Chapter XLVI: Section 7 (3)

"No revolution can be undertaken and completed with success if
the mass of the people is not led on by some superior
intellect. At the dissolution of an existing legal authority
the only authority remaining is personal and de facto, which
in proportion to the danger of the position is more or less
military and dictatorial. The Romans especially acknowledged
the necessity, when circumstances required it, of submitting
to the unlimited power of a dictator. Such a chief they found,
at the time of the revolution, in Brutus. Collatinus also may,
during a certain time, have stood in a similar manner at the
head of the state, probably from less pure motives than
Brutus, in consequence of which he succumbed to the movement
which he in part may have evoked. After Brutus, Valerius
Publicola was the recognised supreme head and the arbiter of
events in Rome with dictatorial power, until his legislation
made an end of the interregnum, and with all legal forms
founded the true and genuine republic with two annual consuls.
The dictatorship is found in the Latin cities as a state of
transition between monarchy and the yearly prætorship; and we
may conjecture that also in Rome the similar change in the
constitution was effected in a similar way. In important
historical crises the Romans always availed themselves of the
absolute power of a dictator, as in Greece, with similar
objects, Aesymnetae were chosen. … How long the dictatorial
constitution lasted must remain undecided; for we must
renounce the idea of a chronology of that time. It appears to
me not impossible that the period between the expulsion of the
kings and the Valerian laws, which is our authorities is
represented as a year, may have embraced ten years, or much
more."-

_W. Ihne,
Researches into the History of the Roman Constitution,
page 61._

"The republic seems to have been first regularly established
by the Valerian laws, of which, unfortunately, we can discover
little more than half obliterated traces in the oldest
traditions of the Romans. According to the story, P. Valerius
was chosen as consul after the banishment of Tarquinius
Collatinus, and remained alone in office after the death of
his colleague, Brutus, without assembling the people for the
election of a second consul. This proceeding excited a
suspicion in the minds of the people, that he intended to take
sole possession of the state, and to re-establish royal power.
But these fears proved groundless. Valerius remained in office
with the sole design of introducing a number of laws intended
to establish the republic on a legal foundation, without the
danger of any interference on the part of a colleague. The
first of these Valerian laws threatened with the curse of the
gods anyone who, without the consent of the people, should
dare to assume the highest magistracy. … The second law of
Valerius … prescribe that in criminal trials, where the life
of a citizen was at stake, the sentence of the consul should
be subject to an appeal to the general assembly of the people.
This Valerian law of appeal was the Roman Habeas Corpus Act."

_W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

See, also,
CONSUL, ROMAN;
COMITIA CURIATA;
COMITIA CENTURIATA;
CENSORS;
QUÆSTORS, ROMAN;
SENATE, ROMAN.

ROME: B. C. 494-492.
The first secession of the Plebs.
Origin of the Tribunes of the Plebs, and the Ædiles.
Original and acquired power of the Tribunes.
The two Roman peoples and their antagonism.

"The struggle [of plebeians against patricians in early Rome]
opens with the debt question. We must realize all along how
the internal history is affected by the wars without. The
debtors fall into their difficulties through serving in the
field during the summer; for of course the army is a citizen
army and the citizens are agriculturists. Two patrician
families take the side of the poor, the Horatii and the
Valerii.
{2664}
Manius Valerius Publicola, created dictator, promises the
distressed farmers that, if they will follow him in his
campaign against the Sabines, he will procure the relaxation
of their burdens. They go and return victorious. But Appius
Claudius (whose family had but recently migrated to Rome, a
proud and overbearing Sabine stock) opposed the redemption of
the dictator's promise. The victorious host, forming a seventh
of the arm-bearing population, instantly marched out of the
gate of the city, crossed the river Anio, and took up a
station on the Sacred Mount [Mons Sacer]. They did not mean to
go back again; they were weary of their haughty masters. … At
last a peace is made—a formal peace concluded by the fetiales:
they will come back if they may have magistrates of their own.
This is the origin of the tribunes of the plebs [B. C. 492]. …
The plebs who marched back that day from the Sacred Mount had
done a deed which was to have a wonderful issue in the history
of the world; they had dropped a seed into the soil which
would one day spring up into the imperial government of the
Cæsars. The 'tribunicia potestas,' with which they were
clothing their new magistrates, was to become a more important
element in the claims of the emperors than the purple robe of
the consuls."

_R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 3._

"The tribunes of the people were so essentially different from
all the other magistrates that, strictly speaking, they could
hardly be called magistrates at all. They were originally
nothing but the official counsel of the plebs—but counsel who
possessed a veto on the execution of any command or any
sentence of the patrician authorities. The tribune of the
people had no military force at his disposal with which to
inforce his veto. … There is no more striking proof of the
high respect for law which was inherent in the Roman people,
than that it was possible for such a magistracy to exercise
functions specially directed against the governing class. … To
strengthen an official authority which was so much wanting in
physical strength, the Romans availed themselves of the
terrors of religion. … The tribunes were accordingly placed
under the special protection of the Deity. They were declared
to be consecrated and inviolable ('sacrosancti'), and whoever
attacked them, or hindered them in the exercise of their
functions, fell a victim to the avenging Deity, and might be
killed by anyone without fear of punishment."

_W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 2, and book 6, chapter 8._

"The tribune had no political authority. Not being a
magistrate, he could not convoke the curies or the centuries
[see COMITIA CURIATA and COMITIA CENTURIATA]. He could make no
proposition in the senate; it was not supposed, in the
beginning, that he could appear there. He had nothing in
common with the real city—that is to say, with the patrician
city, where men did not recognize any authority of his. He was
not the tribune of the people; he was the tribune of the
plebs. There were then, as previously, two societies in
Rome—the city and the plebs; the one strongly organized,
having laws, magistrates, and a senate; the other a multitude,
which remained without rights and laws, but which found in its
inviolable tribunes protectors and judges. In succeeding years
we can see how the tribunes took courage, and what unexpected
powers they assumed. They had no authority to convoke the
people, but they convoked them. Nothing called them to the
senate; they sat at first at the door of the chamber; later
they sat within. They had no power to judge the patricians;
they judged them and condemned them. This was the result of
the inviolability attached to them as sacrosancti. Every other
power gave way before them. The patricians were disarmed the
day they had pronounced, with solemn rites, that whoever
touched a tribune should be impure. The law said, 'Nothing
shall be done against a tribune.' If, then, this tribune
convoked the plebs, the plebs assembled, and no one could
dissolve this assembly, which the presence of the tribune
placed beyond the power of the patricians and the laws. If the
tribune entered the senate, no one could compel him to retire.
If he seized a consul, no one could take the consul from his
hand. Nothing could resist the boldness of a tribune. Against
a tribune no one had any power, except another tribune. As
soon as the plebs thus had their chiefs, they did not wait
long before they had deliberative assemblies. These did not in
any manner resemble those of the patricians. The plebs, in
their comitia, were distributed into tribes; the domicile, not
religion or wealth, regulated the place of each one. The
assembly did not commence with a sacrifice; religion did not
appear there. They knew nothing of presages, and the voice of
an augur, or a pontiff, could not compel men to separate. It
was really the comitia of the plebs, and they had nothing of
the old rules, or of the religion of the patricians. True,
these assemblies did not at first occupy themselves with the
general interests of the city; they named no magistrates, and
passed no laws. They deliberated only on the interests of
their own order, named the plebeian chiefs, and carried
plebiscita. There was at Rome, for a long time, a double
series of decrees—senatusconsulta for the patricians,
plebiscita for the plebs. The plebs did not obey the
senatusconsulta, nor the patricians the plebiscita. There were
two peoples at Rome. These two peoples, always in presence of
each other, and living within the same walls, still had almost
nothing in common. A plebeian could not be consul of the city,
nor a patrician tribune of the plebs. The plebeian dill not
enter the assembly by curies, nor the patrician the assembly
of the tribes. They were two peoples that did not even
understand each other, not having—so to speak—common ideas. …
The patricians persisted in keeping the plebs without the body
politic, and the plebs established institutions of their own.
The duality of the Roman population became from day to day
more manifest. And yet there was something which formed a tie
between these two peoples: this was war. The patricians were
careful not to deprive themselves of soldiers. They had left
to the plebeians the title of citizens, if only to incorporate
them into the legions. They had taken care, too, that the
inviolability of the tribunes should not extend outside of
Rome, and for this purpose had decided that a tribune should
never go out of the city. In the army, therefore, the plebs
were under control; there was no longer a double power; in
presence of the enemy Rome became one."

_N. D. Fustel de Coulanges,
The Ancient City,
book 4, chapter 7._

{2665}

It is supposed that the tribunes were originally two in
number; but later there were five, and, finally, ten. The law
which created their office was "deposited in a temple, under
the charge of two plebeian magistrates specially appointed for
the purpose and called Aediles or 'housemasters.' These
aediles were attached to the tribunes as assistants, and their
jurisdiction chiefly concerned such minor cases as were
settled by fines."

_T. Mommsen,
History of the Roman Republic
(abridged by Bryant and Hendy),
chapter 7._

"Besides the tribunes, who stood over against the consuls, two
plebeian ædiles were appointed, who might balance the
patrician quæstors. Their name seems borrowed from the temple
(Ædes Cereris) which is now built on the cattle market between
the Palatine and the river to form a religious centre for the
plebeian interest, as the ancient temple of Saturn was already
a centre for the patrician interest. The goddess of bread is
to preside over the growth of the democracy. The duty of
ædiles is, in the first instance, to keep the public buildings
in repair; but they acquire a position not unlike that of
police-officers."

_R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 3._

The office of the curule ædiles (two in number, who were
elected in "comitia tributa") was instituted in 366 B. C.
These were patricians at first; but in 304 B. C. the office
was thrown open in alternate years to the plebeians, and in 91
B. C. all restrictions were removed. The curule ædiles had
certain judicial functions, and formed with the plebeian
ædiles a board of police and market administration, having
oversight also of the religious games.

_R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
Appendix A._

ALSO IN:
_Sir G. C. Lewis,
Credibility of Early Roman History,
chapter 12, part 1._

_B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on the History of Rome,
lecture 16._

_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 2 (volume 1)._

ROME: B. C. 493.
League with the Latins.

See ROME: B. C. 339-338.

ROME: B. C. 489-450.
Volscian Wars.

The wars of the Romans with the neighboring Volscians
stretched over a period of some forty years (B. C. 489-450)
and ended in the disappearance of the latter from history. The
legend of Coriolanus (Caius Marcius, on whom the added name
was bestowed because of his valiant capture of the Volscian
town of Corioli) is connected with these wars; but modern
critics have stripped it of all historic credit and left it
only a beautiful romance.

_W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_A. J. Church,
Stories from Livy,
chapter 7. _

ROME: B. C. 472-471.-
The Publilian Law of Volero.
Exclusion of Patricians from the Comitia Tributa.

"Volero Publilius was chosen one of the Tribunes for … [B. C.
472]; and he straightway proposed a law, by which it was
provided that the Tribunes and Ædiles of the plebs should be
elected by the plebeians themselves at the Assembly of the
Tribes in the Forum, not at the Assembly of the Centuries in
the Field of Mars. This is usually called the Publilian Law of
Volero. For a whole year the patricians succeeded in putting
off the law. But the plebeians were determined to have it."

_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 8 (volume 1)._

"The immediate consequence of the tribuneship of the people
was the organisation of the assembly of tribes, the 'comitia
tributa,' whereby they lost their former character as
factional or party meetings and were raised to the·dignity and
functions of assemblies of the Roman people. … The
circumstances which, in 471 B. C., led to the passing of the
Publilian law, seem to indicate that even at that time the
attempt was made by the patricians to change the original
character of the tribuneship of the people, and to open it to
the patrician class. The patricians intruded themselves in the
assembly of the plebeians, surely not for the purpose of
making a disturbance as it is represented, but to enforce a
contested right, by which they claimed to take part in the
comitia of tribes. … This question was decided by the
Publilian law, which excluded the patricians from the comitia
tributa and specified the privileges of these comitia, now
admitted to be purely plebeian. … These were the right of
meeting together unmolested in separate purely plebeian
comitia, the right of freely and independently electing their
representatives, the right of discussing and settling their
own affairs, and in certain matters of passing resolutions
[plebiscita] which affected the whole community. These
resolutions were, of course, not binding on the state, they
had more the character of petitions than enactments, but still
they were the formal expression of the will of a great
majority of the Roman people, and as such they could not
easily be set aside or ignored by the patrician government."

_W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 8, and book 6, chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on History of Rome,
lecture 20._

ROME: B. C. 466-463.
The Plague.

In the war of the Romans with the Volscians, the former were
so hard pressed that "it became necessary to receive men and
cattle within the walls or Rome, just as at Athens in the
Peloponnesian war; and this crowding together of men and
beasts produced a plague [B. C. 466-403]. … It is probable
that the great pestilence which, thirty years later, broke out
in Greece and Carthage, began in Italy as early as that time.
The rate of mortality was fearful; it was a real pestilence,
and not a mere fever. … Both consuls fell victims to the
disease, two of the four augurs, the curio maximus, the fourth
part of the senators, and an immense number of citizens of all
classes."

_B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on the History of Rome,
lecture 21._

ALSO IN:
_T. Arnold,
History of Rome,
chapter 11._

ROME: B. C. 458.
Conquest of the Æqui.

"Alternating with the raids [of the Romans] against the Volsci
are the almost yearly campaigns with the Æqui, who would pour
down their valleys and occupy Mount Algidus, threatening
Tusculum and the Latin Way which led to Rome. It was on one of
these occasions, when the republic too was engaged with
Sabines to the north, and Volscians to the south, that the
Consul Minucius [B. C. 458] found himself hemmed in on the
mountainside by the Æqui. Very beautiful and very
characteristic is the legend which veils the issue of the
danger. L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, ruined by a fine imposed
upon his son, is tilling his little farm across the Tiber,
when the messengers of the Senate come to announce that he is
made dictator. With great simplicity he leaves his plough,
conquers the Æqui, and returns to his furrows again."

_R. F. Horton.
History of the Romans,
chapter 4._

ALSO IN:
_A. J. Church,
Stories from Livy,
chapter 9._

{2666}

ROME: B. C. 456.
The Icilian Law.
The early process of legislation illustrated.
Persuasiveness of Plebeian Petitions.

"The process of legislation in early times has been preserved
to us in a single instance in which Dionysius has followed the
account derived by him from an ancient document. The case is
that of the Lex Icilia de Aventino publicando (B. C. 456), an
interlude in the long struggle over the Terentilian law.

See ROME: B. C. 451-449.

This Lex Icilia was preserved, as Dionysius tells us, on a
brazen column in the temple of Diana on the Aventine. It seems
unlikely that the original tablet in such a situation should
have survived the burning of the city by the Gauls. Yet a
record so important to the plebs would doubtless be at once
restored, and the restoration would show at least the belief
prevalent at this very early period (B. C. 389) as to the
proper procedure in case of such a law. 'Icilius,' says
Dionysius (X. 31), 'approached the consuls then in office and
the senate, and requested them to pass the preliminary decree
for the law that he proposed, and to bring it before the
people.' By threatening to arrest the consuls he compelled
them to assemble the senate, and Icilius addressed the senate
on behalf of his bill. Finally the senate consented … (Dionys.
X. 32). Then, after auspices and sacrifices, 'the law was
passed by the comitia centuriata, which were convened by the
consuls.' … Now here we have an order of proceeding under
which the plebs have a practical initiative in legislation,
and in which, nevertheless, each of the powers of the state
acts in a perfectly natural and constitutional manner. … The
formal legislative power lies solely with the populus Romanus.
The vote of the corporation of the plebs is not then in early
times strictly a legislative process at all. It is merely a
strong and formal petition; an appeal to the sovereign
assembly to grant their request. But this sovereign assembly
can only be convened and the question put to it by a consul.
If the consuls are unfavourable to the bill, they can refuse
to put it to the vote at all. In any case, unless, like Sp.
Cassius, they were themselves revolutionists, they would not
think of doing so save on the recommendation of their
authorised advisers. … The senate is assembled and freely
dis·cusses the law. An adverse vote justifies the consuls in
their resistance. Then follow tedious manœuvres. The senate
treat with members of the college of tribunes to procure their
veto; they urge the necessity of a military expedition, or, as
a last resource, advise the appointment of a dictator. Such is
the general picture we get from Livy's story. If by these
means they can tide over the tribune's year of office, the
whole process has to be gone through again. The senate have
the chance of a lucky accident in getting one of the new
tribunes subservient to them; or sometimes (as in the case of
the proposal to remove to Veii) they may persuade the plebs
itself to throw out the tribunician rogatio when again
introduced (Livy, v. 30). On the other hand the tribunes may
bring to bear their reserved power of impeding all public
business; and the ultima ratio lies with the plebeians, who
have the power of secession in their hands. In practice,
however, the senate is nearly always wise enough to yield
before the plebs is driven to play this its last card. Their
yielding is expressed by their backing the petition of the
plebs and recommending the consuls to put the question of its
acceptance to the populus. With this recommendation on the
part of the senate the struggle is generally at an end. It is
still in the strict right of the consuls to refuse to put the
question to the comitia. Livy (iii. 19) gives us one instance
in the matter of the Terentilian law, when the senate is
disposed to yield, and the consul 'non in plebe coercendâ quam
senatu castigando vehementior fuit.' But a consul so insisting
on his right would incur enormous personal responsibility, and
expose himself, unsheltered by public opinion, to the
vengeance of the plebs when he went out of office. When the
consul too has yielded, and the question is actually put to
the vote of the sovereign (generally in its comitia
centuriata), the controversy has been long ago thoroughly
threshed out. Though it is only at this stage that legislation
in the strict sense of the word commences, yet no instance is
recorded of a refusal on the part of the sovereign people to
assent to the petition of the plebs backed by the
recommendation of the senate."

_J. L. Strachan-Davidson,
Plebeian Privilege at Rome
(English Historical Review, April, 1886)._

On the bearings of this proceeding on the subsequently adopted
Valerio-Horatian, Publilian, and Hortensian laws.

See ROME: B. C. 286.

ROME: B. C. 451-449.
The Terentilian Law.
The Decemvirs and the Twelve Tables.

Not long after the establishment of the tribuneship, "the
plebeians felt the necessity of putting an end to the
exclusive possession of the laws which the patricians enjoyed,
and to make them the common property of the whole nation. This
could only be done by writing them down and making them
public. A proposal was accordingly made in the assembly of the
tribes by the tribune C. Terentilius Arsa (462 B. C.) to
appoint a commission for the purpose of committing to writing
the whole of the laws. … It is not wonderful that the
patricians opposed with all their strength a measure which
would wrest a most powerful weapon out of their hands. … The
contest for the passing of the bill of Terentilius lasted,
according to tradition, not less than ten years, and all means
of open and secret opposition and of partial concession were
made use of to elude the claims of the popular party. … After
a ten years' struggle it [the motion for a commission] was
passed into law. It proposed that a commission of ten men,
being partly patricians and partly plebeians, should be
appointed, for the purpose of arranging the existing law into
a code. At the same time the consular constitution was to be
suspended, and the ten men to be intrusted with the government
and administration of the commonwealth during the time that
they acted as legislators. By the same law the plebeian
magistracy of the tribunes of the people ceased likewise, and
the ten men became a body of magistrates intrusted with
unlimited authority. … The patricians did not act entirely in
good faith. … They carried the election of ten patricians. …
Having, however, obtained this advantage over the credulity of
their opponents, the patricians made no attempt to use it
insolently as a party victory. The decemvirs proceeded with
wisdom and moderation. Their administration, as well as their
legislation, met with universal approval. They published on
ten tables the greater part of the Roman law, and after these
laws had met with the approbation of the people, they were
declared by a decision of the people to be binding. Thus the
first year of the decemvirate passed, and so far the
traditional story is simple and intelligible."
{2667}
The part of the tradition which follows is largely rejected by
modern critical historians. It relates that when decemvirs
were chosen for another year, to complete their work, Appius
Claudius brought about the election, with himself, of men whom
he could control, and then established a reign of terror which
surpassed the worst tyranny of the kings, refusing to abdicate
when the year expired. The tragic story of Virginia connects
itself with this terrible oppression, and with the legend of
its downfall. In the end, the Roman people delivered
themselves, and secured the permanent authority of the code of
laws, which had been enlarged from ten to twelve Tables.

_W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 9 and 10._

"The Twelve Tables were considered as the foundation of all
law, and Cicero always mentions them with the utmost
reverence. But only fragments remain."

_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 11._

"The most celebrated system of jurisprudence known to the
world begins, as it ends, with a code. From the commencement
to the close of its history, the expositors of Roman Law
consistently employed language which implied that the body of
their system rested on the Twelve Decemviral [Tables, and
therefore on a basis of written law. Except in one
particular, no institutions anterior to the Twelve Tables
were recognised at Rome. The theoretical descent of Roman
jurisprudence from a code, the theoretical ascription of
English law to immemorial unwritten tradition, were the chief
reasons why the development of their system differed from the
development of ours. Neither theory corresponded exactly with
the facts, but each produced consequences of the utmost
importance. … The ancient Roman code belongs to a class of
which almost every civilised nation in the world can show a
sample, and which, so far as the Roman and Hellenic worlds
were concerned, were largely diffused over them at epochs not
widely distant from one another. They appeared under
exceedingly similar circumstances, and were produced, to our
knowledge, by very similar causes. … In Greece, in Italy, on
the Hellenised sea-board of Western Asia, these codes all
made their appearance at periods much the same everywhere,
not, I mean, at periods identical in point of time, but
similar in point of the relative progress of each community.
Everywhere, in the countries I have named, laws engraven on
tablets and published to the people take the place of usages
deposited with the recollection of a privileged oligarchy. …
The ancient codes were doubtless originally suggested by the
discovery and diffusion of the art of writing. It is true
that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of
legal knowledge; and at all events their exclusive possession
of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of
those popular movements which began to be universal in the
western world. But, though democratic sentiment may have
added to their popularity, the codes were certainly in the
main a direct result of the invention of writing. Inscribed
tablets were seen to be a better depositary of law, and a
better security for its accurate preservation, than the
memory of a number of persons however strengthened by
habitual exercise. … Among the chief advantages which the
Twelve Tables and similar codes conferred on the societies
which obtained them, was the protection which they afforded
against the frauds of the privileged oligarchy and also
against the spontaneous depravation and debasement of the
national institutions. The Roman Code was merely an
enunciation in words of the existing customs of the Roman
people. Relatively to the progress of the Romans in
civilization, it was a remarkably early code, and it was
published at a time when Roman society had barely emerged
from that intellectual condition in which civil obligation
and religious duty are inevitably confounded."

_H. S. Maine,
Ancient Law,
chapter 1._

ROME: B. C. 449.
The Valerio-Horatian Laws.

On the overthrow of the tyranny of the Decemvirs, at Rome, B.
C. 449, L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus, being
elected consuls, brought about the passage of certain laws,
known as the Valerio-Horatian Laws. These renewed an old law
(the Valerian Law) which gave to every Roman citizen an appeal
from the supreme magistrate to the people, and they also made
the plebiscita, or resolutions of the assembly of the tribes,
authoritative laws, binding on the whole body politic.

_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 10._

See a discussion of the importance of the last mentioned of
these laws, in its relations to the subsequent Publilian and
Hortensian laws.

See, ROME: B. C. 286.

ROME: B. C. 445-400.
The Canuleian Law.
Creation of the Consular Tribunes.
Progress of the Plebs toward Political Equality.

"The year 449 had not taken from the patricians all their
privileges. Rome has still two classes, but only one people,
and the chiefs of the plebs, sitting in the senate, are
meditating, after the struggle to obtain civil equality, to
commence another to gain political equality. … Two things
maintained the insulting distinction between the two orders:
the prohibition of marriage between patricians and plebeians,
and the tenure of all the magisterial officers by those who
formed since the origin of Rome the sovereign people of the
'patres.' In 445 B. C. the tribune Canuleius demanded the
abolition of the prohibition relative to marriages, and his
colleagues, a share in the consulate. This was a demand for
political equality." The Canuleian law legalizing marriages
between patricians and plebeians was conceded, but not until a
third "secession" of the plebeians had taken place. The
plebeian demand for a share in the consulate was pacified for
the time by a constitutional change which formed out of the
consulate three offices: "the quæstorship, the censorship and
the consular tribunate. The two former are exclusively
patrician. The military [or consular] tribunes, in reality
proconsuls confined, with one exception, to the command of the
legions, could now be chosen without distinction, from the two
orders. But the law, in not requiring that every year a fixed
number of them be plebeians, allowed them to be all
patricians; and they remained so for nearly fifty years. In
spite of such skilful precautions, the senate did not give up
the consulate. It held in reserve and pure from all taint the
patrician magistracy, hoping for better days. … The
constitution of 444 B. C. authorized the nomination of
plebeians to the consular tribunate; down to 400 B. C. none
obtained it; and during the seventy-eight years that this
office continued, the senate twenty-four times nominated
consuls, that is to say, it attempted, and succeeded, one year
in three, in re-establishing the ancient form of government.
{2668}
These perpetual oscillations encouraged the ambitious hopes of
a rich knight, Spurius Mælius (439 B. C.). He thought that the
Romans would willingly resign into his hands their unquiet
liberty, and during a famine he gave very liberally to the
poor. The senate became alarmed at this alms-giving which was
not at all in accordance with the manners of that time, and
raised to the dictatorship Cincinnatus, who, on taking office,
prayed the gods not to grant that his old age should prove a
cause of hurt or damage to the republic. Summoned before the
tribunal of the dictator, Mælius refused to appear, and sought
protection against the lictors amongst the crowd which filled
the Forum. But the master of the horse, Serv. Ahala, managed
to reach him, and ran him through with his sword. In spite of
the indignation of the people, Cincinnatus sanctioned the act
of his lieutenant, caused the house of the traitor to be
demolished, and the 'præfectus annonæ,' Minucius Augurinus,
sold, for an 'as' per 'modius,' the corn amassed by Mælius.
Such is the story of the partisan of the nobles [Livy]; but at
that epoch to have dreamt of reestablishing royalty would have
been a foolish dream in which Spurius could not have indulged.
Without doubt he had wished to obtain, by popular favour, the
military tribunate, and in order to intimidate the plebeian
candidates, the patricians overthrew him by imputing to him
the accusation which Livy complacently details by the mouth of
Cincinnatus, of having aimed at royalty. The crowd always can
be cajoled by words, and the senate had the art of
concentrating on this word 'royalty' all the phases of popular
hatred. The move succeeded; during the eleven years following
the people nine times allowed consuls to be nominated. There
was, however, in 433 B. C. a plebeian dictator, Mamercus
Æmilius, who reduced the tenure of censorship to 18 months.
These nine consulships gave such confidence to the nobles that
the senate itself had to suffer from the proud want of
discipline shown by the consuls of the year 428 B. C. Though
conquered by the Æquians, they refused to nominate a dictator.
To overcome their resistance the senate had recourse to the
tribunes of the people, who threatened to drag the consuls to
prison. To see the tribunitian authority protecting the
majesty of the senate was quite a new phenomenon. From this
day the reputation of the tribunate equalled its power, and
few years passed without the plebeians obtaining some new
advantage. Three years earlier the tribunes, jealous of seeing
the votes always given to the nobles, had proscribed the white
robes, which marked out from a distance, to all eyes, the
patrician candidate: This was the first law against undue
canvassing. In 430 a law put an end to arbitrary valuations of
penalties payable in kind. In 427 the tribunes, by opposing
the levies, obliged the senate to carry to the comitia
centuriata the question of the war against Veii. In 423 they
revived the agrarian law, and demanded that the tithe should
be more punctually paid in the future by the occupiers of
domain land, and applied to the pay of the troops. They
miscarried this time: but in 421 it seemed necessary to raise
the number of quæstors from two to four; the people consented
to it only on the condition that the quæstorship be accessible
to the plebeians. Three years later 3,000 acres of the lands
of Labicum were distributed to fifteen hundred plebeian
families. It was very little: so the people laid claim in 414
to the division of the lands of Bola, taken from the Æquians.
A military tribune, Postumius, being violently opposed to it,
was slain in an outbreak of the soldiery. This crime, unheard
of in the history of Roman armies, did harm to the popular
cause; there was no distribution of lands, and for five years
the senate was able to nominate the consuls. The patrician
reaction produced another against it which ended in the
thorough execution of the constitution of the year 444. An
Icilius in 412, a Mænius in 410 B. C. took up again the
agrarian law, and opposed the levy. The year following three
of the Icilian family were named as tribunes. It was a menace
to the other order. The patricians understood it, and in 410
three plebeians obtained the quæstorship. In 405 pay was
established for the troops, and the rich undertook to pay the
larger portion of it. Finally, in 400, four military tribunes
out of six were plebeians. The chiefs of the people thus
obtained the public offices and even places in the senate, and
the poor obtained an indemnity which supported their families
while they served with the colours. All ambitions, all
desires, are at present satisfied. Calm and union returned to
Rome; we can see it in the vigour of the attacks on external
foes."

_V. Duruy,
History of Rome,
volume 1, pages 231-239._

ROME: B. C. 406-396.
The Veientine wars.
Proposed removal to Veii.

"Veii lay about ten miles from Rome, between two small streams
which meet a little below the city and run down into the
Tiber, falling into it nearly opposite to Castel Giubileo, the
ancient Fidenæ. Insignificant in point of size, these little
streams, however, like those of the Campagna generally, are
edged by precipitous rocky cliffs, and thus are capable of
affording a natural defence to a town built on the table-land
above and between them. The space enclosed by the walls of
Veii was equal to the extent of Rome itself, so long as the
walls of Servius Tullius were the boundary of the city. … In
the magnificence of its public and private buildings Veii is
said to have been preferred by the Roman commons to Rome: and
we know enough of the great works of the Etruscans to render
this not impossible."

_T. Arnold,
History of Rome,
chapter 12 (volume 1)._

"Rome and Veii, equals in strength and size, had engaged in
periodical conflicts from time immemorial. … But the time had
come for the final struggle with Veii. … How the siege lasted
for ten years [B. C. 406-396]; how, at the bidding of a
captured Tuscan seer, the Alban Lake was drained (and is not
the tunnel which drained it visible to-day?); how Camillus,
the dictator, by a tunnel underground took the city, and
fore·stalled the sacrifice; how Juno came from Veii, and took
up her abode upon the Aventine; how Camillus triumphed; and
how the nemesis fell upon him, and he was banished—all this
and more is told by Livy in his matchless way. It is an epic,
and a beautiful epic."

_R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 4._

{2669}

At the time of the conquest of Veii, there was a proposal that
half the inhabitants of Rome should remove to the empty city,
and found a new state. It was defeated with difficulty. A
little later, when the Gauls had destroyed Rome, its citizens,
having found Veii a strong and comfortable place of refuge,
were nearly persuaded to remain there and not rebuild their
former home. Thus narrowly was the "Eternal City" saved to
history.

_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapters 13 and 15._

ROME: B. C. 390-347.
Invasions by the Gauls.
Destruction of the city.

"Before the time we are now speaking of, there had been a
great movement in these Celtic nations [of Gael and Cymri].
Two great swarms went out from Gaul. Of these, one crossed the
Alps into Italy; the other, moving eastward, in the course of
time penetrated into Greece. … It is supposed that the Gael
who dwelt in the eastern parts of Gaul, being oppressed by
Cymric tribes of the west and north, went forth to seck new
homes in distant lands. … At all events, it is certain that
large bodies of Celts passed over the Alps before and after
this time, and having once tasted the wines and eaten the
fruits of Italy, were in no hurry to return from that fair
land into their own less hospitable regions. We read of one
swarm after another pressing into the land of promise; parties
of Lingones, whose fathers lived about Langres in Champagne;
Boians, whose name is traced in French Bourbon and Italian
Bologna; Senones, whose old country was about Sens, and who
have left record of themselves in the name of Senigaglia (Sena
Gallica) on the coast of the Adriatic. … They overran the rich
plains of Northern Italy, and so occupied the territory which
lies between the Alps, the Apennines and the Adriatic [except
Liguria] that the Romans called this territory Gallia
Cisalpina, or Hither Gaul. The northern Etruscans gave way
before these fierce barbarians, and their name is heard of no
more in those parts. Thence the Gauls crossed the Apennines
into southern Etruria, and while they were ravaging that
country they first came in contact with the sons of Rome. The
common date for this event is 300 B. C. … The tribe which took
this course were of the Senones, as an authors say, and
therefore we may suppose they were Gaelic; but it has been
thought they were mixed with Cymri, since the name of their
king or chief was Brennus, and Brenhin is Cymric for a king."
The Romans met the invaders on the banks of the Alia, a little
stream from the Sabine Hills which flows into the Tiber, and
were terribly defeated there. The Gauls entered Rome and
found, as the ancient story is, only a few venerable senators,
sitting in their chairs and robes of state, whom they slew,
because one of the senators resented the stroking of his beard
by an insolent barbarian. The remaining inhabitants had
withdrawn into the Capitol, or taken refuge at Veii and Cære.
After pillaging and burning the city, the Gauls laid siege to
the Capitol, and strove desperately for seven months to
overcome its defenders by arms or famine. In the end they
retreated, without success, but whether bribed, or driven, or
weakened by sickness, is matter of uncertainty. The Romans
cherished many legends connected with the siege of the
Capitol,—like that, for example, of the sentinel and the
sacred geese. "Thirty years after the first irruption (361 B.
C.), we hear that another host of Senonian Gauls burst into
Latium from the north, and, in alliance with the people of
Tibur, ravaged the lands of Rome, Latium and Campania. For
four years they continued their ravages, and then we hear of
them no more. A third irruption followed, ten years later [B.
C. 347], of still more formidable character. At that time, the
Gauls formed a stationary camp on the Alban Hills and kept
Rome in perpetual terror. … After some months they poured
southwards, and disappear from history."

_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 14 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 4._

_A. J. Church,
Stories from Livy,
chapters 13-14._

ROME: B. C. 376-367.
The Licinian Laws.

"C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius … being Tribunes of the
Plebs together in the year 376 B. C. promulgated the three
bills which have ever since borne the name of the Licinian
Rogations. These were:

I. That of all debts on which interest had been paid, the sum
of the interest paid should be deducted from the principal,
and the remainder paid off in three successive years.

II. That no citizen should hold more than 500 jugera (nearly
320 acres) of the Public Land, nor should feed on the public
pastures more than 100 head of larger cattle and 500 of
smaller, under penalty of a heavy fine.

III. That henceforth Consuls, not Consular Tribunes, should
always be elected, and that one of the two Consuls must be a
Plebeian."

The patricians made a desperate resistance to the adoption of
these proposed enactments for ten years, during most of which
long period the operations of government were nearly paralyzed
by the obstinate tribunes, who inflexibly employed their
formidable power of veto to compel submission to the popular
demand. In the end they prevailed, and the Licinian rogations
became Laws.

_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 15 (volume 1)._

"Licinius evidently designed reuniting the divided members of
the plebeian body. Not one of them, whether rich or poor, but
seems called back by these bills to stand with his own order
from that time on. If this supposition was true, then Licinius
was the greatest leader whom the plebeians ever had up to the
time of Cæsar. But from the first he was disappointed. The
plebeians who most wanted relief cared so little for having
the consulship opened to the richer men of their estate that
they would readily have dropped the bill concerning it, lest a
demand should endanger their own desires. In the same temper
the more eminent men of the order, themselves among the
creditors of the poor and the tenants of the domain, would
have quashed the proceedings of the tribunes respecting the
discharge of debt and the distribution of land, so that they
carried the third bill only, which would make them consuls
without disturbing their possessions. While the plebeians
continued severed from one another, the patricians drew
together in resistance to the bills. Licinius stood forth
demanding, at once, all that it had cost his predecessors
their utmost energy to demand, singly and at long intervals,
from the patricians. … The very comprehensiveness of his
measures proved the safeguard of Licinius. Had he preferred
but one of these demands, he would have been unhesitatingly
opposed by the great majority of the patricians. On the other
hand he would have had comparatively doubtful support from the
plebs." In the end, after a struggle of ten years duration,
Licinius and Sextius carried their three bills, together with
a fourth, brought forward later, which opened to the plebeians
the office of the duumvirs, who consulted the Sibyline books.
{2670}
"It takes all the subsequent history of Rome to measure the
consequences of the Revolution achieved by Licinius and
Sextius; but the immediate working of their laws could have
been nothing but a disappointment to their originators and
upholders. … For some ten years the law regarding the
consulship was observed, after which it was occasionally
violated, but can still be called a success. The laws of
relief, as may be supposed of all such sumptuary enactments,
were violated from the first. No general recovery of the
public land from those occupying more than five hundred jugera
ever took place. Consequently there was no general division of
land among the lack-land class. Conflicting claims and
jealousy on the part of the poor must have done much to
embarrass and prevent the execution of the law. No system of
land survey to distinguish between 'ager publicus' and 'ager
privatus' existed. Licinius Stolo himself was afterwards
convicted of violating his own law. The law respecting debts
met with much the same obstacles. The causes of embarrassment
and poverty being much the same and undisturbed, soon
reproduced the effects which no reduction of interest or
installment of principal could effectually remove. … These
laws, then, had little or no effect upon the domain question
or the re-distribution of land. They did not fulfil the
evident expectation of their author in uniting the plebeians
into one political body. This was impossible. What they did do
was to break up and practically abolish the patriciate.
Henceforth were the Roman people divided into rich and poor
on]y."

_A. Stephenson,
Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 9th series, numbers 7-8)._

ALSO IN:
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1)._

_S. Eliot,
The Liberty of Rome,
book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1)._

ROME: B. C. 366.
Institution of the Prætorship.

"By the establishment of the prætorship (366 B. C.) the office
of chief judge was separated as a distinct magistracy from the
consulship. … The prætor was always looked upon as the
colleague of the consuls. He was elected in the same manner as
the consuls by centuriate comitia, and, moreover, under the
same auspices. He was furnished with the imperium, had lictors
and fasces. He represented the consuls in town by assembling
the senate, conducting its proceedings, executing its decrees.
… Up to the time of the first Punic war one prætor only was
annually elected. Then a second was added to conduct the
jurisdiction between citizens and foreigners. A distinction
was now made between the city prætor (prætor urbanus), who was
always looked upon as having a higher dignity, and the foreign
prætor (prætor peregrinus). On the final establishment of the
two provinces of Sicily and Sardinia, probably 227 B. C., two
new prætors were appointed to superintend the regular
government of those provinces, and still later on two more
were added for the two provinces of Spain. The number of
annual prætors now amounted to six, and so it remained until
the legislation of Sulla."

_W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 6, chapter 5._

See, also, CONSUL, ROMAN.

ROME: B. C. 343-290.
The Samnite Wars.

When the Romans had made themselves dominant in middle Italy,
and the Samnites [see SAMNITES] in southern Italy, the
question which of the two peoples should be masters of the
peninsula at large was sure to demand settlement. About the
middle of the fourth century, B. C., it began to urge the two
rivals into collision, and the next two generations of Romans
were busied chiefly with Samnite Wars, of which they fought
three, with brief intervals to divide them, and at the end of
which the Samnite name had been practically erased from
history. The first hostilities grew out of a quarrel between
the Samnites of the mountains and their degenerate countrymen
of Capua and Campania. The latter sought help from the Romans,
and, according to the Romans, surrendered their city to them
in order to secure it; but this is obviously untrue. The First
Samnite War, which followed this (B. C. 343-341), had no
definite result, and seems to have been brought to an end
rather abruptly by a mutiny in the Roman army and by trouble
between Rome and her Latin allies. According to the Roman
annals there were three great battles fought in this war, one
on Mount Gaurus, and two elsewhere; but Mommsen and other
historians entirely distrust the historic details as handed
down. The Second or Great Samnite War occurred after an
interval of fifteen years, during which time the Romans had
conquered all Latium, reducing their Latin kinsmen from
confederates to subjects. That accomplished, the Romans were
quite ready to measure swords again with their more important
rivals in the south. The long, desperate and doubtful war
which ensued was of twenty-two years duration (B. C. 326-304).
In the first years of this war victory was with the Romans and
the Samnites sued for peace; but the terms offered were too
hard fur them and they fought on. Then Fortune smiled on them
and gave them an opportunity to inflict on their haughty enemy
one of the greatest humiliations that Rome in all her history
ever suffered. The entire Roman army, commanded by the two
consuls of the year, was caught in a mountain defile (B. C.
321), at a place called the Caudine Forks, and compelled to
surrender to the Samnite genera], C. Pontius. The consuls and
other officers of the Romans signed a treaty of peace with
Pontius, and all were then set free, after giving up their
armor and their cloaks and passing "under the yoke." But the
Roman senate refused to ratify the treaty, and gave up those
who had signed it to the Samnites. The latter refused to
receive the offered prisoners and vainly demanded a fulfilment
of the treaty. Their great victory had been thrown away, and,
although they won another important success at Lautulæ, the
final result of the war which they were forced to resume was
disastrous to them. After twenty-two years of obstinate
fighting they accepted terms (B. C. 304) which stripped them
of all their territory on the sea-coast, and required them to
acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. The peace so purchased
lasted less than six years. The Samnites were tempted (B. C.
298) while the Romans had a war with Etruscans and Gauls on
their hands, to attempt the avenging of their humiliations.
Their fate was decided at the battle of Sentinum (B. C. 295),
won by the old consul, Q. Fabius Maximus, against the allied
Samnites and Gauls, through the heroic self-sacrifice of his
colleague, P. Decius Mus [imitating his father, of the same
name.]

See ROME: B. C. 339-338.

{2671}

The Samnites struggled hopelessly on some five years longer
and submitted finally in 290 B. C. Their great leader,
Pontius, was put to death in the dungeons of the state prison
under the Capitoline.

_J. Michelet,
History of the Roman Republic,
book 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapters 19, and 21-24._

_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 6._

ROME: B. C. 340.
The Publilian Laws.

"In the second year of the Latin war (340 B. C.) the Plebeian
Consul, Q. Publilius Philo, being named Dictator by his
Patrician colleague for some purpose now unknown, proposed and
carried three laws still further abridging the few remaining
privileges of the Patrician Lords. The first Publilian law
enacted that one of the Censors, as one of the Consuls, must
be a Plebeian. … The second gave fuller sanction to the
principle already established, that the Resolutions of the
Plebeian Assembly should have the force of law. The third
provided that all laws passed at the Comitia of the Centuries
or of the Tribes should receive beforehand the sanction of the
Curies."

_G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 20 (volume 1)._