A Smaller History of Rome Part 3

"Once upon a time," he said, "the Members refused to work any longer for the Belly, which led a lazy life, and grew fat upon their toils. But receiving no longer any nourishment from the Belly, they soon began to pine away, and found that it was to the Belly they owed their life and strength."

The fable was understood, and the Plebeians agreed to treat with the Patricians. It was decided that existing debts should be canceled, and that all debtors in bondage should be restored to freedom. It was necessary, however, to provide security for the future, and the Plebeians therefore insisted that two of their own number should be elected annually, to whom the Plebeians might appeal for a.s.sistance against the decisions of the Patrician magistrates. These officers were called _Tribunes of the Plebs_. Their persons were declared sacred and inviolate; they were never to quit the city during their year of office; and their houses were to remain open day and night, that all who were in need of help might apply to them. Their number was soon afterward increased to five, and at a later time to ten. They gradually gained more and more power, and obtained the right of putting a veto[15] upon any public business.[16] At the Sacred Mount the Plebeians also obtained the privilege of having two aediles of their order appointed. These officers had at a later time the care of the public buildings and roads, and the superintendence of the police of the city.

Emboldened by this success, the Plebeians now demanded a share in the public land. And in this they found an unexpected supporter among the Patricians themselves. Sp. Ca.s.sius, one of the most distinguished men in the state, who had formed the league between the Romans, Latins, and Hernicans, brought forward in his third consuls.h.i.+p a law, by which a portion of the public land was to be divided among the Plebeians (B.C.

486). This was the first Agrarian Law mentioned in Roman history. It must be recollected that all the Agrarian laws dealt only with the public land, and never touched the property of private persons.

Notwithstanding the violent opposition of the Patricians, the law was pa.s.sed; but it was never carried into execution, and the Patricians soon revenged themselves upon its author. In the following year he was accused of aiming at the kingly power, and condemned to death. He was scourged and beheaded, and his house razed to the ground.

We now turn to the external history of Rome. Under the kings Rome had risen to a superiority over her neighbors, and had extended her dominion over the southern part of Etruria and the greater part of Latium. The early history of the republic presents a very different spectacle. For the next 100 years she is engaged in a difficult and often dubious struggle with the Etruscans on the one hand, and the Volscians and aequians on the other. It would be unprofitable to relate the details of these petty campaigns; but there are three celebrated legends connected with them which must not be pa.s.sed over.

1. CORIOLa.n.u.s AND THE VOLSCIANS, B.C. 488.--C. Marcius, surnamed Coriola.n.u.s, from his valor at the capture of the Latin town of Corioli, was a brave but haughty Patrician youth. He was hated by the Plebeians, who refused him the consuls.h.i.+p. This inflamed him with anger; and accordingly, when the city was suffering from famine, and a present of corn came from Sicily, Coriola.n.u.s advised the Senate not to distribute it among the Plebeians unless they gave up their Tribunes. Such insolence enraged the Plebeians, who would have torn him to pieces on the spot had not the tribunes summoned him before the Comitia of the Tribes. Coriola.n.u.s himself breathed nothing but defiance; and his kinsmen and friends interceded for him in vain. He was condemned to exile. He now turned his steps to Antium, the capital of the Volscians, and offered to lead them against Rome. Attius Tullius, king of the Volscians, persuaded his countrymen to appoint Coriola.n.u.s their general.

Nothing could check his victorious progress; town after town fell before him; and he advanced within five miles of the city, ravaging the lands of the Plebeians, but sparing those of the Patricians. The city was filled with despair. The ten first men in the Senate were sent in hopes of moving his compa.s.sion. But they were received with the utmost sternness, and told that the city must submit to his absolute will. Next day the pontiffs, augurs, flamens, and all the priests, came in their robes of office, and in vain prayed him to spare the city. All seemed lost; but Rome was saved by her women. Next morning the n.o.blest matrons, headed by Veturia, the aged mother of Corola.n.u.s, and by his wife Volumnia, holding her little children by the hand, came to his tent.

Their lamentations turned him from his purpose. "Mother," he said, bursting into tears, "thou hast saved Rome, but lost thy son!" He then led the Volscians home, but they put him to death because he had spared Rome. Others relate that he lived among the Volscians to a great age, and was often heard to say that "none but an old man can feel how wretched it is to live in a foreign land."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Environs of Rome.]

2. THE FABIA GENS AND THE VEIENTINES, B.C. 477.--The Fabii were one of the most powerful of the Patrician houses. For seven successive years one of the Consuls was always a Fabius. The Fabii had been among the leading opponents of the Agrarian Law; and Kaeso Fabius had taken an active part in obtaining the condemnation of Sp. Ca.s.sius. But shortly afterward we find this same Kaeso the advocate of the popular rights, and proposing that the Agrarian Law of Ca.s.sius should be carried into effect. He was supported in his new views by his powerful house, though the reasons for their change of opinion we do not know. But the Fabii made no impression upon the great body of the Patricians, and only earned for themselves the hearty hatred of their order. Finding that they could no longer live in peace at Rome, they determined to leave the city, and found a separate settlement, where they might still be useful to their native land. One of the most formidable enemies of the republic was the Etruscan city of Veii, situated about twelve miles from Rome.

Accordingly, the Fabian house, consisting of 306 males of full age, accompanied by their wives and children, clients and dependents, marched out of Rome by the right-hand arch of the Carmental Gate, and proceeded straight to the Cremera, a river which flows into the Tiber below Veii.

On the Cremera they established a fortified camp, and, sallying thence, they laid waste the Veientine territory. For two years they sustained the whole weight of the Veientine war; and all the attempts of the Veientines to dislodge them proved in vain. But at length they were enticed into an ambuscade, and were all slain. The settlement was destroyed, and no one of the house survived except a boy who had been left behind at Rome, and who became the ancestor of the Fabii, afterward so celebrated in Roman history. The Fabii were sacrificed to the hatred of the Patricians; for the consul T. Menenius was encamped a short way off at the time, and he did nothing to save them.

3. CINCINNATUS AND THE aeQUIANS, B.C. 458.--The aequians in their numerous attacks upon the Roman territory generally occupied Mount Algidus, which formed a part of the group of the Alban Hills in Latium. It was accordingly upon this mount that the battles between the Romans and aequians most frequently took place. In the year 458 B.C. the Roman consul L. Minucius was defeated on the Algidus, and surrounded in his camp. Five hors.e.m.e.n, who made their escape before the Romans were completely encompa.s.sed, brought the tidings to Rome. The Senate forthwith appointed L. Cincinnatus dictator.

L. Cincinnatus was one of the heroes of old Roman story. When the deputies of the Senate came to him to announce his elevation to the dictators.h.i.+p they found him driving a plow, and clad only in his tunic or s.h.i.+rt. They bade him clothe himself, that he might hear the commands of the Senate. He put on his toga, which his wife Racilia brought him.

The deputies then told him of the peril of the Roman army, and that he had been made Dictator. The next morning, before daybreak, he appeared in the forum, and ordered all the men of military age to meet him in the evening in the Field of Mars, with food for five days, and each with twelve stakes. His orders were obeyed; and with such speed did he march, that by midnight he reached Mount Algidus. Placing his men around the aequian camp, he told them to raise the war-cry, and at the same time to begin digging a trench and raising a mound, on the top of which the stakes were to be driven in. The other Roman army, which was shut in, hearing the war-cry, burst forth from their camp, and fought with the aequians all night. The Dictator's troops thus worked without interruption, and completed the intrenchment by the morning. The aequians found themselves hemmed in between the two armies, and were forced to surrender. The Dictator made them pa.s.s under the yoke, which was formed by two spears fixed upright in the ground, while a third was fastened across them. Cincinnatus entered Rome in triumph only twenty-four hours after he had quitted it, having thus saved a whole Roman army from destruction.

In reading the wars of the early Republic, it is important to recollect the League formed by Spurius Ca.s.sius, the author of the Agrarian Law between the Romans, Latins, and Hernicans. This League, to which allusion has been already made, was of the most intimate kind, and the armies of the three states fought by each other's sides. It was by means of this League that the aequians and Volscians were kept in check, for they were two of the most warlike nations in Italy, and would have been more than a match for the unsupported arms of Rome.

[Footnote 14: Debtors thus given over to their creditors were called _Addicti_.]

[Footnote 15: This was called the right of _intercession_, from _intercedo_, "to come between."]

[Footnote 16: The Tribunes were originally elected at the Comitia of the Centuries, where the influence of the Patricians was predominant; but by the Publilian Law, proposed by the tribune Publilius Volero, and pa.s.sed B.C. 471, the election was transferred to the Comitia of the Tribes, by which means the Plebeians obtained the uncontrolled election of their own officers.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tarpeian Rock.]

CHAPTER V.

THE DECEMVIRATE. B.C. 451-449.

From the Agrarian Law of Sp. Ca.s.sius to the appointment of the Decemvirs was a period of more than thirty years. During the whole of this time the struggle between the Patricians and the Plebeians was increasing.

The latter constantly demanded, and the former as firmly refused, the execution of the Agrarian Law of Ca.s.sius. But, though the Plebeians failed in obtaining this object, they nevertheless made steady progress in gaining for themselves a more important position in the city. In B.C.

471 the Publilian Law was carried, by which the election of the Tribunes and Plebeian aediles was transferred from the Comitia of the Centuries to those of the Tribes.[17] From this time the Comitia of the Tribes may be regarded as one of the political a.s.semblies of the state, ranking with those of the Centuries and the Curies. But the Patricians still retained exclusive possession of the administrative and judicial powers, and there were no written laws to limit their authority and to regulate their decisions. Under these circ.u.mstances, the Tribune C. Terentilius Arsa proposed, in B.C. 462, that a commission of Ten Men (Decemviri) should be appointed to draw up a code of laws, by which a check might be put to the arbitrary power of the Patrician magistrates. This proposition, as might have been expected, met with the most vehement opposition from the Patricians. But the Plebeians were firm, and for five successive years the same Tribunes were re-elected. It was during this struggle that an attempt was made upon the Capitol by Herdonius, a Sabine chief, with a band of outlaws and slaves. It was a turbulent period, and the Patricians had recourse even to a.s.sa.s.sination. At length, after a struggle of eight years, a compromise was effected, and it was arranged that Three Commissioners (Triumviri) were to be sent into Greece to collect information respecting the laws of Solon at Athens, as well as of the other Greek states. After an absence of two years the three commissioners returned to Rome (B.C. 452), and it was now resolved that a Council of Ten, or Decemvirs, should be appointed to draw up a code of laws, and, at the same time, to carry on the government and administer justice. All the other magistrates were obliged to abdicate, and no exception was made even in favor of the Tribunes. The Decemvirs were thus intrusted with supreme power in the state. They entered upon their office at the beginning of B.C. 451. They were all Patricians. At their head stood Appius Claudius and T.

Genucius, who had been already appointed consuls for the year. They discharged the duties of their office with diligence, and dispensed justice with impartiality. Each administered the government day by day in succession, and the fasces were carried only before the one who presided for the day. They drew up a Code of Ten Tables, in which equal justice was dealt out to both orders. The Ten Tables received the sanction of the Comitia of the Centuries, and thus became law.

On the expiration of their year of office all parties were so well satisfied with the manner in which the Decemvirs had discharged their duties that it was resolved to continue the same form of government for another year, more especially as some of them said that their work was not finished. A new Council of Ten was accordingly elected, of whom Appius Claudius alone belonged to the former body. He had so carefully concealed his pride and ambition during the previous year that he had been the most popular member of the council, and the Patricians, to prevent his appointment for another year, had ordered him to preside at the Comitia for the elections, thinking that he would not receive votes for himself. But Appius set such scruples at defiance, and not only returned himself as elected, but took care that his nine colleagues should be subservient to his views. He now threw off the mask he had hitherto worn, and acted as the tyrant of Rome. Each Decemvir was attended by twelve lictors, who earned the fasces with the axes in them, so that 120 lictors were seen in the city instead of 12. The Senate was rarely summoned. No one was now safe, and many of the leading men quitted Rome. Two new Tables were added to the Code, making twelve in all; but these new laws were of the most oppressive kind, and confirmed the Patricians in their most odious privileges.

When the year came to a close the Decemvirs neither resigned nor held Comitia for the election of successors, but continued to hold their power in defiance of the Senate and of the People. Next year (B.C. 449) the Sabines and aequians invaded the Roman territory, and two armies were dispatched against them, commanded by some of the Decemvirs. Appius remained at Rome to administer justice. But the soldiers fought with no spirit under the command of men whom they detested, and two acts of outrageous tyranny caused them to turn their arms against their hated masters. In the army fighting against the Sabines was a centurion named L. Sicinius Dentatus, the bravest of the brave. He had fought in 120 battles; he had slain eight of the enemy in single combat; had received 40 wounds, all in front; he had accompanied the triumphs of nine generals; and had war-crowns and other rewards innumerable. As Tribune of the Plebs four years before, he had taken an active part in opposing the Patricians, and was now suspected of plotting against the Decemvirs.

His death was accordingly resolved on, and he was sent with a company of soldiers as if to reconnoitre the enemy's position. But in a lonely spot they fell upon him and slew him, though not until he had destroyed most of the traitors. His comrades, who were told that he had fallen in an ambush of the enemy, discovered the foul treachery that had been practiced when they saw him surrounded by Roman soldiers who had evidently been slain by him. The Decemvirs prevented an immediate outbreak only by burying Dentatus with great pomp, but the troops were ready to rise in open mutiny upon the first provocation.

In the other army sent against the aequians there was a well-known centurion named Virginius. He had a beautiful daughter, betrothed to L.

Icilius, an eminent leader of the Plebeian order. The maiden had attracted the notice of the Decemvir Appius Claudius. He at first tried bribes and allurements, but when these failed he had recourse to an outrageous act of tyranny. One morning, as Virginia, attended by her nurse, was on the way to her school, which was in one of the booths surrounding the forum, M. Claudius, a client of Appius, laid hold of the damsel and claimed her as his slave. The cry of the nurse for help brought a crowd around them, and all parties went before the Decemvir.

In his presence Marcus repeated the tale he had learnt, a.s.serting that Virginia was the child of one of his female slaves, and had been imposed upon Virginius by his wife, who was childless. He farther stated that he would prove this to Virginius as soon as he returned to Rome, and he demanded that the girl should meantime be handed over to his custody.

Appius, fearing a riot, said that he would let the cause stand over till the next day, but that then, whether her father appeared or not, he should know how to maintain the laws. Straightway two friends of the family made all haste to the camp, which they reached the same evening.

Virginius immediately obtained leave of absence, and was already on his way to Rome, when the messenger of Appius arrived, instructing his colleagues to detain him. Early next morning Virginius and his daughter came into the forum with their garments rent. The father appealed to the people for aid, and the women in their company sobbed aloud. But, intent upon the gratification of his pa.s.sions, Appius cared not for the misery of the father and the girl, and hastened to give sentence, by which he consigned the maiden to his client. Appius, who had brought with him a large body of patricians and their clients, ordered his lictors to disperse the mob. The people drew back, leaving Virginius and his daughter alone before the judgment-seat. All help was gone. The unhappy father then prayed the Decemvir to be allowed to speak one word to the nurse in his daughter's hearing, in order to ascertain whether she was really his daughter. The request was granted. Virginius drew them both aside, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a butcher's-knife from one of the stalls, plunged it into his daughter's breast, exclaiming, "There is no way but this to keep thee free." In vain did Appius call out to stop him. The crowd made way for him, and, holding his b.l.o.o.d.y knife on high, he rushed to the gate of the city and hastened to the army. His comrades espoused his cause, expelled their commanders, and marched toward Rome. They were soon joined by the other army, to whom Numitorius and Icilius had carried the tidings. The Plebeians in the city flocked to them, and they all resolved to retire once more to the Sacred Mount.

This second secession extorted from the Patricians the second great charter of the Plebeian rights. The Patricians compelled the Decemvirs to resign, and sent L. Valerius and M. Horatius, two of the most eminent men of their order, to negotiate with the Plebeians. It was finally agreed that the Tribunes should be restored, that the authority of the Comitia Tributa should be recognized, and that the right of appeal to the people against the power of the supreme magistrates should be confirmed. The Plebeians now returned to the city, and elected, for the first time, ten Tribunes instead of five, a number which remained unchanged down to the latest times. Virginius, Icilius, and Numitorius were among the new Tribunes.

Two Consuls were elected in place of the Decemvirs, and the choice of the Comitia Centuriata naturally fell upon Valerius and Horatius. The new Consuls now redeemed their promises to the Plebeians by bringing forward the laws which are called after them, the Valerian and Horatian Laws. These celebrated laws enacted:

1. That every Roman citizen should have the right of appeal against the sentence of the supreme magistrate. This was, in fact, a solemn confirmation of the old law of Valerius Publicola, pa.s.sed in the first year of the republic. It was enacted again a third time in B.C. 300, on the proposal of M. Valerius, the Consul. These repeated enactments gave a still farther sanction to the law. In the same way the Great Charter of England was ratified several times.

2. That the _Plebiscita_, or resolutions pa.s.sed by the Plebeians in the Comitia Tributa, should have the force of laws, and should be binding alike upon Patricians and Plebeians.

3. That the persons of the Tribunes, aediles, and other Plebeian magistrates should be sacred, and whoever injured them should be sold as a slave.

Virginius now accused Appius Claudius, who was thrown into prison to await his trial. But the proud Patrician, seeing that his condemnation was certain, put an end to his own life. Oppius, another of the Decemvirs, and the personal friend of Appius, was condemned and executed. The other Decemvirs were allowed to go into exile, but they were all declared guilty, and their property confiscated to the state.

The Twelve Tables were always regarded as the foundation of the Roman law, and long continued to be held in the highest estimation. But they probably did little more than fix in a written form a large body of customary law, though even this was a benefit to the Plebeians, as they were no longer subject to the arbitrary decisions of the Patrician magistrates. The Patricians still retained their exclusive privileges; and the eleventh table even gave the sanction of law to the old custom which prohibited all intermarriage (_connuubium_) between the two orders.

[Footnote 17: See note on p. 31. (Footnote 16 of this e-text--Transcriber)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: View in the neighborhood of Veii.]

CHAPTER VI.

FROM THE DECEMVIRATE TO THE CAPTURE OF ROME BY THE GAULS. B.C. 448-390.

The efforts of the leaders of the Plebeians were now directed to two subjects, the removal of the prohibition of intermarriage between the two orders, and the opening of the Consuls.h.i.+p to their own order. They attained the first object four years after the Decemvirate by the Lex Canuleia, proposed by Canuleius, one of the Tribunes (B.C. 445). But they did not carry this law without a third secession, in which they occupied the Janiculum. At the same time a compromise was effected with respect to the Consuls.h.i.+p. The Patricians agreed that the supreme power in the state should be intrusted to new officers bearing the t.i.tle of _Military Tribunes with Consular Power_, who might be chosen equally from Patricians and Plebeians. Their number varied in different years from three to six. In B.C. 444 three Military Tribunes were nominated for the first time. In the following year (443) two new magistrates, called _Censors_, were appointed. They were always to be chosen from the Patricians; and the reason of the inst.i.tution clearly was to deprive the Military Tribunes of some of the most important functions, which had been formerly discharged by the Consuls. The Censors originally held office for a period of five years, which was called a _l.u.s.trum_; but their tenure was limited to eighteen months, as early as ten years after its inst.i.tution (B.C. 443), by a law of the Dictator Mamercus aemilius, though they continued to be appointed only once in five years.[18]

Though the Military Tribunes could from their first inst.i.tution be chosen from either order, yet such was the influence of the Patricians in the Comitia of the Centuries that it was not till B.C. 400, or nearly forty years afterward, that any Plebeians were actually elected. In B.C.

421 the Quaestors.h.i.+p was also thrown open to them. The Quaestors were the paymasters of the state; and as the Censors had to fill up vacancies in the Senate from those who had held the office of Quaestor, the Plebeians thus became eligible for the Senate.

During these struggles between the two orders an event took place which is frequently referred to by later writers. In the year 440 B.C. there was a great famine at Rome. Sp. Maelius, one of the richest of the Plebeian knights, expended his fortune in buying up corn, which he sold to the poor at a small price, or distributed among them gratuitously.

The Patricians thought, or pretended to think, that he was aiming at kingly power: and in the following year (439) the aged Quintius Cincinnatus, who had saved the Roman army on Mount Algidus, was appointed Dictator. He nominated C. Servilius Ahala his Master of the Horse. During the night the Capitol and all the strong posts were garrisoned by the Patricians, and in the morning Cincinnatus appeared in the forum with a strong force, and summoned Maelius to appear before his tribunal. But seeing the fate which awaited him, he refused to go, whereupon Ahala rushed into the crowd and struck him dead upon the spot.

His property was confiscated, and his house was leveled to the ground.

The deed of Ahala is frequently mentioned by Cicero and other writers in terms of the highest admiration, but it was regarded by the Plebeians at the time as an act of murder. Ahala was brought to trial, and only escaped condemnation by a voluntary exile.

In their foreign wars the Romans continued to be successful, and, aided by their allies the Latins and Hernicans, they made steady progress in driving back their old enemies the Volscians and aequians. About this time they planted several colonies in the districts which they conquered. These Roman colonies differed widely from those of ancient Greece and of modern Europe. They were of the nature of garrisons established in conquered towns, and served both to strengthen and extend the power of Rome. The colonists received a portion of the conquered territory, and lived as a ruling cla.s.s among the old inhabitants, who retained the use of the land.

The Romans now renewed their wars with the Etruscans; and the capture of the important city of Veii was the first decisive advantage gained by the Republic. The hero of this period was Camillus, who stands out prominently as the greatest general of the infant Republic, who saved Rome from the Gauls, and whom later ages honored as a second Romulus.