The Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States Part 2

It is thus apparent that the mere overthrow of the kings at Rome had accomplished little for the ordinary Roman citizen. In fact, the rule of a single monarch is often more beneficial to the poorer cla.s.ses of a community than the rule of a favored cla.s.s. The establishment of a republic, however, had eliminated one political element, and cleared the stage for the contest between the patricians and plebeians.

That the economic condition of the poorer cla.s.ses in Rome changed for the worse after the inst.i.tution of the republic is certain. It was for the interest of the early Roman kings to favor and protect the small Roman farmers, both for military and economic reasons. While the permanent interests of the patricians would have been promoted by the encouragement of this cla.s.s, their temporary selfish interests called for the destruction of the Roman middle cla.s.s, primarily the middle agricultural cla.s.s, and the division of all Roman inhabitants into a small aristocracy on the one hand and a large proletariat on the other.

The two forms of exactions which fell the heaviest upon the Roman poorer cla.s.ses were the barbarous laws against debtors and the dishonest administration of the public leaders. The desperate condition of the debtors at Rome at this time was a result of a number of different causes, including the high rate of interest, the right of the creditor to sell the debtor into slavery if the debt were not paid, the policy of the patrician creditors to demand the last pound of flesh in all their transactions, and the conditions which existed in Rome at this time which compelled many small landowners, against their wish and without any fault of their own, to become borrowers of money.

One harsh feature of this condition was the fact that it was the military service, which as Roman citizens they were compelled to render to the state, that more often than any other cause compelled the plebeians to borrow money and thus ultimately drove them to their ruin. For example, a small Roman farmer, through absence from his home on military service for the state, might lose his crop for the year. To support himself and his family until the next harvest, and to supply the means for the planting of the next year's crop, he would be obliged to borrow money, which, under the exorbitant rates of interest, soon reached an amount out of proportion to the original loan. Perhaps a second campaign would deprive him of the means of returning the loan, and his lands would be taken from him and he himself sold into slavery. As a final blow, the unfortunate plebeian saw the lands which had been won for the state by armies composed of his fellow plebeians reserved entirely for the use of the favored patrician order.

No more pernicious and unfair system could have been evolved than that which governed the management of the Roman public lands in the very first years of the republic. The earlier policy, under the kings, had been to divide the public land of the state into small allotments and to distribute it among those citizens of the state who most needed it.

With the republic this policy ceased, and the public lands were nominally retained in the public owners.h.i.+p, but in reality were let out on leases to the patricians and a few favored men among the plebeians.

In theory the state retained the right to take back the land at any time and to receive a rent from the lessee; but in practice both these rights were disregarded. The lands held in this manner by the patricians were soon considered by them as much their own property as those to which they held the legal t.i.tle, and were devised and pledged by their owners in substantially the same manner as any other land.

The collection of the rent was soon abandoned; and not only this, but the land being in theory state land, the lessee (who was supposed to, but did not, pay rent) was not liable to pay taxes on this land.

The final working out of this matter may be summed up by saying that the poorer cla.s.s of the plebeians furnished most of the soldiers for the campaign, stood most of the expense, suffered nearly all the losses both of life and property, were excluded from any share in the land captured in the war, and as a culmination saw their taxes yearly increased on account of the fact that the patricians, who monopolized the public land, succeeded in dodging the payment of rent and in evading the payment of taxes.

It was these conditions which brought about the remarkable spectacle of what may be well designated the first recorded strike in history--a strike in the Roman army. In 495 B.C. the Roman citizens were summoned to take the field for another military campaign. They refused to obey.

One of the consuls, Publius Servilius, however, induced them to make the campaign by suspending some of the laws bearing most heavily upon the poor and by releasing all persons in prison for debt. But hardly had the army returned from a victorious campaign than the other consul, Appius Claudius, as a reward for their victory began to enforce the debtor laws with extraordinary severity.

Once more, in the following year, the plebeians were induced to take the field, mainly on account of the popularity of the dictator appointed for the management of this campaign, Marius Valerius, and his promise that upon the termination of the campaign permanent reforms would be made in the law. Again the Roman army was victorious, and again the patricians broke faith with the plebeians and refused to carry out their promised reforms.

The next scene in this conflict is one almost without parallel, either in ancient or modern history. The plebeians, disgusted by the selfishness and perfidy of the patricians, determined to abandon Rome to the patrician order and to found a new city for themselves upon the "Sacred Mount," a hill situated between the Tiber and the Anio. The patricians, thunderstruck by this unexpected movement, and being far more in need of the plebeians than the plebeians were of them, immediately made sufficient concessions to the plebeians to induce them to return to Rome.

Some of the concessions made at this time related to temporary provisions for relief of debtors; but the great innovation was that which established the office of tribune. The character of the office of tribune is absolutely unique in the political history of the world.

The tribunes, elected by the people in the comitia tributa, were plebeian officers who were at first without any constructive part in the carrying on of the Roman government and whose sole duty at the outset was to protect the members of the plebeian order from the oppression of the patrician officials. This protection was exercised mainly through the use of the veto power given to the tribunes. Under this power the tribunes had the right at any time to put a stop to any act either by any of the public a.s.semblies, by the Senate, or by any of the magistrates. It was a power which, if exercised to its fullest extent, could put a stop to the very carrying on of the government.

It speaks much for the moderation of the Roman tribunes that through all the centuries of the Roman republic little serious inconvenience was experienced from the use of this power. With few and unimportant exceptions, it was exercised only in cases where the welfare of the plebeians as a cla.s.s, or of some particular plebeian, demanded it.

The creation of the office of tribune was merely one more example of that system of checks and balances which played so prominent a part in the framing of the government after the expulsion of the king--a system of checks and balances so strikingly resembling that in our Federal Const.i.tution. The tribunes were introduced as a protection for the plebeians and an additional restraint upon the magistrates.

While at first the power and duties of the tribunes were entirely of a negative nature, they gradually acquired an authority of a positive character. The tribunes generally presided over the comitia tributa and took the lead in securing the pa.s.sage of laws by that body. In addition they acquired judicial powers, and in cases where a plebeian had been wronged they could summon any citizen, even the consuls, before them, and might impose even the death penalty. The persons of the tribunes were declared inviolable, and any one who attacked them was thought to be accursed. The number of the tribunes was at first two, but was later increased to five and still later to ten.

The second great victory won by the plebeians was in the pa.s.sage of the Publilian Law in 471 B.C. This law was proposed by the tribune Valerius Publilius, and was brought about by the murder of the tribune Gnaeus Genucius. The main object of this law was the protection of the plebeian a.s.sembly and the plebeian officers, but its exact details are unknown. It is believed by some that the comitia tributa really came into existence with this law, and that previously the plebeians had voted by curies. The law limited to plebeian freeholders the right to vote in a plebeian a.s.sembly, and excluded nearly all the freedmen and clients who were under the influence of the patricians as well as the patricians themselves. It is possible also that the increase in the number of the tribunes from two to five was made by this law. In 462 B.C. an unsuccessful attempt was made to abolish the office of tribune; in 457 B.C. came the increase from five tribunes to ten.

From 451 to 450 B.C. the regular system of government at Rome was interrupted by the election and rule of the _decemvirs_. The episode of these decemvirs has an important place in Roman history; but (as is the case with all events in Roman history in the fifth century before Christ) our knowledge of these men, of their work, and of their overthrow is very uncertain. The election of these officials was primarily brought about by the recognized necessity for a reform and codification of the Roman laws. If the duties of these men had been limited to the preparation of such code, its character and position would not have been unsimilar to that of numerous other bodies of men appointed for a similar purpose in many countries and in all ages. But the peculiarity about the work of the decemvirs lies in the fact that upon their appointment all the ordinary Roman offices were discontinued and the entire judicial and executive administration of the state pa.s.sed into the hands of the decemvirs.

During their first year of office the decemvirs drew up ten tables of laws, so called because the laws were engraved upon tables of copper and stood up in the Forum on the rostra in front of the Senate house.

According to the legends (for the Roman historical records of this century are little more than such), it had originally been intended to intrust the decemvirs with power only for a single year, but their work being incomplete at the expiration of the first year, they were chosen for a second year. It is uncertain whether the decemvirs for the second year were exactly the same men as those for the first year.

According to some reports some of the decemvirs of the second year were plebeians, while none of those originally elected belonged to that order.

During their second year of office the decemvirs prepared two more tables of laws, and these, with the ten tables prepared during the preceding year, const.i.tuted the famous "Law of the Twelve Tables," the first Roman code of which we have any knowledge. Only fragmentary extracts from these tables have come down to us, but these fragments furnish us with such an insight into early Roman laws, inst.i.tutions, and customs that they are here inserted:

THE TWELVE TABLES

TABLE I

THE SUMMONS BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE

1. If the plaintiff summon a man to appear before the magistrate and he refuse to go, the plaintiff shall first call witnesses and arrest him.

2. If the defendant attempt evasion or flight, the plaintiff shall take him by force.

3. If the defendant be prevented by illness or old age, let him who summons him before the magistrate furnish a beast of burden, but he need not send a covered carriage for him unless he choose.

4. For a wealthy defendant only a wealthy man may go bail; any one who chooses may go bail for a poor citizen of the lowest cla.s.s.

5. In case the contestants come to an agreement, the magistrate shall announce the fact.

6. In case they come to no agreement, they shall before noon enter the case in the comitium or forum.

7. To the party present in the afternoon the magistrate shall award the suit.

9. Sunset shall terminate the proceedings.

10. ... sureties and sub-sureties....

TABLE II

JUDICIAL PROCEDURE

2. A serious illness or a legal appointment with an alien ... should one of these occur to the judge, arbiter, or either party to the suit, the appointed trial must be postponed.

3. If the witnesses of either party fail to appear, that party shall go and serve a verbal notice at his door on three days.

TABLE III

EXECUTION FOLLOWING CONFESSION OR JUDGMENT

1. A debtor, either by confession or judgment, shall have thirty days' grace.

2. At the expiration of this period the plaintiff shall serve a formal summons upon the defendant, and bring him before the magistrate.

3. If the debt be not paid, or if no one become surety, the plaintiff shall lead him away, and bind him with shackles and fetters of not less than fifteen pounds' weight, and heavier at his discretion.

4. If the debtor wish, he may live at his own expense; if not, he in whose custody he may be shall furnish him a pound of meal a day, more at his discretion.

6. On the third market day the creditors, if there are several, shall divide the property. If one take more or less, no guilt shall attach to him.

TABLE IV

PATERNAL RIGHTS

3. If a father shall thrice sell his son, the son shall be free from the paternal authority.