Chapter Ii. Rome Under the Patricians (509-304 B.c.).

RIVALRY OF CLASSES.--The abolishing of royalty left Rome as "a house divided against itself." The power granted to the Comitia Centuriata did not suffice to produce contentment. The patricians still decided every thing, and used their strength in an oppressive way. Besides the standing contest between the patricians and plebeians, there was great suffering on the side of the poorer class of plebeians. Many were obliged to incur debts; and their creditors enforced the rigorous law against them, loading them with chains, and driving their families from their homes. A great and constant grievance was the taking by the patricians of the public lands which had been obtained by conquest, for a moderate rent, which might not be paid at all. If they granted a share in this privilege to some rich plebeian houses, this afforded no help to the mass of the people, who were more and more deprived of the opportunity to till the smaller holdings in consequence of the employment of slaves. Yet the plebeians had to bear the burden of military service. At length they rose in a body, probably in returning from some victory, and encamped on a hill, the Sacred Mount, three miles from Rome, where they threatened to stay, and found another town. This bold movement led to an agreement. It was stipulated that they should elect magistrates from their own class, to be called Tribunes of the People, who should have the right to interpose an absolute veto upon any legal or administrative measure. This right each consul already had in relation to his colleague. To secure the commons in this new right, the tribunes were declared to be inviolable. Whoever used violence against them was to be an outlaw. The power of the tribunes at first was merely protective. But their power grew until it became controlling. One point where their authority was apt to be exerted was in the conscription, or military enrollment. This, if it were undertaken in an unfair way, they could stop altogether, and thus compel a change.

THE PLEBEIAN ASSEMBLY.--Not far from this time, there was instituted a new assembly, the Comitia of Tribes, or Comitia Tributa. There was a new division of the people into tribes or wards,--first twenty, then twenty-one, and, later, thirty-five. In this comitia, the plebeians were at the outset, if not always, the exclusive voters. The patricians had their assembly, the Comitia Curiata. The Comitia of the Tribes, which was then controlled by the plebeians, chose the tribunes. By degrees, both the other assemblies lost their importance. The plebeian body more and more extended its prerogatives. Besides the tribunes, the Aediles, two in number, who were assistants of the tribunes, and superintended the business of the markets, were chosen by the Comitia Tributa.

THE LAW OF CASSIUS.--The anxiety of the plebeians to be rid of the restrictions upon the holding and enjoyment of land, led to the proposal of a law for their relief by the consul Spurius Cassius (486 B.C.). Of the terms of the law, we have no precise knowledge. We only know, that, when he retired from office, he was condemned and put to death by the ruling class.

WAR WITH THE AEQUIANS AND THE VOLSCIANS.--About this time Rome concluded a league with the Latins, and soon after with another people, the Hernicans, who lived farther eastward, between the, Aequians and Volscians. It was a defensive alliance, in which Rome had the leading place. Then follow the wars with the Aequians and Volscians, where the traditional accounts are mingled with many fictitious occurrences. There are two stories of special note,--the story of Coriolanus, and the story of Cincinnatus. It is related that a brave patrician, Caius Marcius Coriolanus, at a time when grain was scarce, and was procured with difficulty from Etruria and Sicily for the relief of the famishing, proposed that it should be withheld from the plebeians unless they would give up the tribunate. The anger of this class, and the contempt which he showed for it, caused him to be banished. Thereupon he went to the Volscians, and led an army against Rome,--an army too strong to be resisted. One deputation after another went out of the city to placate him, but in vain. At length Veturia, his mother, and Volumnia, his wife, at the head of a company of matrons, went to his camp, and entreated him. Their prayer he could not deny, but exclaimed, "O my mother! Rome thou hast saved, but thou hast lost thy son." He died among the Volscians (491 B.C.). The tale, certainly in most of its parts, is fictitious. For example, he is said to have been called Coriolanus, from having previously conquered Corioli; but such designations were not given among the Romans until centuries later. The story of Cincinnatus in essential particulars is probably true. At a time when the Romans were hard pressed by the Æquians, the messengers of the Senate waited on Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, formerly a senator and a consul of renown in peace and war, and asked him to become dictator. They found him plowing in his field. He accepted the post, by his prudence and vigor delivered the state, and on the sixteenth day laid down his office, and went back to his farm. The time required by the hero for his task was doubtless much longer than the legend allows.

There is an authentic tradition of a war with the Etruscans, who had retained certain towns on the Roman side of the Tiber. The Romans established a fort on the Cremera, not far from Veii, which was one of them. In the course of this struggle, it is said that all the Fabii,--a distinguished Roman family,--except one boy, were perfidiously slain. This is an exaggerated tale. A truce was concluded with Veii-in 474 B.C. for forty years, which left Rome free to fight her enemies on the east and south.

THE DECEMVIRS.--The internal conflict of the patricians against the commons in Rome went on. In 471 B.C. the Publilian Law was passed to establish fully the right of the plebeians alone to elect their tribunes, or to exclude the upper class from their comitia. The claims of the plebeians, who formed the greater part of the fighting men, rose. They demanded first, however, that they should have the same private rights as the patricians, and that the laws should be made more efficient for their protection by being reduced to a code. This was the object of the Terentilian Law, proposed in 462. The result was a great dispute. Some concessions failed to satisfy the plebeians. Finally it was agreed that ten men, Decemvirs, should be chosen indiscriminately from both classes to frame a code, they, meantime, to supersede the consuls and tribunes in the exercise of the government (451 B.C.). They were to equalize the laws, and to write them down. The story of the mission to Athens for the study of the laws of Solon, is not worthy of credit. There is no doubt, however, that many obstacles were put in the way of the project by the conservative patricians, and that one of their order, Appius Claudius, took a prominent part, probably on the side of the people.

VIRGINIUS.--Here comes in the story of Virginia. It is related that Appius Claudius was an ambitious and bad man, who, being one of the decemvirs, wished to hold on to power. He conceived a base passion for the daughter of Virginius, a brave plebeian centurion, and claimed her on the pretense that she was the daughter of one of his slaves. Standing at his judgment-seat, Virginius, seeing that he could do nothing to save his child from the clutch of the villainous judge, plunged his dagger in her heart. This was the signal for another revolt of the people, which extorted the consent of the upper class to the sacred laws and the restoration of the tribuneship. It is a plausible theory that Appius Claudius favored the plebeian claims, and that the tale told above is a later invention to his discredit.

POLITICAL EQUALITY.--The laws of the twelve tables lay at the basis of all subsequent legislation in Rome, and were always held in reverence. The plebeians soon gained further advantages. In 449 B.C., it was ordained, under the consuls Horatius and Valerius, that the plebeian assembly of tribes should be a sovereign assembly, whose enactments should be binding on the whole Roman people. In 445 B.C., the law of Canuleius legalized marriage between the plebeians and patricians. This was an important step towards the closer union of the two classes. The executive power was still in the hands of the patricians. But in 444 a new office, that of military tribunes with consular power, to be chosen from the plebeians, was established. By way of offset to this great concession, a new patrician office, that of Censor, was created. The function of the two censors, who were to be chosen by the Comitia Centuriata, was to take the census at short intervals, to make out the tax-lists, to appoint senators and knights, to manage the collection of taxes, to superintend public buildings, and, finally, to exercise an indefinite supervision over public manners and morals. These were very great powers. We find that considerable time elapsed before the plebeians actually realized the advantage which they had legally won in this compromise. About the year 400, they succeeded in electing several military tribunes. As early as 410 B.C. three out of the four treasurers, or paymasters (quæstors), were plebeians. About forty years after (367 B.C.), they obtained, by the Licinian Laws, the political equality for which they had so long contended.

WAR WITH THE ETRUSCANS.--But before this result should be reached, other events of much consequence were to occur. The Etruscans, who were not only proficients in the arts, but were also active in trade and commerce, had been defeated at sea by the Greeks, in 474 B.C. But on the north they had a more formidable foe in the Gauls, by whom their power was weakened. The Romans took advantage of the situation to lay siege to Veii, which, after ten years, was captured by their general, Marcus Furius Camillus. The capture of other towns followed.

It was told of Camillus that Falerii surrendered to him of its own accord, for his magnanimity in sending back a treacherous schoolmaster who had taken out to his camp the sons of the chief citizens. Camillas tied his hands behind him, and ordered the boys to flog him back into the city. Camillus was sent into exile, it was related, on a charge of injustice in dividing the booty obtained at Veii.

INVASION OF THE GAULS.--But the Romans joined with the Etruscans in the attempt to drive back a dreaded enemy of both, the Gauls. In the battle of the Allia, a brook eleven miles north of Rome, on the 18th of July, 390 B.C., the Roman army was routed by them, and Rome left without the means of defense. All the people fled, except a few brave men, who shut themselves up in the Capitol, and, according to the tradition, some aged patricians, who, in their robes of state, waited for the enemy. The Gauls, under Brennus, rushed in, and plundered and burned the city. In later times the story was told, that, when the Gauls were climbing up to the Capitol secretly by night, the cackling of the geese awoke Marcus Manlius, and so the enemy was repulsed. There was another story, that, when the Romans were paying the ransom required by Brennus, and complained of false weight, the insolent Gaul threw his sword into the scale, exclaiming, "Woe to the conquered!" and that just then Camillus appeared, and drove the Gauls out of the city. This is certain, that the Gauls retired of their own free will from their occupation of the city. The destruction of the temples involved the loss of early chronicles, which would have given us better information as to the times preceding. The city was rebuilt without much delay.

THE LICINIAN LAWS.--The agitation for political reform soon commenced again. The Licinian Laws, which make an epoch in the controversy of parties, were proposed in 376, but were not passed until 367. Besides provisions for the relief of debtors and for limiting the number of acres of public lands to be held by an individual, it was enacted that the military tribuneship should be given up, and that at least one of the two consuls must be chosen from the plebeians. A new patrician office, the praetorship, was founded, the holders of which were to govern in the absence of the consuls. The patricians did not at once cease from the effort to keep the reins in their hands. Several times they broke the law, and put in two patrician consuls. They yielded at last, however; and, as early as the year 300, all Roman offices were open to all Roman citizens. The patrician order became a social, not a legal, distinction. A new sort of nobility, made up of both patricians and plebeians, whose families had longest held public offices, gradually arose. These were the optimates. The Senate became the principal executive body. It was recruited by the censors, principally from those who had held high stations and were upwards of thirty years old. One censor was required to be a plebeian. The condition of the people was improved by other enactments, one of which (in 326 or 313) secured to the debtor his personal freedom in case he should transfer his property to the creditor. At about this time, there was a change in the constitution of the army. The sort of arms assigned was no longer to depend on property qualifications. There were to be three lines in battle,--the first two to carry a short spear (pilum), and the third the long lance (hasta).

INFULENCE OF PARTY CONFLICTS.--The long contest of parties in Rome was an invaluable political education. It was attended with little bloodshed. It involved discussion on questions of justice and right, and on the best civil constitution. It was not unlike party conflicts in English history. It trained the Romans in a habit of judicious compromise, of perseverance in asserting just claims, and of yielding to just demands.

PERIOD II. TO THE UNION OF ITALY. (304-264 B.C.)