Chapter VIII: Part 8

In the plebeian body, Servius Tullius selected from among those of higher rank and greater wealth, two classes,--that of the former Latin nobility, and that in which the rest were placed. To this noble class he assigned the twelve other equestrian centuries, and that without regard to property, with the exception perhaps of such persons as were quite impoverished, a fact which must be particularly urged; for according to the received opinion, they were deemed to have been the richest. Had the knights at that time already been the richest, that is to say, if we are to look upon them as having been in the same state as after the war with Hannibal, what a senseless constitution would then have been the result! All fortunes, between a million sesterces (the sum which at the end of the second Punic war was the qualification of this class) and 100,000, would not have been classified in any way; and yet lower than that again in a great number of divisions. And we have also the explicit testimony of Polybius, that the property standard was of new introduction with regard to the knights, contrary to the old system, in which birth was the qualification. Another proof, besides, is the statement that, even as the censors registered a burgher of the pale in the plebeian tribes, so did they likewise place a plebeian in the equestrian body as a mark of distinction; which excludes a classification according to property. In the reign of Augustus it was indeed quite a different case. At that time, the most distinguished men could not become knights without a certain amount of fortune.

Yet what is meant by _census_? With us every description of property would be valued, all rights which might be reckoned as a capital. It was otherwise with the Romans. It is to be considered as a proved fact, that the census affected realized property only, “_res corporales_,” that is to say, substantial objects; not _res incorporales_, as for instance, debts and obligations. Thus, if I have 50,000 asses in land, and owe 10,000 to some one else, I in fact possess only 40,000. Yet this was not at all regarded in the census of the ancients, as no notice was taken of incumbrances. This very point, which is of paramount importance, has never once been noticed by the earlier writers on Roman history, because they were no men of business. One must not look upon the census as a property tax, but as a land tax; or as a consolidation of direct taxes. Certain objects were estimated at a certain value, according to prescribed rules, and then one paid a corresponding assessment on the thousand. In Dutch Friesland the landed estates were rated according to pounds, and a certain tax assessed on these pounds. An estate was hence called _Pondemate_ (Pound-mead), and a certain number of pence were paid on it. Thus the Roman census comprehended all the landed estates, and without doubt all _res mancipî_ as well; but I am quite convinced that nothing was assessed on outstanding debts, however rich an individual might have been from these sources. The Attic census on the other hand was really a property tax. From thence it followed that the whole floating property in the state had very little weight; for the richest monied man might have come off without any tax, whilst the land had all the burthens, but likewise all the privileges. In this the census closely corresponds to our direct taxes, in which also no account is taken of the mortgages with which an estate is encumbered.

All who did not belong to the equestrian centuries were again divided into those who possessed upwards of 12,500 asses, and the poorer ones, whose census did not reach that sum. The former were distributed into five classes: in these there were no patricians whatever, but all the plebeians whose census amounted to the sum fixed, and the _ærarii_, that is to say, those who were not in the tribes, but had an income which made them equal to those who were. The ærarians are now what the plebeians had been before: as soon as they acquire landed property, they enter into the tribes. In the first class were all those who in landed estates, metals, agricultural implements, beasts of draught, slaves, flocks, herds, and horses, possessed as much property as was valued at 100,000 asses and upwards: these were divided into eighty centuries. All who were above sixteen and under forty-five, were reckoned among the _juniores_; from forty-five to sixty, among the _seniores_. In Sparta, the obligation to military service lasted until the sixtieth year; at Rome, it was in the case of the _seniores_ limited to the defence of the walls only. As regards numerical proportion, the _seniores_ certainly were not half of the whole:--men of that age, according to what is a favourable average of life in the south, would be scarcely a fourth part, or more exactly two-sevenths;--all who were alive above forty-six, might have been about the half. There is every probability that in those times all the rights and obligations of citizenship ceased at the sixtieth year. In Greece, a greater value was placed on the capacity of old people; among the Melians, the whole government was placed in the hands of the aged men above sixty. Although the _seniores_ amounted indeed to not more than about half the number of the _juniores_, yet they had quite as many votes, and may also have been called up first to give their suffrages. The remainder were divided into four classes, of 75,000, 50,000, 25,000, and 12,500 asses. Of these, the second, third, and fourth had twenty centuries each; the fifth had thirty. A hundred thousand asses was no great fortune; it was pretty nearly equivalent to ten thousand drachmas of Athens, an as being worth about a stiver and a half.[77] At the levies, each century had to serve according to a fixed rate; so that those which contained but a small number, had to do more military duty than the larger ones. The conscription was from tribes and centuries combined. In the thirty tribes, one man was always called from each century of the _juniores_, from each century therefore thirty men. Each following class had to furnish more troops; and that in such a manner, that when the first supplied a single contingent, the second and third were to send double ones, and the fourth again only a single one, employed as a javelin corps. The fifth also served with a double contingent.

The object of the constitution, which was based upon property, would have been quite defeated, if the first class had not possessed a preponderance of votes. The centuries in the lower classes were strong in numbers in an inverse ratio to their fortunes: out of thirty-five citizens who were able to vote, six only belonged to the first class. Dionysius does not see his way through all the details; yet he plainly states that it was according to property that the whole of the calculations were made.

All those who had property, the assessed value of which amounted to less than 12,500 asses, were moreover divided into such as still belonged to the _locupletes_, which was the case if their rateable property was worth more than fifteen hundred asses; and into those who had even less. The latter were called _proletarii_, which means persons who paid no tax: they formed a century. The _locupletes_ comprehended all the plebeians but the proletarians, and so far they were all equal; yet there was a gulf between them and the proletarians. Any _locuples_, for instance, could in a court of law become personal security for another; the proletarian could not. With money, of course, he only could be _vindex_, who was able to prove from the censor’s books that he had the requisite property; and certainly _locupletes_ alone could be appointed as judges by the prætor, and appear as witnesses, which is shown by the term _locupletes testes_. The proletarians, therefore, were placed in quite a different category. Whether at that time they may not also have been debarred from voting in the plebeian tribes, is uncertain.

This is the system of centuries as established by Servius, with regard to which Livy materially differs from Dionysius, and both of them from Cicero in the second book _de Republica_. This passage is very ill written, but it may be amended. There result from it 195 centuries: 170 in the five classes; two of the _locupletes_, or _assidui_; the _accensi_ and _velati_; two of the proletarians (the _proletarii_ in the stricter acceptation of the word), and the _capite censi_; and the three centuries of the trades; and lastly, eighteen equestrian centuries, consisting of the six patrician and twelve plebeian ones. Several conjectures have been made concerning that passage of Cicero’s, all of which are wrong; as for instance, what Hermann, highly-distinguished scholar as he is, has said about it. Yet if one is familiar with these researches, every thing may be made clear by the Roman combinations of numbers, as I have elucidated them. It was the aim and object of the whole system, that the minority should decide:[78] wealth and birth combined were to turn the scale, and that by means of the eighteen equestrian centuries and the eighty of the first class, which were the earliest called up to vote; if these were unanimous, every question was decided by them, as they formed the majority of the centuries, though far inferior in number to the rest of the citizens. Among those who were equal in rank, it was again the minority which decided; for the centuries of the _seniores_ contained so much fewer voters than those of the _juniores_.

Had the intention of this institution been that which historians assign to it, it would have been highly unjust to the patricians, who still continued to form a considerable part of the nation. Those who gave the account did not see that the latter belonged in no way to the classes,--their presence in the centuries was merely that they might be represented, and therefore important as symbolical only;--and they contented themselves with saying that they probably voted with the rich, consequently with the first class. Rich, however, the patricians were not by any means, according to the census: they were tenants _in capite_, not freeholders. But that injustice did not exist at all; for the centuries stood in the same relation to the curies as the House of Commons does to the House of Lords. No election was valid which the curies had not approved of; nor any law either, for this is the meaning of the expression, _ut patres auctores fierent_. Besides this, the centuries could not deliberate on any subject which had not been laid before them by the Senate; and no one from among them could get up and speak, which the curies were perfectly at liberty to do. In the tribes it seems to have been allowed, after the tribunes had made a motion, to discuss it until it was put to the vote; yet this perhaps was a privilege but seldom used. Thus therefore was the commonalty extremely restricted in the system of the centuries: it was merely a step towards a free commonwealth. The assembly of the tribes at that time had no legislative power of any kind: it had merely to elect its officers, to make rates for common purposes, and perhaps there was likewise already a sort of poor law administration, as bread was distributed under the superintendence of the ædiles at the temple of Ceres. But the most important privilege of the tribes was this, that a right of appeal to them, such as the patricians had long had to the curies, was also granted by Servius Tullius to the plebeians, against sentences of chastisement for refractory conduct towards the authorities.

The laws of Servius Tullius may have contained much more besides, but Tarquin the Proud is said to have entirely destroyed them; that is to say, they were not to be found in the _jus Papirianum_. There are stated to have been fifty laws. How far the equalization of both orders may have been carried in other respects, is uncertain; the exclusive claim of the patricians to the use of the public land, and the practice of pledging the person for debt, are said to have been done away with. More certain it is that the lawgiver meant also to lay down the royal dignity, and to bring in the consulship in its stead, so that Populus and Plebes should each be represented by a consul; which was only accomplished a hundred and fifty years later by the _lex Licinia_. He considered himself as a νομοθέτης, like Lycurgus and Solon. The transition was easy, as indeed the kings likewise were only elective magistrates for life; a system which in earlier times seems to have been very common among the Italian people. The election of two consuls seems to have been projected in the commentaries of Servius Tullius (_duo consules creati sunt ex commentariis Servii Tullii_; Liv.) But it was not carried into effect; be it that he lost his life too soon, or that he himself put it off. Tanaquil, in the legend, is said to have adjured him not to resign the throne, nor abandon her and hers. All that is ascribed to king Servius Tullius, was not entirely accomplished by him: it became the exciting cause of the revolution of Tarquin the Proud. Although a reign of forty-four years is assigned to Servius, Livy knows of one war only, that against the people of Cære and Tarquinii, which was ended in a few weeks. Dionysius also does not give a single detail which has even the semblance of truth. The length of his reign has been prolonged beyond all bounds; whereas there is every likelihood that it was but a short one.

To the same lawgiver the settlement of the relations with the Latins is attributed. It is said that he made a league with them, and induced them to erect a common _Sacrum_ on the Aventine, in which the tablets containing the covenant were set up; that Rome had offered sacrifice there, and that this, as Livy tells us, was a _Confessio rem Romanam esse superiorem_. The inquiry into the condition of the Latin people, is decidedly one of the most difficult of that class of subjects: at first every thing belonging to it seemed to me to be confused, and it was only step by step that I came to have clear views with regard to it. It is a mistake of the ancients which I have shared with them until very lately, that Servius had acquired the hegemony over the Latins. This was first done by Tarquin: the very same authors who represent it to be the work of Servius, themselves tell it afterwards of Tarquin. The establishment of the festival of the _feriæ Latinæ_ on the Alban Mount was from the earliest times ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus or Superbus; more correct, however, is the opinion of others, and also of some of the ancients, that it originated with the _Latini Prisci_. If here the chief of the Latins offered the sacrifice, and the Romans merely took part in it; it is natural, that in order to adjust the balance between the two nations, a counterpoise was formed on the other side, in which Rome got the precedence, and the Latins were guests only. This was accordingly done in the temple of Diana on the Aventine. At a later period, the Latins, having become independent, transfer this symbol of a national right to a grove before the gates of Aricia. In earlier times, Alba was the sovereign state; afterwards, the Romans and Albans are bound in friendly alliance as two distinct nations; under Servius, they join in a close confederation and communion of sacrifice. Thus leagued were the Romans, not only with the Latins, but also with the Sabines; and they constituted a great state, of which Rome was the centre. Without doubt part of Etruria was also subjected to them. This we consider to have been the work of Servius, a hypothesis which is recommended by its simplicity and which rids us of the contradiction above mentioned. When the plebeians became citizens, the Latins drew nigher to the Romans, and mounted in fact upon that step which the plebeians had just left. Thus we find in Roman history, as long as there are signs of life in the people, a steady advance of the more recent institutions, as the old ones, upon which they grew, fell into decay. Those who at first were mere allies, are afterwards incorporated, and form plebeian tribes. Thus the whole of the Roman constitution is a sound healthy development, in which nothing stagnates: the Roman people ever revives and springs up anew; and--what Montesquieu looks upon as the only true progress in the life of states,--Rome, until the fifth century, is the only state which always fell back upon its first principles, so that its life became ever more noble and more vigorous. Afterwards, people begin to check and to keep down what is fresh rising up, and then life is thrown back, and the seeds of decay are first sown. Signs of this evil already show themselves a hundred years before the Gracchi; it breaks out in their time, and from thence goes on increasing for forty years, until it gives birth to the Social War, and that of Sylla and Marius, out of which the people comes forth as a confused mass, being no more able to subsist in republican unity, and necessarily wanting an absolute authority to guide them. One might exactly tell how Rome could have become young again, and have kept up for some hundreds of years longer. The good path lay open; but people were blinded by selfish and besotted prejudice, and they tried when too late to follow it.

With regard to the gradual increase of the city there exist very contradictory opinions, which in the common topographies, as for instance that of Nardini, cause the most confused chaos. Yet this may be set to rights. It should be born in mind that the views which have influenced these statements are manifold. The statement of one set is that a hill was built upon under such or such a king; of another, that it had been taken into the town; and of a third, that those who dwelt on it had obtained the freedom of the city. The result of my researches is as follows. Old Rome was situated on the Palatine: the Pomœrium of Romulus mentioned in Tacitus, which ran from the Forum Boarium through the Circus as far as to the Septizonium, S. Gregorio, the arch of Constantine, the Thermæ of Titus, and from thence back through the Via Sacra by the temples of Venus and Roma,--even the whole of this circuit is a suburb built around the old city, and surrounded, not by walls, but by a rampart and ditch. At that time there was on the Quirinal and the Tarpeian rocks the Sabine town, which likewise had its Pomœrium: between the two ramparts and ditches a road ran along,--the Via Sacra. On this stood the Janus Quirini, a gateway which was _bifrons_, turned on one side towards the Roman and on the other towards the Sabine town; closed in times of peace, because it was not then wished that there should be any intercourse between the two cities; open in war, as both towns were in a league, and bound to give support to each other. A case quite analogous to this is to be found in the Gætulian town of Ghadames beyond Tripoli: the place is inhabited by two hostile tribes, and is divided by a wall into two parts, which are connected by a gate; likewise closed in peace, and open during war.[79] As for the Cælius, some say that Romulus; others, that Tullus Hostilius; others, that Ancus Marcius added it to the city. The key to which is this; that under Ancus the hill, already inhabited before, was connected with the town by a ditch, the _fossa Quiritium_, from the old moat of the Pomœrium to the Porta Capena, which was the first enlargement of Rome; and that this was partly to drain off the water, and partly for defence. There is too much water there for excavations to be easily made, otherwise the finest antiquities might be found in the Circus: the Obelisk was brought to light from thence in the sixteenth century. The _Agua Marrana_ is not the _aqua damnata_ of Agrippa: in the old Circus there was a canal which carried the water off. Here was the _septem viarum vicus_ where Ancus cut the ditch, perhaps as far as the sewers. Moreover the Roman and the Sabine towns were still separated by the Forum, which was a marsh. The whole neighbourhood of the Velabrum was as yet a river or a lake; and before this was drained, a topical union of the two towns was impossible: the Janus, probably a dyke, was the only road. To effect this, the works were now executed which are ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus, the immense sewers, or more properly, river tunnels, consisting of one main and several minor channels. The main sewer (_cloaca maxima_) of a most ancient style of architecture, may be seen to this day, and still carries off the water. Its width is 18 palms,[80] and it is formed by three stone vaults of _peperino_ (a volcanic stone from Gabii and Alba), one above the other, built in the shape of a semicircle. These form the gigantic work: the stones, each of which is 7½ palms long, and 4⅙ palms broad, are joined by no cement or dovetailing, nor any thing of the kind; they hold together merely from the way in which they fit, and the exact closing of the arch. The structure has not for two thousand years undergone the slightest change, having stood unshaken the shock of earthquakes, which have laid waste the rest of the city, and overthrown obelisks; so that one might say that it will see the end of the world. This is the work which made it possible to form Rome into a whole of that extent which it afterwards had. The entire embankment of the river, the quay, is likewise built of stone, of the volcanic stone from Alba; and we may recognise there also the same style of architecture. The other vaults begin between the Quirinal and the Viminal, and run beneath the Forum Augustum, the Forum Romanum and the Forum Boarium into the Velabrum and the _cloaca maxima_. They are of equally perfect preservation; but they lie deep under ground. They were found during the papacy of Benedict XIV. They are executed on the same immense scale; but they are built of _travertino_, from which it is manifest, that they are of a later age, and yet perhaps of the time of the republic, somewhat about the first half of the fifth century, before the war of Hannibal. Now therefore the whole country as far as the river was inhabitable, even beyond the Capitoline hill. Soon, however, were greater plans devised for the enlargement of the city. On the north side of the Esquiline, where the kings had built a rampart, level space was to be secured which had the advantage of not being able to be flooded,--a high and dry plain, whither the country people might take refuge in case of war. For this reason Servius Tullius constructed his great rampart from the Porta Collina to the Esquiline gate,--almost the fifth of a German mile, and a moat besides, an hundred feet broad and thirty deep. The earth from the moat formed the rampart, which was protected by a lining wall on the side of the ditch, and by battlements and towers on the top. Of this stupendous work, which Pliny justly regards with wonder, there is hardly anything whatever left; its line only may yet be traced. But in the times of Augustus, even in those of Pliny, it was in perfect preservation, and therefore it was not possible to talk at random about it. It was a public promenade of the Romans: Dionysius has seen it, and walked on it a hundred times. Rome had now gained her seven hills, since the Viminal was first brought by that wall within the precincts of the city, which thus had a circumference of more than a German mile, like Athens after the Persian wars; a considerable town even for our days. We therefore see again how false is the opinion of Florus and others, who look upon the time of the kings, as being one of childhood (_infans in cunis vagiens_): on the contrary, after the expulsion of the kings Rome fell to a low ebb for a long time.

Well worth our attention is the Etruscan tradition concerning Servius Tullius, and the fragment of Claudius’ speech on the tablets at Lyons, which contains the notices of Cæles Vibenna and Mastarna from Etruscan historians.[81] I never was so much surprised by any literary discovery as by this. Not a soul had taken any heed of it before;--people don’t look at such square letters, especially when they are those of the silly Claudius. I at that time still believed in the Etruscan origin of Rome, and thought that quite a new light would thus be shed upon the whole of the Roman history. Cælius Vibenna must be an historical person: mention is made of him too frequently and too distinctly; his name also is such that the Romans could not have invented it, as the Etruscan language was as foreign to them, as the Celtic to us Germans. Nor is it perhaps to be doubted that he had a friend Mastarna. But when I search into the legislation which is ascribed to Servius Tullius,--whatever abatements may be made on the score of historical precision, especially with regard to chronology, although the fact is unquestionable that Servius reigned before the last king, and was overthrown by the thoroughly historical Tarquin the Proud,--this legislation was yet so peaceful and so free, that I cannot bring myself to believe that a condottiere, a captain of freebooters (for such were those enlisted troops) should have made such mild laws, and intended to change the monarchy into a republic. The whole civil and political legislation of Servius Tullius bears the impress of a thoroughly Latin stamp; the relation also to the Latins bespeaks a Latin lawgiver. He may have been a Corniculan, and have ascended the throne in a manner which was contrary to the established custom. He may have sprung from a marriage of disparagement between one of the Luceres with a woman of Corniculum before the connubium was conceded, and this may be at the bottom of the history of his descent; but a foreigner, or a leader of marauders, he certainly was not. I do not in the least doubt Claudius’ honesty, nor do I impugn the importance of the Etruscan books; yet we must not rate their value too high. What they really were could not be known before Mai discovered the Veronese Scholia on the Æneid (1818). In these are found quotations from two Etruscan historians, Flaccus and Cæcina, which considerably lower our expectations concerning the value of the Etruscan books for the early times. It seems that just as the Romans misunderstood the old Latin history, and substituted the Tyrrhenian one, thus also the Etruscans kept to the traditions of the Tyrrhenians whom they had brought under their yoke, and made Tarchon, him who plays his part in Virgil, and may be met with in the Roman tradition as Tarquinius Priscus, the founder of their empire from Tarquinii. If Claudius had really at hand the old Etruscan rolls written from right to left, of which Lucretius speaks, he was on very slippery ground; but how much more so, if he followed Flaccus and Cæcina, who wrote without any sort of criticism. The books of the Etruscans are for the most part dated too early. Etruria had from the war of Hannibal to that of Sylla, for more than a hundred years, enjoyed profound peace under the supremacy of the Romans; in this time most of the works of Etruscan literature must be placed. Before the Social War, as Cicero states, the sciences flourished all over Italy, of which we have no more any detailed knowledge; certainly histories were written in the whole of Italy, just as in Rome. Now if any one read in the Etruscan books Cæles Vibenna and Mastarna, and chose to put things together, he might have thought with some vanity, “what has become of this Mastarna? very likely he is that Servius Tullius, whose birth has been shrouded in mystery.” Somebody may thus have stumbled upon this idea quite by himself, and Claudius indeed, addle-headed as he was, was sure to believe such a thing. Thus he also says of the _tribuni militares consulari potestate_, “_qui seni sæpe octoni crearentur_.” But there have always either been six of these, half of whom were patricians and half plebeians, or _promiscue_; or else only three patricians, making four with the _præfectus urbi_: once only we know of eight, when the two censors were reckoned with them, as Onuphr. Panvinius has shown.[82] This may have happened once or twice besides; but at all events it was an anomaly. From this we see that Claudius did not understand the Fasti. Our notice of Mastarna therefore is according to all appearances based upon very slight authority. The Etruscan annals from which Claudius drew may have been old; but that they really were so, is nowhere stated.

The unity of the poem of the Tarquins from the arrival of Tarquinius Priscus to the fight at the Regillus cannot be mistaken,--a noble theme for an epic poet, much more worthy of being treated by Virgil than the Æneid. The account seems credible, and to have been derived from old traditions, that the legislation of Servius Tullius had to be carried through almost by force; that he arbitrarily formed his centuries; and then that these for the second time acknowledged him as king, and ratified his laws. All such changes among the ancients have been brought about in the same way. Moreover it is said that the patricians were angry at this legislation, although it took nothing from them, and merely gave something to the second order; and that they made attempts to murder the king, for which he compelled them to dwell, not on the Esquiline where his house stood, but in the valley below it. All this, as a tradition, has much probability from its intrinsic consistency. Yet the tragedy itself has its origin in the king’s own house. His two daughters, one of them good, the other wicked, are married to the two sons of Tarquinius Priscus; the good one to the younger L. Tarquin, a brave but ambitious young man, the wicked daughter to Aruns the elder brother. The latter saw that Aruns was disposed to give up his claims to the throne, and on this she offered L. Tarquin her hand to be gained by murdering her husband; he accepted it, and carried out her intentions. Tarquin, we are told, now formed a party among the patricians, and arranged with them for the murder of Servius Tullius; the king, when he made his appearance in the Curia, was flung down the steps, and the body guards dispatched him in the street; and Tullia went to greet her husband as king, and as she was returning drove over the corpse, owing to which the street got the name of _vicus sceleratus_.

That Servius lost his life in a rebellion of Tarquin, and that the latter was supported by the whole body of the citizens, in particular by the Luceres, his own party (_factio regis, gentes minores_), so that these reaped the fruits of the revolution, and the two first tribes thought themselves hardly dealt with, may be looked upon as historical. Yet I am far from considering as such all the details which are given about the daughters of the old king: they are no more so than the tale of Lady Macbeth. There is so wide a gulf between our manners and the crimes of the South, that we have not a notion of their possibility or impossibility; yet even if those accounts were possible, historical they are not. That the rule of Tarquin the Proud was brilliant but frightfully oppressive, and that he trampled the laws of Tullius under foot, may belong to history; but those appalling massacres of his cannot but be poetry. Tarquin has perhaps the misfortune of an awful poetical celebrity, much worse than he may have deserved. Yet he cannot have entirely abolished the laws of Servius at once. There may be some truth in the statement that he put down the meetings of the plebeian tribes; that he did away with their festivals; and that he did not call them together for legislation and the election of their magistrates. Nor, in fact, was there much occasion for these last, the criminal judges being chosen by the patricians. When it is recounted, that Tarquin undertook immense works, that he built the magnificent Capitoline temple, after having arranged the site for it, it is possible that he used the plebeians as his bondmen, that many of them committed suicide on that account, and that in order to prevent this he had the corpses fastened upon a cross. We must here proceed with caution and circumspection; the details will always remain uncertain, and all that cannot be set aside as impossible, is not therefore necessarily true. That Tarquin did not abolish the division into classes, seems to me certain; partly because it was advantageous for him to have the improved military organization, and partly because from the connection which he entered into with Latium, we are to conclude that the constitutions of the two states were the same; so that either Servius Tullius gave to the Romans a Latin constitution, or Tarquin to the Latins the Roman one. Even if Tarquin the Proud and his revolution in favour of the patricians, especially those of the third order, are quite historical, yet it is still singular that the third order should seem nevertheless after that revolution to have been inferior to the two others. This very fact, that the interests of the two first tribes clashed with those of the third, paved the way for a popular revolution.

According to Livy and Dionysius, the Latins, with the exception of Gabii, were induced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome and of Tarquin; on the other hand, Cicero in the books _De Republica_ says, _universum Latium bello subegit_. Whether this war was merely passed over by the others, or whether Cicero let fall the expression from carelessness only, cannot now be decided. It is probable that there have always existed discrepancies between the narrations of poetry and history: the tale of Turnus Herdonius has a highly poetical colouring. Whilst under Servius there was an alliance with reciprocity, Latium now entered into that relation in which afterwards the _Socii Italici_ stood, when they bound themselves _ad majestatem populi Romani comiter colendam_. It seems also that the Latins, when there was a change of rulers at Rome, had refused to renew the alliance concluded under the late king.

In the alliance between Rome and Carthage, (of which the original treaty was kept among the archives of the ædiles, which also Polybius, as he states himself, not without a great deal of trouble, translated into Greek, since even the Romans themselves could hardly decypher and tell the meaning of the old writing; an alliance which was to be renewed from time to time, as in our days is still the case with those with the Barbary states,) we see the whole coast, not only of the Prisci Latini, but as far as Terracina, which at that time perhaps was still Tyrrhenian and not Volscian, in the possession of Rome; its inhabitants are called in the Greek translation ὑπήκοοι. Rome concludes the alliance for them as well as for herself; it is stipulated that, if the Carthaginians should make conquests in Latium, they were to give them up to the Romans. This treaty is as authentic as any thing can be: it is a strange whim of an otherwise estimable man,[83] to take it for an invention of Polybius. Here, therefore, Latium is still dependent on Rome, to which dependence Livy also bears witness: it was a relation newly established. Afterwards, when all as far as Antium rise up in hostility against Rome, we again recognise a decline of Roman power. The _Feriæ Latinæ_ are an assembly of all the Latin nations, not merely of the Prisci Latini on the Alban Hill, where we know that the Latin authorities must needs have had the presidency. Yet Dionysius tells us that Tarquin had established the festival; that a bullock was killed, of which the delegates of the several towns each received a piece (_carnem Latinis accipere_). The Milanese Scholiast on Cicero’s oration for Plancius[84] says, that with regard to this there had been a different tradition; that some had ascribed the festival to Tarquinius Priscus,--this is a mere falsification for Tarquinius Superbus out of spite against the latter, just as the foundation of the Capitol was referred to the former king,--others to the Prisci Latini, which consequently would place it in the earliest times. The latter are perfectly right. The festivals existed long before Tarquin, as long as there was a Latin people. Yet, at the same time, the other opinion has arisen from a mistake which is very easily accounted for; for if Tarquin the Proud obtained the supremacy over Latium, he would also naturally preside at the sacrifices as the Ætolians did at Delphi during their hegemony, from whence the well known expression in the inscriptions, ἱερομνημονούντων Αἰτωλῶν.

In order to make a full use of Latium for his own ends, whilst yet he did not quite trust the Latins, he did not wish to admit their troops in distinct legions, under their own officers. He therefore combined the Roman with the Latin legions, and then divided these again into two parts. The Latins had a similar organization to that of the Romans: the system of centuries among the latter was based upon the thirty tribes, among the former upon the thirty towns. He united two centuries into a maniple, the Roman officer being _primus centurio_; as in the East Indian possessions of the English, the officers are exclusively Europeans.[85] Livy confounds the _primus centurio_ with the _primipilus_. Here the maniples now first make their appearance; and this is the plain meaning of what Livy tells in a confused manner, but which may certainly be unravelled.

We are, however, not a little puzzled as to what we are to believe of the detached accounts. It is stated that Tarquin had established colonies at Signia and Circeii, and that he had taken Gabii by stratagem. The latter is false, and the accounts are compiled out of two in Herodotus of Zopyrus and of Thrasybulus of Miletus. Authentic is the alliance with Gabii, from which we see that Gabii was out of the union of the thirty towns, the relation with which had been already settled before. Still in the times of Horace, the original treaty, one of the few which had been preserved, was kept in a temple. It is clear from it, that Gabii had acquired isopolity by a formal compact.

THE REGIFUGIUM. ROME A REPUBLIC.

We may readily believe that Sextus Tarquinius committed the outrage against Lucretia, as indeed similar things happen even now in Turkey, and are told in the middle ages, of the Italian princes down to Pietro Luigi Farnese (in the sixteenth century), and in ancient history of Demetrius Poliorcetes at Athens. Cicero is quite right when he says that the misfortune was this, that the offence was committed against a matron of one of the most powerful families. To all the other details linked with it, from which the history derives its individuality, to the connexion with the campaign against Ardea, not the slightest credit is to be given. The king is said to have been in the camp before Ardea, and a truce to have been concluded there for fifteen years. Yet Ardea had already before been dependent upon Rome, and was one of those towns in the name of which she concluded the alliance with Carthage. Nothing, therefore, is likely to be true but the ill usage of Lucreia, and that her death kindled into a blaze the fire which had long been smouldering.

We are in just as much perplexity with regard to the character of Brutus. He is said to have feigned himself half-witted, concerning which there exist several accounts. The mission to Delphi with the sons of Tarquin, although such a one had already before been sent from Agylla, seems to betray a later hand, the same which put in the stories from Herodotus. It is said, moreover, that Tarquin, in order to render harmless the dignity of tribune of the _Celeres_, which was second only to that of the king, had conferred it upon Brutus. There is every likelihood, however, that the story of the stupidity of Brutus was merely derived from his name. Brutus is without doubt an Oscan word, the same which is in the name of the Bruttians; it means a run-away slave, a designation which the overbearing _factio regis_ gave the leader of the rebels because he was a plebeian,--a case just like that of the Gueux. Is it conceivable that an eminent king should have made an utter fool (whom he might have put to death) tribune of the Celeres, in order to bring the dignity into contempt? Tarquin was not the kind of tyrant who was obliged to paralyze the state that he might rule over it; he could allow it strength, and yet govern it by the superior weight of his own personal qualities. Nor does the opinion which the Romans had of him incline that way; his statue remained in the Capitol together with those of the other kings.

A question which formerly much engaged my attention is this: How could Brutus, a plebeian, be _Tribunus Celerum_, although the _Celeres_ were the patrician knights? I think I have found the key to it. Writers speak of him as if he had been the only tribune of the Celeres, whereas there were several of them, as Dionysius already mentions in the enumeration of the priestly offices in his account of Numa. The Celeres were the horsemen; yet the plebeians also had their knights, and these formed a fourth order. Now as each of the patrician tribes had its tribune, is it not according to analogy that among the thirty tribunes of the plebeians there was one who represented the plebeian Celeres as opposed to the patricians? The _Magister Equitum_, whose office is looked upon as a continuation of the dignity of the _Tribunus Celerum_, was not necessarily a patrician: P. Licinius Crassus was elected to it. This magistrate stood at the head of all the eighteen centuries of the knights, in which the plebeians had the preponderance. As a fourth estate the plebeians likewise appear in the remarkable adjustment of the estates, in the year of the city 388, when to the three holidays, which were kept at Rome corresponding to the three tribes, a fourth day was added; certainly because the plebeians now as a body were placed on an equal footing with the patricians, although not of such importance in the eyes of the latter, that three days should also be set apart for them.

To give the revolution the necessary sanction, it is said that Collatinus brought Brutus with him, and Sp. Lucretius Valerius. Now, we may positively assert, that Sp. Lucretius belonged to the Ramnes; Valerius, to the Tities;[86] Collatinus, to the Luceres; and as to Brutus, from what we have just seen, we may class him among the plebeians. That Valerius belonged to the Tities was generally acknowledged by the ancients: it is stated of him in Cicero, that he was consul together with Lucretius, to whom he yielded the Fasces, _quia minor natu erat_. Yet Cicero here confounds _gentes minores_ with _minor natu_, the less privileged tribe being called _minor_. We know from Dionysius, that when the two first tribes were placed on an equal footing, the third was called νεώτεροι (_minor_). Collatinus was of the Gens of the Tarquinii, consequently a Lucer. Brutus is a plebeian; Cicero’s belief in the descent of the Junii Bruti from our L. Junius Brutus is beyond a doubt; and this is of greater weight than the denial of those who wrote after the battle of Philippi. M. Brutus was to be considered as a _homo insitivus_, as an outlaw. We already perceive from Posidonius that the question of the descent of the Bruti was mooted. Much may be said in support of the opinion of those who take him to be a patrician; certainly many patrician clans have survived in some plebeian families; a _transitio ad plebem_ was made most frequently by unequal marriages, and although the cognomen was then generally wont to be a plebeian one, yet it might be surmised that such an illustrious name as that of Brutus had been retained. But as long as the consulship was not open to the plebeians, no Junius occurs among the consuls. In the earlier times of the republic a tribune of the people, one L. Brutus, is mentioned, who plays a prominent part as the framer of an important _plebiscitum_ in the trial of Coriolanus (in Dionysius also, at the time of the _secessio_, which is a falsification). This Brutus is a real person; but just like the whole story of Coriolanus, he belongs to quite a different period.

If we reject from our account every thing which is purely dramatic, we see after Tarquin’s downfall four Tribunes of the Celeres in possession of the government, consequently a magistracy of four persons, Sp. Lucretius being at the same time _Princeps Senatus_ and Valerius _Præfectus Urbi_. In Livy all goes on as in a stage play; the necessary historical development of the events is mistaken: some important hints are, however, to be found in Dionysius. These four men had no authority whatever to bring any resolution of their own before the citizens; the patricians could not decree anything, unless there had previously been a Senatus-Consultum as a προβούλευμα, as in all the Greek states, which Dionysius points out in several instances. This was the case in the curies as well as in the centuries: the first branch of the legislature which had an initiative were the _Comitia Tributa_, and it was this which made the _lex Publilia_ so exceedingly important. So long as the senate could not take anything in hand but what was laid before it by the consul, nor the popular assembly without a decree of the senate, so long might the consuls stifle almost everything; they merely needed to keep a stubborn silence. In the case in question, it appears that the proposal for the abolition of the kingly dignity was not in a legal manner brought by the Tribuni Celerum before the curies; Livy has, however, for the sake of the composition, suppressed the old account contained in the law books. The tribunes of the celeres assembled, and resolved upon moving the abolition; the motion was by the _Princeps Senatus_ brought to the senate; and the senate and the curies decide upon it. This is the _lex curiata_. With the intention now to restore the constitution of Servius in its integrity, the decision of the curies was also laid before the centuries for their approval, the order being a matter of little consequence. The way in which this is represented, is that the army in the camp of Ardea had assented to the resolution.

It is by no means certain that the consulship was instituted immediately after the expulsion of the kings. Rome was perhaps at first under the rule of the four Tribunes of the Celeres; perhaps also the government was at once rid of its superfluous number of heads, and they were reduced to two. This was certainly a deterioration; yet it may have been so ordered in Servius’ constitution with the definite purpose of securing the equalization of the commonalty, so that there might be one consul from the patricians, and one from the plebeians. In this case, of the first consuls Collatinus is the patrician and Brutus the plebeian one, unless perhaps there should yet happen to be a prior consulate of Sp. Lucretius and Valerius Poplicola.

The taking of Rome by the Gauls has not been fraught with more serious consequences to the city itself than it has been to its history, of which indeed all the sources have been obliterated by it. The chronicles of many places in their early histories afford a parallel to this. In Dittmarsch they begin about a hundred and fifty years before the conquest of the country, after the great change when the clans and the peasantry were formed into one organized body; an event which they do not mention, but presuppose. In like manner the chronicle of Cologne commences its notices long after that city was already great and flourishing. There were every where in the middle ages earlier written accounts; yet they were laid on the shelf, as they had no more any positive interest, after the particulars of the tradition had been buried in oblivion. Thus it was also with Roman history. They had it from the times of the republic, not, however, from its beginning, but only from about the period of the Secessio, merely with detached notices of the earlier times; before it they had nothing besides the peace with the Sabines during Sp. Cassius’ first consulate, and the war with the Volscians. All those earlier histories were, as we have already shown, restored in accordance with a numerical scheme.

I have already remarked that, when there were consuls of the two orders, Brutus represented the plebeians, as Sextius Lateranus did afterwards. It is very remarkable, that with regard to all these old institutions, it must indeed be asserted that the Licinian laws were in all essential points nothing else than restoration and re-enactment of those of Servius. The consuls were first called _Prætores_, στρατηγοί in Dionysius, until the Decemvirate, when their power was curtailed; and then the title of consul seems to have been introduced as being a somewhat more humble one. The derivation of this word has greatly troubled the Roman etymologists; we class it with _præsul_ and _exsul_. _Præsul_ means, he who is _before_ (above) others; _exsul_, he who is _out_ of the town; _consul_, he who is _with_ another, equal to _collega_, whence _consulere_ to be _together_ in order to consult;--it has nothing to do with _salire_. Yet the being together of a patrician with a plebeian was not of long duration. It is stated that the expulsion of the Tarquinii was at first not at all followed by an embittered hostility, although an oath had been taken not to suffer kings any more to reign in Rome; so that it might almost appear doubtful whether the outrage against Lucretia had been really perpetrated. The ancients were often inconceivably mild with regard to such matters. It is possible that the influence of the royal race and of the third tribe were still so great, that they were obliged to grant the Tarquins in lieu of the hereditary rule the eligibility for the consulship. In Greek history also the royal races are dissolved into γένη ἀρχικά: the Codrids become archons, even those elected for ten years and certainly also at first those for one year were Codrids. Yet this did not last long. Collatinus was obliged to resign, and the whole of the Gens Tarquinia to leave the city. It may be that there was at that time a Tribus Tarquinia also, the memory of which was now obliterated. It seems shocking that Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, was banished; if there were children of Lucretia living and they had to leave the country together with Collatinus, this was a revolting cruelty. Yet Lucretia’s marriage with Collatinus belongs to poetry only; _neque affirmare neque refellere in animo est_. She is the daughter of Sp. Lucretius Tricipitinus, and this is dwelt upon with much greater emphasis than her marriage. The intention of this probably was, to palliate the fact that the Tarquins were not absolutely driven out, and to explain the reason for which after all a cousin of the king had been made consul; and this could not be effected more easily than by connecting him with the legend of Lucretia.