The Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States Part 4

2. If a slave has committed theft, or has done damage....

3. If either party shall have won a suit concerning property by foul means, at the discretion of the opponent ... the magistrate shall fix the damage at twice the profits arising from the interim possession.

The decemvirs were forcibly overthrown before the close of their second year in office. The stories as to the cause are not only conflicting but diametrically so. According to one historical theory, the rebellion against the decemvirs began among the plebeians on account of the oppression which they suffered from the hands of these men; while, on the other hand, it is believed by many historians that the decemvirs were overthrown by the patricians because they were giving too many concessions to the plebeians. Whatever the cause, the power of the decemvirs was taken from them and all the former Roman officials and a.s.semblies were reestablished, with the old powers and jurisdictions. The "Law of the Twelve Tables," which the decemvirs had drawn up, however, remained for centuries as the great basis of Roman law.

Five years after the deposition of the decemvirs the tribune Canuleius secured the pa.s.sage by the comitia tributa of the Canuleian Law, which marked another milestone pa.s.sed by the plebeians in their march toward equality before the law.

Two great concessions were given by this act, one in the field of private and the other in the field of public law. The law which had existed from the earliest days in Rome, and which had been incorporated in the "Law of the Twelve Tables," prohibiting intermarriage between plebeians and patricians, was abolished. It was also provided that any year the people, instead of electing consuls, might elect military tribunes, who should possess all the powers, although not all the dignities, of the consuls. Either patricians or plebeians could be elected to the office of military tribunes.

The election of military tribunes was authorized by law many years before any such officials were elected in Rome; but the fear that the consular power might sometime fall into the hands of a plebeian induced the patricians in 443 B.C. to secure the pa.s.sage of a law for the creation of new officials who should possess some of the powers previously held by the consul and who must be chosen from the patrician order.

These new officials, called censors, were to be two in number and were to be elected every five years. At first these officials held office until the time arrived for the election of their successors, but later their term of office was limited to one year and a half, there thus being three and one half years out of every five-year period when this office was in abeyance.

The most important duty given to the censors at the outset seems to have been the authority of filling vacancies in the Senate as it became necessary to keep the number up to the required three hundred.

Up to this time this power of appointing senators had been exercised by the consul. As time went on, however, the powers of this office rapidly increased until at length it became the highest post of honor at Rome, the men elected censors being almost invariably former consuls or military tribunes.

The arbitrary power of inquisition over all the public affairs of Rome and the private conduct of the Roman citizens was so astonis.h.i.+ngly great that we wonder how it could have existed without constant and gross abuses. In the later days of the republic the censors had the right to make a so-called "censorial note" of all Roman citizens, who, without having gone to the point of violating the criminal law, or at least without having been convicted of a crime, had been guilty of dishonorable or immoral conduct. All persons thus named suffered severe civic penalties. If the person were a senator he lost his seat in the Senate; if a knight, he lost the peculiar privileges belonging to this rank. In every case the person lost his members.h.i.+p in the a.s.sociation of his tribe and was subject to increased taxation.

The exclusive right to serve as censors was one of the last exclusive privileges retained by the patricians, the plebeians not being made eligible to this office until 339 B.C.

Although Rome was in an almost constant state of warfare during the fifth century before Christ, the conflicts were neither on a large scale nor decisive in their results. The chief enemies of Rome were the neighboring Latin and Etruscan cities, with one or another of whom Rome was almost constantly engaged in hostilities. At the beginning of the fourth century before Christ Rome was attacked by a new and more terrible enemy from the north, who very nearly changed the whole course of the world's history by wiping the city of Rome out of existence before its career of greatness had begun.

This enemy was the Gauls, who captured and burned Rome in the year 390 B.C., but who failed to take the citadel of the city and finally withdrew, either being driven away or bribed to depart. Not only are the details of the capture of Rome by the Gauls very uncertain, but by destroying all the old Roman records and many of the Roman monuments in their sack of Rome, the Gauls are responsible for much of the uncertainty which exists as to the truth of the details of the history of Rome prior to their invasion. In fact, it is generally considered that the authentic history of Rome begins only after 390 B.C., the history of the Roman kingdom being little more than mythology; while what we know of the Roman republic prior to 390 B.C. consists of an inseparable mixture of true history and legendary tales.

After the departure of the Gauls the question arose whether Rome should be rebuilt on its old site or whether all the Romans should migrate in a body to Veii. It was only after a long discussion that it was finally decided to remain at Rome.

The rebuilding of Rome was immediately followed by another period of conflict between the patricians and plebeians. Two causes of discontent brought about the renewal of this contest. The first was the financial condition of the poorer cla.s.ses, who had been rendered more desperate through the losses occasioned by the Gallic invasion; and second, the desire of the richer plebeians to share in the political honors reserved exclusively for the patricians.

In this contest the leaders of the plebeians were the tribunes Gaius Licinius and Lucius s.e.xtius, who were, year after year, reelected to this office by the people.

The so-called Licinian Laws, first introduced by these tribunes in 376 B.C., were adopted only after the most bitter political contest which up to this time had ever been fought in Rome. Time and again, the tribunes resorted to their veto power to put a stop to the carrying on of every function of the Roman government. These laws were finally pa.s.sed in 367 B.C., their three great provisions being as follows:

1. That of all debts on which interest had been paid, the sum of the interest paid should be deducted from the princ.i.p.al, and the remainder paid off in three successive years.

2. That no citizen should hold more than five hundred _jugera_ (nearly 320 acres) of the public land, or should feed on the public pastures more than one hundred head of larger cattle and five hundred of smaller, under penalty of a heavy fine.

3. That henceforth consuls, not consular tribunes, should always be elected, and that one of the two consuls must be a plebeian.

Although the Licinian Laws are generally held to have equalized the different orders at Rome, to have terminated forever the bitter jealousy between patricians and plebeians, to have put a stop for a time to cla.s.s controversies of all kinds, and to have rendered possible the great career of foreign conquest upon which Rome soon entered, the fact remains that the benefit of these laws was experienced far more by the small cla.s.s of wealthy plebeians than by the great ma.s.s of this order.

Henceforth, with very few exceptions, one consul was always a plebeian, Lucius s.e.xtius being the first plebeian consul and Gaius Licinius the third; but the chance of being elected consul was in reality limited to a small cla.s.s of plebeians and conferred little practical benefit upon the ordinary member of the order.

The laws for the relief of the poorer cla.s.ses were not so fully enforced. In particular, the wealthy citizens holding large allotments of the public land found methods by which to evade the carrying out of the provisions of this new law, and we are surprised to find Licinius himself as one of the offenders in this respect.

It was in the period following the pa.s.sage of the Licinian Laws that the greatest inequalities in wealth began to appear at Rome, and the numbers of free small landowners to decrease.

The history of the Licinian Laws and of the following period show conclusively how mere political equality is never sufficient to secure the welfare of the ma.s.s of the community, and that the power held by a cla.s.s possessed of great wealth, but without special political privileges, is greater than that of a recognized n.o.bility, and far more apt to be abused, on account of the absence of any feeling of cla.s.s honor.

Two slight efforts were made by the patricians to counteract the political provisions of the Licinian Laws. For the first eleven years after the pa.s.sage of the Licinian Laws one consul was a plebeian and one a patrician. In the thirteen years beginning with 355 B.C., two patricians were elected consuls in eight of the years; after this, violations of the law ceased, and one consul belonged to each order down to the year 172 B.C., when both consuls.h.i.+ps were open to the plebeians. The wealthy cla.s.s of both orders had been so mingled by this time that thereafter consuls were elected indiscriminately from either order, although this election was almost invariably restricted to the members of the great families.

Immediately after the pa.s.sage of the Licinian Laws the patricians secured the creation of a new office. The man holding this office was called _praetor_, and was given the judicial powers formerly belonging to the consuls. At a later period the number of praetors was increased to two, one of whom, known as the _praetor urba.n.u.s_, had jurisdiction over controversies between Roman citizens, and the other, the _praetor peregrinus_, who had jurisdiction over controversies between foreigners residing at Rome and between Romans and foreigners.

CHAPTER V

THE PERIOD OF FOREIGN CONQUEST

The most glorious period of Roman history, from the military standpoint, followed closely upon the cessation of fierce national contests in the fourth century before Christ. The united efforts of patricians and plebeians, devoted to the task of foreign conquest, proved sufficient in a few generations to win for Rome her world empire.

"The fifth century is the most beautiful century of Rome.

The plebeians had conquered the consuls.h.i.+p and are succeeding in conquering their admission to other magistracies which the patricians wished to reserve; they free themselves from the servitude which, under the name of Nexus, weighed on the debtors. They arrive at political equality and individual independence; at the same time the old aristocracy still dominates in the Senate and maintains there the inflexibility of its resolves and the persistence of its designs. It was thanks to this interior condition that the Roman people was able to survive the strongest tests from without over which it had triumphed, and to make that progress which cost it most dear. We see the peoples fight, one by one, and often all together; the Latin people, the Etruscans, the Goths, the Samnites, the other Sabellic peoples of the Apennines; and the end is always victory.

The beginnings of this history were somber. Rome was afflicted by one of those pestilences which one finds in all the epochs of the history of this unsanitary city. Thence was the origin of those scenic pieces imported by the Etruscans and giving origin to comedy--a means devised to appease the G.o.ds; so that Roman comedy had an origin religious and dismal. The fifth century is for Rome the age of great devotions and of grand sacrifices." (J. J. Ampere in _L'empire romaine a Rome_.)

A full description of the various military campaigns of Rome would tend to obscure rather than to illumine the political and economic history of the city. An enumeration of the foreign conquests of Rome during this period, however, is necessary to indicate the rapid increase in the territorial possessions of Rome, with their inevitable reaction upon the domestic conditions of the republic.

The first wars of Rome after the pa.s.sage of the Licinian Laws were renewed contests with her neighboring enemies. In 361 B.C. Rome was again threatened by a new invasion of the Gauls. The following year the Roman records mention a victory over the Hernicans by one Roman consul, and over the Gauls, and the Latins of Tibur, by the other.

This alliance of the Gauls with a portion of the Latins so alarmed the majority of the Latin cities that a new league between the Romans and Latins was formed in 358 B.C. The Gauls soon after retired from the neighborhood of Latium, and their allies, Tibur and Privernum, were compelled to enter the new Latin League.

A war waged against Rome by the Etruscan city of Tarquinii and its allies so seriously threatened Rome that the Roman political factions forgot their differences so far as to agree to the appointment (for the first time in the history of the city) of a plebeian, in the person of C. Marcius Rutilus, to the office of dictator. The old jealousy of the patricians, however, was soon manifested again in the opposition of the Senate to the granting of a triumph to this plebeian for the great military victory which he soon won.

In 350 B.C. a third invasion of the Gauls was repulsed by the Romans.

The next great contest in which Rome was engaged was that with the Samnites. This race was both the most worthy and the most bitter of the enemies of Rome within Italy, and the long warfare between Rome and the Samnites was terminated only by the practical extermination of the latter race. The First Samnite War extended from 343 to 341 B.C. and was indecisive in its results, the Samnites at its close agreeing to give a year's pay and three months' provisions to the Roman army, and being permitted to make war on the Sidicini.

The close of the First Samnite War was followed closely by the Latin War (340-338 B.C.). This war was brought about by the jealousy felt by the other Latin towns toward Rome. Rome had been abusing her position as the capital of the Latin League, and desired to acquire an acknowledged supremacy over Latium. The war was an effort on the part of the other Latin cities to restrain the too rapidly increasing power of Rome and to reestablish the balance of power in Latium. In this war was seen the extraordinary spectacle of the Samnites appearing as allies of Rome. The Hernicans also aided the Romans, and the Sidicini and Campanians aided the Latins. The war resulted in the complete overthrow of the Latins; but the Romans showed great generosity and good judgment in their treatment of the conquered cities after the war, and thus did much toward binding the Latins to Rome for the future.

The main provisions of the peace agreements were as follows: Roman citizens.h.i.+ps, in different degrees, were conferred upon the inhabitants of the various Latin towns, who were, however, forbidden to form any leagues among themselves or to hold diets; intermarriage and commerce between the different Latin towns were prohibited; the _municipium_ such as the Latins had previously possessed was given to the citizens of Capua, c.u.mae, Formiae, Fundi, and Suessula; the Latin contingents in the Roman army were henceforth to be permitted to serve apart from the legions under their own officers; and the Latin public land, two thirds of that of Privernum, and the lands in the Falernian district of Campania were taken by Rome, as were also the lands of the princ.i.p.al families of Velitrae, who were compelled to emigrate beyond the Tiber.

Ten years of peace followed, and then came the second and greatest of the Samnite wars (327-304 B.C.). The Samnites were aided during part of the war by the Etruscans and the Hernicans, but at the end the Samnites were compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome and give up their independence. The Hernicans were completely overthrown in 307 B.C., and were united to Rome on conditions very similar to those possessed by the Latins.

In the Third Samnite War (298-290 B.C.) the Romans were again victorious, although a league of Samnites, Etruscans, Gauls, and Umbrians was formed against them. The exact terms of the treaty of peace at the conclusion of this war are not recorded, but undoubtedly riveted Roman control still more strongly upon Samnium.

It was the final result of the Roman-Samnite wars which finally determined the question of the overlords.h.i.+p of Italy. Of all the numerous races of Italy, two and only two possessed the stamina which rendered them possible unifiers of the whole peninsula. Rome's defeat of Samnium left her without a rival in Italy and ready for contests with her later and greater rivals. The close of the Third Samnite War, however, did not end the resistance of the Samnites to Roman rule.

Even down to the time of the contests of Marius and Sulla we find this race grasping every opportunity to strike a blow against Roman dominion.

In 284 B.C. the Tarentines succeeded in bringing about a union of the Samnites, Lucanians, Umbrians, Bruttians, Etruscans, and Gauls against Rome. This war was a series of victories for the Romans. By the year 282 B.C. all of the Roman enemies were subdued except the Etruscans, with whom the war continued until 280 B.C. In this last-named year the Romans, alarmed by the danger of war with Pyrrhus, concluded a peace with the Etruscans on such terms as changed these people from bitterest enemies into most faithful allies.

The time had now arrived when Rome was called upon for the first time to cross arms with enemies from beyond the Italian peninsula. The first of these contests with a foreign power was fought out entirely within the confines of Italy.

The year 280 B.C. saw the beginning of the contest between Rome and Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had been summoned to Italy as an ally of the Greek city of Tarentum. At the outset the Romans suffered two great defeats, at Heraclea and on the plain of Apulian Asculum, largely through their inability to meet the attacks of the phalanxes and of the war elephants. In the end, however, Pyrrhus, although aided by all the enemies of Rome in southern and central Italy, ended his campaign in failure and returned to Epirus in 275 B.C., his dream of a great western empire forever shattered.

In the ten years following the departure of Pyrrhus the subjugation of all Italy was completed, followed by a reorganization of the government of the Roman colonies and subject cities.

The second foreign enemy of Rome was Carthage, and the most dramatic pages in the whole history of Roman conquest are those which relate the story of the contest between these two t.i.tanic rivals for world supremacy. The immediate cause of the First Punic War arose over the possession of Messana, a city in Sicily separated from Italy by only a narrow strait; but war between Rome and Carthage was inevitable; and if Messana had not become the bone of contention, another would have been found. The First Punic War lasted from 264 to 241 B.C. and resulted in victory for Rome. By the terms of peace Carthage gave up Sicily and all the small islands between Sicily and Italy, and paid a heavy war indemnity to Rome. Shortly after the close of the war the Romans, by threats, compelled the Carthaginians to surrender also the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.