia of the first degree, the others from the municipia of the second degree. The first were formed of Roman citizens, taken with their families from the classes subjected to military service, and even, in their origin, solely among the patricians. The coloni preserved the privileges attached to the title of citizen,[] and were bound by the same obligations, and the interior administration of the colony was an image of that of Rome.[]

{73}

The Latin colonies differed from the others in having been founded by the confederacy of the Latins on different points of Latium.

Emanating from a league of independent cities, they were not, like the Roman colonies, tied by close bonds to the metropolis.[] But the confederacy once dissolved, these colonies were placed in the rank of allied towns (socii Latini). The act (formula) which instituted them was a sort of treaty guaranteeing their franchise.[]

Peopled at first by Latins, it was not long before these colonies received Roman citizens who were induced by their poverty to exchange their title and rights for the advantages assured to the colonists.

These did not figure on the lists of the censors. The formula fixed simply the tribute to pay and the number of soldiers to furnish. What the colony lost in privileges it gained in independence.[]

The isolation of the Latin colonies, placed in the middle of the enemy’s territory, obliged them to remain faithful to Rome, and to keep watch on the neighbouring peoples.

Their military importance was at least equal to that of the Roman colonies; they merited as well as these latter the name of propugnacula imperii and of specula,[] that is, bulwarks and watch-towers of the conquest. In a political{74} point of view they rendered services of a similar kind. If the Roman colonies announced to the conquered people the majesty of the Roman name, their Latin sisters gave an ever-increasing extension to the nomen Latinum,[] that is, to the language, manners, and whole civilisation of that race of which Rome was but the first representative.

The Latin colonies were ordinarily founded to economise the colonies of Roman citizens, which were charged principally with the defence of the coasts and the maintenance of commercial relations with foreign people.

In making the privileges of the Roman citizen an advantage which every one was happy and proud to acquire, the Senate held out a bait to all ambitions; and this general desire, not to destroy the privilege, but to gain a place among the privileged, is a characteristic trait of the manners of antiquity.

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In the city not less than in the State, the insurgents or discontented did not seek, as in our modern societies, to overthrow, but to attain to. So every one, according to his position, aspired to a legitimate object: the plebeians to enter into the aristocracy, not to destroy it; the Italic peoples, to have a part in the sovereignty of Rome, not to contest it; the Roman provinces to be declared allies and friends of Rome, and not to recover their independence.

The peoples could judge, according to their conduct, what lot was reserved for them.

The paltry interests of city were replaced by an effectual protection, and by new rights often more precious, in the eyes of the vanquished, than independence itself.{75} This explains the facility with which the Roman domination was established. In fact, that only is destroyed entirely which may be replaced advantageously.

A rapid glance at the wars which effected the conquest of Italy will show how the Senate made application of the principles stated above; how it was skilful in profiting by the divisions of its adversaries, in collecting its whole strength to overwhelm one of them; after the victory in making it an ally; in using the aims and resources of that ally to subjugate another people; in crushing the confederacies which united the vanquished against it; in attaching them to Rome by new bonds; in establishing military posts on all the points of strategic importance; and, lastly, in spreading everywhere the Latin race by distributing to Roman citizens a part of the lands taken from the enemy.

But, before entering upon the recital of events, we must cast a glance upon the years which immediately preceded the pacification of Latium.

IV.

During a hundred and sixty-seven years, Rome had been satisfied with struggling against her neighbours to re-conquer a supremacy lost since the fall of her kings. She held herself almost always on the defensive; but, with the fifth century, she took the offensive, and inaugurated the system of conquests continued to the moment when she herself succumbed.

In , she had, in concert with the Latins, combated the Samnites for the first time, and commenced{76} against that redoubtable people a struggle which lasted seventy-two years, and which brought twenty-four triumphs to the Roman generals.[] Proud of having contributed to the two great victories of Mount Gaurus and Suessula, the Latins, with an exaggerated belief in their own strength and a pretension to equality with Rome, went so far as to require that one of the two consuls, and half of the senators, should be chosen from their nation.

War was immediately declared. The Senate was willing enough to have allies and subjects, but it could not suffer equals; it accepted without scruple the services of those who had just been enemies, and the Romans, united with the Samnites, the Hernici, and the Sabellian peoples, were seen in the fields of the Veseris and Trifanum, fighting against the Latins and Volsci.

Latium once reduced, it remained to determine the lot of the vanquished. Livy reports a speech of Camillus which explains clearly the policy recommended by that great citizen. “Will you,” he exclaims, addressing the members of the assembly, “use the utmost rigour of the rights of victory? You are masters to destroy all Latium, and to make a vast desert of it, after having often drawn from it powerful succours.

Will you, on the contrary, after the example of your fathers, augment the resources of Rome? Admit the vanquished among the number of your citizens; it is a fruitful means of increasing at the same time your power and your glory.”[] This last counsel prevailed.

The first step was to break the bonds which made{77} of the Latin people a sort of confederacy.

All political communalty, all war on their own account, all rights of commercium and connubium, between the different cities, were taken from them.[]

The towns nearest Rome received the rights of city and suffrage.[] Others received the title of allies and the privilege of preserving their own institutions, but they lost a part of their territory.[] As to the Latin colonies founded before in the old country of the Volsci, they formed the nucleus of the Latin allies (socii nominis Latini).

Velitræ, alone, having already revolted several times, was treated with great rigour; Antium was compelled to surrender its ships, and become a maritime colony.

These severe, but equitable measures, had pacified Latium; applied to the rest of Italy, and even to foreign countries, they will facilitate everywhere the progress of Roman domination.

The momentary alliance with the Samnites had permitted Rome to reduce the Latins; nevertheless the Senate, without hesitation, turned against the former again as soon as the moment appeared convenient.

It concluded, in , a treaty with the Gauls and Alexander Molossus, who, having landed near Pæstum, attacked the Lucanians and the Samnites. This King of Epirus, the uncle of Alexander the Great, had been called into Italy by the Tarentines; but his premature death disappointed the hopes to{78} which his co-operation had given rise, and the Samnites recommenced their incursions on the lands of their neighbours.

The intervention of Rome put a stop to the war. All the forces of the Republic were employed in reducing the revolt of the Volscian towns of Fundi and Privernum.[] In , Anxur (Terracina) was declared a Roman colony, and, in , Fregellæ (Ceprano?), a Latin colony.

The establishment of these fortresses, and of those of Cales and Antium, secured the communications with Campania; the Liris and the Vulturnus became in that direction the principal lines of defence of the Romans.

The cities situated on the shores of that magnificent gulf called Crater by the ancients, and in our days the Gulf of Naples, perceived then the dangers which threatened them. They turned their eyes towards the population of the interior, who were no less alarmed for their independence.

V. The fertile countries which bordered the western shore of the peninsula were destined to excite the covetousness of the Romans and the Samnites, and become the prey of the conqueror.

“Campania, indeed,” says Florus,[] “is the finest country of Italy, and even of the whole world. There is nothing milder than its climate. Spring flourishes there twice every year. There can be nothing more fertile than its soil. It is called the garden of Ceres and Bacchus. There is not a more hospitable sea than that which bathes its shores.{79}” In , the two peoples disputed the possession of it, as they had done in The inhabitants of Palæopolis having attacked the Roman colonists of the ager Campanus, the consuls marched against that place, which soon received succour from the Samnites and the inhabitants of Nola, while Rome formed an alliance with the Apulians and the Lucanians.

The siege dragged on, and the necessity of continuing the campaign beyond the ordinary limit led to the prolongation of the command of Publilius Philo with the title of proconsul, which appeared for the first time in the military annals. The Samnites were soon driven from Campania; the Palæopolitans submitted; their town was demolished; but they formed close to it a new establishment, at Naples (Neapolis), where a new treaty guaranteed them an almost absolute independence, on the condition of furnishing a certain number of vessels to Rome.

After that, nearly all the Greek towns, reduced one after another, obtained the same favourable conditions, and formed the class of the socii navales.[]

Yet the war was protracted in the mountains of the Apennine. Tarentum united with the Samnites, the only people who were still to be feared,[] and the Lucanians abandoned the alliance of the Romans; but, in , the two most celebrated captains of the time, Q.

Fabius Rullianus and Papirius Cursor, penetrated into the country of Samnium, and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity for the war and accept a year’s truce.{80}

At this epoch, an unforeseen event, which changed the destinies of the world, came to demonstrate the difference between the rapid creation of a man of genius and the patient work of an intelligent aristocracy.

Alexander the Great, after having shone like a meteor, and brought into subjection the most powerful kingdoms of Asia, died at Babylon. His fruitful and decisive influence, which carried the civilization of Greece into the East, survived him, but at his death, the empire he founded became in a few years dismembered (); the Roman aristocracy, on the contrary, perpetuating itself from age to age, pursued more slowly, but without interruption, the system which, binding again the peoples about a common centre, was destined by little and little to secure her domination over Italy first, and then over the universe.

The defection of a part of the Apulians, in , encouraged the Samnites to take arms again; defeated in the following years, they asked for the restoration of friendly relations, but the haughty refusal of Rome led, in , to the famous defeat of the Furcæ Caudinæ.

The generosity of the Samnite general, Pontus Herennius, who granted their lives to so many thousands of prisoners on condition of restoring to force the old treaties, had no effect upon the Senate. Four legions had passed under the yoke—a circumstance in which the Senate only saw a new affront to revenge. The treaty of Caudium was not ratified, and subterfuges little excusable, although approved at a later period by Cicero,[] gave to the refusal an appearance of justice.{81}

Meanwhile the Senate exerted itself vigorously to repair this check, and soon Publilius Philo defeated the enemies in Samnium, and, in Apulia, Papirius, in his turn, caused seven thousand Samnites to pass under the yoke.

The vanquished solicited peace, but in vain; they only obtained a truce for two years (), and it had hardly expired, when, penetrating into the country of the Volsci, as far as the neighbourhood of Terracina, and taking a position at Lautulæ, they defeated a Roman army raised hastily and commanded by Q. Fabius (). Capua deserted, and Nola, Nuceria, the Aurunci, and the Volsci of the Liris took part openly with the Samnites.

The spirit of rebellion spread as far as Præneste.

History of julius caesar pdf free download This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published or registered with the U. Somewhat difficult to read. EPUB older E-readers. The narrative centers on Julius Caesar, detailing his rise to power amidst the politically tumultuous environment of late Republican Rome, with insights into his relationships with key rivals and allies, including Marius, Sylla, and Pompey.

Rome was in danger. The Senate required its utmost energy to restrain populations whose fidelity was always doubtful. Fortune seconded its efforts, and the allies, who had proved traitors, received a cruel chastisement, explained by the terror they had inspired. In ,[] not far from Caudium, a numerous army encountered the Samnites, who lost 30, men, and were driven back into the Apennine territory.

The Roman legions proceeded to encamp before their capital, Bovianum, and there took up their winter quarters.

The year following (), Rome, less occupied in fighting, profited by this circumstance to seize upon advantageous positions, establishing in Campania and Apulia colonies which surrounded the territory of Samnium. At the same epoch, Appius Claudius transformed into a regular causeway the road which has{82} preserved his name.[] The Romans turned their attention to the defence of the coasts and communication by sea; a colony was sent to the isle of Pontia,[] opposite Tarracina, and the armament of a fleet was commenced, which was placed under the command of duumviri navales.[] The war had lasted fifteen years, and, although Rome had only succeeded in driving back the Samnites into their own territory, she had conquered two provinces, Apulia and Campania.

VI.

A struggle so desperate had produced its effect even in Etruria, and the old league was formed again. Inured to war by their daily combats with the Gauls, and emboldened by the reports of the defeat of Lautulæ, the Etruscans believed that the moment had arrived for recovering their ancient territory to the south of the Ciminian forest; they were further encouraged by the attitude of the peoples of Central Italy, who were weary of the continual passing of legions.

From to , the armies of the Republic were obliged to face different enemies at the same time. In Etruria, Fabius Rullianus relieved Sutrium, a rampart of Rome on the north;[] he passed through the Ciminian forest, and by the victories of Lake Vadimo ()[] and Perusia compelled all the Etruscan towns to ask{83} for peace.

At the same time, an army laid waste the country of the Samnites; and a Roman fleet, composed of vessels furnished by the maritime allies, took the offensive for the first time. Its attempt near Nuceria Alfaterna (Nocera, a town of Campania) was unfortunate.

War next breaks out again in Apulia, Samnium, and Etruria, where the aged Papirius Cursor, named dictator anew, gains a brilliant victory at Langula ().

The year following Fabius penetrates again into Samnium, and the other consul, Decius, maintains Etruria. Suddenly the Umbrians conceive the project of seizing Rome by surprise. The consuls are recalled for the defence of the town. Fabius meets the Etruscans at Mevania (on the confines of Etruria and Umbria), and, the year following, at Allifæ ().

Among the prisoners were some Æqui and Hernici. Their towns, feeling themselves thus compromised, declared open war against the Romans (). The Samnites recovered courage; but the prompt reduction of the Hernici allowed the Senate to concentrate its forces. Two armies, penetrating into Samnium by way of Apulia and Campania, re-established the old frontiers.

Bovianum was taken for the third time, and during six months the country was delivered up to devastation. In vain Tarentum tried to raise new quarrels for the Republic, and to force the Lucanians to embrace the cause of the Samnites. The successes of the Roman arms led to the conclusion of treaties of peace with all the peoples of Southern Italy, constrained thenceforward to acknowledge the majesty of the Roman people.

The Æqui remained alone exposed{84} to the wrath of Rome; the Senate did not forget that at Allifæ they had fought in the ranks of the enemy, and, once freed from its more serious embarrassments, it inflicted on this people a terrible chastisement: forty-one places were taken and burnt in fifty days. This period of six years thus terminated with the submission of the Hernici and Æqui.

Five years less agitated left Rome time to regulate the position of its new subjects, and to establish colonies and ways of communication.

The Hernici were treated in the same manner as the Latins, in , and deprived of commercium and connubium.

Prefects and the law of the Cærites were imposed on Anagnia, Frusino, and other towns guilty of desertion. The cities which had remained faithful preserved their independence and the title of allies ();[] the Æqui lost a part of their territory and received the right of city without suffrage (). The Samnites, sufficiently humiliated, obtained at last the renewal of their ancient conventions ().[]Fœdera non æqua were concluded with the Marsi, the Peligni, the Marrucini, the Frentani (), the Vestini (), and the Picentini ().[] Rome treated with Tarentum on a footing of equality, and engaged not to let her fleet pass the Lacinian Promontory to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum.[]

Thus, on the one hand, the territories shared among the Roman citizens; on the other, the number of the{85} municipia were considerably augmented.

Further, the Republic had acquired new allies; she possessed at length the passages of the Apennines and commanded both seas.[] A girdle of Latin fortresses protected Rome and broke the communications between the north and south of Italy; among the Marsi and the Æqui, there were Alba and Carseoli; Sora, towards the sources of the Liris; and Narnia, in Umbria.

Military roads connected the colonies with the metropolis.

VII. Peace could not last long: between Rome and the Samnites it was a duel to death. In , these latter had already sufficiently recovered from their disasters to attempt once more the fortune of arms.[] Rome sends to the succour of the Lucanians, suddenly attacked, two consular armies.

Vanquished at Tifernum by Fabius, at Maleventum by Decius, the Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country. Still they do not lose courage; their chief, Gellius Egnatius, conceives a plan which places Rome in great danger. He divides the Samnite army into three bodies: the first remains to defend the country; the second takes the offensive in Campania; the third, which he commands in person, throws itself into Etruria, and, increased by the junction of the Etruscans, the Gauls, and the Umbrians, soon forms a numerous army.[] The storm roared on all sides, and,{86} while the Roman generals were occupied some in Samnium and others in Campania, despatches arrived from Appius, placed at the head of the army of Etruria, announcing a terrible coalition formed in silence by the peoples of the north, who were concentrating all their forces in Umbria for the purpose of marching upon Rome.

The terror was extreme, but the energy of the Romans was equal to the danger.

All able men, even to the freedmen, were enrolled, and ninety thousand soldiers were raised. Under these grave circumstances (), Fabius and Decius were, once again, raised to the supreme magistracy, and gained, under the walls of Sentinum, a brilliant victory, long disputed. During the battle, Decius devoted himself, as his father had done before.

The coalition once dissolved, Fabius defeated another army which had issued from Perusia, and then came to receive the honour of a triumph in Rome. Etruria was subdued (), and obtained a truce of forty years.[]

The Samnites still maintained an obstinate struggle of mingled successes and reverses. In , after having taken an oath to conquer or die, thirty thousand of them were left on the field of battle of Aquilonia.

A few months later, the celebrated Pontius, the hero of Furcæ Caudinæ, re-appeared, at the end of twenty-nine years, at the head of his fellow-citizens, and inflicted upon the son of Fabius a check, which the latter soon retrieved with the assistance of his father.[] Finally, in , two Roman armies re-commenced, in{87} Samnium, a war of extermination, which led for the fourth time to the renewal of the ancient treaties and the cession of a certain extent of territory.

At the same epoch, an insurrection which broke out in the Sabine territory was put down by Curius Dentatus. Central Italy was conquered.

The peace with the Samnites lasted five years (). Rome extended her frontiers, and fortified those of the peoples placed under her protectorate; and at the same time established new military forts.

The right of city without suffrage was accorded to the Sabines, and prefects were given to some of the towns of the valley of the Vulturnus (Venafrum and Allifæ).[] A Latin colony, of twenty thousand men, was sent to Venusia to watch over Southern Italy.[] It commanded at the same time Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania.

If, owing to the treaty concluded with the Greek towns, the Roman supremacy extended over the south of the peninsula, to the north the Etruscans could not be reckoned as allies, since nothing more than truces had been concluded with them. In Umbria, the small tribe of the Sarsinates remained independent, and all the coast district from the Rubicon to the Æsis was in the power of the Senones; on their southern frontier the Roman colony of Sena Gallica (Sinigaglia) was founded; the coast of Picenum was watched by that of Castrum Novum and by the Latin fortress of Hatria ().[]

{88}

VIII.

The power of Rome had increased considerably. The Samnites, who hitherto had played the first part, were no longer in a condition to plan further coalitions, and one people alone could hardly be rash enough to provoke the Republic. Yet the Lucanians, always hesitating, gave this time the signal for a general revolt.

The attack on Thurium, by the Lucanians and Bruttians, became the occasion of a new league, into which entered successively the Tarentines, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and even the Gauls.

The north was soon in flames, and Etruria again became the battle-field. A Roman army, which had hastened to relieve Arretium, was put to rout by the Etruscans united with Gaulish mercenaries. The Senones, to whom these belonged, having massacred the Roman ambassadors sent to expostulate on their violation of the treaty with the Republic, the Senate sent against them two legions who drove them back beyond the Rubicon.

The Gaulish tribe of the Boians, alarmed by the fate of the Senones, descended immediately into Umbria, and, rallying the Etruscans, prepared to march to renew the sack of Rome; but their march was arrested, and two successive victories, at Lake Vadimo, () and Populonia (), enabled the Senate to conclude a convention which drove back the Boians into their old territory.

Hostilities continued with the Etruscans during two years, after which their submission completed the conquest of Northern Italy.

IX. Free to the north, the Romans turned their efforts{89} against the south of Italy; war was declared against Tarentum, the people of which had attacked a Roman flotilla. While the consul Æmilius invested the town, the first troops of Pyrrhus, called in by the Tarentines, disembarked in the port ().

This epoch marks a new phase in the destinies of Rome, who is going, for the first time, to measure herself with Greece.

Hitherto the legions have never had to combat really regular armies, but they have become disciplined in war by incessant struggles in the mountains of Samnium and Etruria; henceforth they will have to face old soldiers disciplined in skilful tactics and commanded by an experienced warrior. The King of Epirus, after having already twice lost and recovered his kingdom, and invaded and abandoned Macedonia, dreamt of conquering the West.

On the news of his arrival at the head of twenty-five thousand soldiers and twenty elephants,[] the Romans enrolled all citizens capable of bearing arms, even the proletaries; but, admirable example of courage! they rejected the support of the Carthaginian fleet with this proud declaration: “The Republic only entertains wars which it can sustain with its own forces.”[] While fifty thousand men, under the orders of the consul Lævinus, march against the King of Epirus, to prevent his junction with the Samnites, another army enters Lucania.

The consul Tiberius Coruncanius holds Etruria, again in agitation. Lastly, an army of reserve guards the capital.{90}

Lævinus encountered the King of Epirus near Heraclea, a colony of Tarentum (). Seven times in succession the legions charged the phalanx, which was on the point of giving way, when the elephants, animals unknown to the Romans, decided the victory in favour of the enemy.

A single battle had delivered to Pyrrhus all the south of the Peninsula, where the Greek towns received him with enthusiasm.

But, though victor, he had sustained considerable losses, and learned at the same time the effeminacy of the Greeks of Italy, and the energy of a people of soldiers. He offered peace, and asked of the Senate liberty for the Samnites, the Lucanians, and especially for the Greek towns.

Old Appius Claudius declared it impossible so long as Pyrrhus occupied Italian soil, and peace was refused. The king then resolved to march upon Rome through Campania, where his troops made great booty.

Lævinus, made prudent by his defeat, satisfied himself with watching the enemy’s army, and succeeded in covering Capua; whence he followed Pyrrhus from place to place, looking out for a favourable opportunity.

This prince, advancing by the Latin Way, had reached Præneste without obstacle,[] when, surrounded by three Roman armies, he found himself under the necessity of falling back and retiring into Lucania. Next year, reckoning on finding new auxiliaries among the peoples of the east, he attacked Apulia; but the fidelity of the allies in Central Italy was not shaken.

Victorious at Asculum (Ascoli di{91} Satriano) (), but without a decisive success, and encountering always the same resistance, he seized the first opportunity of quitting Italy to conquer Sicily (). During this time, the Senate re-established the Roman domination in Southern Italy, and even seized upon some of the Greek towns, among the rest Locri and Heraclea.[] Samnium, Lucania, and Bruttium were again given up to the power of the legions, and forced to surrender lands and renew treaties of alliance; on the coast, Tarentum and Rhegium alone remained independent.

The Samnites still resisted, and the Roman army encamped in their country in and Meanwhile Pyrrhus returns to Italy, reckoning on arriving in time to deliver Samnium; but he is defeated at Beneventum by Curius Dentatus, and returns to his country. The invasion of Pyrrhus, cousin of Alexander the Great; and one of his successors, appears as one of the last efforts of Grecian civilisation expiring at the feet of the rising grandeur of Roman civilisation.

The war against the King of Epirus produced two remarkable results: it improved the Romans in military tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of civilised nations which teach men to honour their adversaries, to spare the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended.

The King of Epirus treated his Roman prisoners with great generosity. Cineas, sent to the Senate at Rome, and Fabricius, envoy to Pyrrhus, carried back from their mission a profound respect for those whom they had combated.{92}

In the following years Rome took Tarentum (),[] finally pacified Samnium, and took possession of Rhegium ().

Julius caesar biography Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Note: This tag should not be used for sound recordings. Category Text EBook-No. The opening chapters provide a gripping portrayal of political rivalry, the social climate of Roman life, and the formative experiences that would shape Caesar into a legendary military commander and statesman, preparing readers for the events of his later conquests in Gaul.

Since the battle of Mount Gaurus, seventy-two years had passed, and several generations had succeeded each other, without seeing the end of this long and sanguinary quarrel. The Samnites had been nearly exterminated, and yet the spirit of independence and liberty remained deeply rooted in their mountains. When, at the end of two centuries and a half, the war of the allies shall come, it is there still that the cause of equality of rights will find its strongest support.

The other peoples underwent quickly the laws of the conqueror.

The inhabitants of Picenum, as a punishment for their revolt, were despoiled of a part of their territory, and a certain number among them received new lands in the south of Campania, near the Gulf of Salernum (Picentini)(). In , the submission of the Salentines allowed the Romans to seize Brundusium, the most important port of the Adriatic.[] The Sarsinates were reduced the years following.[] Finally, Volsinium, a town of Etruria, was again numbered among the allies of the Republic.

The Sabines received the right of suffrage. Italy, become henceforth Roman, extended from the Rubicon to the Straits of Messina.

X. During this period, the conquest of the subjugated countries was ensured by the foundation of colonies. Rome became thus{93} encircled by a girdle of fortresses commanding all the passages which led to Latium, and closing the roads to Campania, Samnium, Etruria, and Gaul.[]

At the opening of the struggle which ended in the{94} conquest of Italy, there were only twenty-seven tribes of Roman citizens; the creation of eight new tribes (the two last in ) raised finally the number to thirty-five, of which twenty-one were reserved to the old Roman people and fourteen to the new citizens.

Of these the Etruscans had four; the Latins, the Volsci, the Ausones, the Æqui, and the Sabines, each two; but, these tribes being at a considerable distance from the capital, the new citizens could hardly take part in the comitia, and the majority, with its influence, remained with those who dwelt at Rome.[] After , no more tribes were created; those who received the rights of citizens were only placed in the previously existing tribes; so that the members of one individual tribe were scattered in the provinces, and the number of those inscribed went on increasing continually by individual additions, and by the tendency more and more apparent to raise the municipia of the second order to the rank of the first order.

Thus, towards the middle of the sixth century, the towns of the Æqui, the Hernici, the Volsci, and a part of those of Campania, including the ancient Samnite cities of Venafrum and Allifæ, obtained the right of city with suffrage.

Rome, towards the end of the fifth century, thus ruled, though in different degrees, the peoples of Italy proper.

The Italian State, if we may give it that{95} name, was composed of a reigning class, the citizens; of a class protected, or held in guardianship, the allies; and of a third class, the subjects. Allies or subjects were all obliged to furnish military contingents. The maritime Greek towns furnished sailors to the fleet. Even the cities, which preserved their independence for their interior affairs, obeyed, so far as the military administration was concerned, special functionaries appointed by the metropolis.[] The consuls had the right of raising in the countries bordering on the theatre of war all men capable of bearing arms.

The equipment and pay of the troops remained at the charge of the cities; Rome provided for their maintenance during war. The auxiliary infantry was ordinarily equal in number to that of the Romans, the cavalry double or triple.

In exchange for this military assistance, the allies had a right to a part of the conquered territory, and, in return for an annual rent, to the usufruct of the domains of the State.

These domains, considerable in the peninsula,[] formed the sole source of income which the treasury derived from the allies, free in other respects from tribute. Four questors (quæstores classici) were established to watch over the execution of the orders of the Senate, the equipment of the fleet, and the collection of the farm-rents.{96}

Rome reserved to herself exclusively the direction of the affairs of the exterior, and presided alone over the destinies of the Republic.

The allies never interfered in the decisions of the Forum, and each town kept within the narrow limits of its communal administration. The Italian nationality was thus gradually constituted by means of this political centralisation, without which the different peoples would have mutually weakened each other by intestine wars, more ruinous than foreign wars, and Italy would not have been in a condition to resist the double pressure of the Gauls and the Carthaginians.

The form adopted by Rome to rule Italy was the best possible, but only as a transition form.

The object to be aimed at was, in fact, the complete assimilation of all the inhabitants of the peninsula, and this was evidently the aim of the wise policy of the Camilli and the Fabii. When we consider that the colonies of citizens presented the faithful image of Rome; that the Latin colonies had analogous institutions and laws; and that a great number of Roman citizens and Latin allies were dispersed, in the different countries of the peninsula, over the vast territories ceded as the consequence of war, we may judge how rapid must have been the diffusion of Roman manners and the Latin language.

If Rome, in later times, had not the wisdom to seize the favourable moment in which assimilation, already effected in people’s minds, might have passed into the domain of facts, the reason of it was the abandonment of the principles of equity which had guided the Senate in the first ages of the Republic, and, above all,{97} the corruption of the magnates, interested in maintaining the inferior condition of the allies.

The right of city extended to all the peoples of Italy, time enough to be useful, would have given to the Republic a new force; but an obstinate refusal became the cause of the revolution commenced by the Gracchi, continued by Marius, extinguished for a moment by Sylla, and completed by Cæsar.

XI. At the epoch with which we are occupied, the Republic is in all its splendour.

The institutions form remarkable men; the annual elections carry into power those who are most worthy, and recall them to it after a short interval.

The sphere of action for the military chiefs does not extend beyond the natural frontiers of the peninsula, and their ambition, restrained in their duty by public opinion, does not exceed a legitimate object, the union of all Italy under one dominion. The members of the aristocracy seem to inherit the exploits as well as the virtues of their ancestors, and neither poverty nor obscurity of birth prevent merit from reaching it.

Curius Dentatus, Fabricius, and Coruncanius, can show neither riches nor the images of their ancestors, and yet they attain to the highest dignities; in fact, the plebeian nobility walks on a footing of equality with the patrician. Both, in separating from the multitude, tend more and more to amalgamate together;[] but they remain rivals in patriotism and disinterestedness.{98}

In spite of the taste for riches introduced by the war of the Sabines,[] the magistrates maintained their simplicity of manners, and protected the public domain against the encroachments of the rich by the rigorous execution of the law, which limited to five hundred acres the property which an individual was allowed to possess.[]

The first citizens presented the most remarkable examples of integrity and self-denial.

Marcus Valerius Corvus, after occupying twenty-one curule offices, returns to his fields without fortune, though not without glory (). Fabius Rullianus, in the midst of his victories and triumphs, forgets his resentment towards Papirius Cursor, and names him dictator, sacrificing thus his private feelings to the interests of his country ().

Marcus Curius Dentatus keeps for himself no part of the rich spoils taken from the Sabines, and, after having vanquished Pyrrhus, resumes the simplicity of country life ().[] Fabricius rejects the money which the Samnites offer him for his generous behaviour towards them, and disdains the presents of Pyrrhus (). Coruncanius furnishes an example of all the virtues.[] Fabius Gurges, Fabius Pictor, and Ogulnius, pour into the treasury the magnificent gifts they had brought back from their embassy to Alexandria.[] M.

Rutilius Censorinus,{99} struck with the danger of entrusting twice in succession the censorship in the same hands, refuses to be re-elected to that office ().

The names of many others might be cited, who, then and in later ages, did honour to the Roman Republic; but let us add, that if the ruling class knew how to call to it all the men of eminence, it forgot not to recompense brilliantly those especially who favoured its interests: Fabius Rullianus, for instance, the victor in so many battles, received the name of “most great” (Maximus) only for having, at the time of his censorship, annulled in the comitia the influence of the poor class, composed of freedmen, whom he distributed among the urban tribes (), where their votes were lost in the multitude of others.[]

The popular party, on its own side, ceased not to demand new concessions, or to claim the revival of those which had fallen out of use.

Thus, it obtained, in , the re-establishment of the law of Servius Tullius, which decided that the goods only of the debtor, and not his body, should be responsible for his debt.[] In , Flavius, the son of a freedman, made public the calendar and the formulæ of proceedings, which deprived the patricians of the exclusive knowledge of civil and religious law.[] But the lawyers found means of weakening the effects of the measure of Flavius by inventing new formulæ, which{} were almost unintelligible to the public.[] The plebeians, in , were admitted into the college of the pontiffs, and into that of the augurs; the same year, it was found necessary to renew for the third time the law Valeria, de provocatione.

In , the people again withdrew to the Janiculum, demanding the remission of debts, and crying out against usury.[] Concord was restored only when they had obtained, first, by the law Hortensia, that the plebiscita should be obligatory on all; and next, by the law Marcia, that the orders obtained through Publilius Philo in should be restored to vigour.

These orders, as we have seen above, obliged the Senate to declare in advance whether or not the laws presented to the comitia were contrary to public and religious law.[]

The ambition of Rome seemed to be without bounds; yet all her wars had for reason or pretext the defence of the weak and the protection of her allies. Indeed, the cause of the wars against the Samnites was sometimes the defence of the inhabitants of Capua, sometimes that of the inhabitants of Palæopolis, sometimes that of the Lucanians.

The war against Pyrrhus had its origin in the assistance claimed by the inhabitants of Thurium; and the support claimed by the Mamertines will soon lead to the first Punic war.

The Senate, we have seen, put in practice the principles which found empires and the virtues to which{} war gives birth.

Thus, for all the citizens, equality of rights; in face of danger to their country, equality of duties and even suspension of liberty. To the most worthy, honours and the command. No magisterial charge for him who has not served in the ranks of the army. The example is furnished by the most illustrious and richest families: at the battle of Lake Regillus (), the principal senators were mingled in the ranks of the legions;[] at the combat near the Cremera, the three hundred and six Fabii, who all, according to Titus Livius, were capable of filling the highest offices, perished fighting.

Later, at Cannæ, eighty senators, who had enrolled themselves as mere soldiers, fell on the field of battle.[] The triumph is accorded for victories which enlarged the territory, but not for those which only recovered lost ground. No triumph in civil wars:[] in such case, success, be what it may, is always a subject for public mourning. The consuls or proconsuls seek to be useful to their country without false susceptibility; to-day in the first rank, to-morrow in the second, they serve with the same devotion under the orders of him whom they commanded the previous day.

Servilius, consul in , becomes, the year following, the lieutenant of Valerius. Fabius, after so many triumphs, consents to be only lieutenant to his son. At a later period, Flamininus, who had vanquished the King of Macedonia, descends again through patriotism, after the victory{} of Cynoscephalæ, to the grade of tribune of the soldiers;[] the great Scipio himself, after the defeat of Hannibal, serves as lieutenant under his brother in the war against Antiochus.

To sacrifice everything to patriotism is the first duty.

By devoting themselves to the gods of Hades, like Curtius and the two Decii, people believed they bought, at the price of their lives, the safety of the others or victory.[] Discipline is enforced even to cruelty: Manlius Torquatus, after the example of Postumius Tubertus, punishes with death the disobedience of his son, though he had gained a victory.

The soldiers who have fled are decimated; those who abandon their ranks or the field of battle are devoted, some to execution, others to dishonour; and those who have allowed themselves to be made prisoners by the enemy are disdained as unworthy of the price of freedom.[]

Surrounded by warlike neighbours, Rome must either triumph or cease to exist; hence her superiority in the art of war, for, as Montesquieu says, in transient wars most of the examples are lost; peace brings other ideas, and its faults and even its virtues are forgotten; hence that contempt of treason and that disdain for the advantages it promises: Camillus sends home to their parents the children of the first families of Falerii, delivered up to him by their schoolmaster; the Senate rejects with indignation the offer of the physician of Pyrrhus, who proposes to poison that prince;—hence that religious observance of oaths and that respect for engagements which have been contracted:{} the Roman prisoners to whom Pyrrhus had given permission to repair to Rome for the festival of Saturn, all return to him faithful to their word; and Regulus leaves the most memorable example of faithfulness to his oath!—hence that skilful and inflexible policy which refuses peace after a defeat, or a treaty with the enemy so long as he is on the soil of their country; which makes use of war to divert people from domestic troubles;[] gains the vanquished by benefits if they submit, and admits them by degrees into the great Roman family; and, if they resist, strikes them without pity and reduces them to slavery;[]—hence that anxious provision for multiplying upon the conquered territories the race of agriculturists and soldiers;—hence, lastly, the improving spectacle of a town which becomes a people, and of a people which embraces the world.{}

CHAPTER IV.

PROSPERITY OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BEFORE THE PUNIC WARS.

I.

ROME had required two hundred and forty-four years to form her constitution under the kings, a hundred and seventy-two to establish and consolidate the consular Republic, seventy-two to complete the conquest of Italy, and now it will cost her nearly a century and a half to obtain the domination of the world—that is, of Northern Africa, Spain, the south of Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.

Before undertaking the recital of these conquests, let us halt an instant to consider the condition of the basin of the Mediterranean at this period, of that sea round which were successively unfolded all the great dramas of ancient history. In this examination we shall see, not without a feeling of regret, vast countries where formerly produce, monuments, riches, numerous armies and fleets—all, indeed, revealed an advanced state of civilisation—now deserts or in a state of barbarism.

The Mediterranean had seen grow and prosper in turn on its coasts Sidon, and Tyre, and then Greece.

III

Sidon, already a flourishing city before the time of Homer, is soon eclipsed by the supremacy of Tyre; then Greece comes to carry on, in competition with her, the commerce of the interior sea; an age of pacific{} greatness and fruitful rivalries.

To the Phœnicians chiefly, the South, the East, Africa, Asia beyond Mount Taurus, the Erythrean Sea (the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf), the ocean, and the distant voyages. To the Greeks, all the northern coasts, which they covered with their thousand settlements. Phœnicia devotes herself to adventurous enterprises and lucrative speculations.

Greece, artistic before becoming a trader, propagates by her colonies her mind and her ideas.

This fortunate emulation soon disappears before the creation of two new colonies sprung from their bosom. The splendour of Carthage replaces that of Tyre. Alexandria is substituted for Greece. Thus a Western or Spanish Phœnicia shares the commerce of the world with an Eastern and Egyptian Greece, the fruit of the intellectual conquests of Alexander.

II.

Rich in the spoils of twenty different peoples, Carthage was the proud capital of a vast empire. Its ports, hollowed out by the hand of man, were capable of containing a great number of ships.[] Her citadel, Byrsa, was two miles in circuit. On the land side the town was defended by a triple enclosure twenty-five stadia in length, thirty cubits high, and supported by towers of four storeys, capable of giving shelter to 4, horse, elephants, and 20, foot soldiers;[] it enclosed an immense population, since, in the last years of its resistance, after a struggle of a century, it still counted{} , inhabitants.[] Its monuments were worthy of its greatness: among its remarkable buildings was the temple of the god Aschmoun, assimilated by the Greeks to Æsculapius;[] that of the sun, covered with plates of gold valued at a thousand talents;[] and the mantle or peplum, destined for the image of their great goddess, which cost a hundred and twenty.[] The empire of Carthage extended from the frontiers of Cyrenaica (the country of Barca, in the regency of Tripoli) into Spain; she was the metropolis of all the north of Africa, and, in Libya alone, possessed three hundred towns.[] Nearly all the isles of the Mediterranean, to the west and south of Italy, had received her factories.

Carthage had imposed her sovereignty upon all the ancient Phœnician establishments in this part of the world, and had levied upon them an annual contingent of soldiers and tribute.{} In the interior of Africa, she sent caravans to seek elephants, ivory, gold, and black slaves, which she afterwards exported[] to the trading places on the Mediterranean.

In Sicily, she gathered oil and wine; in the isle of Elba, she mined for iron; from Malta, she drew valuable tissues; from Corsica, wax and honey; from Sardinia, corn, metals, and slaves; from the Baleares, mules and fruits; from Spain, gold, silver, and lead; from Mauritania, the hides of animals; she sent as far as the extremity of Britain, to the Cassiterides (the Scilly Islands), ships to purchase tin.[] Within her walls industry flourished greatly, and tissues of great celebrity were fabricated.[]

No market of the ancient world could be compared with that of Carthage, to which men of all nations crowded.

Greeks, Gauls, Ligurians, Spaniards, Libyans, came in multitudes to serve under her standard;[] the Numidians lent her a redoubtable cavalry.[] Her fleet was formidable; it amounted at this epoch to five hundred vessels. Carthage possessed a considerable arsenal;[] we may appreciate its importance from the fact, that, after her conquest{} by Scipio, she delivered to him two hundred thousand suits of armour, and three thousand machines of war.[] So many troops and stores imply immense revenues.

Even after the battle of Zama, Polybius could still call her the richest town in the world. Yet she had already paid heavy contributions to the Romans.[] An excellent system of agriculture contributed no less than her commerce to her prosperity. A great number of agricultural colonies[] had been established, which, in the time of Agathocles, amounted to more than two hundred.

They were ruined by the war ( of Rome).[] Byzacena (the southern part of the regency of Tunis) was the granary of Carthage.[]

This province, surnamed Emporia, as being the trading country par excellence, vaunted by the geographer Scylax[] as the most magnificent and fertile part of Libya. It had, in the time of Strabo, numerous towns, so many magazines of the merchandise of the interior of Africa.

Polybius[] speaks of its horses, oxen, sheep, and goats, as forming innumerable herds, such as he had never seen elsewhere. The small town of Leptis alone paid to the Carthaginians the enormous contribution of a talent a day (5, francs [£ 16s.]).[]

{}

This fertility of Africa explains the importance of the towns on the coast of the Syrtes, an importance, it is true, revealed by later testimonies, because they date from the decline of Carthage, but which must apply still more forcibly to the flourishing condition which preceded it.

In , the vast port of the isle Cercina (Kirkeni, in the regency of Tunis, opposite Sfax) had paid ten talents to Servilius.[] More to the west, Hippo Regius (Bona