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The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5) - Theodor Mommsen

T >> Theodor Mommsen >> The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5)


Dependents and Guests


This amalgamation of two substantially similar commonwealths
produced rather an increase in the size than a change in the
intrinsic character of the existing community. A second process
of incorporation, which was carried out far more gradually and had
far deeper effects, may be traced back, so far as the first steps
in it are concerned, to this epoch; we refer to the amalgamation
of the burgesses and the --metoeci--. At all times there existed
side by side with the burgesses in the Roman community persons who
were protected, the "listeners" (-clientes-), as they were called
from their being dependents on the several burgess-households, or
the "multitude" (-plebes-, from -pleo-, -plenus-), as they were
termed negatively with reference to their want of political rights.(1)
The elements of this intermediate stage between the freeman and
the slave were, as has been shown(2) already in existence in the
Roman household: but in the community this class necessarily acquired
greater importance -de facto- and -de jure-, and that from two
reasons. In the first place the community might itself possess
half-free clients as well as slaves; especially after the conquest
of a town and the breaking up of its commonwealth it might often
appear to the conquering community advisable not to sell the mass
of the burgesses formally as slaves, but to allow them the continued
possession of freedom -de facto-, so that in the capacity as it
were of freedmen of the community they entered into relations of
clientship whether to the clans, or to the king. In the second
place by means of the community and its power over the individual
burgesses, there was given the possibility of protecting the clients
against an abusive exercise of the -dominium- still subsisting in
law. At an immemorially early period there was introduced into
Roman law the principle on which rested the whole legal position
of the --metoeci--, that, when a master on occasion of a public
legal act--such as in the making of a testament, in an action at law,
or in the census--expressly or tacitly surrendered his -dominium-,
neither he himself nor his lawful successors should ever have power
arbitrarily to recall that resignation or reassert a claim to the
person of the freedman himself or of his descendants. The clients
and their posterity did not by virtue of their position possess
either the rights of burgesses or those of guests: for to constitute
a burgess a formal bestowal of the privilege was requisite on the
part of the community, while the relation of guest presumed the
holding of burgess-rights in a community which had a treaty with
Rome. What they did obtain was a legally protected possession of
freedom, while they continued to be -de jure- non-free. Accordingly
for a lengthened period their relations in all matters of property
seem to have been, like those of slaves, regarded in law as
relations of the patron, so that it was necessary that the latter
should represent them in processes at law; in connection with which
the patron might levy contributions from them in case of need, and
call them to account before him criminally. By degrees, however,
the body of --metoeci-- outgrew these fetters; they began to
acquire and to alienate in their own name, and to claim and obtain
legal redress from the Roman burgess-tribunals without the formal
intervention of their patron.

In matters of marriage and inheritance, equality of rights with the
burgesses was far sooner conceded to foreigners(3) than to those
who were strictly non-free and belonged to no community; but the
latter could not well be prohibited from contracting marriages in
their own circle and from forming the legal relations arising out
of marriage--those of marital and paternal power, of -agnatio- and
-gentilitas- of heritage and of tutelage--after the model of the
corresponding relations among the burgesses.

Similar consequences to some extent were produced by the exercise
of the -ius hospitii-, in so far as by virtue of it foreigners settled
permanently in Rome and established a domestic position there. In
this respect the most liberal principles must have prevailed in
Rome from primitive times. The Roman law knew no distinctions of
quality in inheritance and no locking up of estates. It allowed
on the one hand to every man capable of making a disposition the
entirely unlimited disposal of his property during his lifetime; and
on the other hand, so far as we know, to every one who was at all
entitled to have dealings with Roman burgesses, even to the foreigner
and the client, the unlimited right of acquiring moveable, and
(from the time when immoveables could be held as private property
at all) within certain limits also immoveable, estate in Rome. Rome
was in fact a commercial city, which was indebted for the commencement
of its importance to international commerce, and which with a noble
liberality granted the privilege of settlement to every child of an
unequal marriage, to every manumitted slave, and to every stranger
who surrendering his rights in his native land emigrated to Rome.


Class of --Metoeci-- Subsisting by the Side of the Community


At first, therefore, the burgesses were in reality the protectors,
the non-burgesses were the protected; but in Rome as in all communities
which freely admit settlement but do not throw open the rights of
citizenship, it soon became a matter of increasing difficulty to
harmonize this relation -de jure- with the actual state of things.
The flourishing of commerce, the full equality of private rights
guaranteed to all Latins by the Latin league (including even the
acquisition of landed property), the greater frequency of manumissions
as prosperity increased, necessarily occasioned even in peace a
disproportionate increase of the number of --metoeci--. That number
was further augmented by the greater part of the population of the
neighbouring towns subdued by force of arms and incorporated with
Rome; which, whether it removed to the city or remained in its old
home now reduced to the rank of a village, ordinarily exchanged its
native burgess-rights for those of a Roman --metoikos--. Moreover
the burdens of war fell exclusively on the old burgesses and were
constantly thinning the ranks of their patrician descendants, while
the --metoeci-- shared in the results of victory without having to
pay for it with their blood.

Under such circumstances the only wonder is that the Roman patriciate
did not disappear much more rapidly than it actually did. The fact
of its still continuing for a prolonged period a numerous community
can scarcely be accounted for by the bestowal of Roman burgess-rights
on several distinguished foreign clans, which after emigrating
from their homes or after the conquest of their cities received
the Roman franchise--for such grants appear to have occurred but
sparingly from the first, and to have become always the more rare
as the franchise increased in value. A cause of greater influence,
in all likelihood, was the introduction of the civil marriage,
by which a child begotten of patrician parents living together as
married persons, although without -confarreatio-, acquired full
burgess-rights equally with the child of a -confarreatio- marriage.
It is at least probable that the civil marriage, which already
existed in Rome before the Twelve Tables but was certainly not an
original institution, was introduced for the purpose of preventing
the disappearance of the patriciate.(4) To this connection
belong also the measures which were already in the earliest times
adopted with a view to maintain a numerous posterity in the several
households.(5)

Nevertheless the number of the --metoeci-- was of necessity
constantly on the increase and liable to no diminution, while that
of the burgesses was at the utmost perhaps not decreasing; and in
consequence the --metoeci-- necessarily acquired by imperceptible
degrees another and a freer position. The non-burgesses were no
longer merely emancipated slaves or strangers needing protection;
their ranks included the former burgesses of the Latin communities
vanquished in war, and more especially the Latin settlers who lived
in Rome not by the favour of the king or of any other burgess, but
by federal right. Legally unrestricted in the acquiring of property,
they gained money and estate in their new home, and bequeathed, like
the burgesses, their homesteads to their children and children's
children. The vexatious relation of dependence on particular
burgess-households became gradually relaxed. If the liberated slave
or the immigrant stranger still held an entirely isolated position
in the state, such was no longer the case with his children, still
less with his grandchildren, and this very circumstance of itself
rendered their relations to the patron of less moment. While in
earlier times the client was exclusively left dependent for legal
protection on the intervention of the patron, the more the state
became consolidated and the importance of the clanships and households
in consequence diminished, the more frequently must the individual
client have obtained justice and redress of injury, even without
the intervention of his patron, from the king. A great number of
the non-burgesses, particularly the members of the dissolved Latin
communities, had, as we have already said, probably from the outset
not any place as clients of the royal or other great clans, and
obeyed the king nearly in the same manner as did the burgesses. The
king, whose sovereignty over the burgesses was in truth ultimately
dependent on the good-will of those obeying, must have welcomed the
means of forming out of his own -proteges- essentially dependent
on him a body bound to him by closer ties.


Plebs


Thus there grew up by the side of the burgesses a second community
in Rome: out of the clients arose the Plebs. This change of name
is significant. In law there was no difference between the client
and the plebeian, the "dependent" and the "man of the multitude;"
but in fact there was a very important one, for the former term
brought into prominence the relation of dependence on a member of
the politically privileged class; the latter suggested merely the
want of political rights. As the feeling of special dependence
diminished, that of political inferiority forced itself on the
thoughts of the free --metoeci--; and it was only the sovereignty
of the king ruling equally over all that prevented the outbreak of
political conflict between the privileged and the non-privileged
classes.


The Servian Constitution


The first step, however, towards the amalgamation of the two
portions of the people scarcely took place in the revolutionary
way which their antagonism appeared to foreshadow. The reform of
the constitution, which bears the name of king Servius Tullius, is
indeed, as to its historical origin, involved in the same darkness
with all the events of a period respecting which we learn whatever
we know not by means of historical tradition, but solely by means of
inference from the institutions of later times. But its character
testifies that it cannot have been a change demanded by the
plebeians, for the new constitution assigned to them duties alone,
and not rights. It must rather have owed its origin either to the
wisdom of one of the Roman kings, or to the urgency of the burgesses
that they should be delivered from exclusive liability to burdens,
and that the non-burgesses should be made to share on the one hand
in taxation--that is, in the obligation to make advances to the
state (the -tributum-)--and rendering task-work, and on the other
hand in the levy. Both were comprehended in the Servian constitution,
but they hardly took place at the same time. The bringing in of
the non-burgesses presumably arose out of the economic burdens;
these were early extended to such as were "possessed of means"
(-locupletes-) or "settled people" (-adsidui-, freeholders), and only
those wholly without means, the "children-producers" (-proletarii-,
-capite censi-) remained free from them. Thereupon followed the
politically more important step of bringing in the non-burgesses
to military duty. This was thenceforth laid not upon the burgesses
as such, but upon the possessors of land, the -tribules-, whether
they might be burgesses or mere --metoeci--; service in the army
was changed from a personal burden into a burden on property. The
details of the arrangement were as follow.


The Five Classes


Every freeholder from the eighteenth to the sixtieth year of his
age, including children in the household of freeholder fathers,
without distinction of birth, was under obligation of service, so
that even the manumitted slave had to serve, if in an exceptional
case he had come into possession of landed property. The Latins
also possessing land--others from without were not allowed to acquire
Roman soil--were called in to service, so far as they had, as was
beyond doubt the case with most of them, taken up their abode on
Roman territory. The body of men liable to serve was distributed,
according to the size of their portions of land, into those bound
to full service or the possessors of a full hide,(6) who were obliged
to appear in complete armour and in so far formed pre-eminently
the war army (-classis-), and the four following ranks of smaller
landholders--the possessors respectively of three fourths, of
a half, of a quarter, or of an eighth of a whole farm--from whom
was required fulfilment of service, but not equipment in complete
armour, and they thus had a position below the full rate (-infra
classem-). As the land happened to be at that time apportioned,
almost the half of the farms were full hides, while each of the
classes possessing respectively three-fourths, the half, and the
quarter of a hide, amounted to scarcely an eighth of the freeholders,
and those again holding an eighth of a hide amounted to fully an
eighth. It was accordingly laid down as a rule that in the case
of the infantry the levy should be in the proportion of eighty
holders of a full hide, twenty from each of the three next ranks,
and twenty-eight from the last.


Cavalry


The cavalry was similarly dealt with. The number of divisions
in it was tripled, and the only difference in this case was that
the six divisions already existing with the old names (-Tities-,
-Ramnes-, -Luceres- -primi- and -secundi-) were left to the
patricians, while the twelve new divisions were formed chiefly from
the non-burgesses. The reason for this difference is probably to
be sought in the fact that at that period the infantry were formed
anew for each campaign and discharged on their return home, whereas
the cavalry with their horses were on military grounds kept together
also in time of peace, and held their regular drills, which continued
to subsist as festivals of the Roman equites down to the latest
times.(7) Accordingly the squadrons once constituted were allowed,
even under this reform, to keep their ancient names. In order to
make the cavalry accessible to every burgess, the unmarried women
and orphans under age, so far as they had possession of land,
were bound instead of personal service to provide the horses for
particular troopers (each trooper had two of them), and to furnish
them with fodder. On the whole there was one horseman to nine
foot-soldiers; but in actual service the horsemen were used more
sparingly.

The non-freeholders (-adcensi-, people standing at the side of the
list of those owing military service) had to supply the army with
workmen and musicians as well as with a number of substitutes
who marched with the army unarmed (-velati-), and, when vacancies
occurred in the field, took their places in the ranks equipped with
the weapons of the sick or of the fallen.


Levy-Districts


To facilitate the levying of the infantry, the city was distributed
into four "parts" (-tribus-); by which the old triple division was
superseded, at least so far as concerned its local significance.
These were the Palatine, which comprehended the height of that name
along with the Velia; the Suburan, to which the street so named, the
Carinae, and the Caelian belonged; the Esquiline; and the Colline,
formed by the Quirinal and Viminal, the "hills" as contrasted with
the "mounts" of the Capitol and Palatine. We have already spoken
of the formation of these regions(8) and shown how they originated
out of the ancient double city of the Palatine and the Quirinal.
By what process it came to pass that every freeholder burgess
belonged to one of those city-districts, we cannot tell; but this
was now the case; and that the four regions were nearly on an
equality in point of numbers, is evident from their being equally
drawn upon in the levy. This division, which had primary reference to
the soil alone and applied only inferentially to those who possessed
it, was merely for administrative purposes, and in particular
never had any religious significance attached to it; for the fact
that in each of the city-districts there were six chapels of the
enigmatical Argei no more confers upon them the character of ritual
districts than the erection of an altar to the Lares in each street
implies such a character in the streets.

Each of these four levy-districts had to furnish approximately the
fourth part not only of the force as a whole, but of each of its
military subdivisions, so that each legion and each century numbered
an equal proportion of conscripts from each region, in order to
merge all distinctions of a gentile and local nature in the one
common levy of the community and, especially through the powerful
levelling influence of the military spirit, to blend the --metoeci--
and the burgesses into one people.


Organization of the Army


In a military point of view, the male population capable of
bearing arms was divided into a first and second levy, the former
of which, the "juniors" from the commencement of the eighteenth to
the completion of the forty-sixth year, were especially employed
for service in the field, while the "seniors" guarded the walls at
home. The military unit came to be in the infantry the now doubled
legion(9)--a phalanx, arranged and armed completely in the old
Doric style, of 6000 men who, six file deep, formed a front of 1000
heavy-armed soldiers; to which were attached 2400 "unarmed".(10)
The four first ranks of the phalanx, the -classis-, were formed by
the fully-armed hoplites of those possessing a full hide; in the
fifth and sixth were placed the less completely equipped farmers of
the second and third division; the two last divisions were annexed
as rear ranks to the phalanx or fought by its side as light-armed
troops. Provision was made for readily supplying the accidental
gaps which were so injurious to the phalanx. Thus there served in
it 84 centuries or 8400 men, of whom 6000 were hoplites, 4000 of
the first division, 1000 from each of the two following, and 2400
light-armed, of whom 1000 belonged to the fourth, and 1200 to the
fifth division; approximately each levy-district furnished to the
phalanx 2100, and to each century 25 men. This phalanx was the army
destined for the field, while a like force of troops was reckoned
for the seniors who remained behind to defend the city. In this way
the normal amount of the infantry came to 16,800 men, 80 centuries
of the first division, 20 from each of the three following, and 28
from the last division--not taking into account the two centuries
of substitutes or those of the workmen or the musicians. To all
these fell to be added the cavalry, which consisted of 1800 horse;
often when the army took the field, however, only the third part
of the whole number was attached to it. The normal amount of the
Roman army of the first and second levy rose accordingly to close
upon 20,000 men: which number must beyond doubt have corresponded
on the whole to the effective strength of the Roman population
capable of arms, as it stood at the time when this new organization
was introduced. As the population increased the number of centuries
was not augmented, but the several divisions were strengthened by
persons added, without altogether losing sight, however, of the
fundamental number. Indeed the Roman corporations in general, closed
as to numbers, very frequently evaded the limit imposed upon them
by admitting supernumerary members.


Census


This new organization of the army was accompanied by a more careful
supervision of landed property on the part of the state. It was
now either ordained for the first time or, if not, at any rate
defined more carefully, that a land-register should be established,
in which the several proprietors of land should have their fields
with all their appurtenances, servitudes, slaves, beasts of draught
and of burden, duly recorded. Every act of alienation, which did
not take place publicly and before witnesses, was declared null;
and a revision of the register of landed property, which was at
the same time the levy-roll, was directed to be made every fourth
year. The -mancipatio- and the -census- thus arose out of the
Servian military organization.


Political Effects of the Servian Military Organization


It is evident at a glance that this whole institution was from the
outset of a military nature. In the whole detailed scheme we do
not encounter a single feature suggestive of any destination of the
centuries to other than purely military purposes; and this alone
must, with every one accustomed to consider such matters, form
a sufficient reason for pronouncing its application to political
objects a later innovation. If, as is probable, in the earliest
period every one who had passed his sixtieth year was excluded from
the centuries, this has no meaning, so far as they were intended
from the first to form a representation of the burgess-community
similar to and parallel with the curies. Although, however, the
organization of the centuries was introduced merely to enlarge
the military resources of the burgesses by the inclusion of
the --metoeci-- and, in so far, there is no greater error than to
exhibit the Servian organization as the introduction of a timocracy
in Rome--yet the new obligation imposed upon the inhabitants to
bear arms exercised in its consequences a material influence on
their political position. He who is obliged to become a soldier
must also, so long as the state is not rotten, have it in his power
to become an officer; beyond question plebeians also could now be
nominated in Rome as centurions and as military tribunes. Although,
moreover, the institution of the centuries was not intended
to curtail the political privileges exclusively possessed by the
burgesses as hitherto represented in the curies, yet it was inevitable
that those rights, which the burgesses hitherto had exercised not
as the assembly of curies, but as the burgess-levy, should pass over
to the new centuries of burgesses and --metoeci--. Henceforward,
accordingly, it was the centuries whose consent the king had
to ask before beginning an aggressive war.(11) It is important,
on account of the subsequent course of development, to note these
first steps towards the centuries taking part in public affairs;
but the centuries came to acquire such rights at first more in the
way of natural sequence than of direct design, and subsequently
to the Servian reform, as before, the assembly of the curies was
regarded as the proper burgess-community, whose homage bound the
whole people in allegiance to the king. By the side of these new
landowning full-burgesses stood the domiciled foreigners from the
allied Latium, as participating in the public burdens, tribute and
task-works (hence -municipes-); while the burgesses not domiciled,
who were beyond the pale of the tribes, and had not the right
to serve in war and vote, came into view only as "owing tribute"
(-aerarii-).

In this way, while hitherto there had been distinguished only two
classes of members of the community, burgesses and clients, there
were now established those three political classes, which exercised
a dominant influence over the constitutional law of Rome for many
centuries.


Time and Occasion of the Reform


When and how this new military organization of the Roman community
came into existence, can only be conjectured. It presupposes the
existence of the four regions; in other words, the Servian wall must
have been erected before the reform took place. But the territory
of the city must also have considerably exceeded its original limits,
when it could furnish 8000 holders of full hides and as many who
held lesser portions, or sons of such holders. We are not acquainted
with the superficial extent of the normal Roman farm; but it is
not possible to estimate it as under twenty -jugera-.(12) If we
reckon as a minimum 10,000 full hides, this would imply a superficies
of 190 square miles of arable land; and on this calculation, if we
make a very moderate allowance for pasture, the space occupied by
houses, and ground not capable of culture, the territory, at the
period when this reform was carried out, must have had at least
an extent of 420 square miles, probably an extent still more
considerable. If we follow tradition, we must assume a number of
84,000 burgesses who were freeholders and capable of bearing arms;
for such, we are told, were the numbers ascertained by Servius at
the first census. A glance at the map, however, shows that this
number must be fabulous; it is not even a genuine tradition, but
a conjectural calculation, by which the 16,800 capable of bearing
arms who constituted the normal strength of the infantry appeared
to yield, on an average of five persons to each family, the number
of 84,000 burgesses, and this number was confounded with that
of those capable of bearing arms. But even according to the more
moderate estimates laid down above, with a territory of some 16,000
hides containing a population of nearly 20,000 capable of bearing
arms and at least three times that number of women, children, and
old men, persons who had no land, and slaves, it is necessary to
assume not merely that the region between the Tiber and Anio had
been acquired, but that the Alban territory had also been conquered,
before the Servian constitution was established; a result with
which tradition agrees. What were the numerical proportions of
patricians and plebeians originally in the army, cannot be ascertained.